<<

WfJRIlERS 'AllfilAR/) No. 559 ~X.523 18 September 1992 : The Fraud of Neo-Ap-artheid De Klerk's Banluslan· Massacre

For the second time in three months, a bloody massacre has brutally exposed the myth that the racist state No "Power-Sharing" Illusions-For Workers Revolution! is being transformed into a "democratic" South Africa. On September 7, the army of the unleashed a pro­ longed machine-gun fusillade into a protest march of 50,000 African National Congress supporters, killing at least 28, and wounding scores of others. Ciskei's military regime headed by the despot Brigadier Oupa Gqozo is a creature of , and blame for this heinous crime lies squarely at the feet of Presi­ dent EW. De Klerk. Like the Inkatha strongman Buthelezi, Gqozo is one of apartheid's dogs of war. South African officials make up most of his cabinet and head the intelligence service. The commander of the "" which mowed down the ANC protesters is on loan from the South African army. Troops of the "South Afri­ can Defence Force" lined the route of march up to the "border" of the "inde­ pendent homeland," where they watched the Ciskei forces mow down the fleeing demonstrators. Many of those killed were still on the South African side of what one writer called the "imaginary line, delineating the imaginary border to an imaginary country." The parched Ciskei is a dumping

ground for apartheid: more than a quarter arinovichl P of the people were forcibly relocated ANC marchers carry wounded comrade after apartheid "homelands" troops opened fire on unarmed demonstrators. there in the 1970s. The drought-ravaged land has turned into a dust bowl, largely curbing "conflict-creating mass action." Brigadier Gqozo to white liberals and provoking" the massacre, by enragin, denuded even of thorn trees. But as a Behind this is a deepening rift in the ANC "moderates." Yet in reality all the Ciskei .despot and daring to march supposedly independent state it has been ANC: its decision to resume talks with wings of the ANC/SACP maintain their into his lair. Yet the adventurism of this outfitted with an airport that can handle the government came after "what is criminal illusions that they can pressure action lies in the opposite direction, in 747 jumbo jets, and a three-block down­ believed to have been a' rumbustious a deal with the apartheid rulers. This is the ANC/SACP's faith in the reform pre­ town with a gambling casino and offices two-day meeting of the organisation's a cruel betrayal of the aspirations for tensions of the De Klerk regime, and the of the government that lords it over the national working committee" (London freedom of the South African oppressed terrible illusion that defenseless march­ overwhelmingly pro-ANC population. Guardian, 11 September).. As De Klerk masses-36 million black, "coloured" ers would be protected by the presence As Bill Keller noted in the New York demands that Mandela break from his (mixed-race) and Indian people groaning of the imperialist press. According to Times (10 September): allies of the South African Communist under the yoke of white supremacy. ANC/SACP leader : "South Africa underwrites the budget that pays for the 30,OOO-member civil Party, who are a majority of the ANC The liberal media fall in line behind "We had been providing the army with serviceand its perks, includingthe black leadership, there is a chorus of anti­ De Klerk, bashirg the Communist Party leaflets and people had been speaking to bulletproof Range Rover that the briga­ Communist howling extending from for being too militant and "needlessly continued on page 6 dier favorsand the fleet of Mercedes pre­ ferred by his cabinet. South Africa trained and equipped the army-assisted by such a largecontingentof Israelisthat for a time the Pick 'n Pay supermarket in Bisho had a kosher section." ' The Ciskei massacre amounts to the South African government's response to the ANC's two-day general strike in Au­ gust. Like the police-instigated bloody slaughter in Boipatong township in June, this atrocity is part of a concerted cam- . paign of terror to undercut the authority of Nelson Mandela and his organization, which has been pressuring for

the apartheid rulers. g But while the anger o of blacks over Boipa­ tong forced Mandela to cut off talks, this time the mass killing has led him to accept De Klerk's insulting "of- o fer" of talks aimed at ·Letters

this country, placing themselves in the get some bricks and basebaU bats, and service of racist American reaction to reaUy explain things to them." Dersho­ Alan Dershowitz and the push a bloc with Israeli reaction. Dersh­ witz defended Israel's brutal crushing of owitz defended Jonathan PoUard, the the Palestinian Intifada; Woody AUen Israeli spy in the U.S. Navy; Israeli fas­ protested against it. Woody Allen di­ Witchhunt of Woody Allen cist terrorist Meir Kahane; and Natan rected The Front, which exposed the Shcharansky, the traitor who passed McCarthy witchhunt; Dershowitz claims 11 September 1992 over the 5 November 1988 labor/black Dear Editor, mobilization which spiked a threatened Soviet defense secrets to the U.S. the Rosenbergs were guilty, trying to kill Clearly the proletarian international­ A point on the article on Woody Klan/Nazi/skinhead provocation in Phil­ them all over again. ism of the SL is anathema to every­ Allen (WV No. 558, 4 September): it adelphia. On the eve of this demonstra­ So Mia Farrow hired the right man to thing the Zionists stand for, but even can hardly be an accident that Mia tion, Dershowitz went on the air with pursue a dirty frame-up in today's reac­ Farrow has hired the sinister Alan Der­ the smear that the Spartacists "are as fas­ liberal pro-Israel Woody AUen is far too tionary "family values" climate. Here's decent for Dershowitz. Alan Dershowitz showitz as her lawyer. Dershowitz is cist and as racist and as non-civil liber­ hoping Woody Allen doesn't have to flee works to derail anti-Nazi demos; Woody not simply another sleazebaU lawyer tarian as the Ku Klux Klan." This was the country like the unjustly persecuted who defended the "Queen of Greed" part of a concerted-but unsuccessful­ AUen says in Manhattan: "Has anyone Roman Polanski and Charlie Chaplin Leona Helmsley. He is a Zionist spokes­ campaign by the ADL to defame the SL read that the Nazis are going to march before him. We can ill afford the loss of man for the Israeli government, a leader and derail militant anti-fascist struggle. in New Jersey? .. We should go down this talented and decent man. of the Anti- League of B 'nai Although the ADL was originaUy there, get some guys together, you know, Diana C. B'rith (ADL) and a professional anti­ founded to fight anti-Semitism, it and communist witchhunter. other Zionist organizations have sought The Spartacist League has had a num­ to ingratiate themselves with the cen­ ber of run-ins with Dershowitz, notably traUy white Christian ruling class of Thanks for Tearing Down That Evil Flag For United Class Struggle in the Sherburne, NY U.S. and Latin America To Workers Vanguard: The rapidly growing Hispanic population When I read in your issue (No. 555, can be a human bridge between the working July 10) that German Spartacists had class in the U.S. and the combative toiling tom down a Nazi flag near Brandenburg masses ofLatin America. This underscores the gate, I was very happy. Tearing down 'obligation ofrevolutionaries in the imperialist and burning that racist and fascist flag heartland to defend the foreign-born, notably was a victory for communists and social­ the demand for full citizenship rights for ists worldwide who are trying to destroy immigrant workers; to standfor independence fascism, , capitalism, and imperi­ TROTSKY of Puerto Rico, one of the few remaining LENIN alism. Even though I am 12 years old, I colonies; and to link workers' struggles to the know very much what the Nazi flag is, perspective of socialist revolution throughout the Western Hemisphere. The founding and most of all, what capitalism is: an conference ofthe Trotskyist Fourth International pointed to the strategic unity ofworking­ economic system which has oppressed class struggle in the U.S. and in Wall Street's Latin American neocolonies. the working class of the world. But there is a cure to this evil system: Socialism The revolutionists in the United States are obliged to rouse the American workers and Communism. against the sending of any armed forces against the peoples of Latin America and So before I end this letter I'd like to the Pacific and for the withdrawal of any such forces where they now operate as give my thanks to Toralf Endruweit and instruments of imperialist oppression, as well as against any other form of imperial­ his comrades for tearing down that evil ist pressure, be it "diplomatic" or "economic," which is calculated to violate the partakist flag. national independence of any country or to prevent its attainment of such national Comrades of Spartakist Workers With comradely greetings, independence.... Party rip down swastika flag in Berlin, K.B. June 23. At the same time, the Fourth Internationalists point out that none of the countries of Latin America or the Pacific which are now under the domination of American imperialism to one degree or another, is able either to attain complete freedom from foreign oppression or to retain such freedom for any length of time if it confines its struggle to the efforts of its own self. Only a union of the Latin American peoples, Balkanization striving towards the goal of a united socialist America and allied in the struggle with the revolutionary proletariat of the United States, would present a force strong enough to contend successfuUy with North American imperialism.... Just as the Latin American sections of the Fourth International must popularize in and Imperialism their press and agitation the struggles of the American labor and revolutionary move­ ments against the common enemy, so the section in the U.S. must devote more time 23rd June 1992 Order." Their only problem is how to and energy in its agitational and work to acquaint the proletariat of the To the Editor, Workers Vanguard impose their policies on the people. U.S. with the position and struggles of the Latin American countries and their working Many on the left have spoken about The working class is internationalist. class movements. Every act of American imperialism must be exposed in the press the "New World Order" but never It wants the dissolution of the nation and at meetings and on indicated occasions the section in the U.S. must seek to explained what it actuaUy means in prac­ state. But not by imperialism and for its organize mass movements of protest against specific activities-of Yankee imperialism. tice for the Balkan peoples. A map pub­ interests. The events unfolding in Yugo­ In addition. the section in the U.S., by utilizing the Spanish language literature of the lished by E. Mortimer on 24.1.1990 in slavia are part and parcel of this process Fourth International, must seek to organize. on however modest a scale to begin with, the London based Financial Times spells of counterrevolution and the next stage. the militant revolutionary forces among the doubly exploited miUions of Filipinos, out the general plans of the imperialist as noted by the director of the State Mexicans, Caribbeans, arid Central and South American workers now resident in the centres, i.e. the destruction of the nation Department of Foreign Affairs on the U.S., not only for the purpose of linking them with the labor movement in the U.S., state. This will mean the ending of bor­ Balkans, Mr. Souaha (10th April 1991, but also for the purpose of strengthening the ties with the labor and revolutionary ders, the creation of broader unions, de­ Harvard University): "The forthcoming movements in the countries from which these workers originaUy came. This task pendent from a central superpower-that independence of the Macedonian Nation shaU be carried on under the direction of the American Secretariat of the Fourth of the U.S. Specifically for the Balkans with a special relationship and coopera­ International, which will publish the necessary literature and organize the work it envisages the dissolution of Yugosla­ tion with Bulgaria will possibly influ­ accordingly. via, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece. ence the borders with Greece-as is pos­ - Fourth International, "Theses on the World Role of American Imperialism" Seen from this perspective it is not sible a war between Albania and Serbia." (September 1938) only ridiculous to regurgitate imperial­ The necessity of fighting by any ist myths concerning the outbreak of means necessary to preserve the unity of "nationalisms" in the Balkans, but also Yugoslavia against the wishes of U.S. to judge present development with past imperialism has supposedly become eras. Nationalism in reality doesn't exist. defunct as capitalism has been restored It's imperialism's guise with which a in Serbia and Serbian irregulars are "un­ U.S. dictatorship can be imposed in the controlled gangs of criminal terrorists." !~!'!!!!m~~!~!~~! ~ By the same logic, Yeltsin's constitution Balkans. Under the framework of this DIRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS:. Liz Gordon policy the Balkans must be divided into of the c.I.S. means capitalism has been EDITOR: Jan Norden small, weak and defenceless statelets, restored and we should not be concerned PRODUCTION MANAGER: Joan Parker subjects and servants of imperialism and about the dissolution of Greece, after all CIRCULATION MANAGER: Karen Valdez finally to a lone superpower. If [Greek that is capitalist as well. .. EDITORIAL BOARD: George Foster, Frank Hunter, Jane Kerrigan, Len Meyers, James Robertson, premier] Mitsotakis is so concerned with The "anti-war" movement in Greece Joseph Seymour, Alison Spencer, Marjorie Stamberg the preservation of the "bourgeois state" led by OSE (Tony Cliff's followers) The Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist). why is it that his party funded Zheliev's recently marched in Athens with the slo­ Workers Vanguard (USPS 098-770) published biweekly, except 2nd issue August and with 3-week interval December, election in Bulgaria, the first government gans: "No to Nationalism, No to War! by the Spartacist Publishing Co., 41 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), that recognised the "Independent Mace­ Milosevic the Butcher of the Balkans! (212) 732-7861 (Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Domestic subscriptions: $7.00/24 issues. Second-class postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address changes donian nation"? Mitsotakis, [Turkish Serbia Out of Bosnia!" One wonders if to Workers Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. prime minister] Demirel and the ex­ they weren't literally taken out of Time Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint. Stalinists in the Balkans are common magazine with a few minor corrections! No. 559 18 September 1992 agents of imperialism and are working Trotskyists cannot but be for the victory for the imposition of the "New World of the Serbian army (including what 2 WORKERS VANGUARD Munich Olympics: Cops Killed 8 Israeli Athletes 20 Year Cover-Up!

