No. 471 '$~)X.52' 17 February 1989

War to the Death Against CIA's Mullah Cutthroats! • a e or aniSian

FEBRUARY 14-The Red Army with­ Even Western bourgeois journalists, drawal from is a cold­ particularly if they're women, are blooded betrayal of the Afghan and anxious about the hideous fate now Soviet peoples. the CIA's Islamic war­ threatening liberated Afghan women. riors, armed for over a decade with Mary Williams Walsh reports in the billions of dollars of ultramodern mili­ Wall Street Journal (19 January): tary equipment, are poised to carry out "The plight of 's women is a the wholesale slaughter of Afghan poignant reminder that the West's vicarious victory over communist ex­ women, teachers and other intellectu­ pansion here isn't without its ambigui­ als, leftist activists and peasants. And ties. In a backward country where the George Bush has now announced the female peasantry still toils like medie­ U.S. will continue to supply the muja­ val serfs, Kabuli women have managed hedin with arms as long as the left­ to hold on to many 20th-century free­ doms. . .. Instead of staying at home nationalist Kabul regime is in power. behind purdah walls, they emerge each If this army of mullahs and tribalist day and work in offices, hospitals and cutthroats topples the Najibullah gov­ schools." ernment, Afghanistan will become an Walsh contrasts this to the horrible imperialist dagger pointed at Soviet condition of Afghan women in the refu­ . In his drive to appease gee camps in , reporting that Washington by abandoning Afghani­ "foreign doctors working among the stan, Moscow leader Mikhail Gorba­ refugee women tell gruesome tales of chev is giving U.S. and its husbands leaving them to die, rather allies a launching pad for counterrevo­ than permitting diagnosis by a male lution in the homeland of the socialist obstetrician"! October . With their backs But the battle for Kabul does not to the wall, the forces of social progress look like it is going to be a walk­ are facing a war to the death. Smash over. The Afghan army is well sup­ Washington's "holy warriors"! .',.,,.... plied with Soviet MIG fighter-bombers The mujahedin call it badal, the code and medium-range missiles. The gov­ of revenge of the dominant Pushtun ernment has distributed arms to the tribes. It means not just death but often popUlation, inCluding young women, torture, dismemberment and mutila­ creating a 30,000-strong civilian mili­ tion. Over the past several months, as tia. The PDP A regime, in the past given Soviet troops abandoned one outpost to murderous factional and cliquist after another, the CIA's "freedom fight­ infighting, appears committed to a ers" meted out a taste of their barba­ Reuters/Bettmann united stand. "We must all fight now," rism. In November about 70 Afghan Kabul, February 5: Members of Afghan women's militia face life-and-death declared Najibullah. Throughout the soldiers surrendered to the mujahedin at struggle. world every class-conscious worker, T orkham, on the Afghan side of the socialist and believer in human decency Khyber Pass. When government forces doing everything they can to set up a against those who have been central to and the rights of man must materially retook the outpost several days later, bloodbath. Richard Murphy, a top the regime." Last month the State aid the Afghan government against the they found their comrades' bodies­ State Department official under Rea­ Department sent a formal note to its CIA's Islamic cutthroats. mutilated and chopped into pieces-in gan, predicts the within a embassies around the world instructing At stake in the battle for Afghanistan wooden crates. few months, and goes on, "there are very them to deny visas to anyone associated is far more than the fate of this hid­ The U.S. and its NATO allies are deep passions" that "will be turned with the Afghan regime. Anticipating eously backward land. The armed the mujahedin terrorists' laying waste to Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in Kabul, and in order to sow panic, December 1979 provided America's pre­ Washington and its European allies text for II. We proclaimed at have closed their embassies. the time "Hail Red Army in Afghani­ The Wall Street Journal (12 January) stan!" while most self-styled leftists gloats that "what the Afghans don't around the world joined the imperialist know about revenge isn't worth know­ campaign for Soviet troops out. Well, ing." The victims of the mujahedin's now the Soviet troops have been pulled bloodlust will by no means be limited to out to appease U.S. imperialism. If the supporters of the left-nationalist Peo­ mujwhedin succeed in butchering every ple's Democratic Party of Afghanistan leftist, teacher and unveiled woman in (PDPA). Even peasants whose only Afghanistan, their blood will be on the "crime" was not emigrating to Pakistan hands not only of the Bushes, Thatch­ after 1979 are infidels in the eyes of these ers and Kohls, but also on their "left" Islamic "holy warriors." The fall of camp followers. Kabul and other Afghan cities would be followed by a massacre of the entire Origins and Nature of educated popUlation, especially tens of the Afghan War thousands of women who escaped from For decades Afghanistan'S small purdah (seclusion) and cast off the number of modernizing intellectuals Mujahedin hack up the body of man sentenced to death by mullahs. chadori (the head-to-foot veil). continued on page 12 Gorbachev's Pullout Is a Betrayal Parti§au Defen§e £o...... ittee CLASS-STRUGGLE DEFENSE NOTES PDC: Class-Struggle Defense in Action The past year has seen a rapid expan­ for his freedom. On December 8 the sion of the PDe's activities. In Phila­ Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in delphia and Atlanta the PDC initiated San Francisco vacated its dismissal of successful labor-centered mobilizations Pratt's appeal last June on the tech­ against fascist terror, giving thousands nicality that it was filed a few days late. of trade unionists, blacks, student and That three-judge panel of Nixon and civil rights activists firsthand experi­ Reagan appointees is only reconsidering Atlanta, January 21: 3,000 answer poe call "Act Now! Stop the KKK!" ence of what class-struggle defense is the technical issue of whether to accept all about. Together with the interna­ the late filing-still not daring to ernor of California to parole Pratt to ist Action is challenging the disclosure tional Sp,artacist tendency we ini~ated consider the substance of Pratt's ap­ enable him to be their representative at demands in a lawsuit filed by the Amer­ an emergency worldwide campaign of peal, which exposes the infamous FBI/ the United Nations Commission on ican Civil Liberties Union. The PDC against the mass murder of Ira­ COINTELPRO conspiracy that mur­ H l.\P1an Rights meetings starting this protested to the San Francisco District nian leftists and religious and national dered dozens of his comrades and has month in Geneva, Switzerland. Interna­ Attorney: minorities. And we continue our work kept him in jail for 19 years. tional labor protest must be mobilized "The candidates of Socialist Action on behalf of the imprisoned victims Interest in Pratt's case continues to in defense of America's foremost class­ have acted responsibly by refusing to of capitalist repression-the class-war grow. The current issue of Co vert­ war prisoner. Free Geronimo! comply with your police-state demand. prisoners of·today. Action Information Bulletin (Winter Disclosure of the names of their sup­ porters opens the door to harassment, 1989) details the FBI's frame-up. The * * * victimizations and physical attack. The * * * recently formed National Campaign for right of political association has no Former Black Panther Party leader Amnesty and Human Rights for Polit­ On January 10 Thomas Reed, head of meaning whatsoever unless it includes Geronimo Pratt continues to fight ical Prisoners has petitioned the gov- the Alabama NAACP, and 13 black the right to engage in political activity legislators were convicted on trespass free of state interference. Stop the charges for attempting to remove the witch hunt of Ryan and Weinstein." Confederate flag from the Alabama state capitol last year. At the time Reed * * * The Emancipation of Women also was a member of the Alabama The fight against state repression goes of the Muslim East House of Representatives. on. The PDC is campaigning to save the In letters to the governor and D.A., life of MOVE supporter Mumia Abu­ The in Afghanistan is the only Jamal, a death row political prisoner in war in modern history triggered over the the Partisan Defense Committee pro­ tested the convictions and demanded Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, We just question o.fwomen's rights. The liberation added MOVE member Alphonso "Mo" of women from the stifling grip of Islamic that all charges be dismissed: "It is truly criminal that the Confeder­ Africa to the class-war prisoners receiv­ feudalist oppression is both a powerful ate flag of slavery still flies atop the Cap­ ing stipends-22 prisoners on three force for and historic task of social itol-an outrageous provocation and continents. revolution in the East. We reprint an insult to every black person, every International class-struggle defense excerpt from a 1926 account by veteran decent person in Alabama. The Con­ costs money-lots of it. Though the TROTSKY German Communist on the LENIN federate flag is the banner of racist ter­ ror-the flag of the slaveowner's whip 1988 Holiday Appeal for the class-war impact of the Bolshevik Revolution on Muslim women in Soviet Central Asia. and KKK's years of lynching, burning, prisoners and their families successfully In the Orient, the working women who passionately desire a transformation of and shooting. I t remains the state flag of raised over $5,000, this was less than the Alabama. On the centennial of the Con­ social conditions that will lead to their liberation are beginning to stir and to act. The federacy's capture of Fort Sumter your $10,000 we aimed for. The PDC still lowest of the low, who had been pushed into the deepest depths of social enslavement state adopted this seditious banner of owes over $20,000 for the November 5 by traditions, laws and religious decrees, are rising. Diffident and wounded in body as a protest against Mobilization in Philadelphia, In addi­ and soul, they are nevertheless rising steadily in order to achieve freedom and Supreme Court decisions against seg­ tion to that, January's Atlanta demon­ equality. Lenin correctly judged this event as having the greatest historical regation. Its continued use confirms stration cost us over $10,000. that today's 'new South' is just the significance. He was always most sensitive to even the' faintest stirrings of same 'old, South' of Bull Connor, The PDC looks forward to the con­ energies and he evaluated them always within the framework of the George Wallace and Ross Barnett." tinued support of WV readers' in the general social transformation of this world. Even if the stirrings of the Oriental Drop the charges against Thomas Reed! coming year. We want your help to women masses appear only as faint lightning at this time, they are the harbinger of the Tear down the Confederate flag of build a class-struggle defense organiza­ approaching thunderstorm. They confirm the fact that the will slavery! tion the workers movement sees as its indeed turn out to be a in which even the last suppressed and own-one that can mobilize masses of enslaved individual will free himself by his own strength. The Muslim Women's workers around the globe in defense of Clubs in the Soviet Republics are not the tender breeding grounds for suffragette * * * all victims of capitalist repression. This tendencies but the gathering places and schools for the revolutionary forces. Joseph Ryan and Sylvia Weinstein, work is sustained by regular monthly The Muslim Women's Club of Tiflis was founded by the Communist Party and is Socialist Action candidates for San contributions of our supporters. We the special work of its women's division. It was founded in the knowledge that the Francisco Board of Supervisors and need your help, now! Become a monthly establishment of the Soviet system had-profoundly stirred the psyche of Muslim Board of Education, face criminal pros­ sustaining contributor. Send your dona­ women. It symbolizes for them the transformation of their lives since Soviet laws ecution for refusing to turn over the tions to: Partisan Defense Committee, know of no domination of meri over women and of no prerogative of one sex over the names of contributors to their fall 1988 P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station, New other. Instead, this club proclaims the full equality of women in all social fields and election campaigns. In response, Social- York, NY 10013 .• proves that the Soviets are eager to realize this equality. These women demand passionately that they can realize their new legal status by participating in the transformation of society, building a new structure which will accommodate the talents of the working women. Letter -Clara Zetkin, In the Liberated Caucasus (1926) Socialist Action spoke movingly of the A Correction many comrades, such as Dick Fraser and Jim Cannon, who have passed away Berkeley, California after devoting years to the revolution­ 31 January 1989 ary movement. In this regard, Cooper also referred to his recently deceased !!!w!!!,,!!y '!.~'!!'!..~~~.s~ Dear COlnrade Editor: former brother-in-law Max Geldman, a DIRECTOR OF PARTY PUBliCATIONS: Liz Gordon founding member of the SWP, and one EDITOR: Jan Norden Richard Fraser played an historic role of the eighteen Trotskyists who were PRODUCTION MANAGER: Jorge Ramirez as one of the early leaders in the strug­ imprisoned in 1944 for their heroic and CIRCULATION MANAGER: Jon Lawrence gle against the political degeneration principled opposition to the American EDITORIAL BOARD: George Foster, Liz Gordon, Frank Hunter, Jane Kerrigan, imperialist war effort. In the transcript Len Meyers, Jan Norden, Jorge Ramirez, James Robertson, Reuben Samuels, that brought the SWP from revolution­ Joseph Seymour, Alison Spencer, Marjorie Stamberg, Noah Wilner ary to its current brand of Cooper's remarks, WV(No. 469, p. 9) Workers Vanguard (USPS 098-770) published biweekly, except 2nd issue Augustand With 3-week interval December, of eccentric reformism. Workers Van­ confused Max Geldman with the rene­ by the Spartaclst Publishing Co., 41 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: 732-7862 (EditOrial), 732-7861 gade Max Shachtman, the SWP leader (BUSiness). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Domestic subSCriptions: $7.00/24 guard is doing a great service to the Issues Second-class postage paid at New York, NY POSTMASTER. Send address changes to Workers Vanguard, cause of by reprinting the who defected from Trotskyism in 1940 Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. speeches and letters that were read at the under the pressure of petty bourgeois OpinIOns expressed In SIgned articles or letters do not necessarily express the ed/tonal viewpoint. January 8 memorial meeting held for anti-Sovietism. No. 471 17 February 1989 comrade Fraser in Los Angeles. Revolutionary greetings, At the meeting, Dave Cooper of Bob Z. 2 WORKERS VANGUARD L.A. Student Wllikouts Blick Tellchers' Demllnds LOS ANGELES-In the last two in a racist sweep worthy of !i4." ------...... :'- ",: ;" South Africa . weeks, a wave of student walkouts has swept L.A. high schools, largely in In a background article on the stu­ support of teachers' demands for higher .""'--' dent walkouts, the Los Angeles Times salaries. School authorities watched in (6 February) wrote: amazement, then called the LAPD "For three weeks, demonstrations have and threatened arrests. Demonstra­ swept Los Angeles schools in a way that recalls the city's campus unrest of the tions have ranged from a few hundred to '60s. . .. But this is not your father's a few thousand students from some 50 sit-in." high schools and junior highs in the L.A. The article was headlined "Career Con­ Unified School District. Students lis­ cerns at Heart of 1980s Campus tened on their Walkmen to hear which Protest." But the L.A. students, 82 per­ schools went out that day, and walked cent of them minorities, are not a bunch out before attendance was taken in of aspiring yuppies. Forty percent of the homeroom. Not since mainly Hispanic students don't make it to graduation students demonstrated against racist day. They're fighting to get a decent injustices in the L.A. schools in 1968 has education from a system that's been there been such an outpouring of mil­ slashed to the bone and beyond. They're itant youth. fighting for their future, so they won't be It doesn't take.a high school diploma trapped serving fast food in East L.A. or to understand that your teachers are South Central, or with no job at all. overworked and underpaid. One stu- . dent at Garfield High School, where Belvedere Junior High School students hit the in solidarity with The past year has seen a rise in polit­ teachers, January 31. 1,000 youth poured out of classrooms, ical activism among junior high and captured the spirit: "It's Stand and attempt to split the students from the first in 19 years. The 1970 strike spar ked high school students in the greater L.A. Deliver, man." This high school is the teachers has flopped-a parents meet­ walkouts of hundreds of radicalized area. In mid-January, nearly 2,000 home of Jaime Escalante, the self­ ing demanding the union "not hold students in support of the teachers. marched on the South African consu­ sacrificing math teacher whose efforts to the students hostage" attracted only Under UTLA president Wayne John-' late, in a demonstration called by the inspire barrio kids to overcome obsta­ 30 people. son, the union has gained a reputation Los Angeles Student Coalition, which cles to academic achievement was pop­ The 22,000 members of UTLA for militancy, forcing a 43 percent has also organized aid to the homeless. ularized in the movie of the same name. (United Teachers Los Angeles) have increase in starting teachers' salaries These students, who were about nine The film itself is far from pro-union, as been working without a contract for over the last five years. But while J ohn­ when Reagan was elected, are coming "superteachers" working themselves to over a year. The teachers are demand­ son denounced the district's threat as a out of the Reagan period, with its arro­ death are presented as the solution to ing a 12 percent salary increase, as well "lockout," the union is saying publicly gant disregard for black life, deeply the problems of impoverished ghetto as compensation for work they do (or there will be no strike until it's "legal," angry about at home and youth. Yet identification with their nothing, such as yard duty and parenti i.e., after school gets out! Grotesquely, abroad. hard-working, underpaid teachers has student conferences. The union has been the UTLA has opposed the students' Despite the tinsel-town message of rallied students to the union's cause. carrying out a teacher of all walkouts, telling students to "resist the Stand and Deliver, millions of black and The were sparked by the non-classroom duties, but its threat to understandable urge to demonstrate Hispanic kids in this country can't "pull union's threat to withhold midyear withhold the midyear grades from the in support of their teachers" (United themselves up" out of the barrios and grades, as part of a long-simmering district was the spark that set off the stu­ Teacher, 27 January). ghettos by good education and ded­ salary dispute. On January 27, 4,300 dent walkouts. Students were scared L. A. has the second-largest school icated teachers alone. They're locked students poured out of school, support­ that their grades not being reported district in the nation, and one of the into the life of brutal oppression, unem­ ing the teachers' demands so they could would hurt their chances of college most overcrowded and underfunded. ployment and despair by the decaying get their official grades. The day before, admission, so the teachers issued "union the school population is 56.8 percent racist capitalist system. It will take a 250 students converged on district head­ report cards" which the state university Latino, 17 percent black, and 8.2 per­ socialist revolution to unlock the future quarters. The Herald Examiner (27 system says it will accept. Now the dis­ cent Asian, and has more students in for minority youth. Uniting students January) reported, "Students-some in trict is threatening "no grades, no pay" if bilingual programs than any other and teachers behind a solid teachers leather, some in tie-dye-chanted pro­ the teachers don't file grades by the time district in the U.S. Meanwhile, the strike that shuts down the L.A. school teacher slogans like 'The boys got of the March monthly paycheck. LAPD has targeted minority youth in system would deliver an awesome green I But they're too mean'." An The next step ought to be a strike, the "anti-gang" roundups of over 20,000 blow .•

