JULY 2, 1976 25 CENTS VOLUME 40/NUMBER 26
A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY/PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF THE WORKING PEOPLE
-PAGES 4,5
..... ·Socialist candidates hll u.s. support to apartheid regime
·While minoritY gov'l launches bloody repression
Slack students demonstrat~ against apartheid language policies in Soweto township near Johannesburg June 16. Police gunned down nearly 150 Blacks during week of protests. GARY TYLER GUARDS HARASS BLACK ON LA. DEATH ROW. PAGE 3. Jack Barnas . CIA I FBI DECLI E SWP QUESTIONS CIA AGENT, FBI COMBS FILES. PAGE 7.
( U.S. POWER NAACP MASS ACTIONS NEEDED TO WIN BLACK RIGHTS. PAGE 25. I CRISIS OF; GAY RIGHTS STALl ISM ~ "~~~ LESBIAN MOTHER FIGHTS FOR CUSTODY OF SON. PAGE 28. In Brief
JULY 4 PROTEST: Organizers of the July 4 "Bicentenni BLACK ASSEMBLY ANNOUNCES CANDIDATE: al Without Colonies" rally have announced final plans for The National Black Assembly has announced that it is the demonstration in Philadelphia. The march will assem fielding Rev. Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick as its candi ble at 11:30 a.m. at Diamond Avenue between Tenth and date for president of the United States. THIS Eleventh streets. A permit has been secured for the march Kirkpatrick, a native of Louisiana, was a leader of the and 2:00 p.m. rally at Fairmont Park, located at Thirty-third Deacons for Defense, a Black Louisiana group that rose to Street and Oxford Avenue. prominence through its efforts to halt Ku Klux Klan attacks WEEK'S Among the speakers at the three-hour rally will be Rev.' in the early 1960s .. Ralph Abernathy, Southern Christian Leadership Confer The assembly is the organization that grew out of the MILITANT ence; Clyde Bellecourt, American Indian Movement; Elaine Gary, Indiana, Black Political Convention in 1972. Brown, Black Panther party; Karen DeCrow, National 3 La. officials continue The assembly hopesto obtain ballot status in New York, Organization for Women; Juan Mari Bras, Puerto Rican South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Indiana, to harass Gary Tyler Socialist party; and Ed Sadlowski, United Steelworkers of and the District of Columbia. Write-in campaigns will be 4 SWP candidates blast America. mounted in parts of Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. U.S. policy on S. Africa Local, state, and federal government agencies have tried to create the impression that the march will be violent. JAZZ PROF LOSES CHALLENGE: Black jazz professor 5 Black uprisings Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo had asked that federal Joe Brazil lost his challenge to the University of Washing shake South Africa troops be sent in, but this request was turned down June 21. ton Music Faculty and Administration in a superior court decision in Seattle June 1. Brazil had charged that the 6 Mass action Now the city says it may ask that the national guard be on hand. department was in violation of the Open Meetings Act of and the NAACP Despite the campaign to intimidate demonstrators, 1971 when it denied him tenure in a closed, unannounced 7 Kelley orders search organizers have said that they expect a massive turnout for meeting of the music faculty. in FBI files a peaceful, legal march. The university lawyers moved for a summary judgment, arguing that in this case the Open Meetings Act did not 8 Willie Mae Reid PROTEST KILLING OF CHICANO: "Jail police crimi apply. The judge granted the motion and subsequently on tour nals!" "Basta la sangre en la calle!" (Enough blood in the dismissed the case. streets.) "Prosecute the murderer of Barlow!" These are Widespread student and community support for Brazil 9 Support for SWP included a march and rally of 500 in mid-April. At this time, ballot spot in Calif. some of the signs posted around the Chicano community in Oakland, California, in response to the murder of Jose Brazil is undecided as to any possible future court actions. 25 -Teachers and busing Barlow Benavidez. An Oakland police officer, Michael Cogley, shot the twenty-seven-year-old Chicano on June 11. 'COLD-BLOODED MURDER': "I witnessed a brutal 26 Quebec unior;ts battle Police claim it was an accident-Benavidez "backed into" murder, a cold-blooded murder," Rev. Allan Robinson told a strikebreaking laws the cop's shotgun. But witnesses state that Cogley shot June 11 community meeting in Houston. Robinson de 27 Newspaper Guild: how Benavidez while the victim was in a search position with scribed how he and his wife saw two cops jump from their to beat antiunion drive both hands on top of his car and legs spread-eagle. car and shoot a Black man who was walking on the side of On June 16, a Coalition Against Police Crimes was the road the night of March 20. The victim was twenty 28 Lesbian mother fights formed. It is calling for a grand jury investigation and the seven-year-old Milton Glover, a Vietnam veteran. for custody of 'son firing and prosecution of officer Cogley. Already 100 people The Robinsons were never asked to tell their story to a have demonstrated at police headquarters. Now the coali grand jury, which accepted the cops' claim that they mistook 29 Calif. Stalinists back the prayer book carried by, Glover for a gun! Democrat Hayden tion is calling for a rally in front of the Oakland City Hall on Tuesday, June 29, at 6:30 p.m. After the rally the ,The sixty people at the community meeting voted to call 30 8,000 La. unionists demonstrators will attend the city council meeting to for an independent commission of inquiry. Its purpose, hit 'right-to-work' law demand that it meet the coalition's demands. · stated Isaiah Lovings, president of the DeWalt NAACP will Froben Lozada, Socialist Workers party candidate in the be "to investigate, not only the Glover killing, but all 32 Lessons of CUNY Ninth Congressional District, is urging wide support for the reported instances of police brutality and harassment." cutback fight demonstration. Another speaker at the meeting, Terry Payne, a Black high school leader of the Student Coalition Against Racism, In Brief 2 A MATTER OF SELF-DEFENSE: Milwaukee Blacks said, "We're taught that the police are supposed to stop wo1_1 a victory for their right to self-defense against racist crimes. But to me, the police start crimes." 10 In Our Opinion -Ginny Hildebrand Letters assault on May 27. On that day Judge Carl Bjork dismissed charges of "creating a disturbance" against Michael· 23 National Picket Line Murphy, a member of the Socialist Workers party and long By Any Means Necessary time civil rights activist in the city. 24 The Great Society On July 12, 1975, Murphy had been on his way to sell La Lucha Puertorriquena Militants on a street corner when a Nazi · physically attacked him. In a show of "even-handed justice," Assistant American Way of Life City Attorney David Felger charged both men with "creating a disturbance." From the start the prosecution 11-22 t nternational tried to portray the case as an altercation between two Socialist Review "extremists"-one a Nazi and the other a socialist. The Nazi pleaded guilty and paid a fifty-dollar fine. But Murphy maintained his innocence and fought to show that THE MILITANT he was being victimized for defending· himself against an unprovoked assault from a racist thug. 'Militant' labor reporter VOLUME 40/NUMBER 26 Andy Rose has just re JULY 2, 1976 CLOSE CALL: On June- 22 New York Gov. Hugh Carey CLOSING NEWS DATE-JUNE 23 vetoed an anti-abortion bill just minutes before it would turned from ten-day fact have become law. By a two-to-one margin, the Democratic finding trip to Ontario Editor: MARY-ALICE WATERS controlled state assembly had passed the bill, which would and Quebec, Canada. Managing Editor: LARRY SEIGLE Business Manager: ROSE OGDEN have required parental pe~ission for aborijons performed Southwest Bureau: HARRY RING on women under eighteen. Carey delayed action, hoping WashingtQn Bureau: NANCY COLE that a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of Special Offer Published weekly by The Militant Publishing Ass'n., such laws would save him from taking a stand. In New 14 Charles Lane, New York, N.Y. 10014. Telephone: York City last year, 7,090 women between fourteen and Editorial Office (212) 243-6392; Business Office seventeen had legal abortions. Planned Parenthood, which (212) 929-3486. Southwest Bureau: 1237 S. Atlantic performed nearly a third of these, estimates that half the For New Readers Blvd., Los Angeles, Calif. 90022. Telephone: (213) Working people in Canada and the United States face 269-1456. Washington Bureau: 2416 18th St. NW, young women would have been unwilling or unable to get Washington, D.C. 20009. Telephone: (202) 265- consent from their parents during the first twelve weeks of similar assaults on their standard of living. But labor's 6865. pregnancy. Under the new law, thousands would have been response has been different in Canada. The labor Correspondence concerning subscriptions or forced into the hands of butcher abortionists. federation is discussing a one-day general strike, and changes of address should be addressed to The working people have a labor party. Andy Rose continues Militant Business Office, 14 Charles Lane, New a series on this labor upsurge in next week's Militant. York, N.Y. 10014. SAVE PHILADELPHIA GENERAL HOSPITAL: The Se~ond-class postage paid at New York. N.Y. Committee to Save Philadelphia General Hospital is Subscriptions: U.S., $7.50 a year; outside U.S., organizing a fight to stop the city's Democratic administra The Militant-10 Wccks/S1 $13.00. By first-class mail: U.S., Canada, and Mexico, tion's plans to close the hospital in 1977. On May 22 the $35.00. Write for surface and airmail rates to all other ( ) $1 for ten issues (new readers only) countries. community and union group organized a march of 1,000. ( ) $4 for six months ( ) $7.50 for one year The keynote speaker, William Lucy, international For subscriptions airmailed from New York and ( ) New ( ) Renewal then posted from London directly to Britain, secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of State Ireland. and Continental Europe: £1.50 for eight County and Municipal Employees, said, "The plan is to issues, £3.50 lor six months, £6.50 lor one year. d~ Name ___ ----,------Send banker's draft or international postal order away with public health care and give it back to private (payable to Pathfinder Press) to Pathfinder Press. institutions. We demand that quality medical care be Address ------~- 47 The Cut, London, SE1 8LL. England. Inquire lor City ______State ___ Zip ______air rates from London at the same address. available at public institutions at public expense." A May 26 committee meeting voted to organize activities Signed articles by contributors do not necessarily 14 Charles Lane. New York, N.Y. 10014 represent the Militant's views. These are expressed and involve more community and union groups in its work. in editorials.
2 JuiY.10, 24 actions La. officials continue harassment of Gary Tyler By Joel Aber Meanwhile, St. Charles Parish offi demonstration to demand freedom for New Orleans teachers have thrown NEW ORLEANS-Racist authorities cials continue to victimize the Tyler Gary Tyler July 24. The rally will be their endorsement to the campaign to will apparently stop at nothing in their family. Gary's eighteen-year-old broth held at New Orleans's Duncan Plaza, free Gary Tyler by the recent passage cruel treatment of Gary Tyler and his er Steven was grabbed out of a crowd site of the Louisiana Supreme Court, of a resolution demanding that he be family. Sentencing the innocent and charged with "disturbing the which will hear an appeal for a new granted a new trial. seventeen-year-old Black youth to die peace" June 20. Judge Ruche Marino trial this fall. by electrocution was not enough pun set bond at an astronomical $2,700. Walter Collins, defense committee Social Services Union Local 535, the ishment. One month earlier Marino set $5,000 coordinator, reports that car caravans Los Angeles affiliate of the Service On June 2 authorities at the Louisia bond on a phony burglary charge from Boston, Birmingham, Atlanta, Employees International Union, on na State Penitentiary at Angola gave against Terry' Tyler, Gary's younger Houston, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and the June 16 telegrammed Louisiana Gov. Tyler twenty days in isolation on the brother. Northwest will be converging on New Edwin Edwards demanding that Tyler trumped-up charge of fashioning a The same judge presided over Gary Orleans for the July 24 action. be set free. spoon into a weapon. On June 3 Tyler Tyler for murder last November and was tear gassed in his isolation cell by sentenced him to death. prison guard Joseph Hooks. On June In a Militant interview at the Tyler 15 Tyler was found guilty of "defiance" home in St. Rose, Gary's mother, How you can help of a guard and given ten more days in Juanita Tyler, said, "They're trying to Things you can do to support Gary Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana break me on this end and break Gary the "hole." Tyler: 70118. The charge of defiance was cooked on that end. But they're just making 1) Sponsor a fund-raising activity 4) Write to Gary Tyler: Gary up because Tyler had tried to take a fools out of themselves." or build a rally for Gary Tyler in Tyler, Death Row, C-127, Angola, pencil into his cell so that he could Courageously keeping up the fight to your community or at your club, Louisiana 70712. write to his lawyer, Jack Peebles. free her son, Juanita Tyier told the school, union, or other organization. Prison regulations specify that isola Militant a "gospel sing" will take place 2) To obtain speakers you may 5) Send letters of protest at this tion prisoners are allowed to write to on the eve of Gary's birthday, July 9, contact Walter Collins, coordinator, injustice to Edwin Edwards or Attor their legal counsel. Tyler was denied at the Fifth Africa Baptist Church in Gary Tyler Defense Committee, 1610 ney General William Guste, State this right. Prison guard Hooks ordered St. Rose to raise funds for the defense. Basin Street, New Orleans, Louisia Capitol, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. him to turn over .a pencil. Because On July 10 the Tyler defense commit na 70112. Telephone: (504) 522-2244. Copies should be sent to Walter Tyler broke the pencil he was given the tee is coordinating eighteenth-birthday 3) Contributions to the defense Collins at the defense committee. ten additional days at a hearing of celebrations for Gary in New Orleans fund may be sent to Gary Tyler 6) Get prominent sponsors of the which attorney Peebles was not in and across the country. Fund, c/o Liberty Bank, 3939 Tulane defense in your city. formed. Support is mounting for a southwide Kelley to FBI agents: Apology just for show -By May Cramer copies to the several thousand retired that "apology" was a good tactic Remember when Clarence Kelley agents of his organization. One of "because I believe this action might apologized for the FBI's attacks on those copies came into the hands of the well prevent or at least somewhat democratic rights? On May 8 Kelley New York Times, which published the _·etard" efforts to control the secret caused a stir when he said the bureau text of the letter. police agency. was "truly sorry" for FBI illegal The apology, Kelley explained, was The apology wasn't all that much. activities that had come to light-such just meant to calm down public opin As Kelley pointed out to the retired as wiretaps, poison-pen letters, burgla ion. Otherwise people might become agents, his confessions "were not ries, and hate mail. It seemed so out of even more critical and want to know specific nor directed at any individu character for this hard-as-nails super even more about what the FBI had als." Kelley had called the bureau's sleuth to admit doing wrong. done. illegal operations "good-faith efforts.'' Now a letter from Kelley has turned "Lately the news accounts have been "I truly believe the mistakes to have up that explains the apology was just more frequent, more probative and been of the mind and not the heart," he for show. most damaging to our position," Kelley had said. FBI agents around the country were explained to Jones in what he thought The director concluded his letter to outraged by Kelley's admission that was a private letter. "Frankly, our Jones with a "pledge to all the ex the bureau had done wrong. Ralph credibility is, in my estimation, in agents to do my best to maintain the Jones, head of the Society of Former jeopardy." position of preeminence tor the bureau." Special Agents, wrote Kelley protest In May Congress was making noises Now that the real story behind the ing this apology. about tightening controls on the FBI. supposed apology has surfaced and On May 13 the FBI director sent Kelley thought it was a good time for more FBI secret files are coming out, back a reassuring reply. Jones was so the bureau to make some promises the FBI's "position of preeminence" KELLEY: 'News accounts have been plea!!ed with Kelley's answer he sent about self-reform. Kelley explained may take a few more blows. damaging to our position.' 1,500 in N.Y. back Rosenberg case By Claire Moriarty camera crews for a good view of the "American people do not depend on "This is our strength. We must learn it, NEW YORK-Ethel Rosenberg was stage. foreign aid or instruction from abroad teach it, live it." thirty-seven years old and Julius Cora Weiss, a prominent anti to understand injustice and repression Martin Sostre, a former New York Rosenberg was thirty-four when they Vietnam War leader, spoke, ridiculing at home," she said. political prisoner, agreed. "I wouldn't were executed by the government in the government's cynicism. The FBI report on the Carnegie Hall be here tonight if many of you hadn't 1953. The Rosenbergs, with Morton meeting, she said, would reveal: supported me and forced the govern Sobell, hp.d been framed up, convicted "Carnegie Hall was filled to support ment to release me." of what the FBI still calls "the crime of the effort of the sons of Julius and Andres Suarez brought greetings the century": conspiracy to steal the Ethel Rosenberg to open the files." from the Puerto Rican Socialist party. secret of the atomic bomb and transmit After eighteen ye.ars in prison Mor Despite all our differences, he urged, it to the Soviet Union. ton Sobe]J's shoulder-length hair is "let us close ranks against a common The Rosenbergs were the only Amer gray. But he shares the Meeropols' enemy." icans executed for espionage in U.S. confidence. Other messages of solidarity were peacetime history. Their trial spanned "Two years ago," he said, "Big Black read from U.S. Representatives Robert the Korean War and the McCarthy era. spoke here at · Carnegie Hall. And I;>rinan (D-Mass.), Michael Harrington Their execution was a cornerstone of today all but one of the Attica Brothers (D-Mass.), and Fred Richmond (D postwar reaction. are free." N.Y.), and the Socialist Workers party Hundreds of thousands around the Helen Sobell, who spearheaded the candidates for president and vice world demonstrated to demand their decades-long work in defense of her president, Peter Camejo and Willie release. husband and the Rosenbergs, spoke Mae Reid. Today, twenty-three years later, the about today's political prisoners, in A cast of celebrities, including Tony Rosenberg sons, Michael and Robert cluding Gary Tyler and the Wilming Randall and John Randolph, present Meeropol, have taken up their defense. ton Ten (Rev. Ben Chavis and nine ed a dramatic reading of excerpts from They have begun a fight to obtain the other civil rights activists framed up the Rosenbergs' trial and letters. government's files on their parents. and jailed for their role in protesting Their sons Michael, now thirty-three, The group coordinating this effort, racism in Wilmington, North Caroli and Robert,.twenty-nine, addressed the the Committee to Reopen the Rosen na). audience. Robert ended the rally by berg Case, held a rally at Carnegie Daily World/Matt Weinstein The audience could unite, she said, declaring, "It is our job not only to Hall on June. 15. Some 1,500 people Robert (left) and Michael Meeropol despite divergent views and back clear our parents' name. It is our job to jammed the aisles and vied with TV address Carnegie Hall rally. grounds, in defense of these prisoners. make sure it never happens again."
THE MILITANT/JULY 2, 1976 3 SWP candidates blast Why Kissinger backs U.S. policy on S. Africa Pretoria on apartheid · LOS ANGELES-Campaigning in students here June 19 the significance By Ernest Harsch important one in which I hope to be California this week, Socialist Workers of the U.S. response to the South [The following is from the News able to put South Africa's case at the party presidential candidate Peter African events. Analysis section of Intercontinen- highest level." Camejo sharply condemned the Repub- "Ever since the Angola defeat and tal Press.] Vorster added that the talks reflected lican and Democratic parties for their his trip to Africa, Kissinger has been Washington's recognition of the role inaction on the repression of Black pretending that the United States now South Africa has been rocked by the the South African regime "plays and rebels in South Africa. favors Black majority rule in southern most massive Black uprising in the can play in southern Africa." The "The Black youths that are· being Africa," Reid said. "The killings of the country's history. In defiance of police same point had already been made in shot down in Soweto and other Johan- last three days show where Washing- bullets, clubs, and tear .gas, tens of Washington two weeks earlier. On nesburg suburbs are the victims of a ton really stands. thousands of Black students and June 4, a high State Department government that is supported, armed, workers filled the streets of Soweto and official said that the reason Kissinger and financed by the Republican and "Kissinger still plans to meet with other Black townships to express their wanted to meet Vorster was because Democratic parties," Camejo said. V orster in West Germany. Washington hatred of the white minority regime's Camejo pointed out that despite the hasn't lifted a finger to save the Black racist apartheid system. The militancy displayed by the protesters reflects the determination of the African masses to free their conti nent of the last strongholds of white colonial rule. Together with the deep ening ferment in Zimbabwe and Na mibia, the Black upsurge in South Africa is an important sign of the rising national and class struggle throughout southern Africa. The Vorster regime's response to the just demands of the Black population-the wanton murder of well over 100 persons-has revealed to the world even more sharply than before the utterly barbaric and retrograde nature of South Africa's apartheid system. At the same time that Vorster's police were gunning down Black pro testers, Secretary of State Kissinger declared that he would go ahead with his scheduled meeting with the hated racist. Pretoria played an "essential" role in Although confronted with deep un southern Africa. rest at home, Vorster also viewed the For American imperialism, the white meeting as vital and refused to cancel supremacist regime plays an "essen or postpone it. Speaking at the airport tial" role for a number of reasons. in Johannesburg June 19 on his way to South Africa controls the vital sea murders President Ford refused to call youths who are being murdered by the talks, Vorster declared that the route around the Cape of Good Hope, off the meeting in West Germany V orster's police." meeting with Kissinger was "a very past which much of the world's trade is between U.S. Secretary of State Kissin Reid said that the United States had shipped. It has some of the largest ger and South African Prime Minister changed its official position on Ian naval bases bordering on the Indian John Vorster. Smith's white regime in Zimbabwe Ocean. There are large deposits of "Jimmy Carter has said not one (Rhodesia) only after the MPLA victo diamonds, gold, and other valuable word about South Africa," Camejo ry in Angola. "They apparently be New Yorkers minerals. added. lieved that Smith couldn't hold out. About 360 American companies have The socialist candidate has appeared "It's a totally different story with protest deaths nearly $1.5 billion invested in South on California campuses, television, South Africa," she said. African mines and industries. Since and on an hour-long Los Angeles radio "In that bastion of imperialist in the wages of Black workers in South broadcast, June 21. vestment there are thousands of Black Africa are kept at extremely low levels "Carter's silence shows where this political prisoners, including many of by the apartheid laws, the American former Georgia governor really stands the leaders of the Black movement. investments yield profits at among the when it comes to repressing Blacks," South Africa's armed forces are bol highest rates in the world. Camejo said. stered by the U.S. and NATO. To deflect criticisms of Washington's "There have been three days of "They thought the white racists in backing to Pretoria, Kissinger and killings," the socialist candidate point Pretoria could hold out forever, and other government officials have been ed out. "Do you think it takes three that's what the racist rulers of the forced to issue periodic denunciations days to say 'I oppose this'?" United States want. The courageous of apartheid. But these denunciations Camejo explained that he doesn't rebellion of these tens of thousands of are purely for show. Washington has rule out that Carter or Kissinger may young Blacks in the past few days took no intention of seeing the apartheid yet come out with face-saving state them completely by surprise, I am system abolished. ments distancing themselves from the sure," Reid said. Unlike- other countries in Africa, V orster killings. Reid particularly attacks the myth where the imperialist powers were able "But the reality is already clear. Not that Democrat Jimmy Carter is a to maintain their economic and politi one single capitalist candidate opened "friend of the Blacks." "What is Carter cal domination after shifting to indi their mouth while the rulers of South saying about South Africa? My cam rect forms of rule, a neocolonial "solu Africa actually drowned the rebels in paign staff contacted Carter's organi tion" in South Africa would be blood. zation in New York. They said Carter virtually impossible. South African "It is part and parcel of their attack had 'no statement to make.'" capitalism rests on the foundation of on Blacks in this country. Ford, Reid said that she plans to raise the apartheid exploitation. The positions Reagan, and Carter oppose busing. issue of South Africa at the forthcom of the South African and Western They remain silent as KKKers and ing national convention of the NAACP imperialists are so closely intertwined other riffraff beat up Black people in in Memphis next week. "Here in the in the country that the downfall of Boston. United States the Democrats and Lou Howort white political power would likely "They want to turn back the gains Republicans have failed to deal with More than 500 people demonstrated prove fatal to continued imperialist that the Black struggle made in this any of the pressing problems facing in New York June 19 to protest the economic control. country and they have no intentions Blacks. This election campaign is a Soweto massacre in South Africa. The The Bla~k proletariat in South whatsoever of breaking with the white conspiracy of silence on the part of the protest was called by the Pan African Africa-now numbering more than six supremacists of South Africa," Camejo capitalist candidates to pretend that Students Organization of the million workers-is a powerful force said.· we do not have problems. Americas (PASOA) following the that could lead the national liberation "The NAACP can play a crucial role news announcement of the brutal struggle toward the overthrow of RICHMOND, Va.-Socialist Work in helping to continue the Black murders June 16. A PASOA news capitalism along with the apartheid ers party vice-presidential candidate struggle. We need to organize national release denounced the Kissinger system. Willie Mae Reid explained to college actions in support of busing and in the Vorster talks, stating, 'Soweto is the The sudden and spontaneous upris struggle for equal rights. beginning spark that will burn down ing in the Black townships gave only a "Blacks must also stand up and the apartheid regime in a general glimpse of the explosive social tensions The US. Role in condemn the government in Washing· conflagration. Soweto is the symbol that have been building up in the ton for its support to South African of rejection of Afrikaaner Boer country for centuries. And it is just a Southern Africa apartheid." culture. It is the eloquent prelude to the powerful struggles that Reid said that people are expressing denunciation of a system that are yet to be waged by South Africa's by Malik Miah interest in her campaign everywhere condemns 50 percent of African Black masses. Those future struggles Only 35 cents from: she speaks. Three people asked about children to death before the age of will have a profound impact on the Pathfinder Press joining the Socialist Workers party five.' course of the African-and world 410 West St., New York, N.Y. 10014 after the Richmond talk. revolutions.