While the Zionist media wildly Arab repression has been most vicious cheered Israel's first-ever Olympic in West Germany, where the authori­ medal a month ago, one Israeli news­ ties' hands are stained with the blood paper carried a little-noticed block­ of the Black September guerrillas buster about the Munich Olympics 20 and the Israeli athletes" (WV No. 13, years 'earlier, when eleven Israeli ath­ November 1972). When then Israeli letes were taken hostage by the Pales­ ambassador (now prime minister) tinian guerrilla group Black September. Yitzhak Rabin visited Boston that Following a West German commando October, the Spartacist League organ­ assault and initial reports that all eleven ized a protest against the Zionist terror athletes had been rescued, the author­ raids. ities then claimed that they were all Twenty years later, the Israeli news­

murdered at the hands of the guerrillas. paper Yediot Aharanot (22 July) reveals ..-""""""''''''''''''''''''.'~. That turns out to be a lie. that at least eight of the athletes were AP 1972 Olympics: helicopter destroyed in West German commando assault The Olympics massacre provided the murdered by the German police, not the in which cops gunned down Israeli athletes. pretext for an international vendetta Palestinians. Based on secret docu­ against Palestinians everywhere. The ments recently obtained "in unknown efforts as forcing Soviet Jews who flee Olympics killings remains classified to Israelis carried out Nazi-like "collec­ ways" from the Bavarian attorney gen­ the "promised land" to Germany to this day. Meanwhile, the more-Zionist­ tive punishment," with murderous eral's office by the athletes' families, go back to Israel. And whether it than-thou New York Times (\ August) bombing raids into Lebanon and Syria the article reports: "Eight of the II was simply a "shlemiel" botch-up or dismissed the Yediot Aharanot bomb­ followed by a massive invasion into Israeli athletes who were murdered in an indiscriminate shooting frenzy aimed shell in a tiny paragraph tucked away Lebanon, where hundreds ofArab civil­ Munich 20 years ago lost their lives at fomenting anti-Arab hysteria, can near the end of an article on the Israeli ians were wounded and at least 23 from the bullets of the German rescuing anyone doubt that the Israeli Mossad victory in the Barcelona Olympics. killed. Meanwhile, Arab students in forces." Castigating the Germans for a collaborated with the German cops in As we have always insisted, Zionist West Germany, Italy and elsewhere "shlerniel job," the report notes that the the "Olympics massacre"? Indeed, an Israel is a deathtrap for the Jewish peo­ were rounded up in mass indiscriminate documents show only two of the ath­ account in the Jerusalem Post Interna­ ple, in every conceivable way. Whether dragnets. letes to have been killed by Black tional Edition (\ August) reports that under former fascist Yitzhak Shamirs We condemned the Munich killings September. former Mossad chief Zvi Zamir was Likud or the thoroughly bourgeois at the time as an "indefensible petty­ Can we now expect the Israeli lead­ part of the operation in Munich. "Labor" Party of Rabin, the Zionist bourgeois terrorist frenzy," while de­ ers to order "retaliatory" bombing raids Pointing to the "alleged acquies­ state is predicated on the Nazi-like tor­ nouncing the far more bloodthirsty against Berlin and Munich? Hardly cence of the Israeli government in ment and subjugation of the oppressed terrorism of the Zionist butchers and likely. The Zionist mass murderers are the German whitewash," the Jerusalem Palestinian masses. Defend the Pales­ the racist crusade by their imperialist as thick as thieves with the leaders of Post also notes that the Israeli govern­ tinians! For a socialist federation of the patrons. We noted: "The wave of anti- the Fourth Reich, collaborating on such ment's own report on the Munich Near East!

the imperialist press characterises as Slav regions (Croatia and Slovenia) of millionaire of Serbian extraction to be­ wise become an oppressed nationality in irregulars) against U.S. imperialism. the defunct Habsburg Empire to the come prime minister of the rump Yugo­ a rump Yugoslavia ruled by arch Serbian Coming after the Gulf War and the L.A. kingdom of Serbia. The Communist slavia, thereby indicating that American chauvinist Milosevic, who rose to power Upheaval, the Balkans are set to become International in the 1920s and later imperialism is not fundamentally hostile by brutally trampling on the Albanians the new arena of U.S. imperialism in its the Trotskyist movement defended the to a Greater Serbian state if it acts as of Kosovo. death throes. The tradition of the Balkan right of self-determination, i.e., the Washington's client in the Balkans. It is especially important for Greek peoples for unity has defined and char­ right to secede, for Croats, Macedon­ German imperialism, on the other revolutionaries to support national self­ acterised historical turning points this ians and other oppressed nationalities in hand, has a long historic enmity toward determination for the Macedonians, who century. This time around the end of Yugoslavia. Serbia. It was Helmut Kohl's Fourth have been the target of intense, indeed superpowers once and for all is being During this period Serbian chauvinists Reich which provided the decisive big­ hysterical, chauvinism by the Greek rul­ questioned. and their Anglo-French imperialist back­ power support for the Croatian and Slo­ ing class and its reformist henchmen. Y.N. Gelis ers denounced the Communists for incit­ venian secessionists, thereby leading to We don't recognize that regional pow­ Athens Trotskyist ing the breakup of Yugoslavia. Precisely the unraveling of the rest of Yugoslavia ers such as Serbia and Greece should because the Communists defended the as well (see "Yugoslav Bloodbath: Made have a privileged position vis-a-vis the WV replies: It is true that the bloody democratic rights of all the peoples of in the Fourth Reich" in this issue). smaller nationalities in the Balkans. As breakup of Yugoslavia is the outcome Yugoslavia, Tiro's Partisans gained the In Macedonia, unlike Croatia and Slo­ Lenin and Trotsky taught us, the national of imperialist-backed counterrevolution moral authority to reconstruct Yugosla­ venia, there had been no strong seces­ state can be transcended only if the pro­ in East Europe. Yet there is a fundamen­ via after World War II on the basis of sionist movement or sentiment. The letarian revolution led by its communist tal difference between our proletarian proletarian state power (albeit bureau­ Macedonians were driven to declare in­ vanguard scrupulously and militantly internationalist opposition to the disso­ cratically deformed) and a nationally dependence for fear they would other- defends equal rights for all peoples. _ lution of the multinational Yugoslav federated governmental system. deformed workers state and the phony However, Tito's pan-Yugoslav nation­ "anti-imperialism" of nationalists (who ,alism was a far cry from proletarian are in many cases themselves the archi­ internationalism. A genuinely interna­ INS Raids Xmas Ornament Factory, tects of capitalist restoration). tionalist program would call for, as Trot­ While Y.N. Gelis has his own unique sky did in the 1930s, a Socialist Feder­ Arrests Expectant Mothers ideas (such as, nationglism "doesn't ation of the Balkans (including Greece) exist," and "the tradition of the Balkan within a Socialist United States of They must give prizes in the Immigration and Naturalization Service for peoples for unity"), his claim that there Europe. Such a Balkan federation would who comes up with the most offensive racist atrocity they could commit. Last is an imperialist conspiracy to balkanize provide a framework for Macedonian in­ week's winner was an INS raid on a Brooklyn factory producing Christmas the Balkans is a variant of a view that dependence (should the people of Mac­ ornaments. La migra cops arrested more than 130 people, 70 percent of the is fairly common in the region. Thus the edonia so desire) and for a united soviet work force, and according to the Daily News (4 September) more than ninety Milosevic regime in Belgrade denounces Albania. of those arrested were pregnant women. The raid caused consternation in imperialist machinations against Yugo­ Especially after Tito died in 1980, the New York City's fast-growing Mexican community, estimated at 200,000. The slavia in the interests of Greater Serbian Yugoslav Stalinist bureaucracy, under Partisan Defense Committee sent off the following letter protesting this outrage. nationalism, while Greek Stalinists in the pressure of world capitalism, splin­ the name of "anti-imperialism" echo the tered along national lines. It is not true chauvinist line of the Greek bourgeoisie that U.S. imperialism's "new world 10 September 1992 Ninety of those arrested at the against an independent Macedonia. order" initially envisaged the breakup of District Director Christmas ornament factory were Gelis sees a uniform imperialist Yugoslavia into small statelets. Washing­ Immigration and Naturalization pregnant women. Thanks to the INS' policy, dictated by the United States, ton's policy aimed to transform ~all of Service racist policies these workers and their to further reduce the Balkans to "small, Yugoslavia, within its existing bound­ New York, NY newborn infants will spend their first weak and defenceless statelets." How­ aries, into a capitalist state. In March holiday season in abject poverty­ Dear Sir: ever, there is no common imperial­ 1991 Bush wrote to Belgrade prime min­ only to face a future of even greater ist policy in the Balkans, a region ister Ante Markovic expressing support The Partisan Defense Committee exploitation under the "Free Trade which has been historically and is today for a "united and democratic" Yugosla­ strongly protests the September 2 INS Agreement"-while you sip eggnog again an arena of conflict between Ger­ via. A top U.S. official lectured Yugoslav raid in which 150 workers were in front of a tree adorned with the man imperialism on the one hand, and politicians that "if they balkanize into arrested at the Commodore Manufac­ fruits. of their sweatshop labor. French, British and more lately Ameri­ little countries, they will set themselves turing Company in Brooklyn. We Anyone who makes it to this coun­ can imperialism on the other. back economically" (Washington Post, demand they be immediately released try has the right to stay. We demand After World War I, the Western im­ 17 May 1991). and all deportation proceedings be full citizenship rights for foreign-born perialist victors formed the Yugoslav Recently the Bush administration gave dropped. workers and their families! bourgeois state by attaching the South special dispensation for an American 18 SEPTEMBER 1992 3 velopment of our political tendency. As for Clara's role, we are more than willing to acknowledge her contributions to the later document "Revolutionary Integration: The Dialectics of Black Lib­ eration," published in 1968. Indeed, although the document upholds the pro­ gram of revolutionary integrationism, it was otherwise a retrogressive step from Dick's earlier work, in the direction of Personalism as a the polyvanguardist sectoralism that is the sine qua non of Clara Fraser's FSP. For reasons that would appear to revolve around pride-of-authorship, ego­ tism and vindictive organizational ad­ "Political" Program vantage, Clara Fraser's FSP continues to pay tribute to the program of revolution­ As we noted in our article "In Defense got involved with Clara Fraser. Proletarian Revolution" (printed in the ary integration. Yet their operational pol­ of Dick Fraser": "We're really not inter­ Dick's exposition of the program PRL bulletin), which is a brilliant itics are completely antithetical to any ested in getting into a shooting match of revolutionary integrationism was presentation of the ideas to which conception of united class struggle. with Ms. Seattle Six-Gun"-a.k.a. Clara the product of his years-long fight Dick committed his life-for black Combining pseudo-Marxist verbiage with Fraser, the current lideresa maxima of the in the SWP for a revolutionary inter­ freedom through integrated revolution­ leftover New Left phraseology like Freedom Socialist Party. Obviously, the ventionist policy in the black struggle, ary struggle for an egalitarian social­ "white skin privilege," under the guise feeling is not mutual. The two letters and of a lifetime of meticulous scholar­ ist society. His 1955 polemic against of "following leadership of people of printed below are a representative sample ship on the question of black oppres­ black nationalism, "For the Materialist color," women or any oppressed group, of the eight missives we have received sion. In particular, we call readers' Conception of the Negro Struggle" in practice their line is a guilty liberal to date from the FSP and environs, gro­ attention to his 1953 two-part lecture (printed in our Marxist Bulletin No.5), version of sectoralist tailism. tesquely comparing Clara Fraser to Rosa titled "The Negro Struggle and the was a shaping influence on the de- Such a posture is not unusual on the Luxemburg while charging us with "ter­ "left," but the' FSP has the unique dis­ minal misogyny" and "cover[ing] up for tinction of being so shameless (when it your misogynist male buddies." suits them) in the view that "oppressed blacks/women/Chicanos/lndians can't be To simply acknowledge Dick's role as 14Freedom SOCialiSt a veteran American Trotskyist leader wrong" that in 1985 they embraced the V,;te'b f!e¥r;(~"" fiMW;At. and originator of the program of rev­ contra-allied, CIA-bankrolled leaders of olutionary integrationism as the road May-July 1992 the Miskito Indians in Nicaragua against to black liberation in America, is to the petty-bourgeois radical Sandinista be tarred as unmitigated male chauvin­ Clara Our defense of government, a position unique on the left ist pigs who would deny Clara Fra­ Fraser comrade Richard so far as we know. As the old saying goes, ser's "stellar theoretical advances to the Fraser against the "politics makes strange bedfellows." But understanding of Black liberation." We personal vilification unlike the FSP we don't believe that re­ contained in this invite people to read our Prometheus Re­ jection of (or by) one's former bedfellows article by Clara 11.11 makes for a political raison d' etre. search Library bulletin, In Memoriam­ Thelma and Louise US Fraser has now Richard S. Fraser. Although only a small MINISTS ORGANIZED the modern evoked a spate of The FSP takes the old New Left fem­ EVER SINCE FE h e been harangued from all selection, it gives a good idea of the . the '60s we av .. inist slogan that "the personal is politi­ movement m . 'fulfilled, petty-bourgeois, narCisSIS- letters from her scope and erudition of his most seminal sides for bemg insane. un strident bitches, dykes, man- followers. cal" to the crudest and most apolitical . f' lous home-wreckers, works on revolutionary integration­ tic, nvo , . f ivility and civilization. lows, unashamedly suggesting an official which were completed long before he . and enemies 0 c. .. . '_"+;~n< hv plpvatinl!:sec- organizational practice of subjectivity,