feeds off the racist frenzy of the mob violence directed at black students at Young Republicans or Stormtroopers? Amherst. .They have repeatedly at­ tempted (and failed) to drive leftists off campus. In December 1987, they dis­ rupted a speech by Communist Party Ed Meese or Heinrich Himmler? (CP) leader Gus Hall, tried to make a "citizen's arrest," physically assaulted a ===----- side, several more right-wingers joined terested students of their democratic CP member, and provoked cop inter­ the provocation. Indicating the kind of rights. They went so far as t6 threaten vention in the meeting. More recently "discussion" this type favors, one of Spartacist supporters with apartheid­ they've pursued a blatantly anti­ UMass Amherst them brandished a chair, screaming, style "banning orders." This is an democratic campaign to unseat Jason "/ will kill you." outrage! Rabinowitz, a leader of the Young FEBRUARY IO-Last night students The video showing drew an integrated We always thought Young Republi­ Communist League, from his elected attended the Spartacus Youth Club's group of students from Marxist and cans happily capitulated to greed and position as co-president of the student Black History Month video showing at many other political persuasions, in­ shady legal practices, and you can bet body. In October 1987 they tried to bust U Mass Amherst on the November 5 cluding members of the Radical Stu­ they were celebrating the victory of the up a Trotskyist Spartacus Youth Club Mobilization that stopped the race­ dent Union, the student government Savings and Loans bailout of $50 forum. And now they've struck again. terrorist KKK in Philadelphia. The and a reporter from the Collegian, who billion-money stolen by the rich in this While these defective punks are a long meeting was the target of an organ­ stood their ground against this premed­ country' from" the working people. But way from forcing their dreams of an ized attack by the ultra rightist Min­ itated attack. The "Minutemen" then is the role model of today's breed American Reich down the throats of uteman I Repu blican-Conservative Alli­ resorted to calling on campus police to Ed Meese or Heinrich Himmler? The U Mass students, their incitement to ance crowd. Fired up at their own close down the meeting. They goaded Republican-Conservative Alliance is a state repression of the left must be meeting billed as "Never Again-A campus security, telling them that the menace to all UMass students. They fought. Defenders of democratic rights, Communist Student Government Pres­ video featured a "convicted cop kil­ exist to incite and directly perpetrate including the many Amherst students ident," half a dozen of the "Minute­ ler"-a reference to framed-up journal­ violence against all who deviate from who rode to Philadelphia to lend a hand men" entered the socialist meeting. ist and MOVE supporter Mumia Abu­ the conservative fold epitomized by in stopping the Klan and Hitler-loving Intent on preventing any discussion of Jamal. a former Black Panther Party their pinup, Ollie North. , can only redouble their the labor-centered action that stopped member who was sentenced to death Gay students on campus are up in efforts to defend black students, gays, their friends in the white sheets, they explicitly for his political views. The arms over the Minuteman's display of a reds and anyone else these sinister repeatedly disrupted the proceedings cops did disperse the meeting, depriv­ revolting "word puzzle" filled with slurs losers target. Stop the attacks on the and were removed. In the hallway out- ing the Spal1acus Youth Club and in- against gays. The Minuteman crowd Spartacus Youth Club!.

17 FEBRUARY 1989 3 Richard Fraser Memorial to a Veteran American Trotskyist

We print below the final portion of the speeches and nology but the communal social organization which messages delivered to the memorial meeting for Dick was necessary to the continuance of their existence. He Fraser held in Los Angeles on January 8. As we noted went to Seattle, organized a branch. Went to the south in the first segment (WV No. 469, 20 January), the side of Los Angeles, organized a branch. friends and comrades of Dick's who came to the meet­ He studied about the rise and fall of the slave power ing spanned three generations of the communist move­ in the and about the Reconstruction ment. They invoked the traditions of the Western rad­ period. And he asked the question, how did the race icalism of the Wobblies, of the , of ,relations in the United States today originate? What the work of the American Trotskyists in the Socialist was their connection with the slave system and its after­ Workers Party of James P. Cannon to carry forward math? The Old Man [Trotsky] said, if you don't want the banner of Bolshevism in the. face of the Stalinist to regard the issue of black liberation as a national degeneration of the American Communist Party. - question, then determine what it is. Dick struggled In his remarks, Spartacist League National Chair­ with that question. As before, he studied, then gave a man Jim Robertson proposed holding a symposium series of lectures, in Los Angeles in 1953. The elabora­ dedicated to the life, work and central contributions of tion of this question became his life's work. He cod­ Richard S. Fraser to the Marxist movement, not only ified his thoughts in the resolution "Revolutionary as a memorial to this veteran American Trotskyist but Integration" in 1963 in Seattle. His work on this as an important part of our revolutionary history. For question has been republished and forms the pro­ the latter-day SWP under Jack Barnes, all the remain­ grammatic basis of the Spartacist League and other ing veterans of the old party had to be axed in order to sections of the Trotskyist movement today. wipe out any vestige of "Trotskyism," however warped In later years, Dick turned back to the history of the and distorted .. For us, preserving a continuity which slave power and the struggle against slavery, and has goes back to Lenin and Trotsky's Bolshevik Party is a authored a book, in the form of abstracts. He also vital life line. authored his autobiography, mainly a study of his long struggle with cancer and the aftereffects of Message of the Trotzkistische Liga Deutschlands the debilitating surgery which he underwent. "How 1 and the Ligue Trotskyste de France, sections of the Came to Love My Carcinoma" is a tale of dark humor, international Spartaeist tendency pathos and tragedy. Dick was a speaker and an educator, first and fore­ We share with you the loss of anti-racist fighter most. And to have been handicapped in his speech was and historic American Trotskyist Richard Fraser. In the cruelest of blows. But to the last day of his life Dick January we also honor the "Three L's," Lenin, and ~ remained optimistic, fretting over his illness but plan­ Liebknecht and Luxemburg who were murdered 70 ning the continuation of his work on slavery. As little years ago this year. In so doing we pay tribute to all as four days before he died, he was discussing these those, like Comrade Fraser, who died at their posts, 1913-1988 issues. fighting for a socialist future. Well, there were other sides to Dick, personal sides, his undying love for his son Jonny, which he con­ * * * * * stantly expressed. The inventions, that by the patent Dan any profit, or any political gain. They did it because it laws of the United States were stolen by his employer, a friend and comrade of Dick's who knew him for was the honorable thing to do. And they did it with but were of considerable significance. His undying love many years considerable difficulty. I don't want to give away any of music and knowledge of it. You may not know it, he Before I make a few remarks about Dick, I feel trade secrets, but they're not a large group in this town. was even a little bit of a card player. We'll reserve those deeply constrained to make some related comments. And these people have other lives to live, they have topics for informal discussion. We are left with the Several years ago, Dick became befriended, very jobs, they have family, and they have other responsi­ memory of a worker, a rebel, a restless organizer, deeply and very meaningfully, by the comrades of the bilities. But with total loyalty and total devotion, they speaker, worker-scholar. And we have to say good-bye Spartacist League and especially, although not exclu­ , performed these duties. And I just felt I had to express to our old friend. The world's a poorer place without sively, those in their Los Angeles group. Without this this here. him. help that they gave him, Dick would not have been able Dick Fraser was a musician, a merchant seaman, an * * * * * to have maintained his life, more or less normal, within aircraft worker, a lumber worker, pattern maker, the constraints of his physical condition, living in his plastic mold maker, working-class. He never had a Greetings to the memorial meeting from own apartment with his library, his correspondence, middle-class job in his whole life. He made his living as the Spartaeist Group of Japan, his telephone and his word processor. They took him a worker and no other way. But more, Dick was a rest­ dated 18 December 1988 to the hospital, they took him back from the hospital. less organizer, an inveterate propagandist, a "boss­ We join you today in honoring the life of Richard S. They provided medical consultation. They helped him hater" in the Wobbly tradition, and still more. He was Fraser, a "historic American Trotskyist" and a with his household arrangements. . a socialist and a worker-scholar in the finest tradition. tenacious fighter for black liberation. Although few Finally, four days before he died, when he made his You study, you learn, and you teach. of us knew Comrade Fraser personally, we salute his last trip home from the hospital, they provided a He studied the Reformation, gave a series of lec­ years of struggle against the special oppression of 24-hour-a-day, three-shift guard at his house, helping tures in Los Angeles. He studied the colonial period blacks in North America and his unique contributions him with his feeding apparatus, helping him with the of American history, and gave a series of lectures, to a Marxist understanding of how to end it. difficult life that he was living then in his last hours and perceptive, revealing. How the Indians taught the The black question is the question of the American last days. They did this with no hope or any intent of colonists to survive, gave them not only the tech- revolution. Comrade Fraser's historic 1955 doc-

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Dick Fraser's fight .....'I), \ for revolutionary integrationism is carried forward in the work of the SL and Labor Black Leagues. Left: San Francisco, 1983. Right: Philadelphia, 5 November 1988.

4 WORKERS VANGUARD E. R. McKinney had been having in the S WP and in the Shachtman Workers Party then. I could not under­ stand how black could be analogous with a European national oppressed minority. And having broken with the Shachtmanites, and even before that, I knew that there was something terribly wrong, simply looking at the history and reality of American social relations, with the idea that a kind of militant reformism was going to eliminate the race question in America. So I was really quite ready to run into comrade Fraser's presentation and historical foundation, that one can achieve the abolition of racial division in this country only through a profound, pervasive, far-going in which the comes to power. So I walked away quite thoroughly recruited. And with some, I think, continuing personal affection throughout the rest of those years between us. This led me to think in preparing to talk here today, why Fraser? I can offer some elements, but I also have a suggestion, because it's rather soon and we only have some of his papers available. Perhaps on the first anni­ versary of his death we could have a symposium on his central political thought, its development, in the con­ text of his life and his work. I will offer a few ideas WV Photo about how it is that this particular man in a given set of Comrades at January 8 memorial meeting sing the Internationale in salute to Dick Fraser. circumstances could make what I consider to be a fun­ damental contribution to the program of , ument, "For the Materialist Conception of the Negro direction of our programmatic agreements. Dick's growing out of the particularities of the American Question," is a sharp refutation of black nationalism endorsement of our November 5th demonstration in racial relations rather than national relations. and all its variants in favor of revolutionary integra­ Philadelphia epitomizes this agreement and I'm glad I don't think that comrade Fraser could have done tionism. This conception lives on today in our Ameri­ Dick died with his on. . this work if he hadn't been a Trotskyist. Because if his can comrades' work to build Labor Black Leagues in In closing, I have to commend my comrades and head had been filled with ideas of "socialism in one the major urban centers. Our most recent victory in friends in L.A. who worked tirelessly to prolong this country," or support for bourgeois political forma­ stopping a fascist provocation in Philadelphia on valuable communist's life and I'm glad I could help this tions, which were characteristic of the other socialist 5 November 1988 was a powerful display of the black effort. I'm sorry I can't be with you today and must pay groups, it would not have been possible. In a striking and red social components that will lead the third my respects from afar. Dick's exemplary struggle to way, C.L.R. James had a great influence when he . overcome his debilitating physical ailments gives new arrived in the United States in 1939, evoking also a Richard Fraser's major work, centering on a Marx­ meaning to the words courage and tenacity. Dick was a reaction and a certain paralysis, theoretically, on the ist perspective to end the vicious oppression of blacks part of the SWP. in the U.S., has important ramifications internation­ Then Fraser spent four or five years in the National ally. Here in Japan, we seek to build a party that sees its Maritime Union. The SWP's cadres were concen­ workers revolution ending the centuries of women's trated in the Sailors' Union of the Pacific, which was oppression as well as the institutionalized discrimi­ completely racially exclusionary, unlike the National nation against Koreans, Chinese, Japan's indigenous Maritime Union. And yet Dick was very prominent in minorities, the Ainu and burakumin, and the Japa­ the NMU. This contrast in the work of the two frac­ nese 's newest victims, immigrant labor tions obviously had to be a source of stimulation and from the Philippines and Southeast Asia. thought. Dick Fraser's insistence that only a proletarian Finally, I believe that he was a genuine native genius. revolution can end the horrid plight of 's And I think that somewhere in this matrix you will find oppressed minorities is an important component of the the start of the process that took several years to per­ international Spartacist tendency's program today. colate and really only came into fully rounded form in From the other side of the Pacific we embrace our the early '50s. By the later '50s, beginning with the American comrades who have lost a "cherished friend Little Rock crisis, when Eisenhower sent the troops to and theoretical mentor." the South and the SWP said, Hail the American troops to the South, they're going to be the saviors-already * * * * * a major political departure-I think that the first Sam Hunt theoretical verification of Fraser's views had been a comrade of the international Spartaeist tendency obtained. who sent the following letter A few other remarks. Dick Fraser is supposed to have said, "One of the best things I ever did in my life Dear comrades and friends, was sit Jim Robertson down at a kitchen table .and Like all of you, I was saddened to hear about Dick pound at him for