4 Black uprisings shake South Africa; Pretoria launches bloody repression By Tony Thomas From Intercontinental Press Starting on June 16, South Africa has been shaken by uprisings in the Black urban townships surrounding Johannesburg. The racist apartheid regime met the uprisings with a massive, murderous show of force. The government stopped giving figures on casualties after it admitted that 100 had been killed and more than "1,000 injured. However, New York Times correspondent John F. Bums reported that eyewitness accounts of the South African crack down placed the toll "substantially higher" than the official figures. The protests started in Soweto (an acronym for the South Western Town ships), a Black city of more than one million. Outside of the Bantustans (reservations for Blacks), all Blacks, with the exception of some domestic servants, must live in such Black townships, since they are prohibited from "white" cities like Johannesburg. While South Africa's ruling racists claim Soweto and the other townships South African protesters. Outrage spread from city to city in wake of news that cops had opened fire on Soweto circling Johannesburg are showcases student demonstration. of how good things are for Black South Africans, even U.S. Assistant Secre tary of Housing and Urban Develop South Africa]." The marchers sang the ly and contradictorily on "agitators" on public gatherings. ment H.R. Crawford called them "mod Black anthem, "Nkosi Sikeleli Afrika" or drunken thugs with no political In a June 19 dispatch, Bums report ified concentration camps." (God Bless Africa). motivation. ed that Vorster's riot squads had Only a small percentage of the Nicholas Ashford in the June 17 What is clear is that the masses of "apparently succeeded today in bring homes there have running water, fewer London Times paraphrased a report by Africans in Soweto and nearby Black ing calm to 11 black townships around have electricity or bathrooms. Whole Sophie Tema, an eyewitness who is a townships exploded i.-1 reaction to the Johannesburg" after what he de families are forced to live in unbeara writer for the World of J!)hannesburg, killings, the language policy, and other scribed as "the toughest police action bly crowded conditions. Thousands of a 'Black-oriented newspaper: aspects of the oppression they face. of the three days' rioting." workers live in barracks, since they are A dispatch in the June 18 New York allowed to bring their families and She said a crowd of several thousand Times reported that "youths armed Language question lease homes only after many years of students had gathered in front of Phefeni school when about 10 police vehicles con with shovels, pickaxes, iron bars, The issue that triggered the student "reliable" service in South African knives and sticks" were in control of actions in Soweto was the policy of the industry. taining about 30 policemen, mainly blacks,' arrived. A section of the crowd then began the streets of Soweto. Schools, govern South African government to impose The explosion of protest in Soweto taunting the police and waving placards at ment offices, stores, and other symbols Afrikaans on Black schools. was ignited by government attempts to them. A white policeman replied by hurling of authority, racism, and exploitation Afrikaans is a Dutch-based language impose the Afrikaans language in the what appeared to be a teargas shell.. were attacked and burned, in a manner spoken by the majority of South schools. As Winnie Mandela, wife of Miss Tema said the crowd immediately reminiscent of the ghetto rebellions in African whites. Afrikaaner culture is imprisoned African nationalist leader became angry and began throwing stones the United States in the 1960s. very closely identified with the ruling Nelsop Mandela, pointed out: "The and any other objects they could find. At no By the third day of the revolt, it had Nationalist party and its policy of language issue is merely the spark that stage, she said, did the police warn the apartheid. students to disperse. She then saw a white spread to Alexandra, Vosloorus, Natal lit the resentment that is building up spruit, Katlehong, Tokosa, Daveyton, Most Black South African students among Black people. Every car that policeman pull out his revolver, point it and fire. Other policemen then began firing. Tembisa, Kagiso, and other Black receive instruction in English or in looked like a white man's car was townships surrounding Johannesburg. African languages. They generally burned. That was nothing to do with Two young students (one about At the University of Zululand at prefer English because of hostility to Afrikaans." seven years old) fell dead. The demon Empangeni in Natal Province, Black the Afrikaners. English also gives strators continued to throw rocks and students burned the main administra them access to culture, political ideas, Peaceful march other objects at the cops. They began tion building. At the University of the and information from the world out The protests began on the morning to march through the city fighting North, at Turfloop, near Pietersburg, side of South Africa. of June 16 when more than 10,000 with cops and attacking government 125 miles from the Rhodesian border, But the African youth in the town Black students and youth from Soweto buildings and other symbols of the students were -injured when the police ships raising the Black power salute demonstrated in support of a student racist regime. attacked 2,000 students who were and shouting, "Amandhla!" (Power), strike in one school district protesting Exactly what went on in Soweto and holding a prayer meeting for the and their supporters in Johannesburg the language policy. The march con other Black townships for the next few victims killed by the South African shouting, "Power to Soweto" were verged on Phefeni junior high school, days is not clear, since the South police. talking about more than overturning the center of the strike. African police immediately sealed the the language policy. The march was peaceful. Banners area off, preventing the press from Cops _attack white students They were talking about taking were carried that read "Down With getting direct reports. The regime then In a June 16 dispatch in the Wash power out of the hands of the white Afrikaans," "We Are Not Boers," and issued its own highly tendentious ington Post, Robin Wright reported settler minority of 4.1 million and "Viva Azania [an African name for reports, blaming the rebellion various- that Soweto's Blacks had already won putting it in the hands of the more support from students at Johannes than 20 million Blacks in South Africa. burg's Witwatersrand University. NSCAR calls nat'/ actions Placard-carrying students marched down a main avenue of the city with against killing in South Africa slogans such as "Pigs kill again" and "We are standing by you, Soweto." The National Student Coalition the country, organizations like the The next day, 200 white students Against Racism is calling upon its NAACP, our NSCAR chapters, and from the same university marched members acJ:oss the country to take others, ··initiate protest activities through the city's streets protesting part in and . initiate demonstrations against the bloody wave of violence police violence against Blacks. in protest of U.S. complicity with that the minority regime has un The students carried coffins made of the South Mrican regime. leashed to suppress the Blacks. cardboard and signs saying, "Black Maceo Dixon, a national coordina "Furthermore, we demand that the education kills," and "Your kids are tor of NSCAR, told the Militant: United States government keep its next." ,;NSCAR vehemently protests the hands off South Africa and that it White and Black bystanders joined recent killings and brutalizations of completely cease to aid the V orster the march as it moved toward Johan Black South Africans by the racist regime in any way. nesburg's downtown area, swelling It white minority regime. The Black "Kissinger's meeting with Vorster to 1,000. With the marchers shouting, upsurge occurred because the stu gives support to the white racist "Power to Soweto!" and raising their 'dents refuse to learn a language that regime no matter what they say in fists in the Black power salute, the they feel is an oppressive language public." demonstration was attacked by 150 to their culture and their way of life. Dixon said that he believed the club-swinging cops and groups of "NSCAR 100 percent supports the Black students had shown a determi white thugs. struggle of Black South Africans to nation to carry on their struggle On June 18, white students in control thejr own country. despite repression. The NSCAR Johannesburg and Cape Town at "We feel that it is very important leader called for continued action to tempted to hold demonstrations but that brothers and sisters all across support them in this country. were prevented by a government ban Victim. A dead schoolboy.
THE MILITANT/JULY 2, 1976 5 By Malik Miah On June 28-July 2, the National Association for THE CRISIS the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) will A RECORD OF THE DARKER RACES hold its sixty-seventh convention in Memphis, NOVEMBER 1910 Tennessee. Volulltc Oa• Edited t.r W, S. BURGHARDT DU BOIS, .,.;ttl lbo oo·-ntiM g{ O•w.old {l.. ri_ ViU.t
6 Under court order Kelley orders massive search in FBI files By Diane Rupp public June 20 by the Political Rights documents needed. ing and searching through garbage. FBI Director Clarence Kelley has Defense Fund. Kelley directed the agents to check The list of FBI operations goes on to or!Iered the most sweeping nationwide Kelley ordered the massive document beyond their regular files for material. include: illegal break-ins, unauthorized search through FBI files ever under hunt after U.S. District Court Judge They must comb through the "person wiretaps, mail covers, electronic sur taken. The action is being conducted Thomas Griesa told government law al" folders and safes of Special Agents veillance, seizure of bank records, under orders from the federal judge yers to gather all the FBI· records on in Charge of field offices (SACs). And, interviews with socialists' landlords hearing the Socialist Workers party what the bureau has done to SWP and perhaps for the first time, the top and employers, pretext phone calls, use suit against the government. Young Socialist Alliance members. secret "do not file" files must be of the attorney general's list of "sub A fourteen-page memorandum from The Senate and House committees thoroughly reviewed. versives" or any other similar security Kelley to the fifty-nine FBI field offices on intelligence tried to get such infor The FBI director warned agents index, plus "any and all devices to details where agents must look and mation on political spying. But both conducting the search that "if it is harm the reputation" of SWP and YSA what they have to produce for the committees complained about the subsequently determined that perti members. lawsuit. The memorandum was made FBI's refusal to turn over all the nent information has been withheld, Also being searched for is evidence judicial sanctions could be invoked of operations against the socialists and the FBI's credibility seriously carried out by right-wing thugs under harmed." "direction by the FBI or with know "It is imperative that all information ledge of the FBI." Kelley names as an and documents ... be produced at this example the Chicago Legion of Justice. time and experienced personnel as This gang carried out several attacks signed to the task," says the memo. against the SWP and YSA in 1969-70. The FBI director knows just how Kelley adds that field offices should "imperative" the document search is "be alert to any Cointelpro or disrup since a contempt-of-court motion IS tive actions [against the SWP and now pending against him. YSA] that have not been reported." The socialists' attorneys moved to Kelley concluded his memo with hold Kelley in contempt of court last directions on how to censor the files April when the FBI effort to cover up before they are turned over to the its burglaries came to light. For three socialists. Agents are to use black years the FBI denied it had burglar grease pencils to blot out all FBI ized the SWP and YSA. When records agents' names and "administrative of ninety-four such burglaries surfaced data." from a "do not file" file, the FBI tried It appears from the documents to suppress the information for several already turned over that these grease months. pencils not only mark out names and a Judge Griesa accepted the motion to few notes. The censors are trying to hold Kelley in contempt of court, but keep anything embarrassing or illegal decided not to rule on it, yet. in the FBI records from coming to IIFILES~ Agents are under directions to look light. for twenty-five types of FBI operations These efforts to keep details about against the socialists. FBI political spying and disruption For example, agents must produce secret have only been partially success records on FBI thefts. Kelley calls ful, however. these "seizure or retention of property The 20,000 pages turned over thus of security subjects without judicial far have uncovered damning details of process." the FBI's Cointelpro program and Agents must even report FBI "trash other routine illegal operations, such covers." That's bureau lingo for steal- as the burglaries.
IryJng to stonewall CIA agent questioned for socialist lawsuit By Diane Rupp seventy-one additional occasions gov they are working for the CIA. Haefner Haefner went on to explain that as Paul Haefner has been a CIA agent ernment lawyers jumped in to "clarify" answered: Chaos collected information it kept for twenty-five years. But June 11 or answer for Haefner. "Only if the CIA operative abroad these records it had borrowed from the was the first time he had faced an The CIA agent and his lawyers also has been granted permission by head main filing system up to date. assignment like this. In response to a took time out twenty-five times for quarters to inform the agent that he The SWP had demanded that the socialist lawsuit, Haefner was required private conferences. The government has been recruited by CIA." CIA produce a witness who could to answer questions, under oath, about team needed these huddles, as one Krinsky asked if the agent even testify about all the agency's opera the CIA's files and operations. government lawyer put it, "to get our knows that he or she is giving informa tions against the socialists. Haefner Michael Krinsky, an attorney for the language together." tion to the U.S. government. Haefner did not fill this bill. Socialist Workers party and Young Haefner reached the point where he replied, "Not necessarily." He refused to answer many of the Socialist Alliance, asked the questions. would not even answer about facts Haefner also told about the "201" most important questions. Does the The socialists were able to interrogate that are already public. files, those records the CIA keeps on CIA try to use overseas agents to Haefner because they are suing the For example, former CIA chief Willi individuals. In particular, he described disrupt SWP activities? Does the CIA CIA, FBI, and other government agen am Colby has admitted on television the "201" files set up by Operation use electronic surveillance against the cies. that the CIA sends information on Chaos. SWP or its members? Does the CIA Before the lawsuit against govern political dissidents to other govern Operation Chaos was begun by the carry out burglaries of American ment harassment goes to trial, federal ments. Yet Haefner refused to answer CIA in 1967 to try to prove that the citizens overseas? agencies must turn over evidence on whether the CIA shared information Black struggle, antiwar demonstra Haefner objected to answering these what they have done to the socialists. with foreign countries. tions, and student activity were all just questions because, he claimed, the CIA And the SWP and YSA will get sworn Despite all these objections and foreign plots. has a right to protect its "sources and testimony from a number of agents refusals, Haefner's testimony gives a Operation Chaos lasted seven years. methods." like Haefner. peek at how the CIA operates. The CIA It coll~cted information about 300,000 The socialists' attorneys will request Before the questions began Haefner agent at least defined a few terms. persons and organizations. The CIA that the court order the CIA to provide pulled a slip of paper from his pocket Informant. This is anyone who says admits Chaos set up files on 7,200 U.S. answers to these questions. to pass around the table. "That's Spiro anything to a CIA agent. Haefner citizens. Agnew's autograph!" he bragged. explained it with an example: Haefner testified that the CIA still Then he tossed a silver dollar on the maintains an active index of the "201" Public table. That was a good-luck piece he "To illustrate, I am in X city over files set up by Operation Chaos. The had carried since the 1930s, the CIA seas. I am invited to a social event. I files are indexed not only in the Chaos hearings agent explained. am introduced to X number of people computer but also in the CIA's central U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Haefner also brought along three whom I have never met before. I computer system. Griesa is holding pretrial hearings lawyers, one from the Justice Depart converse with those people. In the Moreover, some of the Chaos infor on the lawsuit by the Socialist ment and two from the CIA. These course of the conversation they say mation went into the CIA's permanent Workers parzy and Young Socialist lawyers were there, like the good-luck certain things. . . . That individual is files. Before Chaos began the CIA Alliance against government spying charms, to protect Haefner from ques totally unaware of the fact that he has already had "201" files on some and harassment._ The hearings are tions and make sure he didn't say too apprised me or informed me of infor American dissidents. When the pro open to the public. much. mation that may or may not be useful. gram started, a government lawyer For more information about the During the questioning Haefner's That's an informant." explained for Haefner, those "201s schedule for the hearings call the lawyers opjected to questions eight Agent or asset. The CIA often calls were shipped down on permanent loan, Political Rights Defense Fund, (212) times. On twenty-five occasions they its agents "recruited assets." Krinsky like you charge out a library book, to 691-3270. ordered the agent not to answer. On asked if at least these agents know Operation Chaos."
THE MILITANT/JULY 2, 1976 7 Willie Mae Reid Socialist vice-presidential nominee on tour During June Socialist Workers party vote-catching ploy is still bottled up in vice-presidential candidate Willie Mae one of Councilman Barry's commit Reid took her campaign to Milwaukee; tees," Green said. Washington, D.C.; New York City's Hawkinson, a social worker in the Lower East Side; and Richmond, Virgi field of health care, blasted the nia. cutbacks by the Department of Human Below are reports on Reid's cam Resources in the city's Medicaid bud paign meetings in those cities. get. This "economy measure" wiped 40,000 people from the Medicaid rolls. "These cutbacks mean death to poor and working people, and to the elder Richmond ly," Hawkinson said. "It's as simple as By Toba Singer that." RICHMOND, Va.-Socialist Work She called for crash federal funding ers party vice-presidential candidate for hospitals and health care, pointing Willie Mae Reid spoke to a public out that the $20 million needed to keep meeting here Saturday, June 22, to the 40,000 on Medicaid "is peanuts help mobilize support for an ambitious compared to the $100 billion this drive to put the SWP on the Virginia country spends for war preparations." ballot for the first time in the party's history. Virginia socialists aim to collect well over the 9,000 signature3 required by Milwaukee state law to land a ballot spot. By Robert Schwarz Also speaking at the meeting was MILWAUKEE-"Would each of the Militant/Ed Mattos Bessida White, a member of the policy Reid speaking at socialist campaign rally in Washington, D.C. panelists comment on their attitude board of the Virginia Women's Politi toward beginning to organize an cal Caucus and of the National Black Democrats' real program of billions for Georges County, Maryland. independent Black political party right Feminist Organization. White urged the Pentagon but cutbacks for us." Washington, D.C., socialists are now?" support to Reid's campaign. Garza spoke about the New York running Eli Green and Dorothy Haw This question typified the discussion Of the thirty-four participants, three City budget crisis. "How are the rulers kinson for city council. Green, a young at the "Black Women's Political For asked to join the Socialist Workers going to solve this crisis? Is Rockefell Black activist, blasted the failure of um" sponsored by the United Black party and five others signed up to er going to give up his ranch in Democratic and Republican candidates Community Council (UBCC) here June attend classes on socialism sponsored Venezuela? Are the landlords going to to deal with the problems facing the 8. Held in the Black community at the by the newly formed campaign com· return the money they have milked city's residents, 80 percent of whom are Martin Luther King Community mittee in Richmond. from this city? Black. School, the panel included Willie Mae "You all know the answer," Garza Green's Democratic party opponent Reid; Phyllis Kirk, delegate to the said. "We-the working people of this is incumbent council member Marion Democratic party national convention; city-are going to pay." Barry. Barry has proposed a freeze on and Annette Williams, candidate for New York Garza said that only a mass re city employment that will mean the assembly in the Democratic primary. By Mary Wismer sponse by New York unions, communi loss of more than a thousand jobs. The The forum drew more than eighty NEW YORK-Sixty people turned ty groups, and students can turn the jobless rate in D.C. is already 12 people, two-thirds of them Black. The out June 18 to hear Willie Mae Reid tide. "Massive demonstrations and percent for adults and 40 percent for discussion centered on independent and Catarina Garza, SWP candidate strikes can win victories for the work young people, according to government Black political action versus working for U.S. Congress in the Eighteenth ing people of this city," he said. figures. for change through the Democratic District. The meeting was held at the "The major question facing Blacks party. Earlier this year the UBCC ran SWP's headquarters on Manhattan's here is inadequate housing," Green one of its leaders, Michael McGee, as Lower East Side. said. He pointed to the case of thirty an independent candidate for alder "The Democrats are trying to con Black families-some of whom have man. vince us that a new savior has been Washington lived in their current homes for as The following day Reid attended a created-Jimmy Carter." Reid said. By Sara Smith long as forty years-who have been news conference at the offices of the "Carter says he's opposed to 'mandato WASHINGTON, D.C.-Eighty-five handed eviction notices. A speculator Milwaukee Courier, one of the city's ry' busing-just a shade different from people crowded into a small church plans to remodel their homes and sell two Black weeklies. Reporters from the what the outright racists say. here June 11 to hear SWP vice them as townhouses to middle-class Star-Times, the other Black weekly, "But we're supposed to believe that presidential candidate Willie Mae Reid. whites. and the Bilalian News interviewed he will fight for the rights of the Black Because of the sultry summer heat "This is happening throughout the Reid. She was also interviewed by community just because he says he common to the South, dozens of city," Green said, pledging his support WQFM, the major FM rock station calls Black Congressman Andrew hastily improvised fans moved lazily to the thirty families, who have refused here. Young 'Andy' and Martin Luther throughout the audience, cooling faces to vacate. "We say renovate, yes, but Reid's tour came in the middle of King, Sr., 'Daddy.'" riveted on Reid as she spoke. with federal money and for the Black efforts to place the SWP presidential What about the Democrats' plat Reid hailed the expansion of the families who live in these houses." ticket, as well as socialist candidate for form? "It offers nothing to the working socialist movement in the Washington, Although by· Barry's own figures U.S. Senate Robert Schwarz, on the people of this country," Reid insisted. D.C., area. Until recently there was 77,000 people live in substandard Wisconsin ballot. The Wisconsin so "It's just like the old television com only one SWP headquarters in the housing in Washington, the city coun cialists face a July 13 filing deadline. mercial, 'Promise her anything, but area; but now branches of the party cil has announced the construction of To help out with the petitioning, give her Arpege.' The platform is just a exist in both southeast and northwest only a few hundred new housing units, contact Norbert Francis at (414) 289- perfume to cover up the stink of the Washington, as well as in Prince well-timed for the elections. "Even this 9340.
By Ronald Jamgochian Democrats and Republicans have at DETROIT-A new law restricting tempted to add the hurdle of a second Michigan the number of political parties that can election, not to find the choice of the be on the .ballot in Michigan came people, but to prevent the people from under legal attack here last month, as being able to choose any but the major the American Civil Liberties Union parties' candidates." parties filed suit in federal court to have the James Sim, state chairman of the law voided. Socialist Labor party, and Tom Den The ACLU is representing the So nis, state chairman of the Communist cialist Workers, Socialist Labor, Hu party, adaed that under the guise of challenge man Rights, Communist, and Commu ballot reform the state was banning nist Labor parties in the suit. political parties from the elections In the past, 18,000 signatures of because of the tremendous popular unfair registered voters had to be collected to discontent with the policies of the get on the ballot. The new law adds an governing parties. additional requirement making it ne Most of Michigan's citizens do not cessary to get 0.3% of the total vote-or vote, and fewer each year consider ballot law about 3,000 to 4,000 votes-in an themselves Democrats or Republicans. August primary election. By restricting voter choice, the law At a news conference announcing seeks to do legally what decades of the suit, the ACLU charged that the illegal government spying and harass new law i:o undemocratic and unconsti ment have failed to accomplish. It tutional. By restricting the number of attacks the very legitimacy of minority parties on the ballot, the ACLU repre parties and viewpoints. sentative said, the law will deny The Committee for Democratic Elec Michigan voters the right to a choice tion Laws (CoDEL) has been working in the elections. closely with the ACLU and has initiat Militant/Darren Crown Socialist Worhrs candidate for U.S. ed an endorsers' campaign to win wide REIMERS: 'Democrats and Republicans Senate Paula Reimers noted, "The backing for the suit. want to prevent voters' right to choose.'
8 Unionists, civil libertarians back spot on November ballot for California socialists By Harry Ring efforts of the Socialist Workers party to Berkeley student senate also voted to LOS ANGELES-The Socialist qualify its candidates, Peter Camejo, endorse the drive, as did eleven faculty Workers party is winning significant Willie Mae Reid and Omari Musa for members there. support in its drive to gain a place on the 1976 California ballot." Also supporting the SWP's ballot the California ballot. With the most Because the election law was pre rights are Dr. Louis Simpson, Jr., past undemocratic election laws in the viously even more restrictive, this is president of the Interns & Residents country, California requires 100,000 the first time the SWP is contending Association at Martin Luther King signatures of qualified voters for an for a ballot place. Until a recent Hospital in Los Angeles, and Gretchen independent ticket to be put on the modification by the state legislature, Mackler, president of the Alameda ballot. the law required that independent County Federation of Teachers. The Socialist Workers party intends nominees file more than 300,000 signa A number of prominent attorneys to secure more than that number to put tures. have lent their name to the cause, its presidential ticket of Peter Camejo Even at 100,000, the job is so huge as including Vincent Hallinan, Howard and Willie Mae Reid on the state to constitute a curb on ballot rights. Moore, and Charles Garry. ballot, along with Omari Musa, the Because of this, many have endorsed At Merritt College in Oakland, party's nominee for U.S. senator. the SWP petition drive without necess endorsements were made by Robert Among those who have already arily subscribing to its political plat Randolph, president of the faculty registered their support for the SWP's form. senate; Melvin Newton, coordinator of right to a ballot spot is the state Among those who have lent their ethnic studies; and Cecilia Arrington, executive board of Social Services support to the effort are U.S. Rep. Ron chairperson of the Black studies de Union Local 535, an affiliate of the Dellums, Alameda County Judge partment. Service Employees International Dawn Girard, and Berkeley city coun Another endorser is Richard Navies, Union. cil members Ying Lee Kelly and J~hn head of the Black studies department At its meeting of June 13, the union Denton. at Berkeley High School. board adopted a resolution declaring Also endorsing the effort is Lehman The drive is also supported by Larry Congressional Black Caucus leader that: "Social Services Union Local535, Brightman, a prominent figure in the Schwartz, executive board member of Ronald Dellums is among those in accord with its support for election American Indian Movement. the San Diego American Civil Libert endorsing SWP drive to win ballot status law reform in California, supports the The University of California at ies Union, and Dick Powell, Hollywood in California. writer and civil liberties activist. The mammoth petition drive will meetings as well as making media open July 10 and continue in high gear appearances. for three weeks. On the three Satur Vice-presidential nominee Willie Mae days beginning July 10, there will be Reid will make a stop in Los Angeles San Diego kickoff rally major mobilizations of Socialist Work July 8-10 en route to fill speaking By Mark Schneider campaign meeting of sixty cam ers party and Young Socialist Alliance engagements in Australia. SAN DIEGO-"The primaries are paign supporters at San· Diego City members and supporters, as well as She too will be on hand ·for the big now over, and Udall and Wallace College June 20. independent activists who will be help petition kickoff July 10. have both announced their support Messages of support to the social ing. for Jimmy Carter's platform. The ist ballot drive were heard from Petitioning will also go on weekdays left and right wings of the Democrat· Larry Schwartz, a prominent civil and evenings. The SWP and YSA are ic party stand for the same thing. So libertarian and San Diego City appealing to everyone to pitch in. How you what were the primaries about? ... College professor; Linda D' Addario, Already there are indications of a "I urge California voters to cast of the National Organization for gratifying response. In Berkeley, six can help the only meaningful vote possible teen independent activists have al Women; and Herman Baca, of the To help out with the California ready signed up to participate in the next November-vote socialist." Ad Hoc Committee on Chicano petitioning effort, contact the Social petitioning or related clerical process Both the NBC- and CBS-affiliated Rights in nearby National City .. ist Workers campaign committee at ing. television stations here aired this one of the following locations: Following the Saturday petitioning statement by Socialist Workers Baca's message said, "I support BAY AREA: 1519 Mission St., drives, open houses will be held at party presidential candidate Peter the efforts of the SWP and other San Francisco, Calif. 94103. Tel.: campaign offices in the Bay Area, the Camejo June 18. Camejo's news progressive political parties like (415) 431-8918. Los Angeles area, and San Diego. conference at the San Diego Press Partido La Raza Unida in seeking LOS ANGELES: 4040 W. Wash Information on this and on petitioning Club was also covered by four radio ballot status not only here in Califor ington Blvd., Los Angeles, Calif. dispatch centers can be obtained at the stations and the two major daily nia but throughout the United 90018. (213) 735-4235. addresses and phone numbers listed in newspapers. States .... SAN DIEGO: 1053 15th St., San the accompanying box. Camejo was in town to announce "Now more than ever it is the time Diego, Calif. 92101. Tel.: (714) 234- Peter Camejo, the dynamic socialist the California SWP's plans to gather for new political alternatives to be 0685. more than 100,000 signatures to put presented to the American working presidential nominee, will be in Cali SAN JOSE: 123 S. 3rd St., Suite fornia from June 17 through July 10, a socialist alternative on the Novem public. To this end I support your 220, San Jose, Calif. 95113. Tel.: the opening day of petitioning, to help ber ballot. effort and wish you luck in your (408) 295-8342. Camejo also addressed a spirited petition drive." win support for the ballot drive. He will be speaking at rallies and campus Wide support for SWP Mass .. tops 60,000 ballot effort in Missouri By Barbara Bowman passed after its petitions had been ST. LOUIS-Missouri petitioners are filed. well on their way to collecting substan SWP campaign workers proved J5.irk tially more than the required 17,844 patrick's processing of petitions was signatures of registered voters needed totally fraudulent. An independent to win the Socialist Workers party a check of the petitions found that place on the November ballot. thousands of valid signatures had been rejected, including those of a state Of the 17,000 signatures already representative, a congressional candi gathered, 8,000 were collected by an date, and even Mutnik herself. eight-person team petitioning in five of To ensure that Kirkpatrick will not the state's ten congressional districts. repeat such abuses, the Missouri SWP The distribution and large numerical recently kicked off a civil liberties requirements make Missouri's election campaign in defense of its right to be laws among the most restrictive in the on the November ballot. So far, en country. dorsements have been received from Meeting the legal requirement, how Otis Bolden, director of the Yeatman ever, is no guarantee that the SWP will· Health Center; Phyllis LaFata, YWCA; secure a place on the ballot. and Eldora Spiegelberg, Women's Although it had completely complied International League for Peace and with the law in its 1974 attempt to gain Freedom. ballot status for Barbara Mutnik, a. Also, Mary Ann Seday, National Militant/Anne Teasdale candidate for U.S. Senate, the Socialist Organization for Women; Ernest Callo Carol Henderson Evans, Massachusetts SWP candidate for U.S. Senate, Workers party became the target of a way, professor of urban studies at St. collects signatures to ensure a November ballot spot for herself and the campaign of harassment and legal Louis University; attorneys Anna socialists' national ticket of Peter Camejo and Willie Mae Reid. Restrictive maneuvering by Secretary of State Forder and Paul Hales; Margaret ballot laws in the state require the signatures on nominating petitions of 37,000 James Kirkpatrick. Phillips; Dr. H.T. Blumenthal; and registered voters. The SWP had collected more than 61,000 signatures as of Kirkpatri~k refused to certify the Washington University professors Ro June 20 and plans to continue the drive through June 23. State law requires SWP for ballot status on the grounds bert Johnson, Richard Walter, and that all petitions be filed by June 29. that it had not met new requirements Richard Radcliff.