knowledged the fact that "Revolutionary matic contempt for women leaders and Integration: The Dialectics of Black Lib­ feminism. But your article also reveals Letters from the FSP eration" was co-authored by Pick Fraser an appallingly blatant against all August 14, 1992 FSP leader Dick Fraser, an event which and Clara Fraser?! SL simply cannot women-and agism. . Workers Vanguard continues to divide the Left along the conceive of an equal team of male and You accuse Clara Fraser of basing "her To the editor, lines of feminism vs. sexism. In a July female co-thinkers. entire political career on her divorce"­ It doesn't surprise me a bit, given 24 diatribe entitled "In Defense of Dick I don't think SL took Dick Fraser in other words, basing the political on under its wing for his theoretical contri­ Spartacist League's atrocious record on Fraser," Workers Vanguard ignores the something personal and petty. You have women's issues, that iYoU responded with fact that their hero acted as a fink by butions as much as for your identifica­ yet to see that marriage and divorce are hysterical denunciations to Clara Fra­ hauling Clara Fraser into the bourgeois tion with him as a poor, misunderstood, political issues as Marx, Engels, Lenin ser's hard-hitting column "Thelma and courts and accusing her of being an unfit maligned male, expected to shoulder the and Trotsky have made quite clear. She Louise 'R' Us" which appeared in the mother because she was a socialist onerous burden of carrying his political merely developed that theory and turned Freedom Socialist newspaper. organizer. The article presents SL "men­ principles into his personal life. it into action. Fraser surveyed today's worldwide tor" Dick Fraser as a saint who is being Base your politics on chauvinist sen­ "In addition, Clara Fraser's leadership legal, political and physical assaults on hounded by his harpy ex-wife even timentality and male bonding if you like. as a Revolutionary Marxist was recog­ women and concluded that there is still beyond the grave. But try to show. a modicum of respect nized decades before the 1967 divorce an urgent need for women to mobilize Spartacist League puts Dick Fraser on for a leader like Clara Fraser, who has and she remains a leader to this day. in self-defense. a pedestal because of his theoretical made stellar theoretical advances to the You state that Clara Fraser is trying As if to prove her point, Workers Van­ contributions on the Black struggle. But understanding of Black liberation and to "bury" the truth that Dick Fraser was guard rose up in arms over Fraser's ref­ why is it Spartacist League has never, women's emancipation, and has also a well-known leader of the American erence to her 1967 divorce from then- ever noticed, given credence to, or ac- built an international party, the Freedom Trotskyist movement, and yet in this Socialist Party. The laudatory Dick Fra­ same article you quote from the FSP ser, on the other hand, dropped out of National Committee statement to his politics except for making a "drift back memorial in L.A., "[Dick] Fraser's pro­ SPARTACIST LEAGUE/U.S. LOCAL DIRECTORY into [SL's] orbit," as your article puts it found Marxist analysis in Revolutionary so well. Integration is destined to become one of National Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 • (212) 732-7860 When you resort to smears that Clara the most powerful weapons in the arse­ Atlanta Detroit Norfolk Fraser is a dizzy "guru," you're just nal of U.S. radicals...." Box4012 Box441043 Box 1972, Main PO showing your pathetic inability to accept You quote Clara Fraser out of context Atlanta, GA30302 Detroit, MI 48244 Norfolk, VA 23501 the reality of women's leadership. After and distort her meaning by leaving out 30 years of feminist upheaval, you still key words. For your readers I quote the Oakland Boston Los Angeles equate Bolshevism with testosterone. SL sentence you used and underline what Box 29497 Box390840, Central Sta. Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta. won't even notice when the American you leave out: "[It's] Time for women Cambridge, MA 02139 Los Angeles, CA90029 Oakland, CA94604 (510) 839-0851 revolution begins because you'll be so guerrillas, 20th-century Amazons, mad (617) 492-3928 (213) 380-8239 busy sneering at the women, lesbians and shrieks of protest, and careful mobiliza­ San Francisco Madison gays, and people of color in the forefront. tion of political battalions." ("Thelma Chicago Box77494 Box6441, Main PO Box 1492 Helen Gilbert and Louise 'R' Us", Freedom Socialist, San Francisco, CA94107 Vol. 13, No.3, May-July 1992) Chicago, IL 60680 Madison, WI 53701 (415) 777-9367 Seattle, WA (312) 663-0715 Finally, your snide contempt for older New York Washington, D.C. Dear Workers Vanguard: people comes out when you state, Cleveland Box 444, Canal St. Sta. Box75073 Your "In Defense of Dick Fraser" (No. "Rehashing old history may be one of Box91037 New York, NY 10013 Washington, D.C. 20013 556, July 24, 1992) was just another the few pleasures of getting older, but Cleveland, OH 44101 (212) 267-1025 (202) 872-8240 Spartacist League attack of Clara Fraser, willfully rewriting it is another matter." National Chair of the Freedom Socialist By saying that our elders do little more than dwell on their memories, you render TROTSKYIST LEAGUE OF CANADA/LiGUE TROTSKYSTE DU CANADA Party (FSP). And because you do not have a clear political argument, sub­ yourself contemptible. Toronto Montreal Vancouver stituting contradictory and confusing Yours in struggle, Box7198, Station A C.P. Les Atriums Box 2717, Main P.O. snipes, you wind up shooting yourself Merle Woo, Toronto, ON M5W 1X8 B.P.32066 Vancouver, BC V6B 3X2 in the foot. Freedom Socialist Party (416) 593-4138 Montreal, QC H2L 4V5 (604) 687-0353 Once again the SL reveals its program- San Francisco, CA (514) 849-6540