a few nights." Well, it's funny, Fraser's death. I am grateful that I knew Dick pretty because I'd just said, across the country at the same well during the last years of his life. I first met Dick in a time, "The last guy that ever convinced me of anything hospital room in Long Beach in 1981, but also spent a in an argument was Dick Fraser." That does not mean good deal of time with him when he was home and that program is finished. There's an exchange between lucid as hell. I would often stop at Dick's apartment on Cannon and Shachtman to that effect. Cannon is my way home from work when I lived in L.A. He lived supposed to have said, "We have a finished program," near Hollywood Park and the horse races that he and Shachtman said, "Yeah, it's finished." loved. It was here that I received an education on life I believe that through time that program must in the SWP in the 1940s and '50s. Trotskyist leaders, change and develop, even though I believe that very lit­ WV Photo especially black leaders like C. L. R. James and Edgar Display at memorial highlights Fraser's contri­ tle that is fundamental can change within the frame­ Keemer, became far more than historical names. butions to our movement. work of capitalism since it took its essential shape in The height of black recruitment to the American 1848. But I believe that comrade Fraser is one of those Trotskyist movement came during WW II when the communist to the end and I'm gomg to miss his sense of who found a particular set of conditions in the North Stalinists and social democrats betrayed the fight humor and zest for life. He was my friend and I'll never American continent and made a Marxian, materialist against Jim Crow. The SWP's courageous stand for forget him. analysis of it. black civil rights during the war had a profound impact I would also like to note that comrade Fraser on Dick who lived through these events. When the * * * * * received, on arriving in L.A. after Seattle, in a pretty SWP veered on a black nationalist course Dick fought Jim Robertson battle-fatigued condition, a great deal of fellowship hard against this anti-Marxist stance and this culmi­ from the NAM (New American Movement), later National Chairman of the Spartaeist League nated in his historic 1955 document. Dick's interest in of the u.s. the DSA, and especially from Dorothy Healey, who this question was no idle intellectual venture but a life­ helped him a great deal. And I believe that this under­ long commitment to black liberation. Like comrade Frank Krasnowsky, I, too, would be standably slowed down his approehement with the SL, The Workers Vanguard article about Richard's happy to take about 30 minutes on the techpicalities of although we had been in loose association with many death importantly notes that his last political act was to the decomposition of the SWP until it ends up as a disagreements for a long time, comrade Fraser even endorse our Partisan Defense Committee rally to stop Barnesite organization. But I, too, am bound by the having attended our founding conference in 1966. See, a KKK provocation in Philadelphia on November 5th. ten-minute limit. I could take off now about the SWP, Tom Kerry and This is very special to me, as the day Dick endorsed our I first ran into Dick Fraser about 31 years ago, and those guys and what they did, but I really don't have demonstration was also the last time I saw him alive. he was my last personal teacher. Frank has mentioned time for that. While weak and resting in bed, he was quite animated what happened in Seattle when you got around Dick Most of my other few remarks have already been in his desire to get a full report on what was going on. Fraser. Well, I stayed at his house, so I got it day and picked up by others. I think that comrade Fraser found He followed the events leading to the November 5th night! a great deal of satisfaction in offering guidance demonstration very carefully and in his last days the But it came at just the right time, because our and advice, especially with the Labor Black Leagues fire of class struggle still burned in his eyes. I had many theoretical mentors, the both of us, he of an earlier gen­ sprouting around the country, and with our members disagreements with Dick over the years but our WV eration than me, had been formed out of the argu­ and the younger comrades in general. All the rest of my obituary und,erlined our bending the stick in the ments that C.L.R. James, Jimmy Johnson that is, and continued on page 11

17 FEBRUARY 1989 5 What Row Over "Kristallnacht" Speech Shows Dangerous Rise of German Nationalism The following article is translated from Sparta kist No. 60, February! March 1989, newspaper of the Trotz­ kistische Liga Deutschlands. On the eve of the 40th anniversary of the founding of the West German state, its imperialist rulers want to throw their weight around. The German bourgeoi­ sie is far from satisfied with the' enor­ mous wealth it is raking in through trade with West Europe and the gradual economic penetration of the East. Using the strong D-mark to put the arm on Washington over economic policy, Bonn also seeks to get its hands on nuclear weapons in the process of ­ ernizing NATO's short-range nuclear missiles (while setting up a Franco/ German brigade outside the NATO command). But if West German impe­ rialism is no longer an "economic giant and political dwarf" (as Willy Brandt once said), its full emergence as a world Peter Thomann power is blocked by a whole series of West German Bundeswehr reintroduces Prussian tradition of public swearing-in of soldiers on 25th anniversary barriers. of NATO. In recent years, West Germany under Christian Democratic (CDU) chancel­ ocrats. Jenninger was reproached for out 28 million Bundespost-subsidized memoration on the anniversary of the lor has tried hard to gain "tastelessness," accused of being an anti­ "Drecksachen" (printed filth), to every "Kristallnacht" pogroms showed that international stature, yet repeatedly Semite and of "marching through his­ household in the country, with the the German bourgeoisie is still encum­ these attempts have backfired. Kohl got tory with mental jackboots." slogan "First Germany, then Europe." bered with its history at every step. a slap in the face when he tried to crash Yet this was not a crypto-Nazi speech, The sinister growth of the Nazis and the From the outset, Kohl was dogged by the 40th anniversary celebration of the and the protests as much as the speech appearance of violent gangs failure. Thus the majority ofthe govern­ Western Allies' victory over Nazi Ger­ are an expression of a renascent but have produced a polarization in West ing body of the Frankfurt Jewish com­ many in World War II, held at the site of frustrated German nationalism. They German society, posing ever more munity voted against the appearance of the Normandy invasion. To compen­ railed at Jenninger's graphic account of sharply the need to mobilize the power the federal chancellor in the West End sate for this rebuff, Kohl twisted Nazi crimes and Hitler's popularity at of the industrial working class, includ­ synagogue on November 9. When Kohl Reagan's arm to visit the cemetery at the time. But his real crime in their eyes ing its strategic immigrant component, spoke anyway, he was interrupted by Bitburg in 1985, where in the service of was to say publicly what the Thyssens to crush these scum. heckling of "Bitburg!" and "You're the anti-Soviet Cold War they saluted and Krupps say privately, expressing lying!" and many walked out. Outside the SS Division "Das Reich." The ob­ fascination with the "victories" of the Green, Red & Black Uproar the Frankfurt Opera house where Kohl scene Bitburg visit was internationally Third Reich. For Jenninger it is neces­ in the Bundestag attended a memorial meeting that same condemned as a in the face of sary to talk openly about Auschwitz in After the obscene spectacle of Bit­ day, there was a protest joined by order to smoo~h the way for the Ger­ burg, West German imperialism faces supporters of the Trotzkistische Liga man bourgeoisie's great-power ambi­ increasing .tension between the drive to Deutschlands, German section of the tions, promising a German imperialism "morally rearm" its popUlation for ag­ international Spartacist tendency, car­ without genocide. Jenninger declares, gressive big-power politics and imperi­ rying signs with the slogans "Workers "Next time, it's Mr. Nice Guy." But in alist adventures and its diplomatic need Revolution Will Avenge Victims of the the rest of the world, many expect the to peddle the myth of a "new," "peace­ Holocaust!" and "Bitburg: Kohl in the opposite. loving" Reich (complete with its own Footsteps of the SS." West Germany today is too strong to nationalist "peace" movement). Chan­ The following day, at a "commem­ be simply the loyal junio'r partner of cellor Kohl has advertised himself as orative hour" in the Bundestag, Speaker American imperialism in Europe. But it the first leader of the postwar genera­ Jenninger wanted to deliver a major is not strong enough to impose its will tion, speaking of the "blessing of being address. But by the time he finished, on Europe, West or East. For the rest of born late"; he and his peers feel they over 50 delegates from the Greens, SPD, the world, especially Germany's most have been compelled to stand in the FDP and some CDUers-over one­ immediate neighbors, the memory of corner long enough for the crimes of third of those present-had walked out the tens of millions slaughtered in Hit­ their fathers. But the Bonn politicians' of the room in protest. Jutta Oesterle­ ler's onslaught is vividly alive to this attempt to dissipate the shadow of the Schwerin, a Green Bundestag member day. Even the Reaganauts evoked the Nazi past cast by Bitburg with a com- of Israeli origin, accused Jenninger of Auschwitz gas chambers to force Kohf iegel Former speaker of West German par­ to eat crow over an alleged chemical liament, Christian Democrat Philipp weapons plant built for Qaddafi. In Jenninger. order to present a "new face" to all those who remember the last time German Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and a imperialism ravished Europe, West Ger­ mockery of the memory of millions of many's rulers must indeed attempt to Jews murdered in Nazi death camps. "master" the Nazi chapter of German So last November, the Kohl regime history. But once again they failed. as sought to recoup after the Bitburg the Jenningerfiasco no less than Bitburg fiasco by holding a commemoration of reflects the dilemma of the German rul­ the 50th anniversary of Reichspogrom­ ing class facing its past. nacht-the night in 1938 when the Nazis The question of the past is also the @ unleashed a pogrom against the Jewish question of the future. as racism and popUlation throughout the Reich, burn­ frustrated revanchism feed upon each ing synagogues and Jewish homes and other, providing fertile soil for . businesses to the ground and subse­ The CDU is being outflanked on its quently deporting 30,000 Jews to the right, its electoral base eroded by fascist deadly concentration camps. But the organizations like the Republikaner, led speech by the CDU chairman of the by former Waffen SS officer Schon­ 'j West German parliament, Philipp huber, with a dramatic showing in the Jenninger, produced an uproar across Cold War "frontline city" of West Ber­ the political spectrum, from the Greens lin under the slogan "Germany first." I and Social Democrats (SPD) to Free The neo-Nazi Deutsche Volksunion, Nazi "Kristallnacht" pogrom, 1938: Baden-Baden synagogue set aflame by Democrats (FDP) and Christian Dem- financed by the Oetker trust, has sent stormtroopers. 6 WORKERS VANGUARD making Hitler into a great politician and demonstrating "that anti-Semitism is present in the hearts of many members of this house." Former Social Dem­ ocratic chancellor Willy Brandt said it was a "dark day in German postwar history." SPD chairman Vogel com­ plained about "stunning lack orsensitiv­ ity," and FDP deputy Luder called the speech "unbearable." That night the CDU /CSU had Jenninger resign. Fearing embarrassment abroad, the governing Christian Democrat/Free Democrat coalition was full of conster­ nation. Even big-time swindler Count Otto von Lambsdorf (convicted in the Flick scandal and now back as FDP chief) said he had "the impression of a justification or partial justification of the worst events in modern German his­ tory." As in a low-grade comedy, sud­ AP denly the CDU and FDP appear in the Left: Bitburg, 1985-Kohl and Reagan in obscene salute to Nazi 55 war dead. Right: German Trotskyists on clothes of committed anti-fascists. As anniversary of 1938 pogrom say "Workers revolution will avenge victims of Holocaust." for the Social Democrats, didn't they work willingly with old Nazis like denly become the hegemonic power of of the German bourgeoisie would prefer United Secretariat summarizes aptly: Kiesinger, Carstens and Lubke during the old Continent." silence, and Nolte & Co. attempt to deny " ... from the point of view of the revo­ the time of "Grand Coalition" which Jenninger's statement, "With the at­ or "relativize" Nazi crimes, Jenninger lutionary of the Ger­ first brought the SPD into office? The tack on the the possibility called this "senseless .... Our past will man , it has not yet recov­ Greens, who used to count in their arose of combining the two: conquest not rest, nor will it disappear." ered from this defeat, 55 years after the parliamentary fraction WW II Eastern of 'Lebensraum' in the East and the Jenninger's recipe for absolution: "to moment in which Hitler took power" Front general Bastian, called for Jen­ 'destruction of the Jewish race in keep memory alive and to accept the ("The Historical Balance Sheet of the ninger's resignation to restore the image Europe'," was the policy not only of past as part of our identity as Ger­ Fourth International," Bulletin in De­ of the successor state to the Third Reich. "madman Hitler." General-Oberst von mans-this alone promises to us the fense of Marxism, December 1988). Both JenniQger and Kohl in his West Fritsch, fired by Hitler as army chief of elders as well as to the young deliver­ As a bourgeois nationalist, Jenninger, End synagogue speech were minding staff in 1938, had the same program. ance from the burden of history." In a to paraphrase Kaiser Wilhelm on the their manners, carefully using the term And the Drang nach Osten (drive to the later speech, certainly not for interna­ outbreak of World War I, sees "no par­ "Reichspogromnacht" instead of the East) was not born with the writing of tional consumption, delivered to the ties" or classes, "only Germans" ... and Nazis' "Kristallnacht," and referring Mein Kampf it is shared by all the clerical-reactionary "Catholic Student only Germans who supported Hitler to "Jewish fellow citizens." But from representatives of German imperialism Union Arminia," he declared, "Some and the Holocaust. What the bourgeoi­ the start Jenninger slipped into the today, from the Ruhr industrialists to want the Germans to stand for all time sie does not say is that the German racist distinction between "the Jews" the social-patriotic SPD. And when in the position of the accused. But we working class had to be beheaded and "us Germans." Federal president and smashed as a precondition for the Weizsacker, in his celebrated 1985 Nazi "final solution." In 1918-19, it used speech demolished the "vital lie of to drown the revolu­ postwar Germany" (Der Spiegel) that tion in blood, assassinating Liebknecht Germans "didn't know" about the and Luxemburg. What was lacking then Holocaust. But for him as well as Kohl was a formed Communist party. In and Jenninger, German Jews simply 1923, the KPD let the most significant don't and didn't exist, an especially revolutionary opportunity that offered noxious conception in light of the over itself to German pass half a million who had lived in Ger­ by for lack of a determined party many before Hitler's "final solution." leadership. But Jenninger's speech could hardly The petty bourgeoisie, driven mad by be misunderstood as an apology for fas­ economic crisis, shifted their hopes for cism. At the beginning of his talk he salvation from the powerful but indeci­ stated clearly that in the 1938 pogroms sively led proletariat to the "party of "the state made itself the organizer white-hot reaction," in Trotsky's vivid of the crime." The objections really phrase. The Krupps and Flicks threw came after he set out to explain why "the their millions behind Hitler, and after ~...... '''" i,~"" population was largely passive" which Der Spiegel 1933 they more than recouped their "corresponded to the attitude toward Parliamentary leaders of Greens want a "clean" German imperialism. investment. As we wrote last fall: anti-Jewish actions and measures in pre­ "Nazism was the German bourgeoisie'S vious years." It became pandemonium Jenninger remarked, "The years from must emerge 'from this condition" last desperate recourse to rescue its when he asked, speaking in the voice of 1933 to 1938 are, even looking back (Suddeutsche Zeitung, 17-18 December own class rule before the revolu­ "very many Germans" who thought, from a distance and knowing what came 1988). Jenninger's line is that while tionary onslaught of the proletariat. ... "And as far as the Jews were concerned: next, still today an object offascination all Germans share responsibility for The German bourgeoisie as a whole had had they not in the past presumed to a ... almost without parallel in history," history, "everyone must answer ... the united around exploiting anti-Semitism role, as it was said then, to which they he was expressing real admiration. So question of guilt himself": i.e., col­ to revive Germany from its defeat in had no right? Must they not finally, for does much of his audience-in private. lective "responsibility" without guilt. World War In (see "Kristallnacht: Reign once, accept restrictions? Had they per­ Jenninger quoted at length Himmler's Nazi rule in Germany was supported of Nazi Terror," WV No. 465, 18 No­ haps even deserved being put in their infamous speech in 1943 which extolled by a large part of the popUlation, and vember 1988). place?" participation in the extermination of the that was different from fascist Italy or To the terror of the Third Reich This description of the prevailing Jews as vital to building Nazi character. imperial Japan. The Italian masses were which atomized the workers movement anti-Semitism in Hitler's, Germany was But as the Reichsfiihrel' SS said of these passively, then actively