THE MILITANT/JULY 2, 1976 9 Letters
That's who Farrell Dobbs is the man who rapes a woman and I had an interesting experience justifies his act by, "Oh, it was all for ~~~~~~jl~~ld an selling Pathfinder Press books at the her good." Indianapolis crowd on June 22 that "court-ordered, forced New Democratic party (Canada's labor These instances of violence-they busing" is on a par with other "intrusions" by "overbearing party) convention here in Ontario June can easily be multiplied-are not government" such as FBI-CIA violations of civil liberties. 11-13. Many delegates were interested violently yoked. In addition to their Adding a new argument to the arsenal of racist rationaliza in Pathfinder books and pamphlets on similarity of character, they flow a range of topics. As a salesperson, I toward one another through the tions for school segregation, Ford called for "freedom" from would explain to delegates the attraction of hypocirisy and cynicism "oppressive, heavy-handed, bureaucratic government." relevance of the litetature to their underlying them. The same demagogy is used by Jimmy Carter, who falsely concerns. Indeed, it must be symptomatic of a likens antibusing bigots to opponents of special privilege for But on one occasion, I didn't have to grave illness to speak of the happiness the wealthy. Carter claims, "I've never seen a rich kid bused." do the sales work. It was done for me or contentment of the Palestinians as Who do Ford and Carter think they're kidding? by David Archer, president of the the result of their exile, fragmentation, The truth is that the government's "heavy hand" does not 800,000-member Ontario Federation of military subjugation, and usurpation of their land and property by the "oppress" the racists. It beckons them forward. Labour. Archer and a few other union Israelis; and of women's "privileges" The truth is that government policies force Blacks and other delegates were passing the Pathfinder as the Phyllis Schlaflys put it, as a minorities to endure lower pay, job discrimination, segregated display. One unionist, seeing Teamster result of male exploitative and and over-priced housing; inferior health, and shorter lives. Rebellion on the table, asked Archer, discriminatory practices, both social The real freedom fighters in 1976 are not the screaming mobs "Who's Farrell Dobbs?" and economic. in Boston and Louisville being encouraged by the top Democrat "Well," replied Archer, "in It is obvious that we need to remind ic and Republican party candidates. Minneapolis in the early 1930s, the ourselves constantly of the.most The real freedom fighters are those who struggle against the Trotskyists led the Teamsters there. It elementary truth that none can ever was the only part of the Teamsters enjoy or benefit from denial, forced, second-class status imposed on Blacks by this "oppress union that was democratic and repression, or inequity, particularly ive" and "overbearing" capitalist government. militant. And they helped lay the basis when he or she is the victim. for the rise of the CIO." Bahieh Musa The union delegate proceeded to buy Washington, D.C. three books in Dobbs's Teamster series, and a copy of Labor's Giant Step by Art Preis. Lebanon It goes to show that the activity of A series on death penalty The Arab League's "peace-keeping" force that arrived in the Minneapolis Teamsters still is One topic that we here in New Beirut June 21 is a Trojan Horse. The force is an extension of providing prestige for the Trotskyist Orleans think might be valuable in the Syria's offensive against the beleaguered leftist-Muslims and movement, even forty years later. pages of the Militant is an article or Palestinians who are fighting for their democratic rights in George Addison series of articles on the death penalty. Lebanon. Toronto, Ontario This series could investigate how The force, which has the full backing of Syria's President many hundreds of prisoners around Assad, and which is half-composed of Syrian troops, entered the country currently await execution Lebanon with the agreement of rightist-Christian forces whose pending the Supreme Court ruling; the percentage of these prisoners who are efforts to maintain their privileged minority rule have plunged New feminist reader Black; and the percentage who were Lebanon into its bloody fourteen-month civil war. · Just read the June 11 Militant article on the Equal Rights Amendment rally convicted of crimes against whites. The "peace-keeping " force is supposed to administer a cease in Springfield, Illinois. Also, the number of death-row fire in Lebanon and a partial withdrawal of Syrian troops. But I also enjoyed your report on the prisoners in the South; how states within twenty-four hours of its arrival, right-wing Christian abortion issue. have gotten around the original militiamen shelled Palestinian and Lebanese-leftist neighbor Sandi Skorniak Supreme Court decision by changing hoods and refugee camps. Omaha NOW vice-president their laws; what crimes are considered The Syrian "withdrawal" is only a partial one that will Omaha, Nebraska capital offenses; and how the United States compares with other industrial preserve a number of options for Assad as he pursues this new countries. stage in his offensive against the Palestinians. And, of course, an analysis of how Both Washington and Israel have so far been content to sit Stop FBI terror tactics the campaign to restore the death back and cautiously watch Assad's maneuvers. Stop FBI terror tactics on all penalty fits into the picture of the However, the much-ballyhooed "rescue" by the U.S. Navy of American Indian Movement people. entire racist offensive going on across Western residents in Lebanon should serve as a grim reminder Since the beginning of 1976, FBI the nation. that the danger of direct imperialist intervention continues if harassment on Indian people, One prominent criminal attorney here estimates only a 40 percent Washington becomes convinced that Assad's actions threaten especially on AIM members, has increased 100 percent. chance that the .Supreme Court will to upset, rather than to advance, U.S. goals in the Middle East. outlaw the death penalty, which This underscores the need for all defenders of the Arab The FBI's latest conquest is Canada. With the help of the Royal Canadian means literally hundreds of victims of, revolution to remain vigilant in demanding: Mounted Police and the provincial racist injustice would await execution • Syria out of Lebanon! poiice they have managed to arrest at once. • U.S. hands off the Middle East! and bring back to the United States In our Gary Tyler defense work, AIM people who live in Canada. My we've learned that there are over thirty brothers in Canada now have a taste prisoners on death row in Louisiana of our beloved FBI. alone. As usual, Black men accused of For the American Indian and raping white woman are among the Canadian Indian there is no law-it is death-row prisoners. On the beach· a fight for survival and just plain The Gary Tyler case is merely the "MINEOLA, L.I, June 22-Alloceanfront beaches in Nassau existing. We must keep strong most prominent example in the County were ordered closed for bathing today as the mysterious whatever the odds. . broader question of how to stop incursion of sewage that has been washing up on the Always remember-the American legalized murder. Indian Mpvement does not start Joel Aber beachfronts of Long Island since last Tuesday moved westward New Orleans, Louisiana toward New York City." (New York Times, June 23.) trouble-they expose it. The sixty miles of shoreline was closed because "large Skouk Psaklazi Albany, New York amounts of material, including fecal matter, had been washed up on the beaches.... " NCLC slanders Sadlowski The business interests that run New York City - it turns out Militant readers may be interested to - have found it more profitable to get rid of sewage simply by know that the National Caucus of dumping it twelve miles off shore into the Atlantic Ocean. Better off oppressed? Labor Committees (NCLC), a It is more cynical than naive to Wall Street and its politicians have already made New York fascistlike sect, has added argue that the Equal Rights Steelworkers Fight Back leader Ed an unbearable place to work and live. Amendment, once passed, would result Sadlowski to its list of targets for right But did they have to go and ruin one of the few beaches we in women losing their alleged wing harassment. Steelworkers Fight can escape to for a few hours on a Saturday or Sunday privileges while gaining only spuri Back is a movement in the United afternoon? ous rights. Steelworkers of America that is It is equally cynical to argue that the fighting to democratize the union by Palestinians are better off as refugees challenging the bureaucratic machine and as a subjugated people under of USWA President I.W. Abel. Israeli military rule. Such arguments Recently, slates backed by Sadlowski recall the slavocrats pleading that won important victories in a number of emancipation of the Blacks would key local union elections. The scope of entail loss of many of their rights, or Continued on page 23
10 MONTHLY MAGAZINE SUPPLEMENT TO THE MILIT.A NT JULY 1976
·lhe Beeline of U.S. Power and the Crisis of .. World Stalinism BJ Jack Barnes
Also: ·!he llood lmonc \Vorkinc People- Powerlessness, Alienation, Distrust of the Government · ·Frank Donner--Spotlight on Pollee Bed Squads (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW/PAGE 2)
Of course, the amount of public funds used in the t~ttered moral authority of the U.S. by these politicians in buying sex is nothing ruling class. It is a confirmation of the rank in comparison to the billions they squander hypocrisy of these politicians, who are always on military hardware. Thus the "sex scandal" invoking God, proclaiming the "sanctity" of is played up in the media as a sideshow to the family, preaching "law and order," con divert attention away from the much bigger demning the "depravity" of petty criminals IIBBVIB\V crimes of the gang on Capitol Hill. But still, who are the victims of this system, and this scandal is important for what it reveals suggesting there is something immoral about about the people who rule this country. a woman who wishes to have an abortion, or After Vietnam, the Pentagon papers, Water gay people who exercize their sexual prefer gate, Lockheed, and the CIA and FBI revela ence. In 1967 Hays, Young, and their col tions, the current scandal has lifted another leagues voted to exclude from the House one Bullies and Pimps of the only Black congressmen at that time, corner of the veil, revealing the true face of Scandals in Washington are nothing new. Adam Clayton Powell, on charges of doing the American ruling class and its agents. The history of capitalist politics abounds in far less than what they have been doing. Hays and Young were two of the most them. But the current spate of scandals has The moral depravity of the capitalist class powerful people in Congress. It can only be some new elements that are worth noting. and its agents was spotlighted more than one assumed that the way they treat people is no They began with Elizabeth Ray's revelation hundred years ago by Karl Marx in the different from that of the rest of Congress that she had been paid $14,000 a year out of Communist Manifesto. Among the capitalists, who put Hays and Young in their powerful public funds to be sexually at the service of Marx wrote, there is "left remaining no other positions. Rep. Wayne Hays and any of his cronies that nexus between man and man than naked self The Hays-Young scandal shows that cash he wanted to influence.. But it didn't stop interest, than callous 'cash payment.'" and force are the basis of the personal lives there. The post-Watergate atmosphere en Capitalism, Marx wrote, "has resolved of the capitalist rulers, just as it is the basis of couraged others to come forward with further personal worth into exchange value.... " their foreign policy and of the domination of revelations. Day by day, the charges and The capitalists and their politician agents big business here at home. Indicative of these accuse socialists of wanting to "destroy the exposes ~,Jnraveled, implicating dozens of people's hollow and brutal lives was the family" or make women the "common proper congressmen. statement by Secretary of State Kissinger, the ty" of all men because socialists want Colleen Gardner, who says she was pres Dr. Str:angelove bomber of Vietnam, that for personal relationships to be free of the sured by Rep. John Young to have sex with him, "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac." burdens of economic want and legal compul him or lose her secretarial job, not only told sion. Marx pointed out that it is not socialists The abusive treatment Hays and Young her own story, but appealed to other govern but the capitalist system that has treated meted out to their employees-especially to ment employees who had been similarly women as property. women employees-is typical of what hap abused to speak out. The whole point of socialism, he wrote, "is pens in capitalist society as a whole. An Gardner had tried to tell federal prosecu to do away with the status of women as mere organization called Women Office Workers tors in 1973 about Young's treatment of her, instruments of production." The moral stan recently conducted a survey of female but her charges were ignored. Today, after dards of the capitalist class have by no means employees and found that one-third of those three years of revelations about government changed for the better since Marx's time. questioned said they had faced "direct sexual corruption, assassination attempts, burgla They are still based on the "cash nexus." harassment" on the job. Sixty percent felt ries, and assorted other crimes, Gardner's What is new today is that their mask of they were not treated with respect. story could not be hushed up as easily. respectability and their pretenses of repre And if women quit after sexual abuse, says senting the way forward for humanity are The current scandal is different not only in Suzanne Paul of Women Office Workers, it is being torn away before the eyes of millions, the large number of politicians implicated, difficult to get unemployment insurance. but also in the content of the charges. What is "They assume all women lie about it, like both in this country and throughout the involved are not only sensationalist allega rape," Paul explained in an interview with the world. tions about these politicians' private lives, New York Daily News. which are of no interest. The charges by Ray Colleen Gardner, for example, had told the VlctorJ on Baslq and Gardner point to the Democrats' and unemployment office in 1973 that she had Republicans' use of government power and quit her job with Representative Young The June 14 refusal of the Supreme Court money to bully their employees-especially because of sexual harassment. The U.S. to hear appeals against court-ordered school women employees-and to pimp for other attorney's office was informed of this, but did desegregation in Boston is a victory for civil politicians or capitalists whom they are trying nothing. rights. The ruling followed the retreat by to influence in their corrupt dealings. This latest scandal has punched a new hole President Ford and Attorney General Levi from their decision to intervene in the case on the side of the antibusing racists. Ford's move had sparked immediate protest from a broad spectrum of Black leaders, from AFL-CIO President George Meany, and many other groups. Ford and Levi were testing whether the time was ripe to put the federal government squarely on the side of opponents of school desegregation. The subsequent reaction, showing the breadth of support for busing, had the effect of staying their hand for the time being. These developments were further evidence that the antibusing forces, although vocal and violent, are a small minority, while supporters of desegregation can bring vast power to bear if their forces are united in action. The danger is far from past, however. The effort to roll back gains won by Black people over the past twenty years is a basic policy of the ruling class. Only determined mass action by the Black community and all its allies can deal a decisive defeat to the government backed racist offensive.
The Mood Among Working People-Powerlessness, Alienation, Distrust of the Government Editor: Caroline Lund By Nan Bailey 9 Associate editors: Nan Bailey, George The Month Breitman, Fred Felc;lman, George No Spotlight on the vack, Dick Roberts, Tony Thomas In Review 2 Police Red Squads The Decline of U.S. By Frank Donner 11 The International Socialist Review ap pears in the Militant that is published the Power and the Crisis Letters 12 first week of every month. of World Stalinism Copyright © 1975 Militant Publishing By Jack Barnes 3 Books Received 12 Association
12 (PAGE 3/lNTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW) . . . - . . -~ !he Beeline of U.S. Power and the Crisis of World Stalinism countries like India and Israel. It is also marked trying to grapple with is the biggest single fact of by the post-Vietnam restrictions, especially the world politics:\ the striking decline in American By Jack Barnes domestic limits, on U.S. imperialism's crude, power. This fact is verified anew .with the events open, unrestrained· use of its power. of every passing month. Most recently, it was There is an additional feature: the increasing symbolized by Angola. Far from inheriting the The presidential primaries have been the instability of the major capitalist allies of the Portuguese empire, as was projected by Ameri occasion for a debate on the world situation United States, which undermines the entire can foreign policy, another disaster struck. facing American imperialism. Of course, the real social system on a world scale. Even the two The fact that Cuban troops got away with issues have not been presented by the aspirant strongest of Washington's allies, Germany and landing in Africa to fight for "the other side," Reagan, who thinks the United States govern Japan, are becoming unsettled. which won, sent shock waves not only through ment should hold on to part of Panama until the the American ruling class, but through European year 3000; or by Ford, who thinks they should The Decline of American Power imperialist circles who look to and count on the keep part of Panama only until 2000; or by Kissinger is being portrayed as a historian strength of American imperialism to see them Carter, who has yet to say anything clear about with a gloomy philosophy. Among the gloomy through their own coming trials. foreign policy; or by Humphrey, who says that if citations ascribed to him have been the follow There was much comment in the press about your heart is in the right place your foreign ing: the American government's lack of an Angolan policy will be also. "No responsible leader should encourage the policy. In truth, while American imperialism has The serious debate over the problems facing illusion that America can ever again recapture definite objectives, it has no clear-cut foreign American imperialism has been held elsewhere. the strategic superiority of the early postwar policy nowadays. It lacks any confident scheme The issues were summarized in a much period." like "rolling back the Iron Curtain" to assure the publicized exchange between Secretary of State "The economic history of the postwar period "American century." Instead there is only a Henry Kissinger and three candidates for his job has been one of sustained growth. . . . The pragmatic adjustment day by day, month by if there is a Democratic administration in 1977- universal expectation of our peoples, the founda month, using power-overt military power, 1981. The participants were George W. Ball, Paul tion of our political institutions, and the assump covert military operations, the threat of military C. Warnke,and Zbigniew Brzezinski, who consti tion underlying the evolving structures of peace intervention, economic might-to shore up its tute a kind of unofficial committee of foreign are all based on the belief that this growth will defenses against a deteriorating world situation. policy advisers for the Democrats. continue. But will it? The increasingly open and The New York Times summed this up with The two sides did not confront each other cooperative global economic system that we have unusual frankness when it stated in an April 7 directly·; that would not be "proper." They spoke come to take for granted is now under unprece editorial: ·"Many of the international dilemmas to different sessions of the American Society of dented attack. The world is poised on the brink of confronting the United States cannot be solved Newspaper Editors. But the most revealing thing a return to the unrestrained economic national but only managed. How to manage them in the about the "debate" was the absence of disagree ism which accompanied the collapse of economic new, more sober period that now has opened is ment on fundamentals among these four spokes order in the thirties." the central question that the nation must begin men for the ruling class. "Our greatest foreign policy problem is our to face-and the candidates have yet to answer." Kissinger presented his picture of the major divisions at 'home." But they won't. new problems facing American imperialism Upon reflection, it becomes obvious that the Whoever occupies the White House, the answer today. Although the April 14 New York Times essence of Kissinger's problem is not merely ultimately given to all problems of foreign affairs reported that his "rivals" launched a "wide psychologicial ("excessive gloom") but goes is to increase the military budget, that already ranging attack," not a single one of them much deeper. He sees the reality of the shifting monstrous burden on the people. Guns instead of "challenged Mr. Kissinger's stated goals." They world relationship of class forces. What he is homes, food, social benefits-that is what is criticized his style rather than the substance of decreed. his policies. Though the strategy of "rolling back commu They considered it untimely for Mr. Kissinger nism," based on the illusions of the 1940s, 1950s, to portray-at least in public-"the United States and 1960s, has been discarded, it has not been as divided and incapable of action." replaced by a new strategy. It is hard to imagine what the replacement would be, other than a Later, Ball made some frank comments which series of empirical expedients. It is the social and confirm that there is good reason for the majority economic contradictions of capitalism in its of Americans to be fearful of the foreign policy of decline that cause the crisis, the mass upsurges, the ruling class. He described the policy as one the "problems." The weakening of the allies of that "risks subverting our institutions, puts a American imperialism; the economic crippling of premium on furtiveness at the highest places, the semicolonial world, which is brutally reflect creates an obsession with what is banally-and, ed in the conditions in America's colony Puerto for the most part, improperly-called 'national Rico; American capitalism's own "stagflation" security' and provides a factious justification for all preclude solving the underlying economic and trespasses on individual freedom." social problems capitalism imposes on the However, the source of the dangers that Ball majority of the world's population. describes so well hardly lies with the personal idiosyncrasies of Kissinger. And that was why Ball and his associates were incapable of Detente Turning to the diplomatic side of this situation, enunciating any alternative. Kissinger's course, detente remains a component of American such as it is, reflects the harsh realities facing foreign policy, in spite of Ford's electioneering the American ruling class as it heads into the decision to drop the term. Not a single one of the 1980s. conditions that gave birth to detente has It reflects the decline of U.S. power and the changed. There is no realistic alternative course uncontrollable upsurges of the class struggle the open to the American ruling class for the time world over. It reflects what is happening in the 'In a recent speech Kissin being. In fact, detente is central to their efforts to United States as a result of the changing world ger formulated the liistori muddle through. situation and the new limitations imposed on the Detente was based on the new realities of world U.S. ruling class by the awareness of the cal outlook of the American politics, not just on ideas in Richard Nixon's American people themselves. It reflects recogni head. It grew out of the dead end in Vietnam, tion of the growing social crisis on the European ruling class quite aptly: Our mutual nuclear destructive capacity between the continent and the specter of "Communist parties country, he said, may "soon USSR and the U.S., growing economic pressures, in power." and what Kissinger calls his greatest foreign The period in which we are living is marked by become an isolated fortress policy problem-the opposition of the American the fact that the United States is only one people to the use of American military force in member of a nuclear club that now includes island in a hostile and turb foreign countries. ulent global sea, awaiting This created a new situation which precluded a Jack Barnes is the national secretary of the the ultimate confrontation return to the cold-war strategy of rolling back the Socialist Workers party. He is coauthor of Iron Curtain. In fact, on Washington's side Towards an American Socialist Revolution with the only response we detente signified recognizing the status quo in (Pathfinder Press, 1971), A Revolutionary Strate Eastern Europe, recognizing the borders of the gy for the 70s (Pathfinder, 1972), and Prospects will not have denied workers states as they now exist. Although a for Sociali~m in America (Pathfinder, 1976). ourselves-massive retalia little battered, detente has already weathered the This article is based on a report given May 29 oil crisis, the depression of 1974-75, a Mideast to a meeting of the SWP National Committee. tion."' war, the defeat in Vietnam, the crisis in Portugal,
13 (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW/PAGE 4)
and Ford's debacle in Angola. Namibia but throughout sub-Saharan Africa, no The very things the American rulers need most On the side of the Soviet bureaucracy, detente one now doubts that new impetus has been given seem to be slipping away. The prospect of a is based on the need for economic aid, especially to the struggle for national and social liberation. confident, stable capitalist Europe, governed by advanced technology, and access to grain in the The American rulers had hoped they could stave strong bourgeois parties. that can be counted on, United States. These help cushion domestic it off for years, if not decades. sharing more and more of the burden of policing tensions arising from the incapacity of "social And then there is China. Even though it is the world and picking up the tab for the ism in one country" to meet the needs of the unclear who the players on the top are and what armaments budgets-that's a fading vision. Not masses. they stand for, it would be a big mistake to since the consolidation of their victory in World In exchange, the American imperialists get underestimate the importance of what is happen War II have America's rulers been faced by so some help in policing the world and maintaining, ing in that nation of 800 million people in the Far . grim a perspective. as best they can, the precarious division into East. Peking is tightly linked to the State It is worth taking a closer look at developments spheres of influence. Both sides, hoisting their Department's plans and the detente balancing in Europe, along with the specter of "Communist nuclear umbrellas, try to freeze the class struggle acts of the American ruling class. China is in the power." What is behind this great fear? What is around the globe. throes of a new upheaval and no one knows behind the drumbeating by Kissinger and his In different ways, both the American presiden where it can. lead, including its prominent fig colleagues that they will "not accept" Commun tial campaign-regardless of the fulminations of ures. ist parties in the governments of major capitalist Reagan and Jackson-and the recent Twenty Moreover, for the first time there is evidence of countries in Europe? fifth Congress of the Communist party of the independent activity on the part of at least a Behind the bellicose rhetoric, the truculent Soviet Union have reaffirmed the mutually sector of the Chinese workers and youth-the diplomacy, the saber-rattling for electoral pur agreed-upon course of detente. layers the Chinese bureaucracy fears most. On poses, there are two elements of prominent that point they share nightmares with Ford, importance· for understanding what is happening Kissinger, Humphrey, and the rest. in Europe today and the implications of these Unpredictability and Explosiveness developments for the class struggle in the United The Internationalization of Watergate States and elsewhere. One is the depth of the But there is one great impediment in the way. Japan, whose booming economy was particu social crisis in Europe, which is more reminiscent The very prize that both the American rulers and larly hard hit by the oil crisis and world of the 1920s and 1930s than anything we have the Soviet bureaucracy are after-stability, class recession, was affected in an unexpected way by seen, in recent decades. The other is the advan peace, maintenance of the status quo-is exactly the Lockheed scandal. It suddenly came to light cing disintegration and vulnerability of world what detente cannot produce for them. Along that top figures in the Japanese government Stalinism. with the ebbing of American power, the second were involved in payoffs from the underworld First, we have to estimate the economic and major factor facing the American rulers is the and American big business. social crisis and the resultant radicalization of instability, the challenges to the status quo, the This is a striking example of a worldwide important sections of the European working ceaseless turmoil of the world situation, the phenomenon that could be called-for lack of a class. This is partially a result of one of the unpredictability of outbreaks. Who would have better term-the internationalization of Water important "successes" of American foreign gate. policy-the economic offensive begun in 1971 Not only was the White House engaging in with the Nixon-Connally wage freeze, the wage criminal activities, not only were the FBI and cutback campaign, and the foreign trade offen other agencies acting in the same way, and long sive, an offensive that was carried forward before Watergate; not only did the crimes affect during the oil crisis and the 1974-1975 depres the Socialist Workers Party, the NAACP, the sion. This tough economic policy, which_ brought Black Panthers, the labor movement, and others substantial victories to the American ruling class in this country-this was being duplicated all vis-a-vis its Italian, French, and British competi over the worlp. The violation of their own laws tors, has had some other results as well. The very was not just the "excessive policy" of an success of the American monopolists has deep unbridled J. Edgar Hoover, but a concerted, ened the social crises in these countries. consistent policy of the ruling class as a whole, of a number of its governmental agencies, of the On the U.S. side, in order to attain the labor bureaucracy, of the heads of the giant capitalists' economic goals, the Nixon offensive monopolies of American imperialism. They were meant reversing the few social concessions of the actually involved in forming, supporting, giving 1960s. Their administrators probed to see what instructions to, and installing and keeping in levels of unemployment they could get away power the key bourgeois parties in some of the with. To their amazement they pushed it to 10 major capitalist countries in the world. percent with no big kickback. They probed to see It has now been publicly admitted that the what kinds of cutbacks they could engineer, to Christian Democrats in Italy and the Liberal see how big an increase in military spending Democrats in Japan were creatures of this they could push through. They have been successful beyond their fondest hopes. Such JACK BARNES Nelson Blackstock combination. They were put together and fi nanced in a secret alliance between the American progress on the domestic front allowed them to rulers, the bourgeois figures in these countries, step up the attack on their business rivals their respective mafias, and the CIA. These abroad. said several years ago that Portugal and Angola weren't secondary opposition parties. They were The two competitive devaluations of the dollar were next in line? the main ruling bourgeois formations. One of plus the use of food produced by the giant One example is the Middle East, where. no force them-in Italy-has been the governing party for American agribusiness monopolies as an eco has been able to stabilize the situation. Despite three decades. nomic, political, and social weapon have yielded the collaboration of various Arab regimes from As the international economic and social crisis some surprising results in the world trade offen time to time, neither Washington nor Moscow has deepened, those forces that many hoped sive. can stop the struggle against the racist colonial would . never be heard from-the oppressed The Economist of London ran an important settler state of Israel; they cannot stop the class nationalities, the women, the youth opposed to article in its April 17, 1976, issue summarizing struggle. That is true throughout the region, not militarism and war, the prisoners-are being one of the key results of this offensive: "In terms just at the current flash points of Lebanon and heard from more and more in those places too. It of the floating dollar, America's wage costs plus the West Bank. is fitting that the latest Italian government was fringe benefits are no longer much higher than Now there is a new development, one that had brought down by the abortion-rights struggle of those of workers in northern Europe. Sometimes been rumored, but was only recently confirmed. the Italian women and by the exposure of the they are lower: in mid-1975 hourly labour costs The Israeli regime has begun to produce nuclear U.S. government-Lockheed scandal. This can be for employing an American shipworker were bombs. The carefully timed leaks printed in Time considered as an ironic manifestation of "Ameri $7.06, against $8.07 for a Swede and $7.46 for a and Newsweek in April disclosed the develop canization" abroad. German." ment of an Israeli nuclear arsenal. They also The same trends are noticeable in steel and revealed that these weapons were assembled for auto. Of course, this shift should not be exagger use on the eve of the October 1973 war and that it ated. The wage gap between the United States was advance knowledge of this nuclear threat Crisis in Europe and its rivals has certainly not been eliminated. that provoked the Soviet government's reaction The political instability and nsmg social But what seemed only a dream to the American at that time. turmoil in capitalist Europe have been unnerving rulers a decade ago is within reach. In several Regardless of the desires of the American to the American rulers. That continent is where major industries, wage levels may well be lower rulers, the Israelis are developing delivery American foreign policy, which included colossal in the U.S. than in some European countries. · systems for these nuclear weapons that are not material aid under the Marshall Plan, had The. same Economist article explained another only capable of reaching Cairo and Damascus, supposedly worked a post-World War II "mira disadvantage facing capitalist enterprises based but even a number of major Russian cities. cle," creating the strongest concentration of in Europe: "Job security laws and customs in Another feature of the instability is its perva- satellite powers. Now even the most optimistic Europe are an even greater grouse. During a "' siveness in the semicolonial world, which has official spokesmen recognize the depth of the slump American companies lay off workers to cut been devastated by the world recession. Here growing social crisis of European capitalism. output and reduce wage bills. Most American there seems to be one-and only one-form of Instead of moving toward Common Market employees are on contracts that permit a single "stability" that the American monopolists feel unity, which would reinforce stability, as they week's notice. The unions cooperate in picking they can rely on. That is military dictatorships, had hoped, Western Europe is moving toward the men who will be given dismissal slips; those the more ruthless the better. The most recent greater disunity, sharpening competition, and laid off are rehired when demand picks up again; example was the Argentine coup, while the increasing social unrest. The strongest countries, American workers with the longest service murderous Pinochet regime in Chile remains the like Germany, grow at the expense of the weaker customarily get their jobs back first. Such model. · ones, like Italy. But the crises of the weaker economic Darwinism is an historical curiosity in In Africa, not only in Angola, Zimbabwe, and threaten to pull down the entire edifice. most European countries."