4 WORKERS VANGUARD not to mention cultism. Merle Woo, a prominent FSP spokesman in the Bay Lee Mayfield and a piece by Clara and Area, argues that the Spartacists "have "Time to Correct the Record" Dick Fraser. yet to see that marriage and divorce are Clara's claims are also false in what political issues as Marx, Engels, Lenin September 5, 1992 band a male chauvinist as Clara has they do not say about the real reasons and Trotsky have made quite clear. She Workers Vanguard been claiming somewhat hysterically for for the split in the FSP. "Why We Left [Clara Fraser] merely developed that To the Editor: 25 years. the SWP" was written in June 1966 by theory and turned it into action." Clara Fraser's renewed vituperation It is also false to claim that Dick was the founders of the FSP. It had four per­ Are we to assume from this statement against Dick Fraser in her recent article, made into a martyr by most of the left. spectives, revolutionary integration, a that the FSP takes a "political" side in "Thelma and Louise 'R' Us," distorts the On the contrary, since Clara's charges serious concern for the woman question, every marital breakup between its com­ truth in several ways. have never been answered, her view has support of Arne Swabeck's position on rades? What kind of J. Edgar Hoover First, Dick did not charge Clara with gained broad and undeserved currency China and an organizational concept type procedures are followed to deter­ adultery, or doing political work, in in the left. Dick's reputation has suffered rejecting the perspective of a new van­ mine which partner has the "correct" the custody case. At one point during greatly and it is time to correct the guard party in favor of an open democ­ line? Or is it just that the woman is the proceeding, Dick's attorney started record. racy looking toward regroupment. always right? Then what happens in the to raise an issue of adultery but Dick Dick never answered Clara's charges. Clara abandoned two of the four case of gay and lesbian couples splitting would not allow her to proceed. What Even to his friends he never attacked perspectives, but her differences were up? Or has the FSP attained such a state Dick claimed was that he had done most Clara or said a word against her, prob­ never discussed. On the contrary, the of personal nirvana within capitalist of the child rearing. That, if true, would ably out of concern for the feelings of divorce case provided a pretext to force society that comrade-couples normally not reflect on Clara in any way. Mil­ their son. Revolutionary Age, the journal a split while avoiding a discussion. "live happily ever after"? Or is it simply lions of women work outside the home, published by Dick and his associates She changed her mind on China, and that the only divorce of "political" then do the housework, raise the chil­ after the split in the FSP, never answered proceeded to form a new vanguard party, import is that of the "party's founder and dren and cook. If, in this case, both Clara. It was felt there were other things a sort of mini-SWP in a microcosm. Of National Chairperson," Clara Fraser? parties worked, but the husband did to publish. But the journal did treat the signers of "Why We Left," all Levity aside, as the letter from David the child rearing, it is no moral reflec­ the woman question as a vital part of remained with Dick politically except Dreiser printed here makes crystal clear, tion on the wife, but might provide the founding program of the FSP. The Clara. the supposedly principled question of the grounds for custody. At least, to try to third issue was devoted to the woman Comradely, disputed divorce was actuaIly Clara's get custody does not make the hus- question with articles by Joan Jordan, David Dreiser cover for avoiding discussion of the pol­ itics of the split in their tendency, sub­ stituting personalism and personal slan­ der for program. Dick Fraser was a political mentor of our organization. He won Jim Robertson to the theory Of revolutionary integration and was a co-reporter on the black ques­ tion at the founding conference of the Spartacist League/U.S. in 1966. His foray into support for Mao's China put our relations in cold storage for a period. But in his later years, Dick was a close and invaluable coIlaborator in elaborat­ ing a perspective for our work among militant black workers and youth through establishing organizations of labor/black defense. Sharing our outrage against the U.S.' terror-bombing of Libya in 1986, he resolved the contra­ diction between his then-formal mem­ WVPhoto bership in the Democratic Socialists of A revolutionary labor movement must actively champion black freedom struggle: stopping the Klan, Washington, D.C., America and his fervent political beliefs, 27 November 1982. Dick Fraser was a mentor for our party's Marxist analysis and program on the black question. in particular his intransigent opposition to U.S. imperialism: at the time of his male bonding." You'll have a hard time hours-long, life-threatening operations to that he could continue with his work. death Dick was a comrade of the Spar­ making that one stick against the Sparta­ try to fix his mouth so he would be able Even from beyond the grave, Dick Fraser tacist League. to make himself understood. I remem­ cist League, which has a majority of ber trying to talk him out of one of his haunts the FSP, which obsessively con­ That we could continue to have rela­ women on its Political Bureau. Among last operations, telling him we needed tinues to try to destroy him. tions with a man who once wrote that Dick's closest collaborators and friends him and this was too risky-he told The issue posed is: either Dick Fraser the national chairman of our organi­ were senior leading women ofour organ­ me if he couldn't talk, his life wasn't was a male chauvinist pig and "political ization, in particular Karen Wyatt, leader worth much to him. Far from 'contempt zation combined the "worst aspects of for older people,' our treatment of Dick dropout" or Clara Fraser is a monster Cannonism and Shachtmanism," is obvi­ of our Los Angeles branch, and Deborah shows how much we care for, respect of cult-like proportions. Well, "you pays ously a foreign concept within Clara Maguire, the national organizational and fight to preserve the contributions your money and you takes your choice." Fraser's FSP-where it seems any polit­ secretary of the SLIU.S. (Former long­ of those communist veterans who came For our part, we are proud that we did ical disagreement or challenge to the time CP leader Dorothy Healey was also before us." what we could to make sure that Richard "leader" is lese majeste and ipso facto a good friend to Dick.) In response to the In a decent society, a. scholar and Fraser did not end up living the last years evidence of "male chauvinism." WeIl, FSP's charge that Dick was a "political writer like Richard Fraser would have of his life according to Clara Fraser's neither Dick nor the SL was of this dropout" foIlowing his breakup with had available to him the facilities and agenda-alone, friendless and without cult-like school. As we wrote in our Clara, Maguire wrote on September 10: resources to pursue his work. But in influence. obituary to Richard Fraser (WV No. 466, "Dick didn't 'drop out of politics,' he capitalist America, Dick had to research To quote Shakespeare, "The evil that 2 December 1988): "Over the years we got cancer .... More than anything else, and write in his spare time, living all his men do lives after them/The good is oft Dick wanted to be a working commu­ had our disagreements with Dick: Nei­ nist-he talked about it often. He was a life under conditions of material want, interred with their bones." We do not ther of us tried to hide these, but we teacher and the worst thing about his insecurity, and in the end, painful and intend to let Clara Fraser's FSP bury were always happy to bend the stick in cancer was that it affected his jaw and debilitating illnesses. This was com­ Richard Fraser-a veteran American favor of the areas of profound political the resulting surgery adhered his tongue pounded by Clara Fraser, who seized Trotskyist who made invaluable contri­ agreement between us." to the bottom of his mouth-thus he could not talk very well. So he started Dick's library as part of the divorce butions to a revolutionary program for For the FSP this is simply an expres­ his writing project, the book with David, settlement. Within our limited resources, black liberation in this country-under sion of our "chauvinist sentimentality and and went through surgery after surgery- the SL sought to replenish his library so a mountain of self-serving invective. _

I PROME [HELlS RESl AR( H SERIES )

A memorial to comrade Richard S. Fraser (1913-1988), who pioneered the Trotskyist understanding of the black question in the United States. In Memoriam After joining the Trotskyist movement in 1934, Fraser was an organizer and union activist for close to 30 years and a member of the Socialist Workers Richard S. Fraser Party National Committee for 25 years. During internal debates in the SWP in the 1950s he developed and fought for the programmatic perspective of AnAppreciallon andSelecllon of His Work Revolutionary Integration, while the majority, with George Breitman as its spokesman, tailed the liberal pacifist/Democratic Party leadership of the civil rights movement and soon capitulated to black nationalism. The bulletin contains material reflecting the entire span of Fraser's political life, including his seminal 1953 lectures, "The Negro Struggle and the Proletarian Revolution."

A$7.50 £4.25 Cdn$8.50 US$7 (includes postage) 108 pages Order from/make checks payable to: Australia Britain Canada United States Spartacist ANZ Publishing Co. Spartacist Publications Spartacist Canada Pub. Assoc. Spartacist Publishing Co. GPO Box 3473 PO Box 1041 Box 6867, Station A Box 1377 GPO Dick Fraser speaking at Spartacist Sydney 2001 London NW5 3EU Toronto, Ontario M5W lX6 New York, NY 10116 League conference, 1983. 18 SEPTEMBER 1992 5 the teeth and fully prepared to use its South Africa ... enormous firepower. Hani's "Leipzig option," as we just saw, is based on (continued from page 1) astounding faith in the capitalist state. soldiers. We felt we had been softening Particularly in South Africa, the military them up.... The assessment was that a question is subordinate to the class aims peaceful protest march would not be shot of the struggle. A serious struggle for at, not be shot at in full view of the inter­ national press." proletarian power must be based on the -New York Times, 9 September cities and factories, where a working Kasrils said that the march was part class composed of blacks of different of a plan for the "peaceful overthrow" tribal/ethnic groupings, coloureds and of the Ciskei's tinpot dictator. This was Indians can unite in common struggle­ the so-called "Leipzig option" bandied along with those numerous whites who about by the SACP/ANC militants led do not wish to live in an embattled racist by ,general secretary of the garrison state-using their enormous SACP and head of Umkhonto we Sizwe power to bring industry, mines and com­ (MK), the military arm of the ANC. merce to a standstill. (Kasrils was also a leader of the MK.) There will be widespread revulsion Focusing first on the Ciskei, the strategy in the townships as Mandela sits down aims at toppling the puppet bantustan to bargain with the paymasters of the rulers through "mass action." But first Ciskei killers. But while various black of all, this isn't Leipzig. Mass demon­ nationalist groups criticize the ANC's strations in East Germany in the fall of negotiations with De Klerk, they are U News only angling for factional advantage. 1989 led to the rapid collapse of the Contingent of trade unionists in COSATU/ANC march against cutbacks. brittle bureaucratic apparatus sitting atop The Pan-Africanist Congress rejects Combative black workers movement must break with ANC to bring down CODES A but is prepared to "enter into the deformed workers state. But the apartheid capitalism. . apartheid regime is the executive com­ bilateral talks with the view to entering mittee of the capitalist ruling class, one for workers rule, the ANC/SACP called itancy into "safe" channels. Last month an alternative forum," said PAC official of the most ruthless, racist bourgeoisies to "make the townships ungov­ the ANC/SACP/COSATU brought off Barney Desai (Weekly Mail, 14 August). of modern times. They and their pup­ ernable"-as if chaos were a strategy. the biggest general strike in South Afri­ The Workers Organisation for Socialist pets aren't about to crumble because When they later moved to take control can history, but all for the small change Action, in turn, calls for "our comrades of concerns about bad press in America of an insurgent black union movement, of what would be parliamentary maneu­ in the ANC to break off talks with the and Europe. coalesced around the powerful Congress vering, except that the vast black major­ government until at the very least the Mobilization of the exploited and of South African Trade Unions ity is excluded from any parliamentary situation has normalised" (Workers' oppressed is a key component of the (COSATU), despite the red flags and representation! Asked "What did mass Voice, June 1992). But as opposed to struggle for proletarian revolution led by socialist rhetoric it was not to fight for action achieve?" Chris Hani replies that such opportunist maneuvering, even a a Trotskyist party. But ANC/SACP pro­ revolution, but to broker a mythical it established the pre-eminence of the principled opposition to collaboration ponents of mass action seek to manipu­ "post-apartheid" capitalist state. ANC-led alliance and "addressed the with the murderous regime is not suffi­ late it as a pressure tactic in negotiating That has meant clamping down on imbalances between negotiations and the cient as a program for revolutionary with the apartheid Randlords. During the workers' militancy at key junctures (such struggle." He adds: "I support the return struggle to bring down the whole system upheavals of 1984-85, when it was nec­ as calling off the 1990 Mercedes-Benz to negotiations, but at a price" (South of apartheid slavery. essary and possible to unite the township strike) in the interests of class peace with African Labour Bulletin, September/ The urgent task in South Africa is and bantustan masses behind the power the verligte ("enlightened") capitalists. October 1992). the forging of a genuinely communist of black labor in a revolutionary fight At other times it requires funneling mil- Through the intermediary of the ANC party that can take up the felt aspira­ nationalists and SACP Stalinists, the tions of the black masses-that their COSATU tops have become real labor decades-long fight, through countless lieutenants of capital. Meanwhile, town­ massacres from Sharpeville to Soweto ship residents are left defenseless in to Boipatong and the Ciskei, not be the face of the violence of government­ in vain-and lead a fight for workers Spartacist~ sponsored Inkatha Zulu impis (fighting revolution. While everyone from the Forums squads), and in the Ciskei tens of thou­ ANC to WOSA calls upon the De Klerk sands of unarmed demonstrators are led government to organize a "constituent to a killing field under the illusion that assembly," we declare that "power the murderous apartheid puppet regime sharing" with the apartheid butchers is will fall. Moreover, the ANC initially a dangerous hoax, and fight for a revo­ supported Gqozo, helping to contain lutionary constituent assembly through rioting after he took power in a 1990 bringing down the apartheid dictatorship coup. He also warmed a chair at the and building workers soviets as the CODES A (Convention for a Democratic organs for proletarian rule. As opposed Speaker: Amy Rath, Editor, Women and Revolution South Africa) gabfest last December. to the treacherous Stalinist-Menshevik Next door in the , Hani is hoax of "two-stage" revolution-"de­ Saturday, Sept. 19, 7:00 p.m. Thursday, October 1, 7:30 p.m. closely linked to the bantustan chief. mocracy" now, later for socialism-we Brecht Forum, 79 Leonard St. Emerson Hall, Rm. 305 (Harvard Yard) And what if they had succeeded in bring­ fight for Trotsky's program of permanent (5 blocks so. of Canal St. bet. Church & Sway.) Harvard University ing down Brigadier Gqozo? This would revolution, with the democratic tasks For more information: (212) 267-1025 For more information: (617) 492-3928 establish the ANC as head of.a Xhosa­ growing over into socialist ones. NEW YORK CITY BOSTON based "homeland," thus intensifying Under the British or the Boers, furious ethnic rivalries with Zulus and whether called apartheid or not, the bed­ other peoples. rock of South African capitalism is the In the aftermath of the Ciskei massa­ superexploitation of and denial of dem­ cre, there will doubtless be calls by black ocratic rights to the oppressed non-white youth for arms. But a few AK-47s won't masses. Only the formation of a black­ change the balance of power. The MK centered workers government, led by an never did more than put a little heat on integrated Bolshevik-Leninist party, can Pretoria to go to the bargaining table: it bring about the rule of the downtrodden wasn't in a position to fight a war against majority and the emancipation of the Speaker: Don Alexander, Spartacist League Central Committee the apartheid regime, which is armed to toilers of South Africa.• Saturday, Sept. 19, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 26, 7:30 p.m. 126 Barrows Hall Unitarian Church University of California, Berkeley 1187 Franklin (at Geary) For more information: (510) 839-0851 For more information: (415) 777-9367 BERKELEY SAN FRANCISCO