hostile to Mus­ must be added the terror and counter­ taken as the corpus delicti proving hideous crimes in his speech, "still we solini's regime. Mussolini was killed by revolutionary effects of the Western Jenninger to be an anti-Semite. But will never speak about that in pUblic." Italian partisans and his corpse pub­ Allied invasion and occupation. Amer­ whatever his problems in delivery and Was Jenninger's crime to have said it at licly exposed and desecrated in Milan. ican and British imperialists feared that whatever his' "real views," he did not all? Historian Gordon Craig conclud­ I,n Germany the defeat of the proletar­ the class-conscious German proletariat give a crypto-Nazi speech. No Nazi ed, in a recent essay titled "Facing Up to iat by the Nazis was not merely an would rise from the ashes of the defeat would have quoted, as he did, the si­ the Nazis," that "It is quite possible that episode, but a world-historic defeat. As of Hitler's Reich as it had from the multaneously moving and horrifying the reaction to Jenninger's speech was Claudio Magnani of the fake-Trotskyist continued on page 10 eyewitness account of an SS Einsatz­ a sign that some at least of the parlia­ gruppe carrying out a mass execution. mentarians are becoming fed up with But then the Bundestag Speaker being lectured about their country's went way beyond the accepted ritual of past" (New York Review of Books, official anti-Nazism. What the SPD 2 February). described as Jenninger's "stunning lack Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League of sensitivity" was when he spoke of Whose "Collective Guilt"? "Hitler's political victory procession" Jenninger's speech, like the Histo­ during the early years in power. He rikerdebatte (historians debate) of the o $7/24 issues of Workers Vanguard o $3/3 issues of (includes English-language Spartacist) listed: "Reincorporating the Saar, rein­ last couple years, "is really about the Women and Revolution o New 0 Renewal 0$2/10 introductory issues troducing general conscription, massive future," as the London Guardian put it. International rates: rearmament, concluding the German­ He "did not minimize Auschwitz, he did $25/24 issues-Airmail $7124 issues-Seamail of Workers Vanguard (includes English-language British fleet agreement, occupation of not explain genocide with Bolshevism, 0$2/4 issues of Spartacist (edicion en espanol) Spartacist) the Rhineland, the Olympic Summer but named German reasons," noted Die Name ______Games in Berlin, the 'Anschluj3' [annex­ Zeit. It pointed out that both Jenninger ation] of Austria and the 'Greater Ger­ and Kohl in their "Pogromnacht" Address ______man Empire' and finally, only a few speeches "turned away" from the "revi­ weeks before the November pogroms, sionist" historians and apologists for ______Apt. # Phone (_) ______the Munich Agreement, the breaking fascism like West Berlin professor Ernst City State Zip ____--,= up of -the Versailles Nolte, for whom the Nazis' genocide of 471 treaty was really now only a piece of the Jews only imitated the "Asiatic Make checks payable/mall to: Spartacisl Publishing Co., Box 13n GPO, New York, NY 10116 paper and the German Reich had sud- deed" of the Bolsheviks. While the bulk 17 FEBRUARY 1989 7 Bureaucratic Mismanagement Undermines. Soviet Planning Armenian Earthquake Disaster

Last December's earthquake in Ar­ menia, which left tens ofthousands dead and hundreds of thousands homeless, was a human tragedy of immense pro­ portions. For weeks, the attention of the world was riveted on Armenia, as vol­ unteers from over 50 countries joined Soviet rescue workers of various nation­ alities in seeking to find and save those who remained buried beneath the rub­ ble. Soviet leader broke off his visit to the United Nations in New York to return home and tour the devastated areas. What he found was shattering. Spitak, a town of 30,000, had. been leveled. In Leninakan, with a popula­ tio'n of 290,000 the second largest city in Armenia, four out offive buildings were destroyed or heavily damaged; more than 120 high-rise apartment buildings had been reduced to rubble. The earth­ quake hit. just minutes before schools and factories were to empty out for lunch, trapping schoolchildren and workers beneath collapsing walls and ceilings. In Leninakan's Lenin Square, Most devastating earthquake in Armenia's history: rescuers search through rubble for survivors. coffins were stacked 12 high and 20 across. Nearly 25,000 bodies have been 1988) practically cheered that the Soviet criticism is certainly in order, in this case tion. In fact, the Seismological Institute recovered; and estimates of the death popUlation could now see "how poorly was aimed at boosting Gorba­ in Leninakan was in the process of test­ toll range to 50,000 or more. their country measures up to the stan­ chev's pursuit of "market socialism" and ing a model of a building as the earth­ Then, in late January, even as Soviet dards of the outside world." However, it appeasement of U.S. imperialism, and quake hit, a member of the NAS team authorities were preparing plans for the is a measure of the impact of Gorba­ at laying all the blame at the feet of his related. The model building survived, enormous task of reconstruction, a chev's glasnost (openness) that, by and predecessor Brezhnev. the testing lab around it did not. second earthquake occurred in Tad­ large, Western press coverage was far A natural disaster of this scale throws The idea behind seismic design is that zhikistan in Soviet Central Asia, killing more balanced, and contradictory. a sharp light on the economic system new construction be able to with­ more than 250 people. Beyond the enor­ If anything, the Soviet press was more which is subjected to a wrenching phys­ stand-with relatively little damage­ mous toll in human life, the impact of caustic than its anti-Soviet imperialist ical test. What, if anything, does this say the worst natural catastrophe likely to these natural disasters on the already counterparts. Komsomolskaya about the Soviet Union and its central­ occur in that region within a reasonable troubled Soviet economy is staggering. asked: "Where were the seismologists, ized, planned economy? Does it show, period of time (known as the "return Initial estimates of the cost of recon­ the architects and the construction as Time magazine claimed, "much period"). For example, the dikes in struction exceed $25 billion, and the workers that drafted and built the of the blame" is to be laid on "shoddy Holland are designed for a storm that final figure may well be far higher. houses that fell apart like matchboxes?" construction"? In an attempt to sort would occur once every 500 years; many The level of destruction far exceeded Gorbachev demanded: "Who is to through the technical questions and flood control projects in the U.S. are that in other recent quakes. Peter blame for the fact that in the concrete how they might relate to Soviet polit­ designed for floods that might occur Yanev, a structural engineer from San blocks there is too little cement but more ical and economic policies, Workers every 100 years. Needless to say, what Francisco who participated in a Nation­ than enough sand?'.' Pravda wrote: Vanguard spoke to a number of experts the Pentagon considers a reasonable al Academy of Sciences study team sent "Practically everything constructed dur­ in the field, including staff at Engineer­ "return period" for its underground to the quake zone in late December, ing the years of stagnation collapsed." ing News Record and Dr. Mihran S. command bunkers is far greater than compared what he saw with the 1985 The evening television news program Agbabian, chairman of the Civil Engi­ what a California real estate developer Mexico earthquake: "Mexico City was Vremya denounced the rescue effort as neering department at the University of takes into account-and the cost of shocking but the suffering was iso­ inadequate and disorganized, where Southern California, who was part of construction is accordingly far higher. lated. Spitak from the air must have teams "cannot get hold of a simple the N AS team that went to Armenia. "The return period for buildings is looked like Hiroshima after the bomb pick." certainly a much shorter period than the dropped" (Engineering News Record, Yet no less an anti-Soviet mouth­ Quake Destruction and return period for, say, a nuclear power 12 January). piece than the New York Times (16 De­ Soviet Construction plant or a dam," Agbabian added, Amid all the suffering, Armenian cember 1988) observed that "Although Why was the devastation so horren­ "because if they are damaged the conse­ nationalists pressed forward their sepa­ the Soviet press has sharply- criticized dous? First, it must be understood that quences are much more catastrophic." ratist campaign with a frenzy (see box Soviet inefficiencies and poor prepared­ this earthquake was far worse than any As it happened, a nuclear power plant, on facing page), while sections of the ness, foreigners interviewed here said ever expected or experienced in the now to be shut down, was located not Western press tried to turn the tragedy the overall disorganization was no region, which is seismically more like far' from the quake and survived into an anti-Communist morality play. worse than normally expected in major Utah than California. As Dr. Agbabian unscathed. After returning from Arme­ The London Economist (17 December disasters." While the most severe self- told WV before his departure, "histor­ nia, Agbabian suggested that perhaps ically they never had in that particular buildings in the region should have been area an earthquake larger than mag­ designed to withstand more severe nitude 5.75 [on the Soviet MKS scale of earthquakes, given the concentration of I to 12]. And the records go as far back seismic fault lines. Of course, the study as the tenth century." The buildings in team stressed at their New York orief­ Armenia were designed to withstand an ing on January 24 that their conclu­ earthquake of magnitude 7 to 8, but sions are preliminary until the evidence the December quake was 10.5 at the is thoroughly weighed. epicenter-meaning the intensity of What causes a building to collapse or ground shaking was four times greater be damaged in an earthquake is basic­ than the design limits and 16 times ally the buildup of lateral forces as the greater than any quake ever experi­ structure tries to resist the motion of enced in the region. "Even the good the ground under it. Many of the high­ buildings would have come down in this rise apartments in Leninakan simply earthq~ake," said Janice Tuchman, "pancaked," as columns gave way editor of the buildings department of and the floors fell one atop another. ENR. The effect on a building is wors­ To what extent do building stan­ ened if the frequency of the earth­ dards in the Soviet Union have provi­ quake ground waves is near that of sions for seismic engineering, to with­ its natural frequency of vibration (at stand quakes? Dr. Agbabian explained which it resonates, more or less like a that Soviet "design procedures are very tuning fork), making it vibrate or shake much like ours." The Soviet Stan­ violently. This appears to have been the dards and Regulations for Construc­ case with the nine-story apartment tion includes a chapter specifically on buildings predominant in Leninakan. "Construction in Seismically Active However, some types of nine-story Regions." Building designs are also buildings collapsed wholesale while Soviet high-rise apartment complex in Arkhangelsk. subjected to testing before construc- others did not. 8 WORKERS VANGUARD Some accounts in the West, like Newsweek (19 December 1988),claimed it was the fault of "Soviet construction techniques, particularly the widespread use of precast concrete slabs." Unlike in Nationalist Venom Amid Human Tragedy the U.S., where construction is over­ whelmingly done on-site, most contem­ The Soviet troops in Armenia who Gorbachev seized the moment to Nagorny Karabakh, let the people who porary Soviet construction is prefabri­ assisted in the rescue effort were arrest the leaders of the nationalist want Nagorny Karabakh go and live cated, or "ind ustrialized." Standkrdized already in place when the quake hit, Karabakh Committee. there." precast concrete slabs or box units are sent to quell the pogromist fratricide Rumors abounded in the Armenian Under Gorbachev's , manufactured in the factory and then between Armenian nationalists (agi­ of Yerevan that Azerbaijanis nationalist rivalries have resurfaced assembled at the site. But among the tating for control of the mountaino1.Js had welcomed the earthquake as with a fury, while the most dangerous buildings which collapsed were many Nagorno-Karabakh region) and the "Allah's punishment" against Arme­ nationalism, that of the predominant that were not prefab, and a number of neighboring republic of Azerbaijan. nians. Even so, many Azerbaijanis Great Russian people, has taken the the high-rise apartments which did not In the face of the grim tragedy of worked voluntary Saturday overtime form of an ugly emergence of the anti­ suffer were prefab. the earthquake one could at least to help the quake victims, and col­ Semitic Nazi Pamyat organization. Most of the high-rises that collapsed, hope that the chauvinist agitation lections were taken at factory gates in Ominously, Pamyat has sought to according to NAS team member Loring on both sides would be put aside, Baku. An account in the London Inde­ exacerbate racial divisions between A. Wyllie, had a concrete frame struc­ at least temporarily. But as Gorba­ pendent (19 December 1988) of a street Christian Armenians and Muslim ture with beams and columns. The chev toured the stricken areas, he was argument in Kirovakan captured the Azerbaijanis, appearing at an Arme­ floors, walls and column segments were hounded by protesters demanding fact that not all Armenians had been so nian church meeting in Moscow after not connected together strongly enough Nagorno-Karabakh and grotesquely swept up by the nationalist bitterness the quake with a banner reading, "To to form a single force-resisting unit. So insisting that Armenian children not as to forget the overwhelming natural the dead and murdered of Armenia, the columns gave way and the walls and be evacuated to other regions of disaster around them. When a young from the Pamyat." These disgusting floors fell out of the frame. To make the USSR for fear they would not be nationalist insisted, "we must not for­ recrudescences of the dark past must matters worse, in many cases the floor­ returned! Some Armenian nationalists get Nagorny Karabakh," a woman be swept away through a return to pro­ ing consisted of hollow-core concrete even argued against accepting dona­ engineer who had lost 53 of her staff letarian internationalism by the Soviet planks which broke up upon falling tions of blood from Azerbaijan. members shot back, ''I'm sick qf masses. instead of leaving pockets of space between collapsed slabs where people trapped in the rubble could survive. Many of these buildings were built in the procedures and the general level of from 7 per 1000 inhabitants in 1954 to to 400,000 (Newsday, 22 January). Brezhnev years, which is when Soviet inspection. Stalinist bureaucratism cer­ 10.8 in 1957 and 14.4 in 1959. The N or does throwing construction open factory-based construction- expanded tainly encourages a high degree of assumption of responsibility for hous­ to the market make buildings safer. The rapidly. Yet, anpther type of nine-story shoddy labor and corruption, including ing workers is no longer questioned, and very conception of a uniform building prefab building, in which the precast the siphoning-off of materials for the the U.S.S.R. is trying to seal the hous­ code cuts against the grain of capitalist panels connect directly to each other to black market, but even more serious is ing breach with brick and mortar." "competition." One American earth­ form load-bearing walls and floors, with the way it disorganizes the centralized Nor was it simply a question of post­ quake consultant explained fatalistical­ reinforced joints at all panel edges, came distribution system. One NAS team war reconstruction: capitalist West Ger­ ly, "Noncompliance with building codes through the quake with only hairline member marveled at the amount of many in the same period had a housing in the United States is widespread. cracks. "field ingenuity" used in splicing col­ construction rate of II units or less per Make no mistake: catastrophes here and Another factor contributing to the umn joints, the result of workers substi­ thousand people. From 1945 to 1968~ throughout the world are inevitable" extent of destruction, explained NAS tuting for materials which do not arrive the U.S.