14 (PAGE 5/lNTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW)
One column in the New York Times had an even more delicate way of explaining the advantage to the bosses of the minimal job security that results from the decades of craven 'In Angola, Zim- class collaborationism of the American labor bureaucracy. He wrote that any "labor-cost babwe, Namibia, disparity may be wholly or partially offset by the flexibility that management typically has in the and throughout sub United States to adapt output and employment to Saharan Africa, changing demand conditions. Abroad, these prerogatives are often severely restrained by new impetus has statute, by labor agreements or by tradition." These are some of the reasons for the tremen been given to the dous success of the American employers' nation struggle for nation al and international economic offensive that began in 1970 and accelerated during the oil al and social Iibera- crisis and the world recession. It is all based on the fact that the bosses were able to carry tion.' through their drive against the real wages, working conditions, and standard of living of the American working class with minimal resist ance. Among the consequences of this "successful" drive has been the relative weakening of Japan. It has also weakened the capitalist governments in the semicolonial world. There is not a single really stable semicolonial regime anywhere; the dictatorships sit on social powder kegs. Capital ist Europe itself has become more vulnerable, especially in the south. The hope is that Ger many will continue to play a strong and stabilizing role. But even that bastion cannot hold out indefinitely. The crucial dilemma is clear. The very "successes" of high-powered American economic competition undermine capi talism elsewhere. To a growing extent the struggle is not simply between Europe and America but between the Communists win, while he is covertly aiding the places. In addition to a radicalization of the strong imperialist powers and the weak, in which Christian Democrats in a holy crusade against working class and the labor movement as a the very successes of the strong further under communism? Such a course would sound like a whole, the women, the oppressed nationalities, mine the weak and thus threaten the entire pipe dream either in the U.S. or in Italy. Yet that the foreign workers who have been incorporated system. This in turn exacerbates relations within is precisely what Washington got away with in in large numbers into· the economies of the the North Atlantic alliance, that bloc of imperial Italy in 1947-48. advanced countries of Europe, the youth who will ist competitors aligned ·against the Soviet Union Today, in fact, the probability is that every have to fight the wars if they come, the students and against the world working class. Every time Kissinger or Ford or Alexander Haig gives a who want a decent education-all these radicaliz single problem that was supposed to be solved by speech about how they "cannot accept" the CP in ing forces assert themselves. Quite simply, they Kissinger's "Year of Europe"-that was 1973- any Italian government, the Communist party want socialism as the alternative to capitalism. has been exacerbated. Perhaps 1977 will be the wins thousands more votes. This is the heart of the question. Year of Europe-but in an opposite sense to what The moral standing of the American rulers has In this framework the Communist parties in Kissinger had in mind. dropped to bottom level. After Vietnam, after countries like France and Italy face a basic The basic conflict among the Atlantic allies is Watergate, after Lockheed, after all the events of problem. They are in competition with the over who pays for depression and who pays for the last decade and a half, the pretenses of Socialist parties (and to some degree with forces increasing competition. The notion that there American democracy, of America as the anticolo further to the left-centrist and revolutionary would be a single Common Market evolving nialist power, of America as the moral beacon, organizatiQns) for the adherence of the very same toward a single European entity in which the have been destroyed. There is little confidence in workers. The key question for them is how to strong would help the weak, in which unemploy the reality of American "ideals," or Washing attract these workers, how to hold their alle ment would be spread around, has become a will ton's grand designs. The peoples of Europe know giance, how to grow, how to increase their voting o'-the-wisp. Far from any capitalist United States that the American government's ideal of a stable, strength. of Europe, the strong are increasingly adamant successful ally is Brazil or Iran. They know how about their refusal to help the weak-except the U.S. ruling class approaches the difficulties The CPs daim to represent the legacy of the insofar as it is in their interests. The German of a New York City-cutbacks, layoffs, squeezes Russian rf:volution. They claim to be more imperialists look at Italy in about the same way on the working people. militant in industrial struggles. They claim a as Washington looks at New York City. The American press has not indicated the full special relationship with the "bastion of world The second big problem facing the imperialist effect on the domestic politics of Italy and Japan peace," the Soviet Union. But all that is no bourgeoisies, pressed by these worsening eco of the partial exposures of the role of the CIA and longer enough. They also have to clean them nomic and social conditions, is military. How to American· corporations since World War II. These selves up a bit from the filth of Stalinism. organize-or reorganize-the policing of the developments go beyond the simple internation This is no longer the 1930s, 1940s, or 1950s, world? How to get someone else to pay a bigger alization of Watergate. They betoken the end of when millions of working people in France and share of the arms cost? How to get gendarmes? an era when ruling bourgeois parties in major Italy believed that anything negative said about How to make it possible for American imperial imperialist countries could be created, financed, the Sovriet Union was probably a lie being spread ism to start intervening again with troops? If not and kept in power by the American ruling class by bourgeois secret police, capitalist agents, etc. with their own troops to begin with, then with and its worldwide network of spies, industrial Those na'ive days are gone forever. The Stalinists troops from some other imperialist or satellite ists, bankers, and hoodlums. That is coming to have to refurbish their image. They must not country. How to strengthen NATO? How to an inglorious close. only be associated with the Soviet Union, they increase war budgets in France, in Italy, in must simultaneously not be identified with the Britain, when the masses are demanding just the most notorious policies of the Stalinist bureauc opposite? Kissinger and European Stalinism racy. They have to counter public knowledge that The third big headache is the role of the United This is the new context in which the question dissenting workers and intellectuals in the USSR States itself. What sort of political help can the of Communist party participation in the govern are sent to insane asylums, that there is no U.S. rulers give? ments of Italy, France, Spain, and elsewhere freedom of the press, no freedom of assembly, no It is useful to recall what American imperial arises. In a period of growing social crisis, of right to emigrate, no right to strike, no right to ism was able to do a few decades ago. The economic pressure, of working-class radicaliza self-determination for oppressed nationalities, no Truman administration openly and crudely tion, the masses of Western Europe are attracted liberation for women, and that "socialism with a intervened with the navy, the CIA, the threat of to the Communist and Socialist parties. human face" will be obliterated by Soviet tanks. troops, massive amounts of secret subsidies, At root, this is not a complicated or unprece They can't carry that albatross around their campaign speeches by the American ambassador dented matter. They want jobs and stable prices, necks and still win the mass of workers away and his military attaches, to put the govern a decent and rising standard of living. They from the SP in advanced capitalist countries. ments and parties they wanted in office in want expanded rights, not new restrictions. They Thus the Stalinists have to lay claim to their Greece, Italy, and Japan. The relationship of want an end to · the terrible uncertainty that own "national road to socialism," proclaiming a class forces on a world scale made it possible for hangs over their lives under capitalism. They "union of the left" in France or a "historical the American ruling class to proceed in this want an end to militarism and to the increasing compromise" in Italy. In reality, these are in no manner. threat of nuclear war. They want the right to way roads to socialism, national or otherwise, But who can imagine the occupant of the White choose their own government, not have it thrust and there is nothing new or innovative about House going on television today to announce upon them by the American ruling class and them. They are simply old vinegar in new bottles, that in order to help the Christian Democrats in financed by the CIA. They want an end to a catchy proposal for winning mass support for Italy he plans to send the Seventh Fleet into exploitation, to racism, to xenophobia, to sexism, the CPs' long-established aim of sharing respon Italian waters, to threaten to land marines if the to national oppression, to corruption in high sibility for governing Italy and France as
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'Thousands upon thou sands of workers are moving toward the Com munist and Socialist par ties in search of a leader ship capable of fighting for their interests and for socialism. They will not find what they want in those parties and will be looking for alternatives. The openings today for building mass revolution ary parties surpass any thing we have seen for decades.'
CP rally in Verona, Italy
capitalist states, as they did immediately after economic problems that bother the people of the and of NATO, Kissinger sees a weighty differ the war. country." ence between the CP and the SP. The SP is much But this is not obvious to the millions who vote The result, as Kissinger outlined in an April13 more dependable. The SP leadership, based on for the CP. What they want and what the statement, is that "this, in tum, is going to the labor aristocracy in its own country, loyally Stalinist bureaucrats want are two different produce governments in which the degree of manages the affairs and defends the interests of things. cooperation that has become characteristic of its own ruling class. Atlantic relations will become increasingly The CP and its leadership is. . a slightly Impact on SPs and Eastern Europe difficult, in which their own internal priorities different kettle of fish. The CP and SP are not This process has an impact on the Social are going to be away from concern with defense, differentiated from each other on the basis of Democratic parties in these countries too. This which will produce new opportunities for outside program, method, and aim. Both are class was certainly true in Portugal for a certain pressure and a move toward a more neutralist collaborationist. If the party labels were removed period after 1974. It is true today in Spain, where conception of foreign policy." from the programs of the Italian and French SPs the Socialist party is trying to make up for lost Kissinger emphasized what he considered to be and CPs and the terminology homogenized a bit, ground. It may well be true in other places in the the three great problems involved in sharing no one could tell which belonged to which. future. governmental power in Western Europe with The essential difference between the two kinds In countries like Spain, formerly underground Communist parties. Problem one is that "Com of workers parties resides in the relationship of Socialist parties that have a very limited number munist parties have Leninist, or authoritarian the CPs to the Soviet bureaucracy-regardless of of cadres can rapidly develop left wings. This organizations." That is for the record. Authori any critical opinions members and heads of a CP doesn't mean that such SPs are capable of tarianism doesn't bother Washington, as can be may voice. Without their special relationship to charting a revolutionary course any more than seen in the cases of the Chilean and Iranian Moscow the CPs would erase the partition that the CPs can. It doesn't mean that the current regimes. separates them from the Social Democracy. It is leaderships of the SPs are reformable. But this Number two, "they would inevitably decrease this special tie of the CPs to the Soviet bureauc SP-CP competition, in a period of growing their countries' spending on defense against the racy that presents the capitalists with their upsurge and class radicalization, can lead to Soviet bloc." And three, "they would conduct vexing problem. some surprising developments and openings for policies quite different from the pro-Western ones It is quite evident what the American bourgeoi revolutionists in these countries, especially the now practiced." sie favors. They want the Christian Democracy weaker ones, as occurred in Portugal. And the In this difficult situation, Kissinger has stated, in power in Italy, the Gaullists in power in ability of revolutionists to make the appropriate "truculence toward the Soviets, with everyone France, the Tories in power in Britain, the tum in light of this will be very important. beating his chest, would create a situation in Liberal Democrats in power in Japan. But they, Over time the more critical stance of the big which opinion leaders and youth would say that and especially their colleagues in Europe, have to Western European CPs toward Moscow also has we are needlessly jeopardizing peace. This would answer a very difficult question. significant effects in Eastern Europe on the start the kind of debate that paralyzed us in the What parties can administer the severe austeri prospects for political revolution there. Vietnam War." ty programs that capitalism needs, and keep Dissenting workers and intellectuals in East From the point of view of the class he serves, social peace at the same time? What parties have em Europe or in the USSR hear that the Kissinger sized things up fairly well. The masses the best chance of keeping the increasingly leaderships of the big Communist parties in the are attracted to the CPs and the SPs because radicalized masses accepting wage-freeze poli West are making criticisms, demanding that the they want socialism, not because they want cies, stepping up productivity in the factories and Ukrainian dissident Leon~d Plyushch be allowed "Communists" or "Socialists" to manage austeri offices, and staying off the streets? to emigrate, denouncing the use of insane ty programs for the capitalist class. Secondly, This question points to the importance of the asylums as concentration camps. This raises an electoral successes by the CP and by the SP raise CPs in the eyes of the ruling class as the social obvious question. Why should a French CP the expectations of the masses too much, embold political crises deepen. leader attending a CPSU congress in Moscow en the workers, the women, the youth, the have more right to free speech than a citizen of immigrant workers, the oppressed nationalities. the "land of socialism"? This encourages them to press forward and can The Disintegration and As was confirmed in Hungary in 1956 and in even impel them well to the left of the CPs and Decline of World Stalinism Czechoslovakia in 1968, even interbureaucratic SPs they put in government. The l&st thing these What are these "Communist" parties? What is debate and dissensions begin to open doors and sectors of the population have in mind is electing the nature and degree of this recent "critical" to unintentionally encourage politicalization and a CP or SP government .just to have it spend independence they are exhibiting? Where does it independent mobilization. more money to buy more missiles. come from? What are these political personages Kissinger speaks the truth when he says it is who are going to be sharing cabinet posts sooner Specter of CPs in Governments or later? - not a question of the reasonableness of a given The American ruling class is genuinely con It is worth stepping back and taking a broader cerned about the prospects of governmental CP. He knows that the ruling classes can make arrangements with a Berlinguer, with a Mar look at what has happened in the world Stalinist coalitions in Europe that include CP ministers. chais, with a Cunhal, regardless of what they movement. This will bring forward the question Kissinger expounded his views on this at length say or don't say about the worst excesses of the that is being debated by radicals around the before a meeting of American ambassadors in Soviet bureaucracy. The capitalist rulers know world: can the CPs still be considered, character Europe last December. that these men and their colleagues are not ized, and treated as Stalinist parties? Haven't "One thing is clear," he said, "the dominance proletarian revolutionists, but class collabora these parties, which "dogmatic" Trotskyists of Communist parties in the West is unaccept tionists through and through. That is not the insist on referring to as Stalinist, really become able. This has nothing to do with the reasonable problem. The hooker is that big class forces can something else? Aren't they well on the road to ness of these parties or with the degree of their unintentionally be set in motion, because the becoming facsimiles of Social Democratic parties independence with Russia." workers believe less in class collaboration than in some countries, and in other, more radicalized We must remember, he went on, that "the do their misleaders. countries aren't they now really centrist forma primary appeal of Communists to the electorate tions that may even project a revolutionary has to do with their position on · social and From the point of view of the Atlantic Alliance orientation and be pressured into leading a
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struggle for power if the upsurge of the masses allies. accepted in principle and in practice. and the "far left" is strong enough to make them Second, peaceful coexistence and popular swing in that direction? What do Stalinists Hold in Common? frontism are accepted by every Stalinist party. For answers to these questions, one cannot If all this is true, doesn't that tend to support National and internationalclass collaboration is simply look at these parties as they appear the argument that there are few genuine Stalinist a fundamental guideline. They see no violation of today. We have to begin with the Stalinized parties around anymore? Haven't some of them Marxist principles or working-class interests in Comintern, with the theory of "socialism in one evolved basically into Social Democratized par such a line. country" and its correlative of class collabora ties and some into centrist parties-or at least Third, without exception, every Stalinist party tion. We have to see the disintegration and aren't they rapidly evolving along these lines? accepts the "two-stage theory" of the develop weakening of world Stalinism since 1956, caught To answer this question it is necessary to ment of the class struggle. They may not call it between the rise of the proletarian revolution in determine: Is there something essential that that any more; they talk less and less about the the West and the forces moving toward political every one of these parties, regardless of its second stage. But that is what it amounts to. revolution in the degenerated or deformed work professed independence from or criticism of the Next on our century's agenda is the "antimonop ers states. From this historical point of view the Soviet CP, holds in common? The answer is yes, oly coalition," "advanced democracy," "people's "historic compromise" in Italy, the degree of and that is what still defines them as Stalinist power" -or whatever the code word may be in independence of the CP in France or in Spain, organizations. any particular country for the Stalinists' goal of are further steps down a well-established road. Let us first consider those who look to the a class-collaborationist capitalist regime that is Long before the Comintern was dissolved, Soviet Union rather than to China, since they friendly to the Soviet Union. That is considered Trotsky predicted it could not last. He insisted compose a larger and much more important bloc. to be the indispensable next stage, without that the rise and bloody consolidation of the But the same basic features hold good for the pro exception. Someday, somehow, it will be followed Soviet bureaucracy (a social caste more petty Peking parties as well. by the second stage, "socialism," like in the bourgeois in character than proletarian), the The first principle that these parties stand on Soviet Union. establishment of a national socialist outlook as is that the degenerated Soviet Union remains Fourth-and this is important for differentiat the guiding ideology of this formation, and the their model for socialism. They reject workers ing Stalinists from the Social Democracy-they direct material, social, and political corruption of democracy. They reject the Marxist and Leninist all claim to trace their roots back to the October the Communist parties around the world spelled concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat with 1917 revolution in Russia. They try to justify the doom of the Comintern. its immensely democratic forms. This dismissal their policies in Leninist language or Marxist Trotsky has been proved right. The last is not just a matter of terminology or electoral theory. While the Social Democrats as a rule tend congress of the Comintern was the seventh, held cosmetics; it concerns the heart of the to justify what they do in the name of Western or in 1935. In 1943, as a little present to Roosevelt, revolutionary-socialist program. Every single one parliamentary democracy, the Stalinists disguise Stalin junked the Comintern. That was a first their twists and turns in the name of "socialism" overt organizational consequence of the logic and and "Marxism." practice of national bureaucratic "socialism" on This results in gross perversion of the lan the world arena. 'After Vietnam, after Wa guage of Leninism. The dictatorship of the After the Yalta and Tehran period, marking proletariat, instead of signifying the democratic the settlements of World War II, a postwar tergate, after Lockheed, af class rule of the overwhelming majority of the makeshift replaced the Comintern. In September people, the toilers, turns into its opposite: the 1947 an organ entitled For a Lasting Peace, For a ter all the events of the last brutal totalitarianism of a small minority, a People's Democracy announced the birth of the decade and a half, the pre bureaucratic caste. Proletarian internationalism Communist Information Bureau, or Cominform. becomes the subordination of the working class Its life was much shorter than the Comintern's. tenses of American democ of every country to the diplomatic needs of· It lasted for exactly three meetings. Brezhnev and friends. The last meeting, in late 1949, announced that racy, of America as the Finally, there are two organizational principles Tito and all his colleagues, as well as the anticolonialist power, of that all Stalinist parties hold in common. One is indigenous Stalinist rulers in Hungary, Ruma explicit, the other not. nia, Bulgaria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, were America as the moral bea- First, the emergency measure taken by the assassins, bourgeois spies, Zionists, and infiltrat Te~th Congress of the Communist party of the ed by Trotskyists. Moscow-type trials swept the con have been destroyed.'· Soviet Union in March 1921 to temporarily capitals of Eastern Europe. That was the last act prohibit factional activities is viewed as a of "proletarian internationalism" performed by permanent injunction rigorously enforced to this the Cominform. It became defunct after that. Its day. This includes those parties such as the belated death notice was announced to the press of the Stalinist parties rejects the most democrat Italian CP that claim to be the most democratic in early 1956. ic of regimes yet developed, which Lenin and internally. Of course, the inevitable result is Beginning in mid-1953, and ending in 1956, Trotsky stood for and fought for. This is the permanent secret factionalism, rampant cliqu explosions took place in East Berlin, Poland, and democratic rule of the workers themselves, in and ism, and continuous internecine warfare. The Hungary. This was followed by the first "world through council-type organizations. Their model rest of the world and the party learns who the gathering" of Communist parties. The Stalinized for a socialist'regime remains the bureaucratized winners and losers are only when the fight is Comintern couldn't last through the second Soviet Union-perhaps cleaned up and reformed over and the winners "explain" what the losers imperialist war, and the Cominform survived for a little, without insane asylums used as political really were-capitalist roaders, Trotskyites, three meetings. The subsequent "world gather prisons, etc. But no socialist democracy. agents of foreign powers, revisionists, or what ings"· of Communist parties were convened only They all maintain that in the fundamental ever. twice. The first meeting was in 1957. There historical struggle between the opposing pro Second, every Stalinist party, regardless of Khrushchev publicly confirmed the revelations grams and objectives of Stalin and Trotsky, . what its leaders say about the bad old days on Stalin's despotism, adding even more to what Stalin was correct. Stalin may have made errors. under Stalin, has a leader cult, to one degree he had said a year earlier at· the Twentieth He was murderous, crude, paranoid, etc., etc. But or another. These parties have to have a Congress of the CPSU. at that turning point in the 1920s when the bureaucratic arbiter, some final authority to The second world gathering of Communist future of the Soviet Union and world communism ajudicate conflicts within their own leaderships parties came in 1960. At that meeting the had to be decided, Stalin was correct as against and in their relations with the Soviet bureaucra Chinese attacked the Yugoslavs. The Soviets . Trotsky, and the defeat of the Left Opposition cy. That is precisely one of the roles Gus Hall attacked the Albanians. Both were surrogates for was necessary for the building of "socialism." plays, like a caricature, in the American Com the real targets aimed at by Moscow and Peking. Second, all the Stalinist parties accept the munist party. That is the role played by Mar And yet, as at all previous meetings of the Soviet bureaucracy's thesis that, in view of the chais in the French CP, and Berlinguer in the Stalinized Comintern and Cominform, a set of extended character of this epoch of transition Italian. Whoever replaces them if they are unanimous documents was adopted by all from capitalism to socialism, the sine qua non of dumped will fulfill the same role. present. That facade of unity was the last time the march toward socialism is detente, peaceful all the CPs got together. It marked the further coexistence, peaceful competition with capital disintegration and growing vulnerability of ism. Above all, what is necessary is time for the The Contradictions of Stalinism world Stalinism. Soviet Union to demonstrate whaL a socialist But the efforts of the Halls, Brezhnevs, economy can achieve and to gain more and more Marchaises, and Berlinguers to clean up ·the Subsequent semblances of "world gatherings" authority in the world. This, and not the image of the CPs can't overcome the contradic degenerated into invitations to attend Soviet CP international socialist revolution, is the para tions of a decaying Stalinism. These continue to congresses as honored guests. The Twenty-first mount goal. The class struggle the world over unfold inexorably. Congress in 1959 was followed by the Twenty must be subordinated to these goals. In the postcapitalist countries there is, first of second in 1961, which featured sharp open What are the "theoretical" underpinnings of all, the contradiction between the nationalized attacks on the Chinese CP. In 1967, 1971, and at these general Stalinist positions? means of production and bureaucratic planning the just-concluded Twenty-fifth Congress of 1976, One, they accept the theory of socialism in one by the government, which produces dispropor each has witnessed a further evolution of the country. They believe it is possible and impera tions and dislocations owing to unfulfilled "polycentrism" of the national socialism of the tive to establish socialism in a single country. To production goals, agricultural crises, waste, etc. bureaucracies, accentuating the weakness of be sure, it would be very 11ice if all other countries There can be no basic solution to those deepgoing world Stalinism as such. So the unfolding class could enjoy the advantages that are to be seen in problems other than the democratic control of struggle and the results of Stalinism have taken countries like the Soviet Union or China. economic planning by the workers themselves their toll. But, pending that far-off event, it is possible to through their own councils. From Comintern, to Cominform, to fraternal establish socialism in one country if the workers A second contradiction is created by the very gatherings of world Communist parties, to sacrifice enough, if the workers' leaders are success of a planned economy, which brings a invitations to the congresses of the CPSU. Such flexible enough, if the advanced workers abroad higher standard of living for the great mass of have been the milestones in the disintegration of have a high enough level of class consciousness. people and a rising cultural and political level. that world force headquartered in Moscow Without exception, this theory-or rather, Their ability and desire to democratically govern pretending to fight for the workers and their rationalization-of socialism in one country is themselves comes into growing conflict with the
17 (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEWIPAG~ 8)
'From Comintern, to Cominform, to gatherings of world Communist parties, to invitations to at tend the congresses of the CPSU-such have been the mile- stones in the disin tegration of that world force head quartered in Mos cow pretending to fight for the work ers and their allies.'