South African were created by forced relocation Guest Speaker: Keith Anwar, member of ATU Local 308 of black population on Thursday, Sept. 24, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, October 3, 7:30 p.m. barren dumping See "Today in the Union" for room Regency Room, Blackstone Hotel grounds. UW Madison 636 S. Michigan (at Balbo) OTHER HOMELANDS: 5. KwaNdebele For more information: (312) 663-0715 For more information: (312) 663-0715 1. 6. Tlanskei 2. KwaZulu 7.l.ebowa 3. 8. QwaQwa MADISON CHICAGO 4. KaNgwane 9. Gazanlculu

6 WORKERS VANGUARD ~~" Codes and the Supreme Court of Racism In another example of capitalist "jus­ people of St. Paul from specifically pun­ Nationwide, as racist assaults against the "right" of the Nazis, Klan and other tice," -the black-robed Supreme Court ishing the race-based '' minorities escalated in the Reagan/Bush fascist groups to terrorize their victims. ruled on behalf of the nightriders in that so prejudice their community." years, "PC" academics and anti-racist The ACLU's supposedly "classless" lib­ white sheets that cross-burning is a pro­ Racist threats and epithets are not a students pushed for speech codes from eralism provides a platform for these tected form of "free speech" in America. question of free speech but incitements the same administrations which have vermin, allowing them to spread their The case, R A.V v. St. Paul, involved to violence. Bigots screaming "nigger" presided over declining minority enroll­ venomous filth and nightriding terror skinheads who were convicted of violat­ or "faggot," or burning crosses or carving ment for years. As we wrote: under the cloak of the First Amendment. ing St. Paul's ordinance against "hate swastikas on synagogues, are engaged "Ninety-nine out of a hundred times, Of course, the ACLU's supposed com­ crimes" for burning a cross on the lawn in acts of racist terror. When they gang speech codes will be used against the left mitment to free speech didn't stop them of a black family that had moved into a from purging' Communists from their predominantly white Minnesota neigh­ ranks during the 1940s and'50s, nor did borhood. Now, as colleges open for the they utter a peep against the internment fall semester, racist punks who've been of Japanese Americans during World chomping at the bit over campus "hate War II. But when the Nazis tried to speech codes" have been given a green march through Skokie, Illinois in 1977 light to attack blacks, gays, Jews and to terrorize Jewish Holocaust survivors, leftists. the ACLU were the lawyers for the It's rather rich to hear the high court fascists. hold forth on the inviolability of the The Klan, Nazis and skinheads are First Amendment. We Marxists have a threat to every fundamental right of been around the block a few times black people, other minorities, the labor fighting the government's McCarthyite movement and the left. The fascists feed witchhunters and deadly COINTELPRO off the economic and social decay of this repression. The courts were only too bankrupt capitalist system, and they have eager to throw 18 leaders of the then­ the complicity and direct assistance of Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party and the state, which unleashes its dogs of the Minneapolis Teamsters into prison war as needed. We will never forget the for their class-struggle opposition to the 1979 Greensboro Massacre of five anti­ imperialist Second World War. Leftists racist leftist demonstrators, carried out like us have led the fight for free speech by the Klan with the strategic assistance against the government's drive to crirn­ of local and state cops as well as the inalize dissent. feds (and later whitewashed by the But unlike liberal muddleheads whose courts). We are proud of our record of response to fascist terror has been to beg initiating and carrying- out successful the government to legislate away "hate mass mobilizations of labor, blacks and speech"-with laws that can also be used others targeted by the fascists' genoci­ against black nationalists, for instance­ dal plans. We have stopped the racist we understand that the instigators of rac­ terrorists cold in such cities as Boston, Young Spartacus Washington, D.C., San Francisco and ist terror must be stopped by mobilizing Spartacus Youth Club calls for class-struggle mobilization to smash racist all anti-racists alongside the power of attacks, Madison, Wisconsin, 1988. Philadelphia. the labor movement to stop the fascist In the wake of the Supreme Court rul­ skinheads and Nazis in their tracks! up to do it, we're dealing with lynch and anti-racists .... The problem with this ing, the University of Wisconsin in Mad­ The Court's majority opinion striking mobs. The liberals want to deal with this strategy is it disarms the victims by ison has repealed its speech code, and down the St. Paul city ordinance against by making certain exceptions to the First fostering illusions in the supposed 'neu­ other universities are expected to follow trality' of the racist university adminis­ hate crimes clearly situates itself in the Amendment under the rubric of "fighting trations and the cops. It gives enhanced suit or face suits by racist frat rats and broader ruling-class offensive against words" which the state would "regulate." power to those institutions to act against, right-wing creeps who have the wind labor, minorities and the left. This has The conservatives want to unleash the for instance, leftists who might rightly in their sails. We don't need preachy as its corollary the witchhunt against the fascists. Marxists have a class view: we protest Colin Powell or Schwarzkopf and lectures on racial tolerance, or "speech call these imperialist pigs 'imperialist "PC" ("politically correct") bogeyman defend the intended victims of the fas­ pigs.' What's more, this strategy doesn't codes"-which the administrations can on campus. While agreeing that the St. cists-blacks, Jews, Hispanics, leftists work." use against radicals-to combat these Paul ordinance was "too broad" in its and the labor movement as a whole-by -"Racism and Witchhunts on bigots. The race-terrorists must be "edu­ proscription of "symbols," lone liberal mobilizing them in mass working-class Campus," WV No, 533, cated," as the Bolshevik leader Leon holdout Justice Blackmun noted, "I see centered actions to crush the Klan, Nazis, 30 August 1991 Trotsky recommended, through success­ no First Amendment values that are com­ skinheads and racist mobs. This is a life­ Disgustingly, civil libertarians like the ful mass actions that "acquaint their promised by a law that prohibits hood­ and-death issue for the oppressed, not a ACLU, which filed an amicus curiae heads with the pavement." Militant ac­ lums from driving minorities out.of their matter to be left in the hands of the cap­ (friend of the court) brief in support of tion by both students and labor, in strug­ homes by burning crosses on their lawns, italist state, which is hardly neutral and the St. Paul skinhead, have long devoted gle together, can help uproot the rotting but I see great harnt in preventing the indeed breeds this filth. their considerable resources to defending system which breeds fascist scum. _ Racist Dragnet Targets Black Students dents, The cops were given a hit list, State University compiled by vice president for· admin­ College at Oneonta, New York istration Lief Hartmark, of all black Oneonta males enrolled at Oneonta. In a bla­ students rally For black youth, life in America is tantly racist "defense" of this dragnet, September 10 to protest release a hell called "Police State, USA." Mil­ state police investigator H. Karl Chan­ of the names lions saw the videotaped beating of dler said, "If your car has an accident of black male Rodney King and the outrageous and there's red paint on it, are you students to acquittal of the racist cops who beat going to look for a green car?" state police. him. Now, far from L.A.'s mean streets, In dormitories, at their parents' in a sleepy town in upstate New York homes and even at their jobs, black stu­ every black student at the State Uni­ dents were nabbed by the police and versity College at Oneonta became a interrogated. One humiliated student target of a vicious police manhunt. said, "the people at work think I'm cut on his hand. He'd be locked up by Hartmark's resignation. As one pro­ Ostensibly looking for a robbery sus­ guilty." In scenes that recalled apart­ now." tester said, "If you're black you're pect described only as a black male heid South Africa, blacks were even On September 10, a large and inte­ always on the list. ... It seems to me with cuts on his hands, the police dragged off public buses by police. grated protest of 500 outraged students the actual criminal is the man who gen­ chased down every black in town, from Admissions counselor Sheryl Champen confronted the university president and erated the list." Stop the racist dragnet! Job Corps day laborers to college stu: said, "God forbid a black man had a a petition drive is underway to force Hartrnark's gotta go! '

18 SEPTEMBER 1992 7 OPA Igniting breakup of Yugoslavia: fascistic Croatian leader Franjo Tudjman (left) with his sponsor, German chancellor Helmut Kohl.