-with a qualitatively stronger (New York Times, 17 December 1988). team geotechnical expert Thomas in the right amount at the right time and economic base and a much greater pool In California, where there is probably O'Rourke, was the soil condition in the place. Unfortunately, this contributed of skilled labor-produced some 30 the biggest concentration of expertise in region. Leninakan and Spitak are built to the failures. million living units (or just over 6 per seismic construction in the world, on relatively deep deposits of alluvial 1,000 inhabitants per year), of which houses are built directly above the San soil, which contains ground water and Mass Housing, Not well under a million were low-income Andreas Fault. And the ticky-tacky tends to become very fluid under quake Mass Homelessness public housing. The 1968 Housing and boxes of Suburbia U.S.A. are com­ conditions. In contrast, "there was vir­ So there are problems in some Soviet Urban Development Act estimated that plemented by the decrepit, rat- and tually no damage in the village of prefab housing designs and in con­ a minimum of 26 million new units roach-infested firetraps that pass for Akhurian, which is situated on shallow struction, as there are with any tech­ soil cover" only three miles from nological innovation. But why do the Leninakan. Kirovakan, about the same Soviets have so much prefabricated con­ distance from the epicenter as Lenina­ struction? Because, as is acknowledged kan, suffered severe damage only in one even by capitalist governments, it is the part of the town which was built over a most effective means to provide livable filled-in marsh. The most secure high­ accommodationsfor everyone. And it is rise buildings, like New York's older no accident that the USSR leads the skyscrapers, have their foundations set world in industrialized construction. directly into bedrock. Central planning based on socialized After touring the quake zone, Dr. property means that they can respond Agbabian suggested that the standard directly to the needs of the popUlation, designs may have "cut it too close" in not the quest for higher profits-which economizing on the use of materials in in the capitalist world produces massive order to cut costs (particularly in the real-estate speculation, soaring rents, a amount of reinforcing steel used). He glut of luxury housing, massive short­ also noted that Soviet engineers they ages for poor and working-class fami­ had met were critical of quality control lies, and millions of homeless. The destruction wrought by World War II and the Nazi occupation left the USSR with a crippled economy, a severe labor shortage and 40 percent of its housing destroyeq. Even a U.S. Department of Commerce document on "Industrialized Building in the Soviet Union" (1971) points to the "astonish­ Soviet Union pioneered in mass prefabricated construction. ing pace" of postwar reconstruction: "Rapid transition from a rural to an would have to be built by 1979 to ensure apartments in most urban ghettos III urban popUlation coupled with war that every American family had ade­ the U.S. destruction called for Herculean efforts quate housing. It was estimated this to 'build it now'-and the Soviets have done just that. The USSR has 'built it would require an increase from $30 bil­ For Central Planning Under now' in great quantity. People who lived lion to $60 billion in the housing budget. Soviet Democracy! in cabins or dilapidated buildings with­ Instead, during the 1980s, HUD's out electricity or water in the 1940's budget was slashed by 84 percent, from In spite of the tremendous achieve­ moved into apartments sharing bath­ rooms and kitchens with other families $33.4 billion to $5.5 billion. ments of Soviet housing construction, in the 1950's. In the 1960's these same Today the U.S. has some three there remains serious overcrowding. A families have moved up to their own million homeless living and dying on 1986 government resolution mandated new private quarters." the streets. I"J ew York City alone has an ambitious program of accelerated Apartment sizes have continued to tise, 60-90,000 homeless and on top of that housing construction so that all Soviet and Soviet citizens generally pay well an estimated 100,000 families who are families will have separate apartments under 10 percent of their wages for rent the "hidden homeless," doubled and or private houses by the year 2000. But and utilities combined. tripled up with other families. Over the at the 19th Communist Party confer­ According to Charles Abrams' Man's last decade, the rate of new con­ ence held last July, Gorbachev declared Struggle for Shelter in an Urbanizing struction has fallen from 15,000 to 9,000 that in line with his market-oriented World (1964): "The U.S.S.R. has made units-less than one-fourth the rate of perestroika economic reforms the gov­ great advances in prefabricated con­ Soviet urban housing construction. Of ernment is pushing for private owner­ struction of apartment dwellings and those New Yorkers who do have apart­ ship of publicly built apartments, aping has not only increased its housing ments, one out of four spends more than the Tory Thatcher government in investment in recent years but attained a half their gross income on rent. Yet the Britain. A letter writer to Moscow News higher rate of new housing construc­ number of NYC apartments renting for (1 January) who supports this scheme Gorbachev (foreground) tours dis­ tion than any other country for which less than $300 per month plummeted nevertheless notes, "Who will be able to aster area. statistics are available; this rate has risen between 1981 and 1987 from 1.1 million continued on page 11 17 FEBRUARY 1989 9 alism overlaps with expressions of allies fear the domination of Europe by Germany ... revanchism, a lot of disgusting crap is a Fourth Reich. surfacing that shades over into outright Meanwhile, the German bourgeoisie (continued from page 7) fascism. Thus while Hitler-loving ­ sees tremendous opportunities for eco­ Kaiser's. Massive Allied bombing raids ou SINN OES heads beat up and murder Turkish nomic penetration and social counter­ targeted the working-class districts of HITLERGRUSSE5: immigrants, "Redskin" gangs in West revolution in Gorbachev's perestroika the big cities. An armed uprising at Berlin spew out anti-Soviet garbage and reforms -for "market socialism" in the Buchenwald against tire Nazi jailers chant "Trotskyists out." One of the Soviet Union and East Europe, which was disarmed and the left-wing pris­ more repulsive examples came from the fuel deep-going popular dissatisfaction oners interned for many more months editorial offices of the pro-Green Tages­ and explosive nationalist strife. The by their American "liberators." And zeitung, which "jokingly" described a Frankfurt bankers and Bonn politi­ the doctrine of "collective guilt" was crowded West Berlin disco as "gas­ cians would like to use their "Swing" minted to justify heavy-handed mili­ kammervol/" (full as a gas chamber). A credits [for trade with East Germany] tary occupation. new "no-guilt" generation has arisen in and D-mark loans to squeeze dry Meanwhile, for Stalin "collective West Germany-according to a survey the bureaucratically deformed workers guilt" was a program for stamping out by Stern after the Jenninger affair, those states of East Europe like banana repub­ any possibility of proletarian revolu­ under 20 felt the least concerned about lics. But the socialized property forms of tion in postwar Germany, in order to Germany's pas{. these states represent a barrier to cap­ preserve his bureaucratic rule. The The German Question and italist penetration, a barrier that can imperialist Allies, also fearing the spec­ European Revolution only be smashed, to use Bismarck's tre of workers revolution, for a brief phrase, with "blood and iron." And that period used this doctrine to justify their As a would-be ideologue for resur­ brings the German bourgeoisie up "de-Nazification" campaign, then used gent German imperialism, Jenninger against the enormous power of the it for exonerating former Nazi officials declared, "We Germans wish to attain a Soviet degenerated workers state. It is "The Meaning of the Hitler Salute": to deploy them in the anti-Soviet Cold clear understanding of our history and this power that stays the hand of the 1932 left-wing journal exposes Ger­ clear lessons on how to shape our War and to build up West Germany as a man capitalists' support to Nazis. imperialists. NATO bulwark against the East. ~arx­ present and future politically." Con­ By itself, without its NATO allies, cerned about a lack of moral confi­ ists reject the concept of collective guilt it's no accident that the SPD originated West Germany is not now capable of a dence on the part of German youth to as applied to the entire German nation Bonn's (Eastern policy): his­ military foray eastward. This would because it covers over the class nature of torically a national party with much of act as a full-fledged imperialist power if require, to begin with, substantial ex­ the Hitler period is left in the closet, fascism. It's the German bourgeoisie its social base located east of the Elbe, pansion of its conventional capacities as that is collectively guilty. i.e., the present-day DDR, it was best­ Jenninger says at the end of his speech: well as acquiring strategic nuclear weap­ placed to spearhead the revanchist ap­ "On the foundations of our state and ons (a venture already being tackled in "Left" Nationalism and history it is necessary to found a new petites of German imperialism toward moral tradition which must prove itself its development of nuclear arms tech­ Revanchism what it still calls Mitteldeutschland ... in the human and moral sensitivity of nology in South Africa). The Western Repudiation of collective guilt can and beyond. our society. imperialist allies acknowledged West also be associated with reactionary, As for the Greens, in addition to clean nationalist resentment against the vic­ air they want a "clean" German imperi­ tors of WW II, the Soviet Union as well alism; bringing back all the Dreck from as the U.S. One of the prominent the Hitler era is only going to dirty it. spokesmen from the extreme right wing The almost pathological reaction of of the CDU is Alfred Dregger who the Greens to the Jenninger speech­ stated in 1986, "the guilt is behind us," they also didn't protest at Bitburg-is and called on "all Germans" to "step out an expression of their often virulent from behind the shadow of Hitler." For nationalism. In the aftermath of the him the scandal of Bitburg was an op­ Jenninger affair, some West German portunity to stress his pride as a fighter newspapers wished the Bundestag had on the Eastern Front in WW II. Dregger listened to the Greens beforehand when and his Stahlhelm (steel helmet) faction they wanted to invite the chairman of opposed holding the Pogromnacht the central council of Jews in Germany, commemoration at all. He wants to Heinz Galinsky, to speak on the return to the old "glory days" by found­ Pogromnacht with the usual plati­ ing a new German Reich now. Omi­ tudes. For here these graduates of the nously, after Jenninger's forced resigna­ were speaking for important tion, the first candidate Kohl came up sectors of the West German ruling class. with for his successor was precisely Hermann Gremliza in konkret mag­ revanchist hardliner Dregger. azine (December 1988) was one of the But German nationalism is not at few who tried to probe the reasons for all restricted to the right wing. Kurt the Greens' reaction to Jenninger: 1919 Spartacus uprising (above) crushed by Social Democrats in service of Schumacher, the fiercely nationalistic "What was rebelling on the left side of capitalist reaction. leader of the SPD in the early postwar the house was the yearning not for truth years, argued that the German people and enlightenment ... but for quasi­ "In foreign policy this means the duty of Germany's growing military/economic were just as much victims of Nazism (he religious forms and rituals which free a collective responsibility for peace, for power by naming former "defense" min­ himself was, being a former concentra­ reconciliation with 'this our state' ... actively making the world peaceful." ister Worner NATO general secretary. tion camp inmate) as, say, the Poles or from the pain of a guilty conscience." What was later presented as "am­ But NATO strategy calls, in the first Czechs. Therefore, he stated, the Rus­ Along with the Social Democrats and biguousness" and "clumsiness" on Jen­ instance, for fighting a "limited war" sians and Americans had no right to Liberals, the Greens have in the past ninger's part reflects the fundamental against forces on German divide Germany. Schumacher, from his preferred the lofty rhetoric of a von problems of German imperialism. The soil. Even the most extreme West Ger­ own, different, standpoint was no less Weizsacker (who praised the recent Bundestag Speaker's "fascination" with man Cold Warriors like Dregger don't complicit in building up a Fourth Ger­ release of two SS mass murderers by the Hitler's imperialist "victories" of the '30s look forward to this prospect. And large man Reich with the cadres of the Third; Netherlands government as an act of comes as no surprise. The Federal sections of the German population, who he even envisaged rehabilitation of the "conciliation"). Republic declares itself the successor rt!member only too well the destruction Waffen SS decades before Bitburg. And Meanwhile, as "left" German nation- state to the Third Reich, constitution­ of the last world war, are rightly afraid ally sworn to "restoring the Reich to the of nuclear annihilation. borders of 1937," which go far beyond That is why Jenninger speaks of the Oder-Neisse line to include parts of "actively making the world peaceful." present-day Poland and the USSR. And German capitalists today want to ex­ more fundamentally, the revanchist ploit the Slavs, not exterminate them. German bourgeoisie has a major struc­ And the bourgeoisie's labor lieutenants tural problem: the partition of the coun­ of the SPD, the "fatherland defenders" try into a capitalist West and a state in of 1914, know their duty as the political which capitalism has been expropri­ organizers of counterrevolution in East ated in the East. Germany. The program of a neutral, "Our history can't be divided into reunified (capitalist) Germany is the good and bad, and responsibility for main basis for attracting significant the past can't be distributed according numbers of workers, petty-bourgeois to the geographical arbitrariness of intellectuals and elements of the bu­ the ~postwar order," said Jenninger. reaucracy in the DDR behind a "demo­ Chancellor Kohl considers it '''absurd' cratic" counterrevolution. to construe a contradiction between the Proletarian internationalism is the goals of and only answer to the revanchism and . the European unification" (Frankfurter nationalism that twice in this century Rundschal!, 19 January). The SPD, as have mobilized the masses for imperial­ well, wants to reserve the unconditional ist war, and the resulting devastation of right for an imperialist reunification of Europe: this is the lesson of history. Germany after the supposed "complete Gordon Craig recalled in his essay that integration" of the European Common the same Bundestag which walked out Market in 1992. But uniting Germany on Jenninger: under capitalist rule would mean bloody ..... gave a distinctly chilly reception to Professor Fritz Stern of Columbia counterrevolution to smash the DDR. University when he was invited to Hammer and sickle flies over the Reichstag as Soviet Red Army liberates And it would directly pose the spectre of address it last year on the occasion of a Berlin from Nazi terror regime,.30 April 1945. world war; even its Western imperialist comlllemoration of the East German 10 WORKERS VANGUARD lution. And make no mistake, that was led by Trotsky­ Fraser Memorial ... ists, such as Dick Fraser and like-minded rank-and-file Bolsheviks. And to carry-I think I got one in my (continued/rom page 5) pocket somewhere, that I dug up since I learned about notes are more of that polemical stuff that I think is this meeting-to carry that strike clearance card, the historically important, but not now. general strike clearance of 1946. I carried two of them, Finally, I would like to thank those who have one from the CIO because we went, a lot of comrades prepared this memorial, who worked very hard and went, after the AF of L was out on strike, went out to very well, and also the materials that have gone into the support in solidarity with the CIO unions. So Dick and memorial display. A very good thing. I were a part of that scene, and I wanted to mention this as one of the big achievements of the Trotskyists' mar­ itime fraction, comrades like Dick. * * * * * Later on, on the West Coast, Dick and Arne ;;wa­ Ed Swabeck beck, my father, collaborated in the struggle for a rev­ A comrade of Dick's who worked with him in the olutionary workers party of the working class. We had S W P and its maritime work and, later, on our disagreements. I remember I had one with Dick Revolutionary Age about shipping, it was about how best to operate a The first time I met Dick Fraser was in 1941, when I ship, run an old liberty ship without popping the boil­ got to the coast again to try to ship out. Later on, on ers and throwing the safety valves all over the place, the East Coast, we-that is, Dick, I and many other while running the U-boat wolf packs down in the tor­ Trotskyists-participated in a great general strike in pedo junction. Well, there were others. They were all maritime of 1946. settled through democratic centralism, as good com­ rades should. And I say this, that his passing therefore The Seafarers International Union objected to the Ed Swabeck recalls his comradeship with Dick buck-passing of the ship owners and the War Ship­ Fraser during 1946 maritime general strike. is to be deeply regretted. ping Administration. This time the former, that is the I want to say one other thing. When Dick came ship owners, wanted to give in to postwar contractual trades, and railroad men, and the Teamsters too. That around to the house a couple of times, I was playing improvement demands, but the latter, the War Ship­ coast was bottled up, particularly the island of Man­ music. And he says, "Damn it, have you got that stuff ping Administration, played hard cop. hattan. At that time some of the sailors around said, by that guy that plays 'The Lemon Tree'?" I say, "Oh, The Manhattan Center meeting hall of the general boy, this is a revolutionary situation! Well, many of us you mean Herb Alpert?" He says, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, strike committee of all the unions involved was dec­ thought, we don't know if we're going to take over the with that 'Tijuana Taxi' and so forth." And I said orated with huge banners, spread right across the government like the days of the October Revolution "Sure, I'll play it." And he liked that. I don't know ifhe damn hall, to greet the sailors and others from up and the Bolshevik October. But what we wanted to do, liked the music that we were playing before, that and down the coast participating in this meeting. The and what we did, and what was achieved, was to give the Brahms thing or I don't know what, sort of sleepy banners said, "An injury to one is an injury to all! War Shipping Administration, the government's out­ funereal kind of stuff. I know damn well he liked a United we stand, divided we falI!" And another one, fit, a swift kick in the ass. rousing singing of the lnternationale! The red, Bolshe­ "For collective bargaining and against government The ILA [International Longshoremen's Associa­ vik lnternationale! interference!" tion], Marine Firemen and SUP held the fort in the The strike of AF of L unions was general, all right, Pacific ports. The CIO unions, like the NM U, fol­ * * * * * pulling the pin with the seamen and their unions, the lowed later, radical socialists of the rank and file, The memorial meeting concluded with the singing of longies-the longshoremen-tugboat, all maritime urging towards the Debs and Wobblyite ideal of revo- the Internationale .•