Representatives of other CPs observe as Brezhnev addresses 25th Congress of CPSU
unbridled domination of the bureaucratic caste interests of a caste, not by the conditions that leadership capable of fighting for their interests and its material privileges. gave rise to such a social formation. and for socialism. They will not find what they Third, each Stalinist party in power has its 2. Stalinism does not simply refer to that want in those parties and will be looking for own material base and narrow interests, and in period when the subordination of Communist alternatives. The openings before revolutionary the struggle to maintain its own privileges it parties to the Kremlin was complete and total, socialists for constructing mass revolutionary must inevitably come into conflict with the when no one could demur at Stalin's decisions no parties surpass anything we have seen for bureaucratic castes of other countries. Once the matter how brutal or irrational they might be. decades. guideline of national socialism-socialism in one 3. Stalinism is not simply a term designating country-is adopted, and once there exists a the kind of police-state apparatus that existed Effects at Home voracious social caste that draws its tribute and during the worst period of the Moscow trials and The growing interdependence between the privileges from the monopolization of power in purges. United States and the rest of the world means one workers state, by its very nature this caste 4. The phenomenon of Stalinism is not restrict that the consequences of American foreign policy must come into conflict with comparable castes ed to the period of extreme economic poverty in have effects ·here at home. The turmoil, the elsewhere. the Soviet Union. That poverty was crucial to its uncertainty, the instability, are felt more and This makes intelligible the Tito break, the origins but not to its maintenance. more acutely. Sino-Soviet dispute, the conflicts between the 5. The criticisms of the Italian and French There is discomfort over the fact that every USSR and the Eastern European states. Far leaders do not represent a qualitative turn, but time our capitalist "friends" abroad get in from being inexplicable accidents, they were the continuation of a process bound up with the inevitable. ·Such breaks are a fundamental trouble, the solution imposed or favored by the weakening of world Stalinism. They represent an U.S. government seems to be a new military feature of world Stalinism and must lead to its attempt by parties that remain Stalinist to the dictatorship, a new regime of sadistic torturers. weakening and disintegration as a world force. core to attract radicalizing workers and to There is a growing feeling that the era is well The fourth contradiction is that the sum of compete more effectively with the Social Democ over in which Lockheed, other big business class-collaborationist policies in the world, under racy as labor lieutenants of the capitalist class, concerns, the liberal Democrats, the CIA, and whatever guise, cannot control or stop the class interested in maintaining the status quo. gangsters can agree among themselves on how struggle for any length of time. It continues to 6. We have seen no transformations of Com to rule the capitalist world and how to divide up surge beyond the grasp of every bureaucrat, munist parties into either Social Democratic or the booty. There is a new realization that the dictator, or dedicated class-collaborationist. centrist parties. Short of a deepgoing split with crimes committed on this level involved more Finally, another contradiction continues to Moscow (or Peking), both of these roads are than a few individuals or greedy corporations. trouble the Stalinist bureaucracies. This is the blocked off. To move too far in either of these Such crimes are part and parcel of the evolution false claim that they represent the Russian directions would mean the disintegration of a of a rapacious, brutal, declining class. It isn't just revolution, that they are the continuators of the Stalinist party. that they murdered Martin Luther King and ideas of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Their refusal If the Soviet Union had gone back to capital Malcolm X or that John Kennedy used Mafia hit to explicitly disown the teachings of the great ism, the character and evolution of the Commun men and pimps. The entire ruling class has used founders of scientific socialism, their insistence ist parties would have been different. Trotsky Mafia hit and bag men on an international scale on rationalizing each twist and turn of their often presented the stakes in the evolution of the for decades. It's all part of business as usual. endeavors with some bowdlerized quotation from first workers state as: forward to socialism or This deep alienation, disaffection, disenchant . Marx or Lenin, continually generates interest in back to capitalism. That remains an unresolved ment, cynicism is very much evidenced in the genuine Marxism and Leninism. The challenge question on the world-historical scale. But for elections this year. As many of the bourgeois to go back to or live up to Lenin or Marx is one of nearly five decades history has developed along commentators have noted, the primaries are the ideological spurs to the coming political another variant. The USSR neither decisively inspiring some of the lowest voter turnouts of the revolution. went forward to socialism nor back to capitalism. century. Candidates are "winning" some prima Meanwhile, twentieth-century history keeps The counterrevolution took the form of bureau ries with the votes of only 3 percent of the pointing a silent finger toward the one name that cratic degeneration or deformations, and that electorate. Only a tiny percentage of registered can't be invoked by the Stalinists-that of has determined the character of Stalinist parties. Black voters are bothering to vote, and registra Trotsky. Regardless of how much a Communist If the Social Democracy did not exist, that tion is declining. party scrubs its surface, or with what bright new would open another option for the evolution of In some of these articles on the alienation of image it adorns itself, there is one thing it cannot Stalinist parties. If the Social Democracy had voters, the professors quote C. Wright Mills, who do. It cannot genuinely rehabilitate Trotsky and been transformed into pure and simple bourgeois once noted that the great mass of people "lose the full range of his ideas. outfits, into parties with no base in the labor their will for rationally considered decision and The rehabilitation of Trotsky would not simply movement, that would change a great deal. If the action because they do not possess the instru mean the rehabilitation of a dead Marxist, but Social Democratic parties had evolved into ments for such decision and action; they lose the rehabilitation of living Marxism. And that is formations like the Tories or the Republican or their sense of political belonging because they do a mortal menace to Stalinism in any of its Democratic parties, instead of petty bourgeois or not belong; they lose their political will because variants. bourgeois currents within the framework of the they see no way to realize it." labor movement, it is possible that there would To put that in class terms, as long as there is What Stalinism is Not be room for the Stalinist parties to evolve and fill no party, no perspective, and no leadership of With this clarification of the characteristics of the political space now held by the Social their own, the working class and oppressed Stalinism it is easier to evaluate some of the Democracy. nationalities do not involve themselves enthu misconceptions concerning it. Many erroneous But neither of these "ifs" materialized. And siastically and in large numbers in any kind of ideas are circulated in the "new left" as people that demarcates the limits within which the political action. Here they show an elementary try to grapple with changing events and shifting vacillations and maneuvers of the Stalinist insight beyond the political acumen of their alignments, the actions of the French and Italian parties take place. misleaders. A person who does not go to the polls CPs, the threats by the American rulers, etc. This likewise gives the Fourth International to choose between Ford and Reagan, or Carter 1. Stalinism is not synonymous with its origin tremendous openings on a world scale within and Humphrey, shows greater wisdom than the in the rule of the parasitic Soviet bureaucracy in and around both the Stalinist and Social Demo bureaucrat or misleader who urges them to do so. the late 1920s and 1930s, a period of great defeats cratic milieus as the capitalist crisis deepens. On this level, the great handicap of the in the international class struggle. The basis of Thousands upon thousands of workers are working class and all the oppressed is the Stalinism is cdetermined by the needs and moving toward these parties in search of a conscious misleadership of those who chart a
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systematic policy of class collaboration, not class complementary to Washington's war policy. If you want to read more . . . struggle, on every front. Saber-rattling is a hallmark of their diplomacy. But just as the Stalinist bureaucracy cannot A new administration cannot and will not stop the class struggle on a world scale, the class change the substance of this foreign policy. Their Dynamics of World collaborationist misleaders of American labor whole existence as a class is at stake. They are cannot hold back the struggles that are on the making a historical stand-like the Southern Revolution Today agenda in this country. They cannot halt the slaveholders-and know they are making such a Broad overview of the development of the advancing social forces that are potentially the stand. class struggle internationally since World War most powerful on the face of the earth. Kissinger himself in a recent speech formulat II and tasks before revolutionists. $10.00, The crisis of the rulers forces them to try to ed the historical outlook of the American rulers paper $2.25. unload their problems on their allies and compet quite aptly: our country may soon ''become an itors abroad as well as the masses at home. But, isolated fortress island in a hostile and turbulent unlike the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, they will not global sea, awaiting the ultimate confrontation be able to do so with resounding success. On the with the only response we will not have denied Prospects for contrary, the attempt to export their difficulties ourselves-massive retaliation." That is a suicid only serves to deepen crises abroad and further al prospect. Socialism in America destabilize social and political class peace at Unfortunately, the doomed class that is on the By Jack Barnes and other leaders of the home. way out threatens to take us all down with them. Socialist Workers party. Analysis of how That is what Kissinger's massive retaliation is socialists can best relate to the changing all about. They cannot and will not reverse the Perspectives of a Doomed Class policy of massive arms budgets-the policy of consciousness of American working people, The American rulers rely in the final analysis direct, indirect, open, hidden, overt, covert the economic shocks of recent years, and the on the policy of force and violence. They have no military might-because ultimately they have no struggle against racism. $12.00, paper $2.95. other historical strategy. Theirs is not the other recourse. inspiring vision of reconstructing the economy For revolutionary socialists, the most import along the lines of scientific planning, which ant facto:r is the one Kissinger fears above all could end poverty on a world scale. They have else, "the divisions at home," the opposition to The Revolution exhausted most of their moral authority and war, to military adventures that are bred by have little political standing left in the eyes of American capitalism's drive for world domina Betrayed the world's population. tion. Preventing them from lashing out, and By Leon Trotsky. Historic analysis of why Thus their economic, social, and political eventually disarming them-that is the task of Stalinism arose and its contradictions. $10.00, policies boil down to the employment of force and the American workers. And it literally involves paper $3.25. violence-threatened or actual. Their foreign the survival of humanity. policy is militaristic. Open war if they can get Order from Pathfinder Press, 410 West St., away with it; covert war if they consider it New York, N.Y. 10014. necessary. Trade and financial policies are lrowiagllood: Powerlessaess, Alienation 'What representation of the people? They [the politi cians] don't even know who the people are.' This is the verdict of growing -numbers o'f people about American capitalist democracy, 200 years after its foundation.
Political Alienation In Contemporary America
By Robert S. Gilmour and Robert B. Lamb. St. Martin's Press, New York, 975. 198 pp.
By Nan Bailey
Listen to these voices.
"They're the biggest bunch of no good ~urns God ever let live! Isn't one of 'em since Kennedy 'at was good 'nough to run for dog catcher. Look at that Nixon! There isn't a bigger crook any where! an' the rest of 'em's just about as bad; just give 'em the chance. Who was that other fella? I must of voted for him; always do; always vote for the one that ain't had his chance to steal yet. Might as well give 'em all a chance to steal my money. Why, I'm givin' welfare to the politi cians!"
" .. .Iain't got nothin'. Ain' nobody up there in Wash'ton cares 'bout folks like me or my chil'ren. I use' ta think they was gonna do somethin', but no more. Now all they want is ta tell us whatto do. An' they ain' nothin' we can do."
"What representation of the people? They don't even know who the people are. The Democrats and Republicans are just the same. They only represent one thing: Number One, and maybe a crony or two."
"Why, who picks those politicians; we don't. We just choose one of the ones they pick. I don't see
Nan Bailey is the national chairperson of the Young Socialist Alliance and is also an associate editor of the International Socialist Review.
19 (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW/PAGE 10)
no difference between 'em. Half of 'em's crooked, Florida: alienation than men. Women were nearly twice an' the other half oughta be in jail." "You kiddin' me, man? Black people don' have' as likely to express extreme alienation in the no power in government. Those politicians don' 1972 election year. These are the words of alienated Americans do nothin' for me. Nothin'! Don' nobody doesn' just a few of the growing number who no longer have a million dollars gets any help, man, even if "Many women we interviewed relate their trust or believe in the politicians who run this they's white. . . . You think votin' in a black estrangement from government to "the position country. These people express the state of mind man in a city that's mostly black-that's black of women in society,'" Gilmour and Lamb report. of millions of other Americans toward the power? Man, that dude's gonna do what the "This is especially true of those who have been political system of capitalist democracy as it white man say an' what they give him money to educated beyond high school. Harriet, for exam stands 200 years after its foundation in 1776. do." . ple, holds a masters degree in educational These attitudes are a notable feature of this According to Gilmour and Lamb, no less than psychology hut had to disown her advanced presidential election year. 90 percent of Black Americans are "estranged" standing in order to land a job as a secretary James Reston wrote from California in a from the political system-that is, they feel a clerk. She watches helplessly while less-trained recent column in the New York Times:" . ..there combination of extreme alienation and disillu men treat her as an office functionary and push is a feeling of dissatisfaction out here in the end. sionment. All but 8 percent of Blacks indicated a by her both in pay and advancement. None of tne candidates have swept the country. lack of support for the government and its " 'This is all part of the system in this country,' " ...Over two-thirds of the eligible voters in leadership. Half said they would support an she says,'all the way to the very top, with Nixon the primary states didn't bother to go to the polls, independent Black political party, while almost telling women reporters what to wear at press and. you run into these drop-outs wherever you 25 percent more said they would support such a conferences. How can I respect or believe in a go .... party under the right circumstances. system that treats women like this, like flunkies "In no election since the last World War, have or slaves?' " the party, labor, business, or intellectual leaders What about older people? seemed so uncertain about the voters as they do Percentage Change in American Feelings of Political In 1972, extreme alienation was the response of this year." Distrust, Powerlessness, and Meaninglessness, 1956-1972 nearly 30 percent of Americans over sixty-five. While the number of qualified voters is greater Most of them were caught in the squeeze between today than ever, alienation and apathy are also 110r frozen Social Security benefits and double-digit at a higher level than ever before in our history. inflation. A recent Louis Harris poll rated alienation with 1001- Jack Budeau, a retired logger from Vermont, is the political system at 50 percent. in this bind:" 'This inflation's raisin' hell with What are the reasons for this? ,__ 96 me. I can't afford to pay no $1.75 to $1.95 a Professors Robert S. Gilmour and Robert B. r pound for meat. Now that propane gas is up Lamb set out to find the answer in interviews 801- /i every other month. That fuel business... and and discussions with a broad cross section of :I now, what, they gonna jump our electricity 22 to Americans. A selection of tliese interviews has 70 !- 23 percent. been compiled in their informative book, Political I! "'When my wife was alive, why I'd get her Alienation in Contemporary America. ~ :/If? c 60 !- everything she wanted that I could afford. She Their study concludes that disillusionment .I:: u"' PIJJI@ used to watch those TV games in there, an' she with the political system permeates all levels of Q) 0> 50!- :I had two electric lights goin', then she had the ~ !:1 American society. c Q) electric fry pan.... I use one bulb at a time, an' They define this alienation as "the combina u pc:J 40 !- ,j I gotta pay $15 to $16 a month.' tion of several distinct feelings: distrust of gov c.~ ./ ?:J "Asked what's causing all this, Jack snaps, ernment and politicians, a sense of the meaning 1/J 'Politics for one thing!'. . . But as he sees it, lessness of electoral politics and political choices, 30 t- #~ ~ 'Those big outfits, those big corporations, they and personal powerlessness to influence or (Jjf:J 20 1- :, figure they've gotta have more profits, so's they change the course of American political life." -~ can pay more dividends to their stockholders. They conclude that at least 23 percent of ~ And the poor devils, they can't afford to have no Americans are extremely alienated. Twenty-five 101- tP ..--~) stock in anythin' but the cemetery.' " percent distrust the federal government. Fifty // ~ .. Americans over sixty-five were found to be the two percent see the political process and electoral 0- ...... ~'l most alienated category by age. This was politics as meaningless. And 28 percent feel ...... cy- .· ...... ";/ consistently the case over the ten years 1962- powerless to do anything about it.. These percen -10 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1972. In 1972, Americans between the ages of tages reflect the views of millions of Americans. Presidential Election Year eighteen and thirty-four were the second most "These are the Americans," say Gilmour and alienated category by age. Lamb, "who are convinced of the essential Gilmour and Lamb pay little attention to this meaninglessness of votes, candidates parties, High among the alienated Americans are category of Americans-a group that includes and elections. They conceive of themselves as the working people. much of the student population. This is unfortu victims of powerful forces in politics that are "Julio, a lower Broadway short-order cook nate. beyond understanding and control. shook his head when we asked how he voted in Students and young people have played an "The American involvement in the Vietnam 1972: 'My vote makes no difference. They're all important role in expressing the growing aliena war, the increasing invasions of bureaucracy at the same; none of 'em any good.' tion within the population as a whole in the past all levels into our private lives, the political "In Springfield, Massachusetts, Shirley, a and there is every reason to believe that they will intrigues, trickery, and outright criminality of chambermaid for a large motel, says, 'No, it continue to play such a role. Students were the the nation's highest officials-all these have doesn't make any difference which party wins; backbone of the antiwar and civil rights move pushed many people to the very edge of alle I'll just go on working same as always.'" ments. Today they are among the most active in giance to the political system they once cher The researchers found that 19.6 percent of voicing protest against the cuts in education ished," they say. clerical workers, 28.6 percent of private house funding, which are only one part of the broader Many were "pushed to the edge of allegiance" hold workers, 33.3 percent of farm managers and cuts in social services as a whole. by other political events of the last several years. laborers, 33.6 percent of industrial operatives, For more than a decade they have played an There's Ralph White, for example. Ralph is a important role as a catalyst for social change truck driver. In 1968 he voted for George Wallace and 40.0 percent of service workers interviewed don't believe in government honesty, the impor giving voice to an alienation that is broader than and called student protesters "weirdos." But with tance of national elections, or their own rele their own ranks. the so-called fuel shortage in 1973, Ralph found vance to the way the government is run. A look at alienation among students and himself participating in a "truck-in," blocking Take Ward Beloit, who works five to six days a young people could have broadened the scope of the Ohio Turnpike to protest fuel prices. He no week at a steel mill in Gary, Indiana. "Ward has this study and given a fuller picture of alienation longer has faith in the government to solve his always been a Democrat and it's his experience in America. economic problem. that 'we seem to have had better times when the Others became alienated after Lyndon John Democrats are in office.' Vote Against the Incumbent son failed to bring about real equality of Blacks "But Ward's faith in national office holders and reneged on other "Great Society" promises. Gilmour and Lamb explain that non has been deeply shaken: 'They really don't care And, of course, many others were radicalized involvement or withdrawal from political partici what I think. It's what they think is best for us by the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the steady pation is not identical with noninterest in that concerns them, and they're always looking decline in their standard ofliving. They saw the political issues on a national or even on a local out for themselves first. There's a lot of things politicians and government do nothing to solve scale. They point to Willy O'Reilly, a janitor in coming out today that make you think you just these problems. In many cases, they saw the an elementary school in northern New Jersey. can't trust them. Seems like the big businessmen politicians and the government as the cause of Willy O'Reilly doesn't like his work and he can just walk in and make their price. Politicians doesn't get paid much for doing it. the problems. just aren't being honest with the public. They "He has no faith in thl;! party system; he's seem to be for the minority groups, I mean the distrustful in the extreme; and he knows full well Blacks Most Alienated big businessmen and the big capital men. They that 'they don't give a damn what the workin' Who are the alienated Americans? forget the average consumer, the small guy, the man thinks.' Willy doesn't really care who wins In the first place, as could be expected, they're men that really make this country work. Shoot, I an election, presidential or otherwise. As long as Black Americans. Blacks were the most alienated paid more taxes this year than Nixon has in the he gets a chance to vote against the incumbent, sector of the population in 1972 (the final year of last five." he has accomplished his political mission..... the ·Gilmour-Lamb study). As for following national affairs: 'I don't even Gilmour and Lamb found that the overwhelm Position of Women read the papers anymore, and those jerks on TV ing majority of Blacks feel political impotence, Near the top of the list of alienated Americans make me wanna throw up. It's always the same, political powerlessness, and distrust. Many share are women. Gilmour and Lamb found that ya steal enough and y're a "statesman." ' " the sentiments of Larry, from Bunche Park, women are much more likely to express extreme Although about a fourth of Americans are
20 (PAGE 11/INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW)
apathetic about the outcome of elections and beginning of a crisis of legitimacy. For the first the way forward for those who are disillusioned other workings of the political process, at least time since the 1930s tens of millions of American and outraged at this country's corrupt political half of these people are willing to get involved in working people not only disbelieve what the system. some campaign or political activity that pro rulers tell them but question the goals and values It explains how an alternative to this system mises to be meaningful and beneficial and can of the ruling class. . . . can be built and the potential power of the make some changes in the political system as it "They are beginning to sense that the econom victims of this system who may feel powerless is now constituted and run. ic problems they face are much greater than today. The findings of Gilmour and Lamb substan before, that the prolonged period of relative The resolution provides a perspective for tiante some of the theses advanced in Prospects prosperity has definitely come to an end; and working people, Blacks, women, and others to for Socialism in America, the resolution adopted while the period now opening may have its ups, build a movement that can remove the handful of at the August 1975 convention of the Socialist the ups won't be high or lasting and the downs corporate billionaires, big businessmen, and Workers party.* will be really deep and long.... misleaders who run this country. The document emphasizes that: "Combinations of breakdowns and shortages, The widespread distrust and bitterness exposed "The 'credibility gap' that began with Vietnam slumps and inflation, speedup. and degradation by Lamb and Gilmour mark a step forward in the and escalated to unprecedented proportions with of labor, new wars-that is what American consciousness of millions of Americans in Watergate represents in reality a crisis of capitalism promises for the future." understanding what the capitalist government is political confidence in the government, the And that is what Judith Weissman, Willy and in whose interests it is run. What is needed O'Reilly, Jack Budeau, Ward Beloit, and the now is to channel these attitudes into positive *Copies of this resolution, which was printed in the others interviewed in this book are finding out political action that can bring about an alterna November 1975 International Socialist Review, are and complaining about. tive to this system-one that benefits the available for twenty-five cents from the Militant Business Prospects for Socialism in America provides a interests of the majority who live and work in Office, 14 Charles Lane, New York, New York 10014. It is framework in which the attitudes of alienated this country. also to be found in the book Prospects for Socialism in Americans documented by Professors Gilmour America published by Pathfinder Press. and Lamb can be put into perspective. It shows Spotlight on the led Squads Break-ins, murder raids, racist frame-ups, beatings of radicals, the use of informers-these methods are the stock-in-trade of police red squads. They work hand in glove with the CIA and FBI, taking care of dirty work, but their role has been largely ignored by Congress and the media. The following is an edited version of the talk ties, techniques, and affiliations with organiza protectors of civilization against the threat of by Frank Donner at an April 28 meeting tions leaning toward Communism, both on and subversion. sponsored by the Political Rights Defense Fund. off the attorney general's list. They see them day They also organized into area groups called the The meeting of 300, held at the New York City in and day out, recruiting, planning, carrying Law Enforcement Intelligence Units. Here is the Society for Ethical Culture, heard numerous civil signs, and verbally assaulting the principles of way one officer described his area group: libertarians and political figures speak out· democracy. "We meet twice a year, exchange information, against government secrecy and surveillance of "Yes, the police role has become one of . . . and are brought up to date on problems in those who dissent. The Political Rights Defense surveillance, taking photographs, identifying surrounding areas. We get to know one another Fund is a nonpartisan organization that is participants, and making records of the events. personally, which is very important in the publicizing and raising funds for the wide On this basis, local police are able to piece sensitive type of work you are in when you are ranging suit by the Socialist Workers party and together this jigsaw puzzle and see the wide dealing with criminal or subversive intelligence. Young Socialist Alliance against government spread activity of the hard-core demonstrators "We have the United States and Canada spying and harassment. and instigators." broken up into four zones. Our last zone meeting This was presented to the Senate in the late was in Toronto, Canada, where we met with the 1960s. But it doesn't altogether describe what the Canadian intelligence people." red squad became in this city. This account illustrates something that has By Frank Donner For example, in 1968 two red squad men came happened since the 1960s which is irreversible. to the building where we are meeting now, the That is, the growth of a nationwide chain of Ethical Culture Society. They demanded a list of these so-called red squads or countersubversive A previous speaker mentioned the complicity of the members of the society because they were units. the New York red squad in burglaries of the suspected of being subversives. As you probably know, the. CIA, which is Socialist Workers party offices, and I thought it The red squad became the operational arm, so barred by statute from interfering with or might be illuminating to tell you something to speak, of the constellation of intelligence involving itself in domestic "internal security" about the New York City red squad and similar agencies that is called the "intelligence commu intelligence, conducted seminars for the red units all over the country. nity." And the police-especially the members of squads in September 1972. These seminars were The red squads came into their own in this these countersubversive units-became highly on a subject called "data handling." country in the 1960s, with the burgeoning of politicized. They saw themselves as the frontline "We decid!'ld we needed training in the analysis antiwar protest and ghetto unrest. Relatively of large amounts of information," the New York dormant up to that time, these units got a new City red squad chief said, "and that the CIA was lease on life. Their membership grew, and by well equipped for such training, which was done 1970 there were ninety on the staff of what w&s gratis, only costing us about $2,500 in transpor- called BOSS, the Bureau of Special Services. (It tation and lodging." . · since has gotten another name, but that one will In this way they learned improved "filing" do.) There were ninety on the staff and fifty-five techniques. The intelligence field is, as you know, more under cover. simply seething with euphemisms. One of the The role of the red squad is well described in milder euphemisms is "data handling," meaning the Senate testimony by a police inspector. He compiling files and dossiers. says how "police now have become watchdogs As a result of initiatives begun in the 1960s, and observers of vocal subversive and red squads began to function in coordination revolutionary-minded people.... They cover all with the federal intelligence community. That is, meetings, rallies, lectures, marches, sit-ins, lay they did things that either the feds were barred downs, fasts, vigils, or any other type of from doing, or that would embarrass them. demonstration that has ominous overtones.... One of their accomplishments, for example, "These officers know by sight the hard-core was to help the Nixon administration to monitor men and women who lead and inspire demon and harass left-wing lawyers by organizing raids strations. They know their associates, family on their law offices. In 1970 and 1971 alone, there were some fifteen law offices that were broken into on behalf of the federal antisubversive Frank Donner, a longtime civil liberties attor operation but carried out by local operatives. ney, is director of the American Civil Liberties This functional cooperation is something that is Union Project on Political Surveillance and irreversible. general counsel for the United Electrical Workers We also see it very clearly in the Fred Hampton union. He is the author of The Un-Americans case, in which the Federal Bureau of Investiga and has devoted years of study to government tion tried to get first the Chicago red squad, and use of informers and other methods against the then the Cook County attorney's office, to Lou Howort left. · FRANK DONNER organize a raid on the Panthers. They succeeded (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW/PAGE 12)
in persuading the Cook County office to do it. The New York operation prides itself on its Their most notorious achievement was the five What we are faced with today is a growing professionalism. Its character, however, is very cases involving "Blacks that began in 1964 with integration between the local operation and the vague. It says its purpose, its mission-that's the "Statue of Liberty case" and ended in 1971 federal operation. This is something that is very another intelligence word that must be savored with the Panther 21 case. In every one of these serious and will not go away despite the current is "to assure the development, effective use, and cases, the jury refused to accept the prosecution's investigations. interchange of information on the activities of evidence. The decision to prosecute was unques As a matter of fact, it's useful to think about syndicated or organized crime, persons involved tionably influenced by the glut of expendable this intelligence operation a little bit like hiber therein, or other major criminals, and/or groups agents, the fearsome rhetoric of the subjects, and nation. When the weather gets bad the bear goes whose purpose is the disruption of governmental the hopes of exploiting fears of Black unrest. into the cave and waits for a change in climate. activities or the peace and harmony of the The racist quality of the prosecution was not And that's what is happening now. There is community." lost on Black policemen. The Guardians Associa going to he a certain reduction in the federal The official biographer of the red squad, a man tion, an organization composed of nearly all the presence, and while that happens the red squads named Anthony Bouza, says, "The nebulousness city's Black policemen, issued a release in June and other units will go on doing what they did of the directive is vaguely reminiscent of the 1971 denouncing BOSS's exploitation of Black before, holding the fort, so to speak, against injunction to Peter in Matthew 17: 18-19, when agents for the betrayal of Black- radicals and "subversion." Christ said, 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I insisted that there were other, less offensive Now let me talk a little about BOSS. BOSS has will build my church.' methods of surveillance. a long and smelly genealogy. It started out as an "And the elaborate and impressive edifice of Sgt. Howard Sheffey, president of the Guardi operation to counter the Black Hand, an Italian the Roman Catholic Church," says Bouza, "rests ans, said, "I am advising my men to inform American society of the turn of the century. It got on this base." In other words, he was comparing people that they are assigned to inform on that 'I its birth certificate, so to speak, from a man the growth of the New York City red squad to the am a police officer assigned to inform on you.' " named Robert Pinkerton, who was the son of growth of the Catholic church. This somewhat curbed the readiness of the Allen Pinkerton, organizer of the great private During the 1960s this outfit made an average BOSS to recruit agents to betray their fellows. detective agency and the one who broke the of 1,000 annual major investigations and 600 I want to conclude py making one observation. Molly McGuires. Robert Pinkerton drew up the lesser investigations. Let me call to your mind There has been a widespread attack on the basic outline of action for all of these local units. some of the outstanding work that the BOSS did. methods and stated goals of these units in a Through the years BOSS has functioned on First, they conducted a frame-up trial in the number of cities throughout the country behalf of employers and generally to restrain Harlem riot case in 1964, based on the testimony Baltimore, Houston, Los Angeles, Chicago, and dissent. One of the techniques used is the deep of a detective who had been recruited from the Cleveland. But for reasons that I can't fathom, penetration agent. That is, infiltrators who are Pinkertons. Then they harassed various groups BOSS seems to lead a charmed life. placed in left groups for periods of five to fifteen that engaged in antiwar protest. They were It seems to me that we have to turn on BOSS years. Mildred Blauvelt, for example, infiltrated responsible for beating up two professors, Jonah the same kind of searchlight, the same kind of the Communist party for nine years; Margaret Raskin and Robert Riley. As I said before, in investigative scrutiny, that other units have been Disco for fifteen years. And she was honored for 1968 they visited the Ethical Culture Society. subjected to all over the country. her work by being made chief of the policewom They conducted sweeps of all suspected targets in en's bureau. the same way. ------~-
non-Jewish masses against the "Arabs are lazier than Israelis." and Drug Multinationals in Jewish population as a whole and Seventy-four percent felt that Latin America by Robert J. Ledo were unprovoked, being instead the "Arabs are less intelligent than Is gar. !DOC/North America. $7.95, result of deep-seated resentment raelis." paper $4.95. among the masses toward the so Seventy-five percent agreed that The Lin Piao Affair: Power called "alien, devious, crafty Jew." "Arabs are more cruel than Israelis." Politics and Military Coup, The recent situation in Palestine Eighty percent agreed that "Arabs edited by Michael Y. M. Kau. Editors: I am writing you concern bears little if any resemblance to are not so brave as Israelis." International Arts and Sciences ing the May issue of the Internation this. Where were the Jewish masses Two-thirds felt that "Arabs are Press, 591 pp. $20.00, paper $8.95. al Socialist Review. In the article attacking the Arabs? Can one really more dishonest than Israelis." Marxist Analyses and Social "Chicano Nationalism and Social say in all honesty that Zionist And 67 percent agreed that "Arabs reaction was unprovoked? Was the Anthropology, edited by Maurice ism" you state, "The UFW ... arose are inferior to Israelis." as an expression of the Chicano Zionist reaction based upon a con Bloch. Halsted Press, 240 pp. The racist attitudes and brutality movement." The statement is true ception of Arabs similar to Gentile $16.95. of the Israeli troops both on the in part. attitudes towards Jews in · Eastern Marxist Sociology by Tom Bot West Bank and inside pre-1967 The UFW was also an expression Europe? tomore. Holmes & Meier Publish of solidarity on the part of Filipino Jeffrey Broude Israel during the recent Palestinian ers, Inc., 78 pp. $7.00, paper $3.00. brothers and sisters, who in fact Claremont, California protests have been amply docu Marx's Capital by Ben Fine. were the first workers to go out on mented. We leave it to our readers to Humanities Press, Inc., paper strike in 1965. decide whether the use of the term $2.50. In Reply: On March 30, six unarmed pogrom justifies Broude's charge Filipinos have a long history of The Novel and Revolution by Palestinians were shot dead by that there is a "vicious imbecile" on striking for better wages and work Israeli troops. One Arab member of Alan Swingewood. Barnes & Noble ing conditions, dating back to the the ISR staff. the Israeli Knesset (parliament) char Books, 288 pp. $22.50. 1930s. acterized the March 30 events as a Organized Labor and the I object to the fact that you give This column is open to all viewpoints pogrom, as did the May /SR. on subjects of interest to our readers. Black Worker by PhilipS. Foner. not one word of credit to people Praeger Publishers, 489 pp. $15.00. other than Chicanos for founding The pogroms in tsarist Russia Please keep your letters brief. Where Nine Days That Shook Bri the UFW. It is an unusual union, in were officially orchestrated assaults necessary they will be abridged. Please that there are many different ethnic on the Jewish community designed Indicate if your name may be used or If tain: The 1926 General Strike groups involved in it. Hopefully, it is to terrorize an oppressed people. It you prefer Initials Instead. by Patrick Renshaw. Anchor Press, a stronger and better union because never occurred to anyone to deny 360 pp. $3.95. of it. that the pogroms carried out during Rosa Luxemburg: Selected I like the Militant for its objective World War I and the civil war period Political Writings, edited and and honest reporting. I hope your were not pogroms because they with an introduction by Robert next article on or about the UFW has happened to be perpetrated by BOOKS RECEIVED Looker. Random House, Inc., 309 more complete reporting. soldiers in uniform. The Brothers Reuther and pp. $4.95. Mary Hawley The recent murders of Arab the Story of the UAW: A Me Russia and Black Africa Be Madison, Wisconsin protesters-and in a number of moir by Victor Reuther. Houghton fore World War II by Edward T. cases Arab bystanders-were in Mifflin Company, $16.95. Wilson. Holmes & Meier Publish Editors: This letter is directed to the tended precisely to terrorize the The Changing Dream: The ers, Inc., $26.00. vicious imbecile (and I stress imbe Palestinian people. The only "provo Truth pbout the Material and Schooling in Capitalist Amer cile) who wrote the article entitled cation" involved was the attempt to Energy Crisis and What We ica: Educational Reform and "New Palestinian Revolt" in the protest the confiscation of Arab Must Do to Resolve It by John the Contradictions of Economic Month in Review section of the May land. In the eyes of the tsar, Jewish V. Tunney. Doubleday and Com Life by Samuel Bowles and Her issue. opposition to the established order pany, Inc., 120 pp. $5.95. bert Gintis. Basic Books, 340 pp. While denunciation of the Zionist in Russia was also a provocation. Communist Parties of West $13.95. authorities in their putting down of One of the tsar's ministers is reput What Women Want: The Ideas the recent Palestinian demonstra ern Europe by Neil Mcinnes. ed to have said after the 1903 of the Movement by Gayle Gra tions is certainly justified, compar Oxford University Press, $16.00. Kishinev pogrom, "Stop the revolu ham Yates. Harvard University ing Zionist actions to a pogrom not Economic Calculation and tion and we will stop the pogroms." Press, 230 pp. $10.00. only reflects the author's unbridled Forms of Property: An Essay Women in Chinese Society, ignorance and stupidity, but is an Jeffrey Broude asks whether Is on the Transition Between edited by Margery Wolf and Rox outright insult to the many Jewish raeli Jews have similar racist senti Capitalism and Socialism by readers of the Militant (of which I am ments toward the Palestinians as the Charles Bettelheim. Monthly Re ane Witke. Stanford University one). Eastern European population had view Press, 168 pp. $11.50. Press, 315 pp. $12.50. There is absolutely no resem toward the Jews. Yes, they do. For Film and Revolution by James Women of VietNam by Arlene blance between the pogroms carried example, here are some of .the Roy MacBean. Indiana University Eisen Bergman. Peoples Press, 255 out against Jews in Eastern Europe findings of a Louis Harris poll in the Press, 339 pp, $15.00, paper $4.95. pp. and the reprehensible tactics used April 12, 1971, issue of Time maga-. Giai Phong! by Tiziano Terzani. Work and Welfare in Britain by the ·Zionists recently. Pogroms zine on the attitudes of Israeli Jews: St. Martin's Press, 349 pp. $10.00. and the USA by B. Stein. Hal were in most cases attacks by the Fifty-three percent agreed that Hungry for Profits: U.S. Food sted Press, 111 pp. $10.95.