Hammer/Reuters Yugoslavia Bloodbath: Made in the Fourth Reich The following article is adapted from women and children, to death camps like Trotsky wrote at that time: this out? We wrote early this summer Spartakist No. 97. September 1992. pub­ Jasenovac. Yet the German bourgeoisie "The Great Powers...have always had a that a massive military intervention, lished by our comrades of the Spartakist grumbles not about the horror of Hitler's direct interest in setting the Balkan which would require hundreds of thou­ Workers Party of Germany. Reich but rather about the defeat peoples and states against each other sands of ground troops, "would certainly and then, when they have weakened German imperialism has pushed the inflicted on it by the Red Army. Tito's one another, subjecting them to their be a measure of imperialist idiocy" (WV other NATO powers into accepting its heroic partisan war in Yugoslavia thus economic and political influence.' The No. 553, 12 June). becomes the Nazis' "Vietnam"! The petty dynasties ruling in these 'broken In July a genuine "Holy Alliance" policy of dismembering Yugoslavia in pieces' of the Balkan Peninsula have order to drive forward social counter­ second-string social democrats ofGregor lined up: from the Pope (renewing the Gysi's Party of Democratic Socialism served and continue to serve as levers revolution-a policy which has led to a for European diplomatic intrigues." Vatican's close collaboration with Hit­ bloody massacre in the Balkans. As in cry (like Richard Nixon!) "No new Viet­ - "The Balkan Question ler's Ustashi client state in Croatia) and World War II, it was to have begun with nams!" since the Vietnam War was a his­ and Social Democracy" "military experts" from the Christian August 1910 the creation of client states in Slovenia toric defeat for imperialism. Democrats (CDU) and Social Democrats and Croatia. But instead of creating a Today we need only replace "petty (SPD) to the German Lutheran church, Nationalist Slaughter and dynasties" with "bourgeois nationalist American Democratic presidential can­ "favorable climate" for capitalist invest­ Imperialist Rivalries ment, this policy has unleashed an all­ demagogues." didate Bill Clinton and Britain's Mar­ sided and seemingly endless nationalist Thus for the moment the Fourth Reich The Milosevic regime has destroyed garet Thatcher. They were all screaming civil war. Behind an extremely skimpy must be content with logistical support the multinational army of the Yugo­ for air strikes against the Serbs. veil of "humanitarian" hypocrisy, Bonn to intervention by other imperialists. slav deformed workers state and forged Various UN and NATO military advis­ expects its NATO allies to play the role That does not stop the German bour­ a force in the service of Serbian ers raised "technical" objections to this. of hired cop for the Deutsche Bank and geois press from screaming for Serbian chauvinism, incorporating reactionary It would be impossible to take out Ser­ pull its chestnuts out of the fire. blood. Meanwhile German armchair bands who call themselves Chetniks after bian military targets, they said. What The imperialist powers have already strategists shamelessly base themselves the World War II Serbian royalist­ happened to the vaunted "high-tech," begun their military intervention in the on the "lessons" of 1941-45. A letter nationalists. The choice of Milan Panic "surgical" attacks by the Pentagon in Balkans with an embargo modeled on to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (an American citizen and rnillionairel) as Iraq? They never existed. U.S. imperial­ that of the Persian Gulf War. Their nostalgically recalls 1944, when the SS prime minister of a rump Yugoslavia ism and its allies simply slaughtered August 12 decision in the UN Security Division Prinz Eugen "secured" Bosnia. represents an attempt at conciliating U.S. 100,000 Iraqis in cold blood, and they Council to protect "aid deliveries" to It was nationalist Stalinism, not inter­ imperialism. would do it again if need be. Bosnia-Hercegovina, "by any means nec­ nationalist communism, that perished in "Ethnic cleansing" is being carried Although the other imperialists agree essary," is another step in the" direction Yugoslavia, as in other East European out-on all sides. The Tudjman regime on sanctions to rein in Serbia, they balk of direct involvement in the bloody civil countries. Nonetheless, the social revo­ in Croatia is the heir of the fascistic at militarily intervening on the side of war in Bosnia. France and Britain have lution that was carried out under Ustasha, and once again looks to Greater Germany's Balkan allies. Washington, already offered their contingents of Tito's leadership laid the basis for the Germany. For the Fourth Reich, Bosnian London and Paris hold open the possi­ troops as chips on the imperialists' social and national equality of the Muslims, increasingly under Croatian bility that Serbia might play the role of diplomatic poker table. After the London Yugoslav peoples. With capitalist coun­ "protection," are but a tool in its drive imperialist client state just as well as the conference, Germany promised logisti­ terrevolution the Balkans have once to dismember ex-Yugoslavia. heirs of the Ustasha in Croatia. cal aid, "within the boundaries of its again become, as before World War I, "Serbia must be brought to its knees," Revolutionaries oppose any imperial­ constitution," as the Italian foreign a battleground of peoples in which bellowed German foreign minister ist intervention, including the embargo, minister put it. Naturally, the reunified imperialist rivalries crystallize. Leon Kinkel in May. And who should carry and oppose any German "logistical" or German Reich is now demanding that "humanitarian" help to such an adven­ these "boundaries" be redrawn, so that ture. Giving no political support to the Europe's boundaries can be redrawn. On Serbian-chauvinist Milosevic regime, the eve of the Nazi pogroms in Rostock, we stand militarily on the side of Serbia/ the SPD leadership finally agreed to Montenegro against an actual imperialist changes in the constitution in order to military intervention. But in the current deport asylum-seekers more quickly and nationalist civil war laying waste to to deploy the Bundeswehr (sporting the former Yugoslav deformed work­ blue UN "peacekeeper" helmets) "out­ ers state, working people have no side. side NATO's area of operations." The International Communist League During his vacation Chancellor Kohl (Fourth Internationalist) is fighting for recalled "that the Germans, after the a multinational Leninist party that will Second World War in the Balkans, can­ struggle for a socialist federation of the not afford a military intervention." The Balkans. Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia during Today the German Fourth Reich is World War II was certainly a nightmare preparing the possibility of a mili­ of mass murder-some 1,700,000 Yugo­ tary intervention. In a highly symbolic slavs (almost 11 percent of the total action, the destroyer Bayern (and later population) were slaughtered. Exactly the Niedersachsen) was dispatched to 50 years ago the Wehrmacht massacred the Adriatic, along with air reconnais­ countless civilians during an offensive sance, to monitor ships breaking the (in Bosnia) and deported 68,000, mainly Slavic Muslims in Bosnia mourn victims of nationalist war. UN embargo against Serbia. "A break 8 WORKERS VANGUARD with the past," "the first naval operation finance the war. So Kohl ordered the different countries, including Germany, (Arbeitermacht, August 1991). Like the of the WEU [West European Union] "anti-American" mobilizations to cease are fighting on the Croatian side. Mandelites, they too have gotten cold in European waters," "close to real and desist, and their organizers duly feet about an imperialist intervention and war," enthused Der Spiegel (20 July). obeyed. The Left Enlists in the Croatian nationalism, which they were Although the Bundeswehr was not Since then, the "peace" movement is Drang nach Osten previously enthusiastically cheering on. authorized to stop any ships, it went out regularly called on to organize demon­ Adolf Hitler exploited the oppression Arbeitermacht(July 1992) brands Tito­ of its way to provoke the Serbs. The strations to demand imperialist "protec­ of the Sudeten Germans and Slovaks in ism as "the culture medium for nation­ destroyer Bayern may go down in history tion" of Kurds or Bosnians. Now leading order to break up Czechoslovakia, an alism." Tiro's Partisans were victorious with the cruiser Agadir, sent by Kaiser Greens are arguing that with the fall of ally of Western "democratic" imperial­ in a struggle not only against the Nazi Wilhelm II to Morocco in 1911 to "show the USSR (whose nuclear arsenal kept ism, and used the Croats to split up and Italian fascist occupiers, but against the flag." The conflict over Moroccan the imperialists in check and saved man­ Serbian-dominated interwar Yugoslavia the pogromists of the Croatian Ustasha iron ore foreshadowed the first impe­ kind from atomic war for two genera­ (also an ally of Britain and France). and Serbian /Chetniks as well, and rialist world war. tions), pacifism is "out" and Bundeswehr Today the bourgeois press claims that the, social revolution overthrowing the intervention around the world is "in." Tito's Yugoslavia was a "prison house bourgeoisie laid the groundwork for a "Step by Step" How right Trotsky was, when he said: of peoples" and a "defective construc­ democratic solution of the national ques­ The host of imperialist warships cruis­ "The imperialists know in advance that tion." After the 1917 Russian October tion. That it was not definitively resolved the pacifism of the Social Democracy ing the Adriatic in the name of the UN, Revolution, the German bourgeoisie (sup­ was not due to "bureaucratic arbitrar­ at the first roar of cannon will be trans­ ported by the SPD) used the Freikorps. iness" (Arbeitermacht's limp expla­ CSCE, NATO, WEU, etc., is itself proof formed into the most servile patriotism of imperialist competition for prestige and become the most important reserve against the Bolsheviks, waving the ban­ nation). Rather, the national question in and influence. George Bush sent in two for militarism. That is why a most ner of the "right to self-determination" of the Balkans could not be resolved within warships independently of the Euro­ intransigent struggle against pacifism, the Baltic countries. the boundaries of the Yugoslav state. unmasking its treacherous character, is And there are so-called "revolution­ "Workers self-management" increased peans. The Bayern was not requested the very first step on the road toward a by the UN, and was, according to revolutionary struggle against war." aries" who are acting as propagandists regional inequalities in the economy, German "defense" minister Ruhe, an - "Declaration to the Antiwar for the current German Drang nach which encouraged the rise of nationalist intervention "in our own style." But Congress at Amsterdam," Osten (drive to the East). Last year, forces. Proletarian internationalism-a July 1932 when the Dutch also wanted to send a Ernest Mandel's pseudo-Trotskyist socialist federation of the Balkans-and "United Secretariat" was pushing Croa­ a centralized planned economy on the warship, NATO secretary Worner in­ Propaganda War formed them that a special conference tian independence, and even called for basis of workers soviets is the genuine of NATO was required. "Behind all the The daily propaganda barrage out of the "overthrow" of the Milosevic regime Trotskyist program. Sarajevo is splendid preparation for a through "economic and political iso­ wrangling is the struggle for position in The Main Enemy Is At Home! Europe," said a source in German for­ military assault on Serbia. Yet this was lation of the Belgrade regime by all eign minister Kinkel's entourage. In an overtaken by the Nazi pogrom in Ros­ of Europe." Now, with the triumph of With nationalism serving as the driv­ interview with Der Spiegel (16 March), tock, "ethnic cleansing" instigated by the counterrevolution, the Mandelites would ing force for capitalist counterrevolution Ruhe laid his cards on the table: "Step anti-refugee coalition in Bonn stretching like to take a little distance from the in the Baltics and the Balkans, these by step, the soldiers and the popula­ from the Christian Democrats to the bloody catastrophe which they had fake-left groups supported their own tion should become accustomed to social democrats of the SPD and PDS. cheered on only a few months before: bourgeoisie and its quislings, just as they worldwide actions by the German armed forces." The outlines of the future relation­ ship of forces are becoming clearer: the WEU is being built up under German leadership as the alternative to NATO. The Bundeswehr is drafting plans for so-called "relief and disaster interven­ tions" to "raise the combat readiness" of its soldiers, including under "extreme climatic and geographic conditions," and its ability to "carry out combat under guerrilla conditions and in situations of terrorist activity" (Der Spiegel, 3 August). While demoralized "leftists" question the Leninist theory of impe­ rialism, the "Conceptual Guidelines for the Reorganization of the Bundeswehr," published early this year, declare that the Bundeswehr must ensure "the mainte­