productivity? If inspection is inade­ for 40,000 people was designed to have It is certainly true that hostile impe­ Armenia ... quate now, imagine what it will be like 80 percent green space. With buildings rialist encirclement and an American (continued/rom page 9) when every profiteering capitalist "co­ grouped around nursery, kindergarten arms drive aimed at achieving nuclear operative" is going around greasing the and schools, children do not have to first-strike capability put enormous purchase a state apartment? Naturally, palms of inspectors and foremen. cross busy thoroughfares. Soviet cit­ pressures on Soviet expenditures for those who have money .... " And what of The power of a planned economy is izens are surveyed before major hous­ domestic/consumer needs, including those, like young workers' families, who perhaps nowhere as vividly demon­ ing construction projects are under­ adequate materials like reinforcing steel don't? strated as in the response to a disaster. taken. But they are not asked how big for housing. But all the questions raised Gorbachev wants to use the market to When something goes wrong, a deci­ apartments should be, how they should by construction of new housing-safety, discipline both managers and workers. sion can be taken and the full resources be laid out or finished. The knowledge design, where, when and how much­ Inefficient operations will be punished, of the nationalized economy mobilized and technical know-how of construc­ must be balanced against other do­ efficient operations will be rewarded. to achieve it. A year after the Cherno­ tion workers, for example concerning mestic expenditures, development of The whip of bankruptcy will suppos­ byl disaster, 90,000 of the people who safety features, is not tapped but weapons, aid to the impoverished edly force the reorganization ofproduc­ had been evacuated had already been . spurned. In a society based on large­ Indochinese people, and other interna­ tion. Today, financial speculation and provided with new homes. When an scale industrial production, decisions tionalist responsibilities like the inter­ profiteering are not merely condoned earthquake virtually demolished Tash­ made by a bureaucratic hierarchy will vention in Afghanistan which has now but encouraged. But if the concrete slabs kent (with a popUlation of 1.1 million) in necessarily be partial at best. been betrayed. And they can only be had too much sand and too little cement 1966, a massive reconstruction pro­ This can be seen by looking at any resolved effectively when those who before, how much cement will they have gram had the entire city rehoused in major project. Take the Aral basin irri­ labor also decide. as managers scramble to make a profit? three years. gation project in Soviet Central Asia, a Indeed, a centrally planned economy If on-site construction is presently slip­ And mass housing does not have to showcase both of the effectiveness of the can only function effectively if it shod, what will it be like when the work mean poor quality and zero esthetics. planned economy and the capricious involves the conscious political control teams are cut in half to maximize Typically, a Kiev apartment complex mismanagement of bureaucratic com­ of the working masses. In an address mandism. In the 1950s, the Soviet gov­ to the First All-Russian Congress of ernment decided to divert the waters of Scientific Workers in 1923, Bolshevik uprising of June 17, 1953, and told his sickle was placed atop the Reichstag. the two rivers feeding into the Aral leader and Minister of War Leon Trot­ audience that the revolt had not been a And to get rid of the legacy of Nazism Sea to facilitate production of water­ sky wrote: demonstration in favor of reunifica­ forever, it is necessary tosweep away the intensive crops like cotton and rice. "The harsh experience of these six tion, as West German politicians were years, with all its pluses and minuses, capitalist order which continues to Agricultural production in the region fond of saying, but rather a courageous has quadrupled since then. Yet failure to has shown one thing-at least to those demand for freedom and reform, and breed nationalist and racist reaction. who have not deliberately closed their reminded them that 'undivided Ger­ The leadership of a Trotskyist world take account of the ecological effects has eyes-that the stronger the workers' many brought unspeakable misfortune party of socialist revolution is ever more led to the creation of a salty desert over state becomes, the keener and more to other peoples and to itself,' a fact that urgently needed, a party which fights for nearly half of what was once a fertile impatiently the toiling masses perceive no German could afford to forget'." fishing area. our technical, scientific, and cultural socialist revolution in the capitalist backwardness and the more persist­ The June 17th rising was not pro­ West and proletarian political revolu­ What to do? The bureaucracy pro­ ently they seek to overcome this back­ capitalist, as the German revanchists tion in the East, which would, as with posed a colossal project to divert rivers wardness, thereby creating a funda­ who have usurped it for their own reac­ the Communist International of Lenin now flowing into the Arctic. Ecological mental precondition for giving our scientific thought maximum scope in tionary purposes claim (and neither and Trotsky, weld together the Russian groups mobilized against this. How can was it for Western-style "democracy" this question be resolved? Certainly not the more or less near future .... and German . "Socialist construction is in its very as Stern implies). On the contrary, As we wrote in Spartakist (No. 57) in through a market mechanism. One look essence conscious, planned construc­ East German workers initiated the May 1988, addressing militants of the at the environmental destruction being tion, combining-on a hitherto unprec­ struggle for proletarian political revolu­ Stalinist DKP and SEW: wrought by American capitalism an­ edented scale-technology, science, and tion to oust the Stalinist bureaucracy swers that~ To reach an intelligent carefully thought-out social forms and "Because they can only conceive of a methods of utilizing them." and erect genuine so¥iet democracy. capitalist reunification of Germany, resolution requires drawing technical June 17th showed the way to the only they hand the national question over to specialists, residents of the region, the The Soviet peoples have come a long progressive solution to the German na­ the fascists. But the struggle for prole­ fishermen, the agricultural workers, way since the days of immiseration tional question-through proletarian­ tarian power poses the question of rev­ into a wide-ranging debate resulting in a olutionarl' leadership. And restoring under the tsar's knout. But to go for­ internationalist revolutionary struggle. the unity of the proletariat poses in this democratic decision. And if the deci­ ward to a society in which everyone is With the slogan, "Now clear out your country the question of the revolution­ sion doesn't work, constant monitoring well housed, in which food lines disap­ crap in Bonn, we're cleaning house in ary reunification of' Germany as part of by the producers themselves will spot pear, in which a socialist future is genu­ Pankow," they called on their class a Socialist United States of Europe. imminent dangers and contribute to inely assured, requires an international That is the program of the Trotzkisti­ brothers in the West to rip state power sche Liga Deutschlands, which stands modifications before a disaster occurs. division of labor based on worldwide from the capitalists. for unconditional defense of the USSR That is the essence of soviet democ­ socialist planning. Return to the road of It was the Soviet Red Army which and DDR against imperialist attacks racy-and it will take a proletarian Lenin and Trotsky! For proletarian smashed Hitler fascism in 1945. For the and internal counterrevolution." , ousting the bu­ political revolution to oust the bu­ workers of the world it was a victory Proletarian revolution will avenge the reaucracy, to get it. reaucratic usurpers! For international when the red flag with the hammer and victims of Nazi terror!. The same applies on a broader scale. socialist revolution!. 17 FEBRUARY 1989 11 Afghanistan ... (continued/rom page 1) poe: For Internationalist have generally been pro-Soviet. When they looked across their northern bor­ Military Support to Afghan Government! der into Soviet Central Asi~, they saw children who could read, women liber­ We reprint below a letter from the istan. The right of women to read, free­ eration fighters, and decent people ated from the veil, and a level of social Partisan Defense Committee to the dom from the veil, freedom from the who wish to prevent the destruction and economic well-being centuries in government of Afghanistan, offering tyranny of the mullahs and the land­ of any vestige of human progress advance of Afghanistan. As a result of concrete support in the struggle lords, the introduction of medical care achieved through struggle. We further Soviet central planning, living stan­ against the murderous reactionary and the right of all to an education­ pledge to provide transport to an dards in Tashkent are as high as in mujahedin. The letter proposes organ­ we are compelled to offer our aid appropriate transit point. Interna­ Moscow. ization of an international brigade before all this is drowned in blood. The tional fighters would be expected to In 1965 Afghan leftist circles formed to assist in defending the Afghan peo­ Partisan Defense Committee hereby acquire equipment when in place. the People's Democratic Party of Af­ ples against the CIA's feudalistic makes the urgent offer to organize an From the Afghan government we ghanistan. The PDPA was a unique terrorists. When we spoke with rep­ international brigade to fight to the would need air fare from a transit phenomenon in Afghanistan: a secular resentatives of the Afghan govern­ death in defense of these rights in point to Kabul and, in the field, food party not based on any tribal or eth­ ment about the letter, they thanked Afghanistan. Volunteers would of and military direction. nic group. It claimed adherence to us for this initiative while indicating course operate under your control and Capitalist governments which hyp­ Marxism-, and its structure that they believe such a measure is direction. ocritically condemned the presence of was modeled after Stalin's bureaucra­ not necessary to defend the country The Partisan Defense Committee is the Red Army in Afghanistan are flee­ tized Communist Party. However, its at this time. a class-struggle defense organization ing Kabul, aghast at the prospect of a program was limited to moderate supported by militant Marxists world­ full-scale civil war reaching that city. 7 February 1989 reforms to be carried out by a govern­ wide, many associated with the inter­ They abandon their embassies now in ment of "workers, farmers, enlightened To: Ambassador of the Republic national Spartacist tendency. the hopes of returning after the vic­ and progressive intellectuals, crafts­ of Afghanistan In making this offer, we pledge to tory of the feudalist mujahedin. This handle all aspects of agitation, propa­ must not happen! men, the petit bourgeoisie and national Dear Mr. Ambassador: capitalists" (cited in Raja Anwar, The ganda and recruitment necessary to We hope most fervently that you Tragedy of Afghanistan [1988]). With the withdrawal of the Soviet amass forces and publicize the effort. will accept this offer of assistance Labeled "Communist" by their oppo­ Army now completed, we join with These forces would be recruited inter­ proffered with a keen sense of interna­ nents, the PDPA cadre were in fact you in fearing that elementary social nationally from among disaffected tionalist duty. Please respond as soon progressive youth, leftist militants, lib- modernizing petty-bourgeois national­ progress is in grave danger in Afghan- as possible. ists more akin to Kemal Ataturk's Young Turks than to Lenin's Bolshe­ viks. The PDPA established three bases letarian revolution-Afghanistan could in December 1979 which installed Ba­ be a real counterrevolutionary crime of support: the country's small urban not even sustain the kind of widespread brak Karmal, leader of the fac­ against the Afghan peoples." intelligentsia (e.g., schoolteachers), stu­ -"Afghanistan and the Left: peasant revolt experienced in medieval tion. Only five of the party leaders in The Russian Question Point dents, and military officers (many of France, Russia and China. April 1978 escaped being killed, impris­ Blank," Spartacist No. 29, whom were trained in the Soviet Thus when the PDPA government oned or exiled by their "comrades" over Summer 1980 Union). Almost immediately the party attempted to institute a program of the next few years. An ever smaller split into two factions, the minimal democratic measures-land group of modernizing intellectuals was Imperialist Hue and Cry Over (Masses) and Parcham (Banner). When reform, elimination of the bride price being pitted against a mass reactionary Afghan "Self-Determination" Daud Khan ousted the king in 1973, for women, universal education for both revolt. For almost a decade the demand for Parcham leaders served as his advisers, sexes-it instantly outpaced the social It was only the Soviet military in­ Soviet troops out of Afghanistan has while Khalq suggested "a government forces to sustain them. The khans and tervention of December 1979 which united the far right, liberals, social composed of a 'United Front' including mullahs, driven into a frenzy by such opened the road to the liberation of the democrats and most self-styled rad­ the PDPA." mt;asures as teaching young girls to Afghan toiling masses. Although con­ icals. The Democratic Carter admin­ In April 1978 the Daud regime, prod­ read, launched a reactionary jihad and ducted halfheartedly, sending troops istration used the Soviet intervention ded by the Western powers and the shah began slaughtering teachers and PDPA into Afghanistan was the one unam­ to officially declare Cold War II. Un­ of Iran, moved to suppress the PDPA, activists. - biguously decent and progressive act of der Reagan, Congressional Democrats arresting its principal leaders on charges The growing revolt received im- the corrupt and conservative Brezh­ seized upon the issue of Afghanistan to nev regime, going against the grain demonstrate their anti-Communist cre­ of the reactionary Stalinist dogma of dentials. Chary of Reagan's bellicose "socialism in one country." We wrote posture in Central America, where the at the time: U.S. risked being drawn into another "There can be no question that for rev­ losing military adventure like Vietnam, olutionaries our side in this conflict is liberal Democrats were more than will­ with the Red Army. In fact, although ing to pour money into Afghanistan, uncalled for militarily, a natural re­ where U.S. proxies were killing Rus­ sponse on the part of the world's young leftists would be an enthusiastic desire sians without risking a single American to join an,international brigade to fight life. In 1985 the Democratic-controlled the reactionary CIA-connected rebels." House of Representatives tripled Rea­ -"Hail Red Army!" Spartacist gan's request for aid to the Afghan No. 27-28, Winter 1979-80 . We further raised the demand to extend Just as support for the Afghan the social gains of the October Revolu­ "freedom fighters" has united liberal tion to the Afghan peoples. Democrats with Reaganites, so it has The Western press hoped and specu­ united most of the American and West lated that the Soviet troops, especially European left-social democrats, Euro­ those from the traditionally Islamic communists, ex-New Left Maoists, regions of Central Asia, would become "Third Campists"-with their imperi­ infected with the "liberating" message alist rulers. Afghanistan and Polish of the mujahedin. But Soviet soldiers Solidarnosc, the only "union" Ronald sent into battle were told they were ful­ Reagan loved, have been two central filling their duty toward their Afghan issues defining which side you're on in brothers, and their experiences in the Cold War II. Thus the hard pro­ , country convinced them of it. Most were Moscow factions in the Eurocommunist appalled at the backwardness, parties were variously dubbed afganos ...... "~l~\~;~·;{;~\r.~:~)# and hideous oppression they witnessed (Spain), kabulisti (Italy) and "tankies" Smolan/Contact in a country so close to home. One (Britain). Kabul parade greets Soviet troops arriving to back up left-nationalist PDPA Soviet Tadzhik soldier told a Western An Iranian woman leftist, Val Mo­ regime, 1980. reporter in the early days of the war that ghadam, drawing on the bitter experi­ of treason. But the party's supporters in mediate support from the Pakistani "most of them were glad to go to help'­ ence of Khomeini's "Islamic Revolu­ the military effectively fought back and regime of military dictator Zia ul-Haq, . it's a very backward country and we are tion," expresses consternation that: toppled Daud. The so-called "Saur Rev­ acting as quartermaster for the United neighbors, after all" (New York Times, "Left-wing support for the Mujahedeen II April 1980). has been especially strong in Europe, olution" was in fact a left-wing military States. Zia was continuing the policy of where activists from London to Stock­ coup with considerable support among his predecessor, Zulfikar Ali .. Bhutto, Whilt;.. Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan holm have defended the putative na­ the urbanized population. who had started arming the ultra­ were generally proud to do their inter­ tional liberation struggle. One of the The PDPA found itself ruling a fundamentalist Islamic Party of Gul­ nationalist duty, the Kremlin bureauc­ surprising features of this support has population of 15 million people, over­ baddin Hekmatyar in the early 1970s. racy did not send them there out of been the total neglect of the meaning of internationalist commitment. As we national liberation under an Islamic whelmingly rural and scattered in iso­ The aim of the Pakistani ruling class (led rubric for Afghan women. Since the lated river valleys. On the local level now by Bhutto's daughter, after Zia's wrote a few months later: Saur revolution (April 1978), and to tribal chiefs shared power and land with death last August) is the creation of a "Of course, the conservative bureau­ some degree even prior to it, women some 300,000 Islamic mullahs, who weak Islamic client state to its north. crats in the Kremlin did not send have made incremental but important 100,000 troops into Afghanistan to gains in education, employment and made up a privileged landowning caste. At the same time, the PDPA regime effect a social revolution, but simply to political participation. Indeed, it was Taking the country as a w hole, there was was ripping itself apart through murder­ make secure an unstable, strategically precisely the reform programs launched about one industrial worker for every ous factionalism and cliquism. Khalq placed client state .... It is possible the by the PDPA government that pro­ eight mullahs! The peasants were totally leader Noor Mohammed Taraki was Kremlin could do a deal with the voked reaction .... imperialists to withdraw, for example, "By all accounts and indications a in thrall to the khans, who controlled killed by his former protege Habizullah in return for NATO's reversing its deci­ Mujahedeen-ruled Afghanistan would the sources of credit, seed, fertilizer and, Amin. Amin, in turn, was assassinated sion to deploy hundreds of new nuclear be more intolerant and repressive than in this arid land, even water. Forget pro- in the course of the Soviet intervention missiles in West Europe. That would the Islamic Republic of Iran and would 12 WORKERS VANGUARD aneta I"'UDIlSner Liberation from the veil and literacy for women are at stake in Afghan war. Left: young girls on their way to school. Right: at Kabul University over half the students are women. work fervently to undo the measures Afghanistan "Russia's Vietnam," an technology to defeat the "Stinger war," To prepare the Soviet people for the taken toward women's equality." insidious lie now taken up for its own but they did not. And no serious effort abandonment of Afghanistan, Kremlin -Against the Current, was made to interdict the flow of U .S.­ officials and the Soviet media are par­ November/December 1988 reasons by the Gorbachev regime. In Vietnam the U.S. fought a genocidal supplied weapons from Pakistan. roting the imperialist lie that the Afghan Moghadam asks how it is possible for war to stop a social revolution, and was When Gorbachev came to power in intervention was wrong, that the lives of leftists, including self-styled radical fem­ defeated on the battlefield. The Soviet 1985, he faced economic stagnation the 15,000 Soviet soldiers killed there inists, to support such a reactionary and army fought to stop counterrevolution aggravated by the intensified military were simply wasted, that Afghanistan is barbaric movement. Her answer: "It can which would turn back the clock by pressure from Reagan's America. His Russia's Vietnam. In a flippant "we only be a misguided Third W orldism centuries, but never fought to win. From domestic program of market-oriented wash our hands of the whole business" and fascination with any and all guer­ the outset the Kremlin tops kept open reforms (perestroika) was linked to a tone, the Communist Youth paper rilla warfare that prevents leftists from the option of withdrawal as a bar­ foreign policy of global appeasement. Komsomolskaya Pravda reported what discerning re<1:ctionary movements." gaining chip in dealing with Western Gorbachev's most dramatic foreign will happen when the Soviet command­ This explanation is wide of the mark. imperialism. The U.S. sent 500,000 policy initiative was to cut and run from er, Lt. Gen. Boris Gromov, leaves Practically no Western leftists support troops halfway around the world to Afghanistan. Afghanistan: the guerrillas of the Nicaraguan contras Vietnam. The Soviet leaders sent just To help set this up, the Kremlin "He will cross without looking back. or Jonas Savimbi's UNIT A in Angola. 100,000 troops across the border into strong-armed the PDPA regime into Then he will stop and make a speech, Moreover, some leftists (e.g., Tariq Ali) Afghanistan. calling for "," but only to himself. It will last one who joined the imperialist chorus for minute and seven seconds. It will not be Nonetheless, by 1984 the Soviet and i.e., a coalition government with sec­ written down or listened to." Soviet troops out initially supported the PDP A forces had practically won the tions of the mujahedin. In 1986 Afghan PDPA against the mujahedin revolt Soviet veterans of the Afghan war are war. The CIA's "holy warriors" were leader Karmal was dumped, apparently being treated like pariahs instead of before the Soviet intervention. shattered and demoralized. And the because he resisted the new turn. He was Western leftist support for Washing­ heroes. In their fight for official recog­ government's modest social reforms, replaced by Najibullah, who at the nition, these veterans (the afghantsy) ton's Afghan cutthroats (and also for although scaled back from even. the beginning of 1987 declared a unilateral Polish Solidarnosc) expresses anti­ "deeply resent the comparison of their moderate program first offered by the cease-fire while further scaling back internationalist combat duty to Wash­ Soviet prejUdices and the elevation of PDP A, were winning support in the progressive social reforms so as not to national independence as the highest ington's drive to transform Southeast countryside. One rebel leader stated: affront Islamic tradition. Calling for a Asia into a moonscape. One veteran political principle. Since 1917 when the "The war has been deadlocked up until coalition of the PD PA and mujahedin is Russian Revolution toppled capitalism activist told the West German maga­ now, but we are beginning to lose the somewhat like calling in the 1930s for a zine Der Spiegel (7 March 1988): "Our in one-sixth of the globe, the imperial­ popUlation .... If this continues, we may coalition of Nazis and Jewish leftists. ists' central aim has been to reverse the sacrifices were not for nothing. We have eventually lose the war" (Chicago Trib­ The mujahedin want not only to kill after all brought there the achievements gains of October and restore capitalist une, 16 November 1984). every leftist in Afghanistan but to exter­ exploitation in this bastion of workers of the civilized world." Honor Soviet Seeking to turn the tide, in early 1986 minate the entire educated urban popu­ veterans of the ! power. That is why the entire apparatus the U.S. began supplying the muja­ lation, whom they regard as infidels. of political indoctrination in the United hedin with state-of-the-art Stinger mis­ The Gorbachev regime appears will­ States and West Europe is geared to Defeat Imperialism Through siles. Soon these shoulder-fired rockets ing to accept such a bloodbath if it is Communist Internationalism! producing hatred and fear of the Soviet were bringing down scores of Soviet and .. necessary to appease the Western pow­ Union, a bureaucratically degenerated Afghan aircraft, including civilian air­ ers. A historical parallel is Stalin's During the 19th century Afghanistan workers state. planes. Soviet military aircraft were so pulling the Red Army out of northern was a chessboard on which the "Great The standard line of Western im­ crucial to the Afghaq war only because Iran in 1946, abandoning the Demo­ Game" between tsarist Russia and Great perialism and its left camp followers is the Kremlin was willing to commit but a cratic Republic of Azerbaijan under the Britain was played out. But in 19 I 7 the that "Russia violated Afghan national small fraction of its five-million-strong Cold War pressure of U.S. imperialism. Bolshevik Revolution changed the rules self-determination." This charge doesn't armed forces. Even so, the Russians There followed a massacre of pro-Soviet of this "game." Imperialist machina­ even hold up on its own terms. Afghan­ could have easily deployed available Iranian leftists at the hands of the shah. tions in the region now had as their ulti­ istan is not a nation but a feudal-derived mate goal the destruction of the Soviet state composed of a mosaic of national­ workers state and the opening up of its ities, ethnic and tribal groupings. Most vast territory for capitalist plunder. of the rural popUlation has never lived Bush and Reagan meet with Gorbachev After World War II Pakistan became under the effective control of any central last December. the U.S.' main client in the region, but state power, but identifies exclusively Kremlin leader Washington never lost sight of Af­ with particular ethnic, tribal or linguis­ pulls Soviet troops ghanistan"s potential military value in tic groupings. In Afghanistan the term out of Afghanistan a counterrevolutionary assault on the "Afghan" refers only to the Pushtuns, to appease U.S. USSR. In the early 1960s the U.S. not to the Hazaras, Tadzhiks and other imperialism. offered to build an airport at Kandahar peoples. for the Afghan king Zahir Shah. The Should the mujahedin topple the Pentagon secretly planned to use it as a Kabul natiomilist government, the two­ '''recovery base' where bombers could sided civil war could well become a war land after attacking Soviet targets in of all against all. Already, Shi'ite groups Siberia or Central Asia" (Henry Brad­ are refusing to accept Sunni domina­ sher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union tion, and the rival mujahedin groups are [1983]). threatening to kill one another. We can U.S. imp~rialism wants to turn Af­ only hope they do so quickly and mas­ ghanistan into not only a military sively. Yet even if the country were forward point but also a conduit for a homogeneous nation, communists anti-Communist agitation among the would support the Soviet Union's Turkic peoples of Soviet Central Asia. armed intervention. All talk of Afghan A few years ago the most rabid of the "national sovereignty" is but a cover to mujahedin leaders, Gulbaddin Hek­ defend the class and caste privileges of matyar, declared: "If the the khans, mullahs, landlords and continue to fight persistently, the day is moneylenders. For Marxists, the fur­ not far when the occupied areas of thering of social revolution, including Soviet Central Asia will also be liber­ the defense of the USSR against cap­ ated." It is ludicrous to think that italist imperialism, stands higher than the Central Asian population-freed the bourgeois-democratic right of na­ from religious obscurantism and grind­ tional self-determina tion. ing oppression, and enjoying modern medical care, universal education and Russia's Vietnam? an incomparably higher standard of Ever since the 1979 Soviet interven­ living-would want to link up with tion, the Western media has labeled continued on page 14 17 FEBRUARY 1989 13 Irving Brown "Mr. AFL-CIA" Drops Dead On February 11 one of the most reaucracy which decades later presided sinister figures on the American labor over the "givebacks" which gutted much scene died. For over four decades Irving of labor's hard-won gains. Brown personified the link between the Already in the McCarthy years rabidly anti-Communist American la­ Brown's activities were revealed in an bor bureaucracy and the counterrevo­ expose by Hal Draper entitled, "Cloak­ Irving Brown (right), with Italian union bureaucrat in 1950, plots Cold War lutionary terrorists of the CIA. Through and-Dollar Man: Mr. Irving Brown of against left wing of European workers movement. "labor" fronts like the American Insti­ the AFL in Europe," published in Labor tute for Free Labor Development, the Action of 20 October 1952. Draper Pierre Ferri-Pisani, among the Mar­ CIA links with criminal syndicates are CIA helped prepare bloody right-wing quoted articles in the French news­ seilles dockers-described flatteringly well known. In the early '60s the Com­ coups throughout Latin Amef"ica­ paper Le Monde detailing Brown's op­ as a 'steely Corsican' by the [Reader's] Digest-and poured AFL money in to pany contracted Mafia hitman John Guatemala 1954, Brazil 1964, Chile erations in France, where with the aid of build it up." Roselli to assassinate Castro. And more 1973. Irving Brown was "Mr. AFL­ U.S. dollars, fascist collaborators and Brown's "steely Corsican" put together recently there is the CIA's notorious CIA." He was identified by Philip Agee, Corsican gangsters he engineered a split goon squads in every French port to "Contra-cocaine connection." a former CIA operative in Latin in the Communist-led CGT union intimidate the CGT and unleashed a In 1975 the Company dispatched America, as the "principal CIA agent federation: wave of terror that sent several CP Irving Brown to Portugal to stop the for control of the International Con­ "Being a realist, Mr. Irving Brown does leaders to the hospital. revolution which ousted the Caetano federation of Free Trade Unions" not long hesitate, it is well known, about . They tried to bust up the Brown's close ties to the Corsican (Inside the Company [1975]). the choice of methods to struggle Communist-led union federation while against communism .... In his speech on Mafia linked him to the drug-trafficking Brown began his career in the 1930s as CIA-funded mobs were burning CP December 13, 1951 at the American "French Connection." In 1973 Jack the No. 1 sidekick of Jay Lovestone, Club in Brussels, he even gave France offices. And in 1981 Mr. AFL-CIA was Anderson reported that Brown: once Stalin's hatchet man in the Amer­ precise advice: abolish the CGT's right officially invited to attend the first " ... befriended and housed France's ican Communist Party. Lovestonej to trade-union representation; return to national congress of Polish Solidar­ the ranks of free trade-unionism the notorious Maurice (Broken Head) Cas­ Brown became anti-Communist witch­ activists who were purged for having tellani and occasionally enters the twi­ nose, which thus openly signaled its hunters in the unions long before the given their support to the [Nazi-allied] light circle of other shadowy figures counterrevolutionary appetites. Over Cold War and McCarthyism. When Vichy regime." who operate the heroin pipeline to the next few years, the "AFL-CIA" fun­ Lovestone was made head of the America. Draper comments on the methods of "Castellani, 49, is identified in a classi­ neled millions of U.S. dollars to this AFL's "Free Trade Union Commit­ this apostle of "free trade-unionism": fied Justice Dept. document as one of company "union" for Wall Street and tee" in 1944, Irving Brown became his "This frankly means 'anti-Communist 'the triumvirate leadership of the "Trois the Vatican. main European operative. His mission: terror,' and less frankly, terror backed Canards" (Three Ducks), an under­ With Irving Brown's death the Com­ to sabotage the Communist-led labor by the benevolence of the government. world organization involved in numer­ pany has lost a valuable asset. Yet it's The prime example in France ... is that ous illicit financial enterprises, not least movement. The accompanying red of the so-called Mediterranean Com­ of which is narcotics'." unfortunate he didn't live long enough purge of American unions installed mittee which is virtually a Brown -New York Post, for the workers of the world to bring the anti-Communist, pro-capitalist bu- creature. He had found his man, one 5 September 1973 him to justice .•

chev's perestroika will generate unem­ hour dinner with Lorenzo at a swank Afghanistan ... ployment, increasing inequalities and Eastern •.. Houston restaurant, to discuss yet (continued from page 13) intensifying national animosities. Inter­ another "stock-for-wages swap and nationally, his policy of appeasement (continued from page 16) even perhaps giving M r. Bryan a seat on a reactionary Islamic Republic of will only embolden the imperialist drive La Guardia Airport the company broke the Texas Air board" (Wall Street Jour­ Afghanistan. to roll back Soviet power and influence. into the union office, carted off the nal, 8 November 1988). Meanwhile Nonetheless, Gorbachev's perestroi­ Afghanistan's modernizing intellec­ union's files and drove the union office Bryan has forbidden all strikes during ka has fueled reactionary nationalist tuals have view.ed Soviet Central Asia, off company property. the past couple of years of company currents in the Caucasus and Baltic despite the enormous deformations of Lorenzo .is the archetypal corporate attacks, even as Lorenzo has fired hun­ republics. And Central Asia is certainly , as representing social prog~ raider of the '80s, the model for Mr. dreds of union militants, including not immune. Moscow's increasing ress. Under the leadership of Lenin and Gekko in the movie Wall Street. Even whole layers of shop stewards. Instead reliance on market forces will tend to Trotsky, Bolshevik Russia was viewed the capitalist mouthpiece Fortune called Bryan has been relying on endless favor the more developed regions of as beacon of the socialist future by him a "loose cannon"; Lorenzo re­ maneuvering in the courts and govern­ European Russia, the Ukraine and Bal­ workers and radical intellectuals around sponded by banning the magazine from ment labor boards. tic republics. Under these conditions the world, including in the imperi­ his planes. Using a "leveraged buyout," In its drive for ever more profits, pan-Turkic nationalism in Islamic col­ alist centers of North America and Lorenzo paid for Eastern with "junk Lorenzo's Eastern Airlines is spearhead­ oration could make headway in the Europe. The Soviet Union can and bonds," increasing the debt of his Texas ing the bosses' attack on the entire union Central Asian republics. must be restored to its rightful place as Air holding company to over $5 billion. movement. But hard class struggle now The Soviet Union is confronting a a bastion of international communism Lorenzo is sucking Eastern dry, selling can 'break Lorenzo and open up a fight deepening political and economic cri­ through proletarian political revolu­ off its most valuable assets to himself (in by labor and all the oppressed to reverse sis. The bureaucratic centralism of the tion against the treacherous Kremlin the form of Texas Air) for a pittance and the brutal givebacks and grinding Brezhnev era led to stagnation. Gorba- bureaucracy.• raking in $365 million by the proposed oppression of the Reagan years. The sale of Eastern's moneymaking shuttle battle to defend the unions at Eastern operation to New York real estate must be linked to the fight for a revolu­ mogul Donald Trump. tionary workers party which can rip Lorenzo is out for the workers' blood, American industry out of the hands of demanding a whopping wage cut to parasites like Lorenzo and build a