22 National Picket Line Frank Lovell Continued from page 10 these victories showed the widespread desire of steelworkers to have their Foundry workers win one union follow a more democratic and [The following guest column is by James crats, who did little to carry them out. militant policy in defense of their Roman.] Another boost to the strike came from the strong standard of living. , nationalist spirit among the Chicano workers. They An announcement in the June 2 OAKLAND, Calif.-After nine and a half weeks of a were among the most militant and conscious of the NCLC newspaper New Solidarity, bitter strike, more than 1,400 foundry workers who are strikers. They demanded that contract proposals be "East Coast Daily" edition, howeyer, tries to give a different picture. It members of Local 164 of the International Molders' printed and reported in Spanish. This helped win the claims that "the word is getting and Allied Workers' Union in the San Francisco Bay strike. throughout the USWA: 'Ed the Fed' Area have returned to work. Early in the strike, union bureaucrats urged striking Sadlowski is a cornered rat; now is the The strike involved twenty-nine shops in the Bay workers to accept the company's offer. Strike commit time to move on him." Area. The union demanded higher wages, better tee members, however, spoke against this in both . NCLC brags that by distributing medical-dental benefits, a union-appointed safety Spanish and English. The result was an overwhelm 5,000 leaflets in Sadlowski's home committee, the right to strike over grievances, and ing vote to support the strike committee and continue District 31 in the Chicago-Gary area, it improved promotional opportunities for lower-paid the strike. has "activated and focussed [sic.] the Blacks and Chicanos. Although they are the majority After their proposal to end the strike was rejected by hatred among steelworkers" for the of the union, these minority workers are traditionally the rank and file, the union bureaucrats resorted to a insurgent Sadlowski movement. restricted in the industry to the dirtiest, most unsafe, whole range of undemocratic measures to isolate the This is contradicted by the results of and most exhausting jobs. strikers and discredit their strike committee. the recent elections, of course. The California Metal Trades Association, one of the The bureaucrats tried, unsuccessfully, to red-bait the The NCLC slanders of Sadlowski are largest and strongest employers associations on the strike committee. When this failed, they tried to break obviously aimed at backing Abel's West Coast, represented the bosses of 1,200 of the 1,400 down solidarity between the Bay Area strikers and efforts to maintain the grip of his striking union members. A previous strike by Local sister locals also on strike in Oregon and Washington. undemocratic machine over the 164 several years ago was broken by the employers. At Finally, the international threatened to place Local USWA. that time, the workers were forced to return to work in 164 into receivership-a move that would eliminate all P.S. defeat-with essentially no improvement in their democratic rights of the membership of the local by New York, New York contract. placing the entire administration of the strike in the This time around, however, the story was different. ha~ds of a "trustee" appointed by the international The strikers won a good part of their demands The Oregon and Washington locals then obeyed including a wage increase averaging sixty-five cents instructions from the international to break a long Harassment of Montreal gays an hour, improved medical and dental coverage, a standing pact requiring a three-state contract. By Over 180 Montreal gays showed up jointly appointed safety committee, and an end to the ratifying separate agreements, they left Local 164 at a meeting organized by the newly predominance of "merit" in promotions. largely isolated. formed Comite Homosexuel Anti The key factor behind the victory was the effort of a Facing the prospect of trying to carry on the strike Repression. The turnout was a surprise to most rank-and-file strike committee composed of delegates alone, members of Local 164 signed an agreement the gay activists here since Montreal has a from the various shops. This strike committee effec next week. reputation of being one of the most tively organized and carried out the strike despite D~spite opposition and sabotage by the internation open cities for gays in North America. opposition from international union bureaucrats. Pick al bureaucrats, the militancy of the strikers-in However, the group has been formed in eting, demonstrations, rallies, and other normal strike particular the Chicano workers-and the efforts of the reaction to increasing pre-Olympic activities were arranged by the strike committee. strike committee were enough to turn what might have harassment of Montreal gays by the During the earlier strike that had been defeated, these been a repetition of the defeat of a few years ago into a city police. organizational tasks had been left to union bureau- partial victory. In the past few weeks more than 100 gays have been arrested, and police have entered bars brandishing rifles. Despite language differences, which in the past have hindered organizing By Any Means Necessary gays here, the group has since obtained a permit for a demonstration to be held June 19. In addition, a two-week gay festival Baxter Smith will take place that will include picnics, a bicycle rally, and other social activities. All these activities With popcorn and peanuts will show the Montreal authorities and their police force that we will not put BOSTON-Down in New York's Madison Square Enquirer expose of his swimming in the Wayne Hays up with harassment during the Garden by now, the high wire and trapeze have come stream of staff relations, party bigwigs have been Olympics, nor will we hide under the down and the bunting and flags are going up. talking up unity to give the GOP a pasting in carpets in order to please the tourists. Ringling Brothers has moved out, but the circus is November. S.R. coming to town. But just how much unity will be produced in the 104- Montreal, Quebec Just as spring wouldn't be spring in New York member Massachusetts delegation, which ranges from without the annual Ringling Brothers extravaganza, Louise Day Hicks and Joseph Timilty to a handful of this summer wouldn't be a real summer without New Black politicians, is anybody's guess. Because down at York playing host to the Democratic party national the Garden, they've trucked out the lions to make way Impressed with viewpoints convention. for ROAR. Please write me down for ten issues Think of the New York subways without break "I think the mood of the country has changed," of the Militant at the new-reader rate. downs, cabbies who didn't try to do the Bump with you South Boston State Rep. Raymond Flynn said, A friend of mine at work has lent me in the middle of the streets, and the Empire State announcing that Boston antibusing bigots will show her copies of your paper for the last Building without King Kong and Fay Wray having up at the convention to fight for an antibusing several weeks. I'm very impressed with once tried to make whoopee at the top, and you'd have platform. your viewpoints, particularly- your the Big Apple this summer without the Democratic Flynn says that in Boston and other areas "there is coverage of the Equal Rights party fandango. A distortion in this Bicentennial year, a substantial bloc of votes that could go Democratic or Amendment. Your writing and photos to say the least. • Republican," depending on either party's position on are also above the average quality for So they ushered Emmett Kelly out of the Garden to busing. newspapers of your size and make room for the clowns; they moved out Dumbo to In 1972 the Democratic convention adopted a plank readership. I'm looking forward to getting my bring in the bimbos. in favor of school busing. But a peek at the platform own copies as soon as possible. Keep The head of the platform committee this year was draft this time around shows that busing is reduced to on spreading the good word! Rhode Island Gov. Philip Noel. Not too long ago he a "judicial tool of last resort." Sharon Stewart was involved in a fender bender with the school bus, El Monte, California charging that busing was no help anyway because Black Democrats from Boston and elsewhere who after attending a white school the average Black will be attending the convention originally said they student is bused back to "that sweathole or wherever would be taking their distance from their anti-Black he came from with the drunken father and the mother party brethren. Unity or no, they had declared, they The letters column is an open that's out peddling her ass or whatever." (He has since would resist any efforts to undermine busing and forum for all viewpoints on sub been replaced.) would fight for a platform relevant to Blacks. But in jects of general interest to our Black Democrats who will be attending the conven platform committee tryouts so far, Black delegates readers. Please keep your letters tion originally said that even though new party rules have bowed to the wishes of white party leaders when brief. Where necessary they will have made their numbers smaller than they were at the discussion turned to Black issues. be abridged. Please indicate if the '72 gathering, they were assured input into the Come July 12, when the greatest show on earth your name may be used or if you party platform to make it speak to Black needs. debuts at the Garden, archivists will, of course, note prefer that your initials be used And now that Jimmy Carter is assured the nomina who was chosen to do the leap-through-the-flaming instead. tion, barring d_eath, divine intervention, or a National hoop act.
THE MILITANT/JULY 2, 1976 23 Harry Ring
Honor thy copyright-The editor downtown El Paso, fire hydrants have ted a pun, I would say, 'Honor the of the Church Herald, voice of the been similarly decorated. Which, we Light Brigade.'" A consumer in the Reformed Church, urged choir mem understand, really turns on the audience responded: "Oh, what a bers and other churchgoers to refuse to pooches. charge they made!" sing if they are handed photocopied sheet music. He said churches should Whoopee!-John Bierworth, the In the outhouse?-According to either buy the hymns or get reprint teetotaler ex-head of National Distill biographer Doris Kearns, LBJ was permission and stop ripping off the ers & Chemical Corp., reportedly tried miserable after losing the presidency copyright owners. to steer the company more toward and tried to run his Texas ranch like chemicals. His successor, D.R. Bell, the White House. "He tried to recreate Buycentennial Dep't (I) however, has a no-nonsense view. the Oval Office at the ranch," she said, Displaying the proper spirit, the Hen "Liquor is a great cash generator," he "and even had morning staff meetings nessy cognac people are offering a enthused. "There is little or no capital with the field hands.'' special sellebration bottle. The price? investment and all the profits are You guessed. $17.76. cash." Int'l law 'n order dep't-Eighteen cops, most of the force in Kronberg, a Buycentennial Dep't (H)-Special Punder and lightning-Once at a small West German spa town, were for 1976, New-Mexico State park areas stockholders meeting of the London charged with accepting bribes, with an feature garbage cans tastefully decked Gas, Light & Coke Co., an enthusiastic especially brisk traffic with drunk out in red, white, and blue. And in official declared, "If I may be permit- drivers. La Lucha Puertorriqueiia Catarino Garza July 4 in Philadelphia [Catarino Garza is the Socialist Workers state of Great Britain, France, Canada, the United couple. of hundred years back. He kept imposing party candidate for U.S. Congress in New States, Japan, Italy, and West Germany would be things on them. He kept telling them what to do. He York's Eighteenth District.] meeting on the island at the end of June. acted as if he owned the place. The White House reported that the conference That's the way Ford and Company treat Puerto I'll be marching in Philadelphia come July 4, not would be held at the Dorado Beach hotel, a Rico-they make the laws, draft Puerto Ricans into in the official government parade, but in the Rockefeller property. Some cynics said this would the U.S. Army, take much of the island's best soil "Bicentennial without Colonies" demonstration. be no small windfall for the vice-president, since for military bases, mercilessly exploit the laboring As far as I'm concerned, it makes no sense to go tourism has been poor, but government officials let classes, and then treat the Puerto Ricans and their celebrate the two-hundredth anniversary of the it be known that it was being done for reasons of local government with utter contempt. thirteen colonies' break from Britain by going to a security. The other big hotels are in densely So in Philadelphia on July 4, there will be two hypocritical bash organized by the modern version populated areas. commemorations of the American Revolution. One of King George. The Puerto Rican chief of police, however, will be Ford's, and the government's, and they'll A case in point came up just a couple of weeks ago couldn't comment on the matter. He hadn't even wave the flag and tell us how good things are. in relation to Puerto Rico. On June 1, news services been consulted about security arrangements twelve That's King George's celebration. reported that an economic summit conference of days after the formal announcement. The other, initiated by the Puerto Rican Socialist seven of the biggest imperialist countries in the party and backed by many other groups, including world would probably be held in Puerto Rico. It's just a little thing, but typical of the attitude of my party, won't be doing much flag-waving, not the Questioned about the summit at a news confer U.S. rulers to Puerto Rico. They consider it their U.S. flag, at any rate. We'll be there to demand a ence that day, Puerto Rican Gov. Rafael Hernandez island, to do with what they please, with no regard bicentennial without colonies, that the United Colon said, "I don't know anything about that." for the wishes of their own flunkies in the Puerto States allow Puerto Rico to enjoy the same right to Just about the same time as Colon was having Rican government or the people of Puerto Rico. independence that the Americans took from Great his news conference, the White House was releasing And getting back to July 4, that's what made all Britain two hundred years ago. That's our demon a statement saying that yes, indeed, the heads of the British colonists so mad at King George a stration. See you there.
The American Way of Life Negative affirmative action [The following column is by Mel Mason, MPUSD is trying to eliminate all of the gains made students with positive role models (supposedly a student activities coordinator and basketball by minorities in the past ten years. goal of an affirmative-action plan). Through their coach at Monterey Peninsula College in Cali The board claims the four positions are too much diligence and dedication, the assistants have been fornia. He is also the adviser of the Black of a strain on the district budget. Yet the board is able to prevent many students from becoming Students Union and one of the organizers of also falling all over itself to find ~ays of -funding a "dropouts." the anticutbacks struggle in that area. In 1968 "Back to the Basics" program. Throughout the country we find minority stu Mason organized the first Black Workers This program was proposed by a group of dents protesting cutbacks-such as these-that Caucus in the Bell Telephone System and was reactionary teachers and a handful of hysterical trample their democratic rights and deny them a labor organizer for the Black Panther party parents who feel that the minority presence in the equal education opportunities. It is not hard to see in 1969.] MPUSD is the primary cause of the decline in that the antibusing hysteria in Boston and the academic excellence among white students. cutbacks in the MPUSD are both designed to bring SEASIDE, Calif.-The policy statement of the Through its emphasis on such things as "strong about the same result. Monterey Peninsula Unified School District discipline," "high motivation," and "patriotism," Momentum is building in the minority communi (MPUSD) affirmative-action plan reads, "The this program is showing itself to be elitist, class ties to fight back against the MPUSD "budget Board of Education. . . . will take affirmative biased, and racist. ·offensive." Students and teachers are distributing action to ensure that underrepresentation and The School-Community Liaison Program was petitions, and community people are beginning to underutilization of minority ethnic groups will be created in the fall of 1969 at a community-school mobilize. corrected.'' conference that was held to "determine the unique They also realize that this is not an isolated If this is the affirmative-action policy of the counseling and guidance needs of minority stu struggle and, as a result, have linked this struggle board, then a great contradiction is beginning to dents.'' with the struggles going on in Boston, Louisville, rear its not-so-glamorous head. The school-community assistants have been Berkeley, Los Angeles, Pasadena, and many other The board is now in the process of terminating at highly successful in developing communication cities. least four school-community assistants, three of between minority parents and the schools. They This is an alarming occurrence for the racists them Black and one Filipino. It appears that the have also been effective by providing minority who run this school district.
24 co, the union federation reaffirmed its support of busing. Last November, when the Massachusetts AFL-CIO passed a resolution backing an antibus ing amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Meany blasted that decision. Under threat of having its charter revoked, the Massachusetts unit rescinded its antibusing position. Last May Meany made his strongest statement to date in a video-taped message to the "Desegregation Without Turmoil Conference" in Washington, D.C. "The big yellow buses have improved the quality of education for millions," he said, "and there isn't the slightest reason to pretend suddenly that school busing is somehow in itself harmful or undemocrat- lC.. " Meany urged "churches, service clubs, civic that all citizens in Boston cease the use of violent organizations, civil rights groups and, certainly, the By Erich Martel unions" to "accept responsibility for sharing in the WASHINGTON-The current racist campaign means to prevent the enforcement of the federal planning of school assignments, bus routes and against busing and schQol desegregation is part of a court order . ..." schedules, and all other aspects of a workable nationwide assault on public education. Teachers After a long debate, Shanker's resolution passed. desegregation program." are being laid off, class sizes increased, and special This supposedly "even-handed" resolution made Under the impact of Meany's stand, Shanker has educational programs eliminated or slashed to the it appear that the violence in Boston was somehow recently made a number of statements to make it bone. caused equally by Blacks and whites. This took appear that he is in line with AFL-CIO policy. In an Public school teachers have a vital stake in Boston's violent, antibusing movement off the hook. interview following the AFT Human Rights Com organizing effectively to fight all aspects of this Shanker's refusal to supp~rt the Boston Black mittee meeting in Puerto Rico last January, attack, including the attempt to deny Black and community is consistent with his opposition to Shanker said: other minority students equal educational opportu Black rights on his home turf in New York City. "The AFT position on busing is this. We view nities. Under his leadership the New York United Federa This means taking a firm and unequivocal stand tion of Teachers has resisted affirmative-action legislative or constitutional attacks on busing as in support of busing, which is necessary to ensure hiring plans for Black and Puerto Rican teachers. efforts to exacerbate racial tensions and to take the right of Black students to escape substandard, political advantage of racial antagonisms, and we oppose any legislative or constitutional restrictions segregated schools. The clearest example of racist resistance to court that prohibit busing." (American Teacher, February 1976.) ordered busing today is in Boston. The Democratic party-controlled school committee there consciously Desegregation Committee This statement, however, still equivocates on the Erich Martel is a member of the Ad Hoc . crucial issue of vigorous federal, state, and local Committee on School Desegregation of the enforcement of the busing plan in Boston. Washington Teachers Union, AFT Local 6. In December 1975, AFT members and officials who saw the need for their union to come out segregated public schools for decades, while land squarely for busing formed a Committee on De lords and realtors held up their end of the bargain segregation and Equality in Education. The com by enforcing segregated housing patterns. mittee was initiated by several state and local AFT The struggle of the Boston Black community for officials in California and by the Washington (D.C.) . desegregated schools has posed a fundamental Teachers Union. question to teachers, teachers unions, and all The Committee's goal is to place the AFT in the supporters of Black rights: Which side are you on? forefront of the struggle for desegregated schools. It The 1.8-million-member National Education Asso is urging passage of a "Resolution on Desegrega ciation adopted a resolution in 1975 in full support tion and Equality in Education" at the AFT's of busing. The NEA encouraged its members to August 1976 convention in Miami. (See box.) participate in the October 1975 conference of the At this time more than eighty-five state and local National Student Coalition Against Racism, where officers of AFT affiliates from around the country defense of the Boston court order was discussed. have endorsed this resolution. It has also been passed by several AFT locals and local executive American Federation of Teachers boards, and by the convention of the California Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the Federation of Teachers. 450,000-member American Federation of Teachers. GEORGE MEANY: AFL-CIO head urges unions and As in 1975, busing promises to be one of the major A debate on busing and desegregation inside the others to accept responsibility to implement court issues at the upcoming AFT convention. The AFT began at the union's 1975 convention in ordered busing. desegregation committee plans to publicize its Honolulu. resolution widely at the convention with the aim of At that convention, several AFT locals proposed Shanker has also spent huge sums of union winning a majority of delegates to its position. resolutions supporting busing and condemning the money to oppose the right of Black and Puerto William Simons, president of the Washington racist attacks on Black students in Boston and Rican parents in New York to gain control of their Teachers Union and a strong supporter of the other cities. Arguing against these resolutions, AFT children's education. committee, made what's at stake in the busing issue President Albert Shanker said that they were Shanker's policy. marks a serio1.1s retreat for the very clear in the November 1975 Washington divisive and would pit "one teacher against another AFT, which supported the Southern civil rights Teacher. teacher." movement of the 1950s and early 1960s. In 1954 the "If those who would reverse the decisions which Backed by the AFT Executive Board, Shanker AFT expelled 8,000 members who refused to ordered busing should prevail," Simons warned, counterposed a resolution that stated: desegregate all-white locals in the South. "this would be but a prelude to the erosion which "The AFT condemns the violence taking place in Shanker's animosity toward busing flows from would follow in other areas. In rapid succession the connection with the present school crisis and urges his efforts to protect the union's white job trust. domino theory would become a reality. One by one Federal court desegregation orders have often been each of the recently won civil rights would be under accompanied by faculty desegregation orders, attack. This cannot be permitted to happen." sometimes involving affirmative-action hiring. This was the case in Boston, for example. AFT resolution Boston Teachers Union The resolution to be presented at the August The Boston Teachers Union appealed the faculty desegregation order to the United States Supreme 1976 AFT convention by the Committee for Desegregation and Equality in Education Court, but the justices recently refused to hear this appeal, along with three others filed by opponents contains the following five motions: of the Boston desegregation plan. • "1. The AFT affirm its support for busing to achieve desegregated schools and help achieve The BTU officials also opposed the court-ordered equal educational opportunity. busing plan itself. In taking this stance, the BTU "2. The AFT continue to support all efforts for has isolated iself from the Black community. This massive federal funding of public education, provided ammunition to some Black leaders last fall including remedial and bilingual education who incorrectly opposed the union's strike for a programs, as the only means to raise the better contract. standard of education and improve the classroom If the BTU had been viewed as an ally in the conditions of teachers and students. fight for desegregated education, the union could "3. The AFT encourage its local affiliates to have mobilized broad support for its strike in the actively support and participate in efforts to Black community. desegregate public schools through busing. Meany's position "4. The AFT call for the full intervention of One embarrassment to Shanker has been the local, state and national authorities when racist stong probusing stand taken by the AFL-CIO and elements seek by force to prevent black students its president, George Meany. Shanker is a member from attending desegregated schools. of the AFL-CIO Executive Council and normally Militant/Lou Howort "5. The AFT publish this resolution in the finds himself in close accord with Meany's posi ALBERT SHANKER: AFT president has blocked his American Teacher." tions. union from taking a firm stand in support of busing in At the 1975 AFL-CIO convention in San Francis- Boston.