nance of free world trade and access to Der Spiegel Photos strategic raw materials"! Puppets of the Third Reich: Croatian clerical-fascist leader Indeed, officers of the General Staff Ante Pavelic (left), Bosnian 55 forces in WWII (right). in the new Fourth Reich are feeling increasingly emboldened. They want a When the bourgeoisie of Auschwitz "Any eventual military measures by a participated in or even hailed the annex­ "High Command," which means weak­ lectures the Serbians about genocide, it Western coalition have to be evaluated ation of the DDR in the name of "democ­ ening civilian control. And since they is a monumental example of chutzpah! both from a strategic and a political point racy." Today the Mandelite Hans-Jiirgen are seeking to revive the Wehrmacht's Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal also ob­ of view," declares the weaselly Interna­ Schulz writes: "Jingoism such as in Oberkommando, Inspector General Nau­ jected to the references to "genocide" in tional Viewpoint (6 July) .. Great Britain during the Malvinas War mann ordered that the old charter of the Bosnia, since this serves to minimize USee Yugoslavia expert Catherine or in the U.S. during the Gulf War is Bundeswehr (which pretended that the Nazi genocide, which raged not least Verla raises a utopian bourgeois­ just as unthinkable in this country as Bundeswehr had nothing in common in Serbia. democratic program: "the limitless ex­ chauvinism like that in Russia, Serbia or with the Wehrmacht) must be rewritten. The height of Fourth Reich hypocrisy tension of the rights of 'minorities,' to Croatia." Germany, according to Schulz, Some officers are demanding permission is surely its "concern" over the fate of make frontiers open with multiple citi­ "has become the land of the peace for "official contact with organizations the Bosnian population. It's clear that zenship rights" or, "even better," a "Bal­ movement"! What planet does he live of members of the former Waffen-SS." the hundreds of thousands of Serbian kan confederation of multi-ethnic and on? Furthermore, he sees no "Fourth Kohl and Reagan's rehabilitation of the refugees from Croatian and Muslim democratic states" (International View­ Reich," since this is supposedly an Waffen-SS at Bitburg in 1985 is bearing areas don't even exist for the German point, 22 June). But where there are age of "collective imperialism." Shades bitter fruit in united Germany. media. A visa is still demanded of Bos­ interpenetrated peoples occupying the of Kautsky's "super-imperialism"! That "War is too important to be left to nian refugees at the German border. same territory, there is no just solution imperialist rivalry and German great the generals," goes the famous refrain. Once inside Germany, Bosnian refugees to competing national rights under power ambitions are the order of the day And while Inspector General Nau­ are assaulted by Nazi skinheads. Roma capitalism. As we have written: "In this is glaringly obvious. mann says he "advises against a mili­ and Cinti (Gypsies)-victims of nation­ case, a democratic solution to the In sharp contrast to these fake­ tary intervention" on purely military alist persecution by all sides in ex­ national question would be found only Trotskyist satellites of the SPD and grounds, Bonn-from the right-wing Yugoslavia-are special targets of racist in the context of proletarian, collectivist PDS, we Spartakists fought against CSU to SPD/Green veterans of the witchhunts by CDU and SPD provincial property relations which provide the capitalist reunification of Germany. "peace" movement-is mobilizing to go governments in Germany. basis for a federative solution free from The International Communist League is into the Balkans. At bottom, the CDU No less despicable is the claim by national oppression" ("The National fighting to mobilize the multinational and SPD are arguing only about the color the successor state to the Third Reich Question in. Yugoslavia," WV No. 106, Soviet working people against Yeltsin­ of the helmets of the future invasion that it has a special "moral obligation" 23 April 1976). Bush counterrevolution and .against the troops. to oppose concentration camps .. .in Arbeitermacht in Germany, an off­ accompanying Great Russian chauvin­ "Where is the peace movement?" asks Serbia. German imperialist "moralists" shoot of the Austrian group linked to ism and anti-Semitism. With Anschluss the press. In 1991 the German left joined have "overlooked" the 40 Croatian.and/ British Workers Power, hurried to the (annexation) of the DDR, German impe­ in the cry for a trade embargo to starve or Muslim internment camps where defense of Kurt Waldheim, an officer in rialism achieved a sinister victory, but Iraq into submission to its imperialist similar conditions exist. Also "forgot­ the Waffen-SS in the Balkans who was Bonn has bitten off more than it masters. They only added, "no (German) ten" is the unbelievable horror which personally responsible for the mass mur­ can chew: The working class has begun blood for oil." Since the U.S.-led war reigned in the Ustashi death camp of der of the Greek Jews of Thessalonfk:i to fight back' against the austerity mobilization in the Gulf was aimed at Jasenovac. . and of Yugoslav Partisans. They claimed policies which the bourgeoisie needs to its imperialist competitors in Bonn and At the same time, German propa­ that he wasn't a Nazi war criminal. So finance its Drang nach Osten. Interna­ Tokyo as much as against the formerly gandists seek to paint a pretty picture it came as no surprise last year when tionalist class struggle can defeat the U.S.-backed Iraqi strongman, hundreds of a "democratic" Croatia. The Croatian they came out for "immediate recog­ German bourgeoisie's plans for world of thousands demonstrated in Germany Fuhrer Tudjman met with a delega­ nition of the Croatian and Slovenian power! In the face of the sinister rise for "peace" through Iraqi capitulation. tion of fascist deputies from the Euro­ declarations of independence," although of state racism and Nazi terror, we seek Nonetheless, for German imperialism to pean Parliament, including French they were well aware that this meant sup­ to build a revolutionary workers party have a voice in the redivision of the 'fascist Jean-Marie Le Pen. It has since port to "openly [capitalist] restorationist in the tradition of Lenin, Liebknecht "New World Order," it had to help come out that hundreds of fascists from governments in Ljubljana and Zagreb" and Luxemburg. _ 18 SEPTEMBER 1992 9 Report from Warsaw Polish Workers Defy Solidarnosc "Free Market" Regime After nearly two years of the Lech all unions supported the strikes, the offi­ Walesa presidency, the fledgling Polish cial Solidarnosc union soon revealed capitalist state remains fragile and weak, itself as the Trojan horse of the the regime is increasingly splintered Suchocka/Walesa starvation regime. On and the counterrevolutionary parties at July 23, it broke ranks and signed a deal loggerheads. The hoped-for imperial­ with management for a small wage in­ ist investment hasn't materialized, as crease of 10 to 20 percent-while infla­ Western capitalists pass Poland by in tion is officially running at 40 percent favor of neighboring Czechoslovakia this year! OPZZ chairman Rajmund and Hungary. Moric rightly denounced the Solidarnosc Many of the factors which placed action as an "attempt to smash the min­ Poland in the forefront of the bourgeois ers' unity." "democratic" counterrevolution in East The miners were incensed at the sell­ Europe during the 1980s have produced out and greeted Solidarnosc spokesmen the strongest backlash against its effects. with cries of "traitors, thieves, rene­ The working class- remains highly com­ gades" as they demonstrably tore up bative, with widespread strikes and anti­ their Solidarnosc membership cards. One government demonstrations. Although chairman of a local Solidarnosc commit­ the country is overwhelmingly Catholic, tee was run out in a wheelbarrow. Unfor­ a majority favor the right to abortion tunately, the betrayal by the official against the Church hierarchy and are Szulecki/NY Times union allowed the rabid chauvinists of opposed to clerical control. Striking workers from giant Ursus tractor factory protest in Warsaw last month. Solidarnosc 80-who had organized an Attacks on the working class by occupation of the State Coal Agency in Walesa's clerical-nationalist Solidarnosc Tychy (recently taken overby Italy's Fiat) anti-Communist and anti-Semitic dema­ Katowice, capital of the region-to pos­ regime have brought untold misery and and the giant Ursus tractor factory, where gogy, and the fascistic Confederation for ture as the real militants. poverty to the Polish masses. Unemploy­ workers chanted, "Down with Walesa!" Independent Poland (KPN). Forty KPN Just when the coal strike ended with ment is growing, reaching 20 percent in Under intense pressure from its West­ parliamentary deputies took to the Lubin a sellout, on July 20 the copper strike some regions, while the numbers receiv­ ern capitalist godfathers, the Suchocka/ copper fields in July, seeking to channel began. Poland is the seventh leading pro­ ing the meager unemployment benefits Walesa regime took a hard line, refus­ the miners' just anger against the Su­ ducer of copper in the world, and 70 are being slashed. Many enterprises, ing, for example, to negotiate with the chockalWalesa/IMF regime in the direc­ percent of its output is exported, so this virtually bankrupt, have suspended work copper miners by sending the manage­ tion of murderous Polish chauvinism. strike was of great importance. While and the payment of wages, while food ment on vacation. After a month, the cop­ Nationalism is the deadly enemy of the Solidarnosc union sabotaged the coal and energy prices are continually on per miners went back without any of the working class and the favored instru­ strike from within, Walesa's labor flun­ the rise. their demands being met. Police were ment of the Polish agents of the world keys withdrew from the strike commit­ The latest Solidarnosc prime minister, used to remove striking workers who had bankers. The Spartakusowska Grupa tees (except for one foundry in Legnica) Hanna Suchocka-a would-be Polish occupied the FSM/Fiat plant, and man­ Polski (Spartacist Group of Poland) has even before the strike began. "Iron Lady" Thatcher-declared that for agement announced that 2,500 would be fought against all forms of chauvinism With Solidarnosc out of the picture, 40 years the workers "were treated as fired for refusing to return to work. As in the name of restoring the internation­ the copper miners' action prompted the the most important class, on which the we go to press, the strike leaders have alist communism of Lenin, Trotsky and formation of a strike negotiation com­ whole system of the state stood. And it announced that the workers are going Rosa Luxemburg. On May Day, the mittee-the MKKNS-which in its is very bitter for them to understand back. SGP was well received by the 15,000 political character was that of "left­ now that the new conditions require­ The defeat of the copper miners and participants at the OPZZ-called demon­ right" oppositional bloc. It included them to step down to a very low role" the FSM auto workers points to the lim­ stration in Warsaw, selling more than 500 the OPZZ and other formerly Stalinist­ (New York Times, 3 September). ited effectiveness of localized economic pieces of revolutionary literature. led unions along with the virulently But the Polish working class is strikes under conditions of mass unem­ A united workers struggle is necessary anti-Communist Solidarnosc 80 and staunchly resisting stepping down to the ployment and widespread enterprise against IMF-dictated "austerity," but the the Samoobrona farmers' union, whose very low role demanded by their new bankruptcy. Yet the strong impulse to­ prerequisite for winning is a break with leader, Andrzej Lepper, appeals to fascist capitalist masters. The systematic sub­ ward a political general strike was the neo-social-democratic misleaders of skinheads to join his peasant-based ordination of the economy to the world derailed by the major oppositional union, the OPZZ in order to mobilize the work­ "national guard." This unholy alliance bankers' cartel, the IMF (International the OPZZ, formerly the official Commu­ ers movement against Solidarnosc coun­ announced a list of "21 demands," hark­ Monetary Fund), provoked a major strike nist union federation and now led by terrevolution in all its variants, in strug­ ing back to the formation of Solidamosc wave throughout the summer centered ex-Stalinist bureaucrats turned social gle for a new proletarian state power. in 1980. However, from the outset on demands for higher wages and against democrats. Walesa & Co. sought to exploit the just layoffs. The strikes embraced the coal Consequently, the vacuum of leader­ Hot Summer of Class Struggle grievances of Polish workers against and copper mines which provide the ship has been partly filled by the most In June a strike wave swept through the Stalinist bureaucracy in the interests country with much of its hard-currency right-wing nationalist forces-Solidar­ the coal fields of Silesia, a historic center of "free world" capitalism. Among the exports, the big FSM car parts plant at nose 80, whose leadership spews out of proletarian militancy. While initially continued on page 15