,) "solve" the financial crisis he created. In socialist planned economy. No more ~.-. two years, the workforce has been PATCOs! Defend the lAM-Shut .N~To-Tio~NITD ta~! W! ~~~8~ slashed by 12,000. Transferred Eastern down the airports!. workers are reportedly sleeping in air­ ports after they finish their shift, unable ~aJ~d Armvl~Smlsltls'allll& BeactfDt\· ~ to afford an apartment in their new city. Spartacist League Yet the airline owners are raking in -----SPABTACUSl'OUTH LEAGUE""'''' milliOl~s. To hell with Lorenzo and the Public Offices junk bond speculators! What airline -MARXIST L1TERATURE­ workers, and all workers, need is some hard class struggle. And the battle Bay Area against the "Darth Vader" corporate Thurs,: 5:30-8:00 p,m" Sal.: 1:00-5:00 p,m. ,1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor (near 17th Street) raiders will quickly become a political Oakland, California Phone: (415) 839-0851 struggle in which labor must stand Chicago together against capital, its parties and Tues .. 5:00-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 11:00 a.m.-2:00 p,m. its state. 161 W Harrison SI., 10th Floor Chicago, Illinois Phone: (312) 663-0715 Labor's Gotta Play Hardball to Win! Tues .. 600-900 p.m., Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m, 41 Warren SI. (one block below Bryan's only consistent demand has Chambers SI. near Church SI.) "Hail Red Army!" Spartacist contingent in 1980 Washington anti-draft , been to put himself on the management New York, NY Phone: (212) 267-1025 demonstration confronts imperialist hysteria over Afghanistan. "team." Last October he had a three- 14 WORKERS VANGUARD ing, Eastern Airlines is not a career job. It's a steppingstone. It's gonna be Fired Machinists Local President: looked upon as a Burger King job. Washington: John's point is critical for what's happening for the flying pUblic. Ninety-eight percent of the people at Kennedy have already received disci­ pline in the last year. They know that if "If We O,on't Strike, Pack It In" they terminate you today it's gonna take We print below excerpts of a Work­ done in that area is that we must take a those guys that they were not going to three years to have a hearing. ers Vanguard interview with two offi­ stand collectively-not just Eastern, all do anything. Winpisinger, who was one WV: The law is stacked against you. cials of the International Association of transportation people in this country, of the three of the 39, took the position Washington: It is. We don't belong in Machinists (lAM), John DiPaola, pres­ especially in the lAM. Because what's that we must shut down the country. the courts, fighting in the courts. Any ident of lAM Local Lodge 1018 at happening at Eastern, if it's successful, With the 39 council, it was 36 to three. one of the acts in the labor movement La Guardia Airport in New York, and will surely spill over to all other groups That's the way the vote went. [AFL-CIO you can think about is the resulLof LeRoy Washington, chairman of lAM in transportation. That might very well chief] Kirkland was one of the ones that action taking place first, and then the District 100, on January 26. DiPaola mean a situation like the PA TCO sit­ made a decision not to do adamn thing. law coming. was recently fired by Eastern Airlines, uation. But that's what it's going to And I blame those people strongly. WV: Do you guys think the other unions part of a wave of firings by corporate require, because nobody is going to Going back to the Eastern thing. We will back you up and honor your picket raider Frank Lorenzo. And on Febru­ come to the rescue on a white horse, in should have taken a position when lines? ary 7, 86 stewards and chief stewards Washington: First of all, it goes back to in Miami were suspended--almost the o o'" the 39 people who made the decision entire shop committee! .r::. (l. with P A TCO. See, that's the problem Airline workers, and all ofiabor, have > with labor. The leadership in the unions paid for the givebacks handed over by ~ today only look at their problem, if they the AFL-CIO tops. As we said in "East­ have one. Corporate America has got ern Unions: Fight or Die!" (WV No. together, sat at a table like this, deter­ 463, 21 October 1987), "it's the labor lAM officials mined that the unions are the enemy. bureaucrats' alliance with the Dem­ LeRoy And when we sit at the table, we decide ocratic Party that has kept the unions Washington Lorenzo is the enemy. Not just Lorenzo from fighting the anti-labor offensive." (left) and is the enemy, it's corporate America, When P A TCO was smashed by Rea­ John DiPaola. and that's what we need to be fighting. gan, it was lAM chief "Wimpy" Winpi­ singer who ordered machinists to cross DiPaola: What management has done, the air controllers' picket lines. And they've done it at all the major airlines. Some contracts say you can't honor the now Wimpy and Charles Bryan, pres­ my opinion, Congress, the government. Lorenzo came on board and started local picket line-cannot-even though ident of lAM District 100, continue to We're gonna have to do it alone. pushing around and terminating our you're in the same union, have brothers preach reliance on Congress and the people, we should have struck right then DiPaola: We should've learned from in the same industry. I think it's a mis­ capitalist courts and labor boards. and there. That might put us in a posi­ the P A TCO incident. We let it happen. take by the union-they made a conces­ Today, even many local union offi­ tion that we're violating the law, but If we don't strike, we might as well pack sion they never should have made. I cials are getting increasingly fed up, as let me tell you something-John said. it in and get the hell out of there. Not think we had blindfolds on, to tell you the union gets decimated at Eastern. something earlier-people in the '20s only at Eastern Airlines, all organized the truth. If you violate that agreement, The bosses' state is the enemy in the class and the '30s fought and they died, some labor. Until our leadership realizes that, they go to court and get an injunction war being waged against the airline of them died. we can't win. We thought we were going against you. But sometimes, the hell unions. Labor's gotta play hardball to to go on strike, be released from the WV: Obviously things have gotten a lot win-and that means joint with it, let's face it. If we have to bring Railway Labor Act, last February. Then worse in terms of day-to-day existence them to their knees, it has to be done. to shut the airports down and building July 4 came and we're still here. And on the job, and I'm sure that's affected picket lines that nobody crosses. then Labor Day, then Thanksgiving, safety as well. I know pilots at Eastern WV: The Democrats posture as the then Christmas is behind us. By delay­ have been forced to fly more hours "friends of labor," but what Lorenzo's DiPaola: Right now we're getting our ing these tactics, not preparing our per month. What is happening to the got working for him is a bunch of Dem­ asses kicked in the labor movement. At membership for a strike, I think it's the mechanics? ocratic Party types, Kennedy's staff, Joe La Guardia we had 12 stewards in sales biggest mistake ever been made. Califano, Robert Strauss. The Dem­ DiPaola: Forced overtime. They lay our ocratic Party politicians pass as many and service, which are cargo handlers, I'm telling you today what we should people off, they fire them, they suspend laws against labor as the RepUblicans, cleaners, refuelers, and air freight peo­ have done two years ago. Two years ago union people. And then they force the it's been a Democratic Congress for ple. In the past two years, we're down to when we were strong, two years ago people who are there to work-I'm talk- . years and years. So what I'm driving approximately five. We got stewards there were 13,500 Machinists in East­ ing mechanics working 24, 30, 36 hours at is ... who were there for 20 years, held the ern Airlines. Now we're down to a little steady. Straight, without punching out position of shop steward, and two years over 8,000, and the assets are sold. The and going home. Without sleeping, Washington: We need a labor party. ago at an election, they came up and company's last proposal is nothing but a because you can't sleep on the job. We WV: ... a workers party, an independ­ wouldn't even accept the nomination. strike. If Frank Lorenzo is successful in have an attendance control program ent workers party. We're dying slowly. cutting our wages by 40-50 percent-he that is so ridiculous that if you're [ out] DiPaola: I think everybody realizes, but Washington: [At Kennedy airport] already has 20 percent of the market four times for any reason, you're fired. nobody's doing anything about it. So they have fired four shop stewards, one counting Continental and Eastern-the We have a mechanic who came into we could sit back and look back on the in maintenance and three in sales and other airlines can't compete with him. work with a broken finger because he's past 15 years, look back on what hap­ services. They attempted to fire both of If we have to strike, we have to strike; afraid of losing his job. pened to, organized labor. Look back at the chief stewards, like they did John. if we have to lose, we lose. People sacri­ I've been working for Eastern Air­ PATCO where we screwed up. We're They've got this ongoing policy to get ficed in the 1920s and 1930s for what we lines for 22 years. This little kid gives me not making any adjustments. We're still rid of any leadership in the union that have today. If we don't want to sacrifice a letter firing me. When I was working following the same old stream, and they can. today, our kids, our grandchildren will here he wasn't even born yet, and he's there's nothing ahead but a disaster. WV: It's their policy to get rid of the have no future. They'll all be working at telling me my job. When Frank Lorenzo Things are going to get worse before union-at La Guardia three-quarters of minimum wage, there'll be two classes, came on he said it flat out, put it in writ- they get better.. the stewards have been fired. It seems to rich and poor and that's it. me the union is going to have to strike WV: One of the obvious lessons of soon, if it's to defend its life. I don't see P A TCO is that the unions should have the preparations for it. What's the shut it down back then together. SPARTACIST LEAGUE/U.S. LOCAL DIRECTORY strategy? Washington: Labor should have shut National Office: New York Washington: I agree with what you're the country down. What happened was, Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 Box 444, Canal st. Sta. saying, that for I the union's survival the government, Reagan, made certain (212) 732-7860 New York, NY 10013 itself, the only recourse we've got is to calls to certain key leadership in the 39 (212) 267-1025 flex our muscle by withholding our serv­ council [AFL-CI 0 Executive] and had a ices, a strike. What I think needs to be commitment from them before he fired Atlanta Detroit Norfolk Box 4012 Box 441794 Box 1972, Main PO Atlanta, GA 30302 Detroit, MI 48244 Norfolk, VA 23501 Boston Ithaca Oakland Box 840, Central Sta. Box 6767 Box 32552 Cambridge, MA 02139 Ithaca, NY 14850 Oakland, CA 94604 (617) 492-3928 (415) 839-0851 Chicago Los Angeles San Francisco Box 6441, Main PO Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta. Box 5712 Chicago, IL 60680 Los Angeles, CA 90029 San Francisco, CA 94101 (312) 663-0715 (213) 380-8239 (415) '863-6963 Cleveland Madison Washington, D.C. Box 91037 Box 2074 Box 75073 Cleveland, OH 44101 Madison, WI 53701 Washington, D.C. 20013 (216) 781-7500 (608) 255-8068 (202) 636-3537

Toronto TROTSKYIST LEAGUE Box 7198, Station A Gerald Davis OF CANADA Toronto, Ontario M5W 1 X8 Union-busters' deadly skies: Eastern has laid off thousands while those (416) 593-4138 still on the job are forced to work 24 to 36 hours at a stretch. 17 FEBRUARY 1989 15' W()ItNEItS "MIIIAIt' Crucial Battle for All Labor Showdown at Eastern Airlines Over 8,000 ground support person­ nel, members of the International Association of Machinists (lAM), are Union-Buster Lorenzo Demands 40 Percent Wage Cut gearing'up for a strike March 3 against corporate raider and labor-hater Frank Lorenzo's Eastern Airlines. But this is no ordinary contract battle. The de­ struction of the P A TCO air controllers union in 1981 shaped the anti-labor era of boundless greed and union-busting in the Reagan years. Now, the Eastern­ lAM confrontation is shaping up as a key test of.the labor movement-and, frustrated after months of delaying tactics by the lAM tops, the ranks want to fight. "This is an all-out war. This is for all the marbles," said Mickey O'Connell, president of Machinists Lodge 1894 at Kennedy airport in New York (News­ day, 8 February). Lorenzo is stepping up his provocations against the lAM, as he gets ready to impose a 40 percent wage cut on March 3. What Lorenzo is out to do is destroy any union rep­ resentation in his airline empire­ Continental is already a non-union operation and now he aims at wiping At Machinists convention in Atlanta last April, thousands march against corporate cannibal Lorenzo. out the unions at Eastern even if it means killing the airline. When 2,000 Miami on February 21. But behind the When the showdown comes, the Railway Labor Act (RLA)-declared lAM workers at Miami airport walked bluster is Wimpy's real strategy: to get future of every airline worker will be on an impasse, meaning both sides would out over forced overtime on February 7, George Bush to step in and have the the line-they should determine how the be free to act at the end of 30 days. Lorenzo gave a taste of the coming bat­ Democratic Congress "save" Eastern by strike is run. There must be elected When the airlines were deregulated in tle by suspending 1,000 workers and 86 imposing a contract and forcing the strike committees, responsible to the 1978, profits were no longer guaranteed stewards-every union official on duty lAM back to work for Lorenzo! membership, which can be key in over­ by government regulation-and the air­ that day! Eastern has put a huge fence These are the gravediggers of coming jurisdictional divisions and lines declared war on the unions. As a around its Miami facility and is stock­ P A TCO, who condemned the "illegal" organizing joint strike action through­ result of "free competition" the five big­ piling spare parts, while recruiting scabs strike of the air controllers and ordered out the industry. Flood the airports with gest airlines now control 70 percent of in New York and Atlanta through But­ union members to cross their picket pickets-Teamsters, transit and rail passenger traffic. Fares have skyrock­ ler International-whose Butler Avia­ lines, while showboating with a useless unionists, unemployed and homeless­ eted. Safety has gone to hell. Planes are tion subsidiary is organized by the lAM! consumer boycott. Now they are des­ we all have a.stake in the lAM's victory! literally falling apart in the air, as the The other unions at Eastern-the perately trying to keep angry lAM debt-ridden companies cannot afford to Transportation Workers Union repre­ members chained to the courts and replace their aging aircraft. (The aver­ Capitalist Greed and senting flight attendants and the Air labor boards. But the government's laws age Eastern plane todayis over 15 years Deadly Skies Line Pilots Association-must hit the and labor boards are designed to break old.) A year ago, four courageous East­ bricks with the Machinists. It's time for strikes and enforce union-busting by the The showdown at Eastern Airlines ern flight attendants were suspended labor to draw its sword. No more likes of Lorenzo and Carl Icahn at was triggered on February 2 when the when they defended passengers' lives by PA TeOs! Contracts covering over TW A. Just ask pilots at Continental or National Mediation Board-which had refusing to allow an ice-laden plane to 100,000 workers in airlines and the flight attendants at TW A, whose strikes been preventing both Lorenzo from take off in Denver. aerospace industry expire this spring were broken while they were told to imposing a takeaway contract and the The response of the lAM tops to and fall-at American, United, Boeing, place their hopes in the "neutrality" of union from striking in an attempt to Lorenzo's assault was to offer them­ Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas. the capitalist state. mediate a "settlement" under the 1926 selves as more efficient capitalist man­ The labor movement must act now to agers. A Frontline television documen­ defend the lAM and all unions, respect­ L1nC-J •• tary "The Battle for Eastern Airlines" ing picket lines at Eastern and shutting V (31 January) captures this corporatist down the airports! policy. When Eastern faced a financial Make no mistake: a serious airline tOSSI crisis in 1983, District 100 chief Bryan strike will be class war. If the key air proposed wage cuts in exchange for hubs on the East Coast-New York, a "progressive plan for sharing co­ Atlanta, Miami-are tied up, there will determination." In December I 983 he be a direct political confrontation with got his wish: then-company chairman the capitalist state. They'll come down Frank Borman, the former astronaut, like a ton of bricks with their cops and took the lAM's concessions of an 18-22 courts. Yet while RepUblicans and percent wage cut (worth $292 million), Democrats alike will be screaming for speedup and work rule changes in union blood, the social-democratic exchange for giving the union 25 per­ "labor statesmen" and their fake­ cent of Eastern stock and four seats on militant supporters appeal for govern­ the board of directors. Bryan still ment intervention! It will take an army describes it as "Camelot." But while of labor wielding its numbers and its Bryan got his seat, lAM members got social power to win. the shaft. The lAM tops, led by president Wil­ When Eastern went back to the well in liam "Wimpy" Winpisinger and District 1985 and demanded another 20 percent 100 president Charles Bryan, are report­ wage cut, Bryan offered IS percent, if edly "considering" whether to pull out Borman was fired. Instead the board of all 90,000 lAM members in the airline directors sold the airline to Frank industry and call secondary boycott Lorenzo, the empire-building head of strikes by 500,000 Machinists in rail and When Reagan smashed' PATCO in Texas Air Corporation. Bryan got the aerospace. Winpisinger and the AFL­ 1981 and put the union leaders in boot and was banned from setting foot CIO Executive Council have called a chains, Spartacists called on labor to on company property. At New York's mass demonstration against Eastern in "Shut Down the Airports!" continued on page 14

16 17 FEBRUARY 1989