THE MILITANT/JULY 2, 1976 25 By Andy Rose MONTREAL-Across English Can ada and Quebec, workers are on the march against government wage con trols, strikebreaking laws, and social service cutbacks. Canada is today the leading country in the world in working time lost through strikes. A one-day general strike is under consideration by the top labor federation, the Canadian Labour Congress. These struggles in defense of work ers' rights and living standards have pushed the question of labor political action to the forefront. In English Canada the working class has already taken the historic step forward of forming its own politi cal party, the New Democratic party. But the labor base of this party is coming more and more into conflict with its procapitalist leadership and program. In Quebec, where the NDP has never sunk roots, a group of union militants is campaigning for formation of an independent labor party. They report the best response ever to this proposal. L-abor in the United States has come under similar sharp attack for the same reason-the worldwide economic crisis and the efforts of the capitalists in every country to boost profits by
holding down wages au.d weakening the unions. But the response of Ameri can labor has been pitifully weak. From New York to San Francisco, the unions have suffered grave set backs. The key reason is the subservi ence of the union leadership to the political parties of the bosses-the Democrats and Republicans. The American union officialdom Ottawa, March 22: Quebec contingent joins march of 30,000 workers against Trudeau's wage controls scoffs at the idea of the labor move ment acting on its own in the political arena through an independent labor party. "It can't happen here," is their employees in Quebec expired a year mobilizations. These led on November The FTQ belongs to the Canadian attitude. _ ago, the provincial government of 26 to a march of 35,000 workers in the Labour Congress (Canadian equiva So it's not surprising that these Liberal Premier Robert Bourassa took streets of Montreal against the wage lent of the AFL-CIO) and includes union bureaucrats have little to say a hard line. It stalled for months controls-the biggest demonstration most workers in industrial, interna about what is happening just north of without putting forward proposals for yet against Trudeau's antilabor decree. tionally affiliated unions such as auto the border. The experiences of Cana a new contract. To defend their mutual interests in and steel. But the main base of the dian and Quebecois labor not only set the public sector negotiations, the Common Front is the teachers of the an example on the level of militant Assault on public employees unions established a Common Front of CEQ and the hospital workers of the unionism. They also demonstrate that In fact, the government didn't make the three labor federations in Quebec: CSN. independent working-class political its first offer until after Prime Minister the 300,000-member Federation d~s action is a serious alternative right Elliot Trudeau decreed wage controls Travailleurs du Quebec (FTQ-Quebec Origins of Common Front here in North America. last October. Then Bourassa put for Federation of Labor), the 170,000- The origins of the Common Front go This series of articles will report ward an offer within the wage-control member Confederation des Syndicats back to the 1971-72 contract battle, some of the highlights of Canadian guidelines-far below what the work Nationaux (CSN-Confederation of when a strike of 210,000 public employ labor's struggles and debates. ers needed just to catch up with infla National Trade Unions), and the ees was crushed by back-to-work legis tion. 80,000-member Centrale de l'Enseigne lation and the top Quebecois union * * * Anger at the government's trickery ment du Quebec (CEQ-Quebec Teach leaders were jailed for defying court The workers of Quebec have been in erupted in a series of spontaneous local ers Federation). injunctions. the forefront of the labor upsurge. Quebec constitutes an oppressed nation within the borders of the Canadian imperialist state. Its econo my is dominated by English Canadian A step b+ord lfK)I'king-dass unity and U.S. capitalists, who profit by MONTREAL-''English-speaking that their interests lie in common reserved for French workers, for maintaining unemployment higher teachers in Quebec have traditional with the French-speaking majority Quebecois nationalists." and wages lower in Quebec than in the ly been a bastion of conservatism," of teachers, who are raising identi In response to the police attack rest of Canada. Bob Rosell told me. "They identified cal demands and facing the same the Montreal Teachers Association Just as the oppression of Blacks in their interests with the privileged enemy, the government." initiated a mass demonstration in the United States is enforced by 'English community,' not at all with A turning point was reached on Quebec City against the Bourassa systematic discrimination based on the labor movement." Mart!h 26, when the Protestant government. Eight thousand teach skin color, so the Quebecois are op Rosell is a member of the repre School Board of Greater Montreal ers, parents, and students turned pressed by systematic discrimination sentative assembly of the Montreal called out the riot police against 500 out for this protest April 8. on the basis of their language, French. Teachers Association, a 2,600- teachers who were picketing the Encompassing more than a quarter member union of English-speaking board's offices. Rosell described "It was the first time we were able of Canada's population, Quebec is an teachers. what happened: to rally together the different sectors oppressed nation with a strategic In Quebec, the school system is "It was a peaceful demonstration. of teachers in a united mass demon position in the Nortb American econo fragmented along both language In fact, people were allowed in and stration,'' Rosell said. my, a highly organized working class, (English-French) and religious out of the building. "There is still a long fight ahead," and a highly developed class struggle. (Catholic-Protestant) lines. These he concluded, "until the English The union struggles of the Quebecois divisions have long been used by "But the riot police attacked the working class is broken from its workers have been combined with a the government to pit teachers teachers, threw them down the identification with the English deepgoing nationalist radicalization against each other. stairs, and beat them with sticks. speaking ruling class and identifies against their oppression as Quebecois But over the past year, as English Ten teachers were wounded. instead with the people who are in to produce one of the most explosive teachers suffered the same attacks "This was a tremendous shock to its own class-the Quebecois situations on the continent. as their French-speaking counter the teachers. They never expected workers-even though they don't In Canada, as in the United States, parts, "reality came crashing in,'' anything like that could happen to speak the same language. the ruling-class attack has come down Rosell said. English people in Quebec. \ "But this has been an important first and hardest on public employees. "They are beginning to realize "This kind of treatment was step in the right direction."-A.R. When the contracts of 250,000 public
26 As the 1975 negotiations approached led to repression and victimizations it was clear that a stronger unity was that were harder to answer than if you needed among the traditionally frag had centralized actions." mented and feuding labor federations. According to union officials, the 1972 Reactivation of the Common Front struggle showed that a general strike was an important step in this direc would provoke back-to-work legisla tion. tion. But their refusal to organize such Newspaper Guild: how The central demands of the Common a united effort did not appease the Front are for a $165 a week minimum government. Just the contrary. wage, a cost-of-living escalator, and a to beat antiunion drive 43 percent salary increase to compen Antistrike laws By Lee Oleson sate for inflation. The government In December the government adopt hers, badly splintered by the successful WASHINGTON-The 1976 conven offered only 28 percent, of which 17 ed Law 253 on "essential services." In company offensive. At the high point tion of the Newspaper Guild meets percent was a cost-of-living bonus some hospitals as many as 90 percent of the strike no more than 300 of the here June 28 to July 2, as guild already provided in the previous con of the employees were declared "essen 800 Post guild members were honoring members at the Washington Post are tial" and barred from striking. Thou the picket lines. Members who did not tract. threatening to bolt from the union. The minimum wage demand is a sands of charges have been brought understand the need for solidarity In a representation election on July popular focus of support from other against hospital workers for violating during the strike were only further 17, the 800 members of the Post unit workers. It is seen as a step toward this law. alienated by ongoing attempts to will decide between the guild and the boosting wages for all the most In April, in an atmosphere of grow "punish" the Post unit. exploited workers in .the province. ing crisis, the government adopted The task in building a strong union The Common Front demands have Law 23. This antilabor measure prohi Lee Oleson is a member of Local 35, is to persuade and educate weak also gone against the cutbacks in the bited teachers from striking or even Washington-Baltimore Newspaper unionists, not to threaten and rail schools and hospitals. Its call for discussing the idea of a strike or any Guild. He was a candidate on the against them. better working conditions, more staff, other job action. 'Unity/Reform' slate for convention The "militant" pose some Local 35 officials are likely to take at the and more accessible and higher quality Law 23 sparked massive civil disobe delegate. education and medical care : 1as won dience. The first day it was in effect, convention (opposing, for example, the broad support, especially frorr parents April 13, 145,000 workers struck in international's decision not to press company-sponsored "Washington defiance of the law. On April 30, from charges) is really a cover for their own and students. Newspaper Union." 160,000 to 200,000 walked off the job. undemocratic behavior and substitu The "Washington Newspaper This was the biggest strike action yet, tion of bureaucratic methods for real Demands of women Union" was formed by guild members involving some public employee unions leadership. Two-thirds of the workers in the who did not honor picket lines during Common Front are women. As the that are not in the Common Front. Further evidence of this is the the bitterly fought strike at the Post, in lowest-paid (three-fourths of them earn The next day, 20,000 workers and refusal by local officials to let rank which the unions were defeated last less than $7,000 a year), they stand to students braved heavy rainfall to take and-filers observe contract negotia February. gain the most from the minimum-wage part in a May Day demonstration of tions and their attempts to turn away How best to overcome this decertifi demand. labor solidarity. members from taking part in union cation threat at the guild's largest unit In addition, special demands around · "For those two weeks," Kouri said, activity on the grounds they are too will be an important question at the the needs of women have been raised "the government became extremely upcoming convention. for the first time as high priorities of isolated. Teahchers were demonstrat Some unionists argue for allowing the Common Front unions. They call ing and walking out day after day, the Post unit to form a guild local for equal pay for equal work, free child almost spontaneously. There was separate from Local 35, the Washing care centers at the workplace, and paid massive sentiment for a general strike. ton-Baltimore Newspaper Guild. They maternity leave. The law became inoperative: there say that this concession, which is were more strikes after its passage Last February the unions sponsored supported by Guild International Pres than any time before. a week of actions to spotlight the ident Charles Perlik, is the only way "Even some ruling circles had condition of women public-service Post workers can be persuaded to stay doubts. They criticized Bourassa for workers. For the first time, meetings in the union. on the problems of women were orga 'going too far,' for being 'provocative.' While this may be true, allowing a nized on the job. To draw attention to "The divisions that had appeared in separate local would weaken Local 35 the need for child care, many women the English camp, with English teach and would provide a dangerous prece took their children to the schools and ers walking out together with French, dent for disintegration of other guild hospitals where they work. contributed to the isolation of the locals at a time when unity against the Throughout the spring the Common government. bosses is needed more than ever before. Front organized rallies, marches, and "There was talk that new elections Such unity among guild members rotating one-day strikes by various should be called." will not come easily. Many guild groups of public employees. activists charge that the leadership of When the Canadian Labour Con * * * Local 35 has egged on the split gress called for a pan-Canadian dem Our next article will relate the between the local and the Post unit. onstration against the wage controls outcome of the Common Front struggle This split has become deeper during in Ottawa on March 22, 10,000 of the MilitanVEd Mattos to date. It will also tell how a group of the past two months. 30,000 workers who turned out came Newspaper Guild unit split during bitter militant unionists is drawing the During a May election for Local 35's from Quebec. On the same day, 120,000 strike at the 'Washington Post.' lessons of this experience and winning Common Front unionists struck in delegates to the international conven a broad hearing on the need for an solidarity. Ten thousand marched in tion, local officials used bureaucratic independent labor party. other demonstrations throughout the maneuvers to defeat the "Unity/Re "inexperienced" to understand or par province. form" slate. This slate included many ticipate. Post activists who favored staying in These cliquist-minded local officials ~Up! Local 35, but who criticized the undem have also tried to isolate recently Call for general strike ocratic methods of its old-line officials. As far back as November, union . . . with the debates elected Local 35 President Tom Grubi militants had been discussing the need inside the labor-based Only 100 to 150 votes in the entire sich, a member of the "Unity/Reform" for a general strike of the public em New Democratic party local separated the winning from the slate, from the decision-making pro ployee unions to bring their full power losing delegates. Post activists charge cess in the local. to bear against the government. In ... with the campaign for that a low turnout in their unit was One result of these bureaucratic CSN locals where a vote was taken, a one-day general strike encouraged by local officials and that practices-dangerous for the union as more than 75 percent favored a general this made the difference in the out a whole-is that no one other than strike. against wage controls come. select members of the local executive Union officials required that Post The leadership of the Common . . . with the struggle of the board has been kept up to date on the :front unions, however, stalled on members vote by mail, while .all other possibility of a strike at the Baltimore carrying out this mandate. I talked Common Front unions in units voted in-house. And in contrast Sunpapers. Without wide-based prepar with Paul Kouri, Montreal organizer of Quebec to previous mail ballots, a stamped ation, a strike at those papers could the Ligue Socialiste Ouvriere/League envelope was not included with the duplicate the disastrous outcome of the ballot. Post strike. for Socialist Action, about the strategy Subscribe to the of the Common Front. As a result only 150 members at the There are reports that other guild revolutionary socialist The LSO/LSA is a revolutionary Post voted. locals may try to use the convention to socialist organization, the Canadian newspapers in Canada: Moreov.er, Local 35 officials would "stiffen" local officials' ability to section of the Fourth International. Its not allow a representative from the punish errant members of their locals. members are active in the Common "Unity/Reform" slate to observe the One proposed resolution would allow a Front unions as well as in other social Labor Ctallengrl counting of the ballots. Candidates local executive board to require a unit struggles in Quebec. English-language biweekly. $1 supported by the local officials actual to honor a picket line whether the unit "The approach of the Common Front' for six issues. 25 Bulwer Street, ly participated in the counting. votes to or not. leadership," Kouri explained, "was to Toronto, Ontario. Other official actions have also Strong unionism is not created by avoid a centralized confrontation with alienated Post unionists. Staff officials officials who issue orders and deal out the government at all costs. They have encouraged guild members to punishments. That is bureaucratic, not advocated 'disruptive tactics,' such as Liberatial bring charges against strikebreakers militant, unionism. teachers not handing in grades, work French-language monthly. $2 long after the strike was broken last A strong union has members who ers taking surprise leaves, or showing for one year. b.p. 641, succ. 'n', February and after the international are educated in labor solidarity, mem up late. Montreal 129, Quebec. declared that any charges would be bers who are allowed to participate in "Rather than involving a mass, overturned on appeal. the workings of their union, instead of collective effort, these actions were Name ______Continuation of these charges has being "persuaded" to follow the leaders only undermined efforts to rebuild through threats, orders, and punish sporadic and isolated. They even had a Address, ______negative effect, putting the brunt of the solidarity among the Post guild mem- ment. inconvenience on students and par- City ______ents. · State· _____ Zip ____ "In the hospitals, these small actions
THE MILITANT/JULY 2, 1976 27 Lesbian mother fights for custody of son By Linda Regner Judge Oswin Chrisman disagreed. During the trial, two psychologists ATLANTA-Richard Risher is nine He opened their lives to public scrutiny testified that extensive interviews led Message years old. In 1971 he moved in with his under a 1974 Texas child custody them to conclude that it would be mother, Mary Jo, following her divorce law that allows a spouse to try to prove better for Richard to stay with his from Douglas Risher. Last December, that there has been "a substantial mother. to march ten members of a Dallas jury changed change in circumstances." So, homo Friends testified that Mary Jo Risher [Following are excerpts from a this. sexuality went on trial in Dallas. and Ann Foreman provided a fine message sent to the June 27 Gay They awarded custody of Richard to home for Richard. Michael Foreman Pride March and Rally in New his father. The reason: Mary Jo Risher Each prospective juror was asked testified on behalf of his former wife's York from Peter Camejo and is a lesbian. whether or not he or she was a companion. He told the jury that his Willie Mae Reid, Socialist For two years, the mother and son homosexual, knew any homosexuals, daughter was growing happily and in Workers party candidates for lived quietly and happily in a Dallas or even knew anything about homosex a good home. president and vice-president.] suburb with Ann Foreman and her uals. The court did not permit Richard to eleven-year-old daughter, Judie Ann. Of the jurors selected, ten were men testify because of his age. We salute the Gay Pride March Mary Jo Risher works as a nurse and and two were women. Only one juror For more than five hours of delibera and Rally and join in demanding is a member of the National Organiza admitted knowing of homsexual rela tions, the jury was deadlocked. Finally, repeal of all sodomy laws and tion for Women. Her companion is an tionships. He was the jury foreman, it concluded with a 10-to-2 vote against passage of gay rights legislation, assistant auditor in a Dallas bank. Tony Liscio, a former member of the the mother, citing her "homosexual such as the Abzug bill now before Risher told reporters at the trial, Dallas Cowboys football team. Doug life-style" as the reason. Congress. "Our personal life is a private place, las Risher's attorney advised the other Since the trial, the judge has reduced Recent attacks on homosexual and a place that is not to be entered by jurors to turn to the Bible as a good Risher's visitation rights to alternate rights, including the March 29 anybody. I feel like that has been source of information on homosexuali weekends only. Supreme Court decision upholding betrayed through this trial." ty. Risher told reporters after the trial, statutes outlawing homosexuality, "The majority of women we know in and the denial to Mary J o Risher of the gay community are mothers. custody of her nine-year-old son There's a lot of them out there, and solely because of her sexual orienta this could be a factor in whether a lot tion, show the need to step up efforts of these mothers will keep their chil in opposition to reactionary at dren." tempts to drive gays back into the Risher plans to appeal until she gets closet. her son back. This process will begin With you we say in this bicenten in the circuit court of appeals this week nial year, 200 years without equality and could take up to two years and is too long! Full civil and human cost $30,000 to $35,000. Dallas NOW is rights for gays! helping to raise funds for court costs. Support activities for Risher are being organized in cities in Texas and elsewhere. For instance, in Atlanta, there will be a June 25 benefit on behalf of Risher as part of the "Chris topher Street South" activities. Also, the gay liberation march on June 26 will raise as one of its demands: "Defend lesbian mothers' child custody rights." Requests for more information and letters of support should be sent to: Friends of Mary Jo Risher, Box From left: Ann and Judie Ann Foreman, Richard and Mary Jo Risher 174, Dallas, Texas 75221. Socialists host meeting on -Chicano liberation By Jeff Powers "Unfortunately, neither of the teach that he will be there," Gonzalez said. wait for the 'revolution' to gain our OAKLAND, Calif.-A weekend edu er organizations, the Berkeley Federa Lozada talked about the need for equality. We are told that we must hold cational conference on Chicano libera tion of Teachers and the Berkeley Chicanos to break from the two-party back our struggle, that we must sub tion and socialism was hosted by the Teachers Association, is doing any system. He explained that there is no ordinate our needs to the 'people's' campaign committee for Froben Loza thing about it," she reported. fundamental difference between the struggle. Well, I am here to say that da here on June 11 and 12. Lozada, Vargas went on to describe the candidates of the Democratic party those ideas are dead wrong. The who is chairperson of Chicano studies activities of the Committee Against and the Republican party. struggle for women's equality against at Merritt College in Oakland, is the Racism in Education, an organization machismo is an enormously important Socialist Workers party candidate for of Black and Chicano teachers in "You noticed in the papers a few part of today's Chicano movement," U.S. Congress in the Ninth District. Berkeley set up to fight the layoffs. She days ago," Lozada continued, "that the she said. said there should be no discriminatory Democratic party is suddenly unified. In response to a question on the The opening session heard a panel layoffs and that "teachers should fight They have been fighting for months Equal Rights Amendment Nieto Go that included Vicente Gonzalez, a to maintain the current proportion of and now they have come together. mez said: "I support the ERA 100 leader of the Raza Unida party (RUP) Black, Chicano, and Asian teachers." Remember how Carter got started? He percent. We must not be deceived into in Union City, California; Maria Var Gonzalez of the RUP spoke about the was the candidate who was going to thinking that this is some kind of a gas of Raza Educators in Berkeley; need to build an alternative to the stop Wallace. Now Wallace is the first 'white trip.'" Ana Nieto Gomez, a teacher of Chica present system. He urged the audience one to support Carter. It is a game in no studies at California State Universi to "vote for and work for the Lozada which all the American people are the Nieto Gomez also led a discussion on ty at Northridge; and Lozada. campaign." losers." "Nationalism and Feminism," and Vargas, who teaches in the Berkeley "I am going to support Froben's Nieto Gomez based her talk on the Miguel Pendas talked about "Chicano school district, spoke about recent campaign. I have known Froben for a relevancy of women's liberation to the Liberation and Socialism." Pendas is a discriminatory firings of Black and long time. Every time there is a picket Chicano movement. writer for the Southwest Bureau of the Chicano teachers there. or some kind of struggle you can bet "We are told as women that we must Militant.
By Joel Britton Thompson had applied for the job activity by government workers, but CHICAGO-Paul Booth and Anita some months before announcing her President Ford vetoed the measure. Illinois LeFlore, leaders of the American intention to run for office. In a statement released to the press Federation of State, County and Mu "When hired," Thompson said, "I June 7, Booth, an AFSCME interna nicipal Employees here, have joined was not informed that I was trading tional representative, and LeFlore, a unionists, with the Socialist Workers party in away my democratic right to run for member of the executive board of protesting the federal Hatch Act res office for a chance to get off welfare." AFSCME Local 2000, deplored the trictions that forced Linda Thompson When told by an attorney that "undemocratic restrictions governing to withdraw as a candidate for gover seeking the SWP nomination for gover the political activity of public work SWPhit nor of Illinois. nor would violate the Hatch Act, ers." The Socialist Workers party an Thompson asked that her name not be nounced last February that Thompson placed on the party's nominating peti "Why," their statement said, "should Hatch Act would be its gubernatorial candidate. tions. millions of public workers be denied In May, however, Thompson was hired the constitutionally-guaranteed rights as a case worker for the Illinois The Hatch Act applies to state to participate of their own free will in Department of Public Aid, coming employees whose agencies receive the electoral process?" The unionists under provisions of the Hatch Act that financial aid from Washington. Con said ·they favored those Hatch Act prohibited partisan political activity gress recently voted to amend the law provisions designed to protect govern- by public employees. to permit off-hours partisan political Continued on page 30
28 In caP-italist P-arty_P-rimarv.. Calif .. Stalinists endorse Democrat Hayden By Harry Ring But the CP's endorsee, Tom Hayden, LOS ANGELES-If California sup argues precisely that the Democratic porters of the Communist party party· can be changed from within and seemed a bit schizophrenic lately, it's new directions developed-if people probably not their fault. They've sim like him can get elected. ply been trying to follow the line laid "In days to come they [the defeated out in two recent editorials in the liberal Democratic presidential conten People's World, the party's West Coast ders] will issue sickening calls for weekly. party behind the candidates that offer Commenting on the defeat of liberal nothing of substance," the PW warned.· candidates for the Democratic presi Include Tom Hayden. On June 11, dential nomination, a June 12 editorial three days after the primary, he declared: announced his support for his oppo "Church, Harris and Udall will nent, incumbent John Tunney. never admit that the Democratic Party But despite all this, is it possible that bosses had them whipped from the Tom Hayden, one time SDS activist, is beginning; in days to come they will really so different that the CP is issue sickening calls for party unity justified in brushing aside its own behind the candidates that offer no arguments in order to endorse him? thing of substance. Hayden's politics, in fact, are not "Their supporters should have come quite as "new" as the People's World away from the experience having would have us believe. learned something quite different: the There is another such anti-monopoly campaign on the ballot as At the very outset of his campaign, Democratic Party cannot be funda well. 'fhe effective campaign of Tom Hayden has already put pro Los Angeles Times political writer mentally or even significantly changed monopoly, anti-labor incumbent candidate Senator John Tunney on Kenneth Reich interviewed Hayden from within and no meaningful new the defensive. California would make a contribution to the nation by and reported April 22, 1975, that directions or resourceful leadership are rejecting the old politics of Tunney with the new politics of someone Hayden was a supporter of Califor going to come out of the Democratic nia's Gov. Edmund Brown, the "lesser Party. effective, humane and articulate like IJayden. expectation" artist of whom the Peo "If they haven't learned this lesson v-1\ ~,_se·lt to 1}\e Q
THE MILITANT/JULY 2, 1976 29 Second St. (between Ave. 8 and Ave. C). Ausp: SWP. For more information call (212) 260-6400. 8,000 La. unionists NEW YORK: UPPER WEST SIDE DEFEND DOMINICAN TRADE UNIONS. Speak Calendar ers: Marcelino Vasquez. secretary of POASI in CINCINNATI Exile; Dinora Cordero. Dominican Committee for SOCIALIST SUMMER SCHOOL. Building the the Defense of Human Rights in the Dominican example, revolutionary party. Speaker: Wendy Wisenberg, on Republic; Claudio Tavarez. USLA, coordinator of ~!!e~!!~~t tO ~~~,!~!!, Mass work, unifications, and the early communist POASI Defense Committee. Fri., July 2, 8 p.m. 786 BATON ROUGE, La.-More than one television commercial shows Black movement. Mon., June 28, 7:30 p.m. Univ. of Amsterdam Ave. Donation: $1. Ausp: Militant 8,000 labor unionists converged on this construction workers while a somber Cincinnati, Old Chemistry Bldg., Room 532. Dona Forum. For more information call (212) 663-3000. capital city on Sunday, June 6, for a voice says, "Everyone should have the tion: Ali sessions-$5; single session-75¢. Ausp: militant rally called l;!y Louisiana's right to a job." The message implies YSA a'rld SWP. For more information call (513) 321- PRINCE GEORGES COUNTY, MD. 7445. SOCIALIST SUMMER SCHOOL. Why Stalinism AFL-CIO to demand defeat of the so that the 25 percent unemployment rate triumphed. Sun .. June 27, 7:30 p.m. International called right-to-work bill in the current among Louisiana Blacks is caused by NEW YORK: LOWER EAST SIDE ism vs. socialism in one country. Mon. July 5, 7:30 legislative session. labor's insistence on union shops! SOCIALIST SUMMER SCHOOL. The character p.m. 4318 Hamilton St. (intersection with Rt. 1 and The proposed bill would allow em At the June 6 rally, Louisiana AFL and composition of a revolutionary workers party. Alt. Rt. 1), Room 10. Donation: 50¢. Ausp: SWP. For ployers with union contracts to hire CIO President Victor Bussie blasted Thurs .. July 1, 7:30 p.m. Liberia Militante, 221 East more information call (202) 797-7699. and retain nonunion workers. The such misleading LABI tactics. "The demonstrators were united in their unions support everyone's right to a opposition to this antilabor measure job," Bussie said. "But this bill is not that would prohibit union shops. about that-it's a misnomer. Business Big business is backing the proposed and industry control all of the hiring antilabor legislation to the hilt. The now, not trade unions." ... cutbacks at CUNY state's employers organization, the Following the June 10 passage of the Continued from back page proportion of minority students-98 Louisiana Association of Business and "right-to-work" law m the house, reach out to other layers of the percent. It is also the only bilingual Industry (LABI) has already spent workers across the state stepped up the population-especially the labor move college in the eastern United States. one-half million dollars in its attempt drive to defend their unions. In Lake ment and communities of the oppressed During the spring, the scheduled to whip up antiunion forces and Charles, unionists built a rally of minorities-to organize a unitedmove closing of Hostos became a focus of miseducate Louisiana's population to 7,800. Rallies have also been held in ment against the cuts. student protests. The school became a get the bill passed. New Orleans, Shreveport, Monroe, and Instead, many USS leaders main symbol of the disproportionate way Baton Ro:uge. tained a perspective of searching out minority students are being affected by The impact of this right-wing effort Union locals are collecting petitions. "friends" among the Democratic and the cuts. was shown June 10, when the Louisia The AFL-CIO has bought thirty Republican party politicians who have A layer of student activists came to na House passed the "right-to-work" second TV spots. And the Coalition of been the ones directing the blows from understand · both the racist nature of bill and sent it on to the state senate Labor Union Women and A. Philip the state capitol and city hall. the cutbacks and that it was necessary for debate. Randolph Institute are sponsoring a Pressured by the sentiment among to single out for special emphasis the Louisiana is currently the only rally in New Orleans. students for action against the cuts, defense of those students most under Southern state without a "right-to Regardless of the fate of the "right the USS sometime organized demon attack-the minority students. This is work" law. In all other "right-to-work" to-work" bill in the current legislative strations. But the fundamental per necessary to counter the politicians' states, prevailing wages and working session, the fight will go on. The LABI spective of the USS as a whole was attempt to divide and rule-to win conditions are lower. has announced plans for further anti lobbying in Albany. support among white students for The biggest problem facing the labor bills, including proposals to Maynard Jones, chairperson of the cutbacks directed primarily at minori union movement at this stage of its lower unemployment and workmen's USS, and other USS officers encou ty students. fight to maintain union shops is public compensation. And the Louisiana raged support for a bill to "modify" the The decision to close Hostos became confusion over the issue. AFL-CIO has made it clear that if cuts so that CUNY would be cut "only" a major focus of resentment against The LABI has tried to foster this workers lose this round, they will fight as much as other socially necessary cutbacks among the Puerto Rican and confusion by financing a high-powered for repeal. services. These student leaders thus Hispanic communities throughout accepted the Democratic and Republi New York. This led to the formation of can politicians' priorities, that the a coalition that included top-ranking Pentagon's war budget and interest Puerto Rican Democrats who adapted payments to the banks are more to community sentiment. important than social services. Although there were no mass mobili, Many representatives from different zations of the Hispanic communities, ... Illinois Hatch Act colleges argued against this perspec student protests against the closing of Continued from page 28 Haig protested the arrest of the tive. They pointed out that this bill Hostos and the beginnings of an ment employees from coercion by Blacks, whose only "crime" was de would divide students from their natu alliance between the oppressed commu superiors to engage in political activi fending themselves or trying to defend ral _allies-other victims of cutbacks. nities and the students were sufficient ty. others. She called on Major Richard The student movement, they said, to force a reversal of the decision to A recent SWP membership meeting Daley and Gov. Daniel Walker to use should be about the business of de close Hostos-for the time being. chose Suzanne Haig to head up the "all necessary force against the racist manding no cuts-of anyone or any party's Illinois slate. Haig, who has thugs to protect the rights of Black thing. What's ahead? been active in the abortion rights citizens." The cutbacks of higher education movement and the Coalition of Labor Need for allies and other social services in New York Union Women, played a leading role in Help petition to put But there was another big factor that will not stop-they are just beginning. building Chicago participation in the limited the mobilizations: students In many. other cities politicians are May 16 march and rally for the Equal could not see any other powerful layers also trying the ploy of cutting back on Rights Amendment in Springfield, Illi of the population coming into motion working people's social services to nois. Camejo & Reid against cutbacks-any strong allies "save" the city from default. Haig's supporters have so far collect with which they could unite. The fight to stop future education ed 20,120 signatures to put her name on the The bureaucratic leadership of the cutbacks is not only an issue for on the November ballot, along with the labor movement put on a disgraceful students, but for all working people, SWP presidential ticket of Peter Came '76 ballot! show, capitulating step by step as just as all working people suffer from jo and Willie Mae Reid. Undemocratic thousands were laid off, contracts the reductions in public transit, hospi Contact: Socialist Workers 1976 election laws in Illinois require "new ripped up, social services slashed, and tals, and other social services. parties" such as the SWP to get 25,000 National Campaign Committee, wages frozen. It will take a very large signatures of registered voters to win a 14 Charles Lane, New York, N.Y. Their pleas to "cut somewhere else" mobilization-not only of students, but ballot spot. 10014 played right into the politicians' of unions and the oppressed "I have joined a team of full-time Chairperson, Linda Jenness; treasurer, Arthur divide-and-rule strategy. communities-to reverse the tide of petitioners," said Haig, "who will be Hughes The communities most affected by cutbacks and layoffs. on the streets every day talking to cutbacks, those of oppressed minori Through their example and methods voters about the socialist alternative to ties, were also essentially leaderless. of struggle, students can give an the Democrats and Republicans." There, Democratic party and Demo impetus to the development of such a Haig spoke out against the racist PROBLEMS OF THE cratic party-linked organizations, po movement. violence that erupted June 6 in the PORTUGUESE REVOLUTION. verty programs, community boards, However, such mobilizations cannot Marquette Park area on Chicago's A vital new booklet for revolutionists. A contri and the like, played the same role as be organized on the basis of asking Southwest Side. A "white power" rally bution to the current international debate. 105 the bureaucracy did in the labor move Democratic and Republican party was held outside the offices of the pp. Send check or money order for $2.00 plus ment. · politicians to "cut somewhere else." National Socialist White People's $ .30 postage per COIJY to: RMC Press, Box 134, On a couple of occasions, students Such a movement can't be built by party (Nazis)in opposition to a project Detroit. Michigan 48221 USA. initiated attempts to unify the various relying on Democratic "friends" of ed march by a Black group against anticutbacks movements that exist. labor and the oppressed. Whatever the segregated housing and racist a:ttacks There have been many protests weaknesses of such an approach in the against Black families living in previ against slashes in hospitals, child past, the actual experience in New ously all-white areas. care, fire protection, or welfare. But York over the past year shows this When the open housing march didn't Milita:n.t attempts to organize such a broad, strategy to be suicidal today. take place, the white racists-several struggle-oriented coalition have not yet The key to victory against the hundred strong and carrying "Niggers Bou.:n.d gotten off the ground. cutbacks is massive social action that Beware!" signs-attacked Black and relies on the strength of those victi Latino motorists and bus passengers. Hostos saved mized, not the purported "good will" of Dozens were injured by flying glass, Volu.:n2.e The one cutback that has been those doing the victimizing. bricks, or clubs. James Holdman, a successfully resisted-the closing of The students protests over the past Black off-duty sheriffs deputy, acci Hostos. Community College-shows by year were an important start in build dentally shot himself in the hand as he &J::n.de:x contrast the importance of an alliance ing such a movement-but they were fired warning shots from his car Jan.-June 1975 between students and broader social not enough. The next logical step is a toward the racist mob. His twelve-year $12 for volume; $2 for index forces, and how such an alliance can broad, city-wide meeting of all those old son suffered a leg injury. Militant Business Office, 14 Charles be forged. suffering from cutbacks and layoffsto Police arrested twenty-nine whites Lane, New York, New York 10014 Hostos, one of the smallest of the plan a united response by working and three Blacks. twenty CUNY units, has the highest people against the cuts.
30 Intercontinental Press Africa Asia Europ~ Oc~onio th~ Am~ricos American Do you read French, Spanish, He write for a free sample copy of Intercon brew, Turkish, Russian, German, and tinental Press, a weekly newsmagazine some forty other languages? of international politics. Rebels Do you have time to follow the world A unique source of news, analysis, left press and the major dailies from and hard-to-find documents of interest Paris, London, New York, and other to the socialist movement. world capitals? If not-but you wish to follow inter Write to Intercontinental Press, P.O. national political developments on a Box 116, Village Station, New York, week-by-week basis-we suggest you New York 10014. SAM ADAMS And the American Revolution Counter- By Harry Frankel. 48 pp., 75 cents mobilization: A Strategy to Fight Racist EUGENE V. F..DUCATION FOR SOCIAUSTS DEBS and Fascist Speaks Counter-mobilization Speeches edited by Jean Y. Tussey. A Strategy to Fight Racist 320 pp., cloth $9, paper $2.95 and Fascist Attacks Attacks by Farrell Dobbs New! ::<' - ~~- .. / . ~,\ ~-/-~/ By Farrell Dobbs, '"'' >-,...... ,.._ - MALCOLM X _, TKE ,. EGAT£ author· of Teamster Speaks Rebellion, Teamster By Malcolm X, edited by George Power, and Teamster Breitman. 226 pp., cloth $10, paper Politics. $1.65 An Education for Socialists publi cation, 24 pp., 8lj2 x 11 inch for Order these and other books from Pathfinder Press, 410 West Street, New mat, 75 cents York, N.Y. 10014. Write for our free catalog. Order from Pathfinder Press, 410 West Street, New York, New York 10014 Socialist Directory ARIZONA: Tempe: YSA, c/o Jessica Sampson, Box Union, Urbana, Ill. 61801. MI. Pleasant: YSA, Box 51 Warriner Hall, Central Pittsburgh: SWP, YSA, Militant Bookstore. 3400 2235, Scottsdale, Ariz. 85252. Tel: (602) 277-9453. Chicago, South: SWP, 9139 S. Commercial Ave., Mich. Univ., MI. Pleasant, Mich. 48859. Fifth Ave., Pittsburgh, Pa. 15213. Tel: (412) 682- Tucson: YSA, SUPO 20965, Tucson, Ariz. 85720. Room 205, Chicago, Ill. 60617. MINNESOTA: Minneapolis: SWP, YSA, Pathfinder 5019. Tel: (602) 624-9176. Chicago, South Side: SWP, YSA, Pathfinder Books, Bookstore, 15 4th St. SE, Mpls., Minn. 55414. Tel: State College: YSA, c/o William Donovan, 260 CALIFORNIA: Berkeley: SWP, YSA, Granma Book 1754 E. 55th St., Chicago, Ill. 60615. Tel: (312) (612) 332-7781. Toftrees Ave. #320, State College, Pa. 16801. Tel: store, 1849 University Ave., Berkeley. Calif. 94703. 643-5520. St. Paul: SWP, Labor Bookstore, 176 Western Ave., (814) 234-6655. Tel: (415) 548-0354. Chicago: City-wide SWP, YSA, 428 S. Wabash, Fifth St. Paul, Minn. 55102. Tel: (612) 222-8929. TENNESSEE: Knoxville: YSA, P.O. Box 8344 Univ. East Los Angeles: SWP, YSA, Pathfinder Bookstore, Floor. Chicago, Ill. 60605. Tel: SWP-(312) 939- MISSOURI: Kansas City: YSA, c/o UMKC Student Station, Knoxville, Tenn. 37916. Tel: (615) 525- 1237 S. Atlantic Blvd., East Los Angeles, Calif. 0737; YSA-(312) 427-0280. Activities Office, 5100 Rockhill Rd., Kansas City, 0820. 90022. Tel: (213) 265-1347. INDIANA: Bloomington: YSA, c/o Student Activities Mo. 64110. TEXAS: Austin: YSA, c/o Student Activities, Texas long Beach: SWP, YSA, Pathfinder Bookstore, 3322 Desk, Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind. St. Louis: SWP, YSA, Militant Bookstore, 4660 Union South, Austin, Tex. 78712. Anaheim St., Long Beach, Calif. 90804. Tel: (213) 47401. Maryland, Suite 12, St. Louis, Mo. 63108. Tel: Dallas: SWP, YSA, P.O. Box 50212, Dallas, Tex. 597-0965. Indianapolis: YSA, c/o Student Activity Office, (314) 367-2520. 75250. Tel: (214) 941-2308. Los Angeles, Crenshaw District: SWP, YSA, Pathfin IUPUI, 925 W. Michigan St., Indianapolis, Ind. NEW JERSEY: Newark: SWP, YSA, 11-A Central Houston, Northeast: SWP, YSA, Pathfinder Books, der Books, 4040 W. Washington Blvd., Los 46202. Tel: (317) 631-3441. Ave. (Central and Broad Streets), Second Floor. 2835 Laura Koppe, Houston, Tex. 77093. Tel: Angeles,Calif. 90018. Tel: (213) 732-8196. Muncie: YSA, Box 387 Student Center, Ball State Newark, N.J. 07102. Tel: (201) 624-7434. (713) 697-5543. Los Angeles: City-wide SWP, YSA, 4040 W. Wash University, Muncie, Ind. 47306. NEW YORK: Albany: YSA, c/o Michael Kozak, 395 Houston, North Side: SWP, YSA, Pathfinder ington Blvd., Suite 11, Los Angeles, Calif. 90018. KANSAS: lawrence: YSA, c/o Christopher Starr, Ontario St., Albany, N.Y. 12208. Tel: (518) 482- Bookstore-Libreria Militante, 2816 N. Main, Hous Tel: (213) 732-8197. Sunflower Apts. #23, Lawrence, Kans. 66044. 7348. ' ton, Tex. 77009. Tel: (713) 224-0985. Oakland: SWP, YSA, 1467 Fruitvale Ave., Oakland, KENTUCKY: Lexington: YSA, P.O. Box 952 Univer Binghamton: YSA, c/o Debbie Porder, 184 Corliss Houston, South-Central: SWP, 4987 South Park Calif. 94601. Tel: (415) 261-1210. sity Station, Lexington, Ky. 40506. Tel: (606) 266- Ave., Johnson City, N.Y. 13790. Tel: (607) 729- Blvd. (South Park Plaza), Houston, Tex. 77021. Pasadena: SWP, YSA. Pathfinder Bookstore, 226 N. 0536. 3812. Tel: (713) 643-0005. El Molino. Pasadena, Calif. 91106. Tel: (213) 793- louisville: YSA, Box 3593, Louisville, Ky. 40201. Ithaca: YSA,c/o Sara Bloxsom, 110 Morris Heights, Houston: City-wide SWP, YSA, 3311 Montrose, 3468. LOUISIANA: New Orleans: SWP, YSA, Pathfinder Ithaca, N.Y. 14850. Tel: (607) 272-7098. Houston, Tex. 77006. Tel: (713) 526-1082. San Diego: SWP, YSA, Militant Bookstore, 1053 Bookstore, 3812 Magazine St., New Orleans, La. New York, Bronx: SWP, P.O. Box 688, Bronx, N.Y. San Antonio: SWP, P.O. Box 1376, San Antonio, 15th St., San Diego, Calif. 92101. Tel: (714) 234- 70115. Tel: (504) 891-5324. 10469. Tex. 78295. Tel: (512) 732-5957. YSA, P.O. Box 0685. MARYLAND: Baltimore: SWP, YSA, 2117 N. Charles New York, Brooklyn: SWP, YSA, Militant Bookstore, 12110, Laurel Heights Station, San Antonio, Tex. San Fernando Valley: SWP, P.O. Box 4456, Panora St., Baltimore. Md. 21218. Tel: (301) 547-0668. 136 Lawrence St. (at Willoughby), Brooklyn, N.Y. 78212. ma City, Calif. 91412. Tel: (213) 894-2081. College Park: YSA, c/o Student Union, University of 11201. Tel: (212) 596-2849. UTAH: Logan: YSA, P.O. Box 1233, Utah State San Francisco: SWP, YSA, Militant Labor Forum. Maryland, College Park, Md. 20742. Tel: (301) New York, Chelsea: SWP, Pathfinder Bookstore, University, Logan, Utah 84322. 1519 Mission St., San Francisco, Calif. 94103. Tel: 454-4758. 200'/2 W. 24th St. (off 7th Ave.), New York, N.Y. Salt Lake City: YSA, P.O. Box 461, Salt Lake City, SWP-(415) 431-8918; YSA-(415) 863-2285. Prince Georges County: SWP, P.O. Box 1807, 10011. Tel: (212) 989-2731. Utah 84110. San Francisco, Mission District: SWP, Socialist Prince Georges Plaza, Hyattsville, Md. 20788. Tel: New York, Lower East Side: SWP, YSA, 221 E. 2nd VIRGINIA: Richmond: SWP, P.O. Box 25394, Bookstore, Libreria Socialista, 3284 23rd St. San (202) 333-0265 or (202) 797-7706. · St. (between Ave. B and Ave. C), New York, N.Y. Richmond, Va. 23260 Tel: (804) 232-3769. Francisco, Calif. 94110. MASSACHUSETTS: Amherst: YSA, c/o Mark Cera 10009. Tel: (212) 260-6400. WASHINGTON, D.C.: Northwest: SWP, 2416 18th San Jose: SWP, YSA, 123 S. 3rd St., Suite 220, San soulo, 13 Hollister Apts., Amherst, Mass. 01002. New York, Queens: SWP, YSA, Militant Bookstore, St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20009 Tel: (202) 797- Jose, Calif. 95113. Tel: (408) 295-8342. Boston: SWP, YSA, 510 Commonwealth Ave., 90-43 149 St." (corner Jamaica Ave.). Jamaica, 7706. East San Jose: SWP, 1192 E. Santa Clara, San Jose, Boston, Mass. 02215. Tel: (617) 262-4620. N.Y. 11435. Tel: (212) 658-7718. Washington, D.C.: Southeast: SWP, 727 8th St. SE, Calif. 95116. Tel: (408) 295-2618. Boston: City-wide SWP, YSA, 510 Commonwealth New York, Upper West Side: SWP, YSA, Militant Washington, D.C. 20003. Tel: (202) 546-2162. Santa Barbara: YSA, P.O. Box 14606, UCSB, Santa Ave., Boston, Mass. 02215. Tel: (617) 262-4621. Bookstore, 786 Amsterdam, New York, N.Y. Washington, D.C.: City-wide SWP, YSA, 2416 18th Barbara, Calif. 93107. Cambridge: SWP, 2 Central Square, Cambridge, 10025. Tel: (212) 663-3000. St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20009. Tel: (202) 797- Santa Cruz: YSA, c/o Student Activities Office, Mass. 02139. Tel: (617) 547-4395. New York: City-wide SWP, YSA, 853 Broadway, 7699. Redwood Bldg., UCSC, Santa Cruz, Calif. 95064. Roxbury: SWP, 1865 Columbus Ave., Roxbury, Room 412, New York, N.Y. 10003. Tel: (212) 982- COLORADO: Boulder: YSA, Room 175, University Mass. 02119. Tel: (617) 445-7799. 8214. WASHINGTON: Seattle, Central Area: SWP, YSA, Memorial Center, University of Colorado, Bould Worcester: YSA, Box 229, Greendale Station, OHIO: Cincinnati: SWP, YSA, P.O. Box 8986, Hyde 1\Ailitant Bookstore, 2200 E. Union, Seattle, Wash. er, Colo. 80302. Tel: (303) 492-7679. Worcester, Mass. 01606. Park Station, Cincinnati, Ohio 45208. Tel: (513) 98122. Tel: (206) 329-7404. Denver: SWP, YSA, Militant Bookstore, 1379-81 M_ICHIGAN: Ann Arbor: YSA, Room 4103, Mich. 321-7445. Seattle, North End: SWP, YSA, Pathfinder Book Kalamath, Denver, Colo. 80204. Tel: (303) 623- Union, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. Cleveland: SWP, YSA, 2300 Payne, Cleveland, Ohio store, 5623 University Way NE, Seattle, Wash. 2825. 48104. Tel: (313) 663-8766. 44114. Tel: (216) 861-4166. 98105. Tel: (206) 522-7800. Fort Collins: YSA, Student Center Cave. Colorado Detroit, East Side: SWP, 12920 Mack Ave., Detroit. Columbus: YSA, Box 3343 Univ. Station (mailing Seattle: City-wide: SWP, YSA, 5623 University Way State University, Ft. Collins, Colo. 80521. Mich. 48215. Tel: (313) 824-1160. address); 325 Ohio Union, Columbus, Ohio NE. Seattle, Wash. 98105. Tel: (206) 522-7800. FLORIDA: MIAMI: YSA. P.O. Box 390487, Miami Detroit, Southwest: SWP, 19 Clifford, Room 805, 43210. Tel: (614) 422-6287. WISCONSIN: Eau Claire: YSA, c/o Chip Johnson, Beach, Fla. 33139 Detroit, Mich. 48226. Tel: (313) 961-5675. OREGON: Portland: SWP, YSA, Militant Bookstore, 221 1/ 2 Ninth Ave., Eau Claire, Wis. 54701. Tel: Tallahassee: YSA, c/o Suzanne Welch, 765 El Detroit, West Side: SWP. Militant Bookstore, 18415 208 S.W. Stark, Fifth Floor, Portland, Ore. 97204. (715) 835-1474. Rancho St, Tallahassee, Fla. 32304. Tel: (904) Wyoming, Detroit. Mich. 48221. Tel: (313) 341- Tel: (503) 226-2715. La Crosse: YSA, c/o UW La Crosse, Cartwright 224-9632. 6436. PENNSYLVANIA: Edinboro: YSA, Edinboro State Center, 1725 State St., La Crosse, Wis. 54601. GEORGIA: Atlanta: Militant Bookstore, 68 Peach Detroit: City-wide: SWP, YSA. 19 Clifford, Room College, Edinboro, Pa. 16412. Madison: YSA. P.O. Box 1442, Madison, Wis. 53701. tree St. NE. Third Floor. Atlanta, Ga. 30303. SWP 805. Detroit. Mich. 48226. Tel: (313) 961-5675. Philadelphia, West Philadelphia: SWP, 218 S. 45th Tel: (608) 238-6224. and YSA, P.O. Box 846. Atlanta. Ga. 30301. Tel: East Lansing: YSA. F~rst Floor Student Offices, St. Philadelphia, Pa. 19104. Tel: (215) EV?-2451 Milwaukee: SWP, YSA, 207 E. Mich gan Ave., Am. (404) 523-0610. Union Bldg.. MiChigan State University, East Philadelphia: City-wide SWP, YSA, 218 S. 45th St. 25, Milwaukee, Wis. 53202. Tel: SWP-(414) 289- ILLINOIS: Champaign-Urbana: YSA, 284 lllini Lansing. Mich. 48823. Tel: (517) 353-0660. Philadelphia, Pa. 19104. Tel. (215) EV7-2451. 9340; YSA-(414) 289-9380.
THE MILITANT/JULY 2', 1976 31 THE MILITANT
THE E D .F FREE TUITI ' PE Dill IUY Lessons ol student light against cutbacks By Ike Nahem stop the ruling-class attack? Student resistance to the severe wide layer of students. NEW YORK-When the City Univer • What can be done to stop further curtailment of education in New York This was reflected in a chant fre sity of New York reopens its doors for cutbacks and eventually begin to was very significant. Their struggle quently heard at demonstrations: the fall semester, it will be quite a recoup what has been lost? has been more sustained and encom "They've got the money, we're no fools, different institution. passed larger mobilizations than any take it from the Pentagon [or: "take it • Enrollment will be down several Capitalist crisis & attack other group victimized by the cuts. from the banks"], and give it to the tens of thousands from this year's level · It is important to understand the Although the degree of mobilization schools." of 270,000. conditions under which the open on each campus varied widely, tens of Because of the sizable protests the • Classes will be larger, many admissions policy was won. thousands of students from CUNY rulers of New York were cautious in courses will no longer be offered, It was won at the end of a twenty protested at one time or another. the way they implemented the cut special programs will be eliminated. five-year period of capitalist economic On November 19, 1975, 6,000 stu backs. • The proportion of Black, Puerto expansion on a world scale during dents demonstrated in Washington, Despite the high level of protests, the Rican, and other minority students which the U.S. capitalists made a D.C. This action was preceded by student movement against the cuts number of concessions to American several demonstrations of thousands had many weaknesses. Activity tended Ike Nahem is a member of the working people. of students in New York. to be uneven and uncoordinated from local executive committee of the It was also a period when the State University of New York stu college to college. Protests on one New York City Young Socialist radicalization that began with the rise dents joined with CUNY for a march campus often tended to be isolated of the civil rights movement was and rally of 10,000 in Albany in from other campuses. As the cuts Alliance. Nahem coordinates the expanding and various layers were on March. At the beginning of May a started to come down, this sometimes anticutbacks activities of the YSA in the offensive against the government, student strike against budget cuts translated into an every-school-for New York. resulting in concessions in many closed down City College for two days. itself attitude. areas. On May 10, 4,000 students shouted While many actions numbered in the will be down drastically, and will The post-World War II boom is now "Save Hostos College" as they hundreds and sometimes in the thou continue to diminish as the school year over, and there is increasing competi marched through midtown Manhat sands the potential power of the wears on. tion between the different large capi tan. And up to 10,000 students and student movement as a whole was left In addition, an across-the-board talist powers. This has led to an faculty ringed city hall June 9 in a untapped. That is, the hundreds-of wage freeze has been imposed on offensive by the ruling class of which protest against the closing of the thousands-strong CUNY population faculty and staff. The faculty has also the attack on higher education is just university system. was never mobilized as one force. been forced to accept "deferral" of one part. The bigger picture includes previously. negotiated wages totaling the Nixon wage freeze, the oil crisis, Advanced demands USS weaknesses $15 million. Thousands are likely to be skyrocketing inflation, the depression Often students raised · the demand A big factor contributing to this laid off when a schedule for campus of 1974-75, and the attack on school "No cutbacks, no layoffs!"-a more problem . was the weak leadership cutbacks is drawn up this summer. desegregation. advanced demand than simply "Save provided by the only authoritative city In all, CUNY will absorb some $200 What is involved is a drive by the CUNY" because it raised the perspec wide organization representing stu million in cuts. At most it will have rulers of this country-to boost their tive of united action 'by all victims of dents, the University Student Senate. $470 million left to function next year. profits and improve their competitive the cuts. The USS should have been the But the cutbacks at City University position against other capitalists by The idea that money to pay for initiator, unifier, and coordinator of were aimed not only at taking money pushing down the standard of living of education, jobs, and social services the entire struggle. Its number one away from education, or eliminating U.S. working people. should come from the bloated Penta priority should have been to mobilize certain numbers of students, teachers, The financial crisis in New York is gon budget and bankers' interest students against cut-backs and to campuses, and future graduates. part of that attack. payments gained acceptance among a Continued on page 30 The rulers of this city also wanted to crush an important expectation-that people have a right to free higher education. Protest cuts. in 111 health care Open-admissions victory Free tuition dates back 129 years. Open admissions is a more recent development, a victory of the student struggles and Black movement of the 1960s. Under open admissions, anyone with a high school or equivalency diploma could attend CUNY. It was won in 1969 through a struggle by Black and Puerto Rican students, who received backing from other students and the communities of the oppressed minorities. Although limited to New York City, the winning of open admissions was a tremendous victory for the entire student movement. It set an example for the rest of the country. The decisions to· end open admis sions and free tuition, and the severity of the cutbacks, represent a stunning blow to all students and all working people in New York City. Most of all, it is a big setback for the oppressed minorities who had benefit ed the most from open admissions and free tuition. The impact of this defeat is forcing Militant! Andy F. Corriette many activists who fought to defend 250 people chanting 'No cuts, no way-the city hospitals including from Gouverneur Hospital in the Lower East free tuition· and open admissions to ask are here to stay!' marched from Bryant Park to Gov. Hugh Side, which has been threatened with closing. Speakers at some hard questions. Carey's office in New York City June 13. A rally and picket the protest included representatives of the hospital workers • What has happened and why? line followed the noontime march. Workers and community union, the city-wide community board of the municipal • Why were repeated demonstra residents from a half dozen city hospitals participated, hospitals, and an associate director of Sydenham Hospital. tions of up to 10,000 students unable to