Platforma Spartakusowcow Photos Workers movement must fight clerical nationalism. Left, protesters against mandatory religiou$ instruction in schools gather at statue honoring Copernicus last April. Right, Warsaw, May Day 1992, Polish Spartacists call for workers mobilization to smash fascist attacks, down with Yeltsin-Walesa-Bush counterrevolution, for workers defense of abortion rights. '

10 WORKERS VANGUARD Rhode Island Teachers Jailed in Fight Against School Cutbacks WARWICK, Rhode Island, September 14-As almost 2,000 Warwick Teachers Union members, their families and other unionists massed outside the county court­ house, 18 teachers emerged to cheers after three days behind bars. With some still in prison clothes, the 18 Teamsters join marched as heroes through the crowd of supporters. Warwick, Rhode They had been jailed in the Adult Correctional Insti­ Island teachers rallying at tution for the "crime" of defending their union and City Hall, fighting to stop the deep budget cuts in education here. September 14. The jailed teachers, along with 50 more who had also been declared in contempt of a strikebreaking injunction, were released after agreeing to return to work under a 1991 contract imposed by the judge. The School Committee had agreed to the contract a year ago, only to withdraw the offer as they sought to increase class size, cut programs and include an "unlim­ ited layoffs" clause. This provoked a four-day walkout dozens more strikers. But the union mobilization grew that strikers greet a return to work under the old last year. As the Committee continued to hardline it, as 1,500 workers, including Firefighters, Teamsters and contract imposed by a strikebreaking judge as a vic­ the teachers struck on September 2. Carpenters from around the state, gathered eutside the tory. And it's a measure of the bankruptcy of the Teachers see the strike as a watershed in defending courthouse today. After an early afternoon rally at City labor bureaucracy that their "alternative" to Bush, the education here. On September 11, when the judge Hall, the demonstration returned to the courthouse, "education president" who wants to gut public edu­ declared the 18 in contempt, including the majority of where strikers learned of the impending release of their cation, is the "right to work" Democrat Clinton. It's the union executive and bargaining committee, the brothers and sisters. high time to oust the bureaucrats and build a workers courtroom erupted in protest with shouts of "No con­ The Warwick teachers beat back the School Com­ party! tract, no work!" and "Take us all!" As the strikers were mittee because they were prepared to spend a few days In its ascending phase, American capitalism em­ led away in handcuffs, unionists organized a picket at in jail. Around the country, Detroit teachers are still braced universal public education-though it always City Hall and a vigil at the state prison which drew on strike after two weeks, Philadelphia teachers "set­ had elite schools for the sons (and some daughters) of over 2,000 workers and their families. The next day, tled" for no wage hike in the first year, L.A. teachers the bourgeoisie. In its decline, it has turned urban the union bargainers were brought to the negotiating are threatened with huge pay cuts and New York City schools into racist prisons. With the budget-slashing table in handcuffs! teachers are now in their second year of working with­ onslaught against the public schools, it should be clear Warwick's Democratic mayor Charles Donovan and out a contract. that only a socialist revolution can provide decent edu­ Judge Pederzani escalated their assault, subpoenaing It is a measure of the depth of labor's recent defeats cation for all.

Atlanta School Bus they're driving one route. On-the-job injuries are com­ refused to disclose the exact amount, but admitted that mon, but drivers are forced to keep working or go payments made to Pittston to settle the strike were part Drivers Strike without pay. With conditions like these, under a contract of $12 million in "legal payments" listed in the union's awarded to the lowest bidder, it's only a matter of time 1990 annual report. The payments were disclosed during ATLANTA-On September 9, over 200 angry school until some bus is involved in a horrible accident that court hearings this summer to lift $64 million in fines bus drivers struck the private contractor Laidlaw Trans­ will really be School Board murder. imposed by the state on the union. portation, which carries 20,000 students daily, one-third The strikers are demanding the right to become full­ While the New Year's 1990 Pittston settlement was of the public school population here. The drivers, pre­ time, unionized city workers. They are up against the touted by everyone from Trumka to the Communist dominantly black women many of whom are single rampant open shop practices in the South, and the Party's People's Weekly World and the SWP's Militant parents, are fighting "to be treated as people, not increasing drive by the bosses to "privatize" city serv­ as a historic victory, Workers Vanguard told the truth: slaves," as one striker's sign said. Chanting "Fired up, ices. Not surprisingly, strikers are wary of union traitors "Trumkais trying to sella contractwhich threatensevery­ fed up!" the strikers showed high spirits, holding their who collect dues only to betray struggles at the behest thing the Pittston strikers have fought for.... This will line strong through the first week. of the city's Democratic Party bosses, the same ones open the floodgates to a coal company offensiveagainst the health and pension funds and industrywide bargain­ As "permanent part-timers" bus drivers get a paltry who sold out the fight for busing to integrate Atlanta ing, endangering the very existence of the union." $8 per hour, with no medical benefits or seniority schools. Look what's repeatedly happened to the san­ rights, while 100 drivers employed directly by the itation workers. But strikers recognize that union organ­ And after the sellout was pushed through,· over the school system earn up to $14 per hour with benefits. ization would provide the organized strength to win objections of one-third of the strikers, we wrote that Buses made to carry 89 students (!) often hold 130 job protection. The key to winning is real solidarity in "Pittston will be allowed to buy its way out of one (!!), as drivers are forced to double and triple their action from teachers, city employees and transit bankrupt medical benefits fund at bargain basement pickup schedules while Laidlaw, the largest school workers. prices." What Trumka kept secret was that he raided bus company in North America, pays them as though At a September 14 School Board meeting, drivers the union treasury to give Pittston the cash! had to fight to be heard. Eventually the drivers' spokes­ The Pittston betrayal was the direct result of man, Rev. E. Frank Hatchett, offered to return to work Trumka's "selective strike" strategy, where individual "for the good of the children." Board members mouthed locals are pitted against the coal bosses, industrywide some empty.promises about benefits. As we go to press, bargaining with the operators' association (BCOA) is drivers are preparing to go back to work. Winning thrown out the window, and the historic gains of the strikes and organizing the unorganized, especially in union, especially safety and health care which are vital the Klan-infested, "open shop" South won't be done in this deadly industry, are wiped out. Trumka has by do-nothing bureaucrats in the pocket of the thrown out the union's historic weapons of militant Democrats. struggle-tough picket lines, industrywide solidarity strikes-in favor of capitulation to the bosses' courts, civil disobedience, useless "corporate campaigns" and reliance on the Democratic Party. Trumka is touting a recent Congressional bill as "sav­ UMW Tops Paid Pittston ing" health coverage for 120,000 retired miners whose with Millions in Miners' benefits are threatened. Meanwhile, coal companies, encouraged by the bureaucrats' gift to Pittston, flee the Money BCOA. But the bill exempts non-union firms, loots the solvent pension funds, forces workers into second-rate When Daniel Del.eon coined the term "labor lieu­ care and doesn't even cover workers who retire after tenants of capital" for the trade-union bureaucracy, he 1994. probably didn't expect that some day they would actu­ The betrayals by the UMW tops have only whetted ally pay the capitalists millions of dollars for the "priv­ the appetite of the coal bosses and their hired gun ilege" of serving their masters and betraying workers' thugs. The infamous strikebreaking outfit, Vance Inter­ struggles. But that's just what United Mine Workers national, has sent out offers throughout the coal fields bureaucrats, led by president Rich Trumka, did to end to bring in "riot-ready former Green Berets" for the the 321-day 1989 strike against Pittston Coal in south­ expiration of the contract in February. These thugs have western Virginia. left a string of busted strikes and jailed unionists. The The Richmond Times-Dispatch (8 August) revealed upcoming coal contract fight is a chance to whip them that in a footnote to court papers filed in Russell County, good. But UMW miners need to forge a leadership that WV Photb Virginia, the UMW stated that, "As part of this settle­ refuses to play by the bosses' rules. In the face of Atlanta school bus drivers, fighting for a union in ment, the union paid the company's parent corporation 60,000 determined strikers, Taft-Hartley will be as dead the open shop South. millions of dollars." UMW spokesman Jim Grossfeld as Harry S. Truman. _ 18 SEPTEMBER 1992 11 also sought to obtain a judicial amparo (restraining order) to prevent imposition --Volkswagen Strike/Lockout-­ of the new contract and union statutes. But while the July 20 Movement vainly looked to pro-capitalist union bureauc­ racies elsewhere and to the capitalist government in Mexico, the company's man, Gaspar Bueno, had the full support of all the other flunkeys. The charm (lit­ Mexico: "Free Trade" and erally, cowboy) bureaucracy of the pro­ government telephone workers union "advised" Bueno during the negotia­ tions, and will now incorporate the purged SITAVW in its union grouping. Union-Busting There were two sharply counterposed sides in the Volkswagen struggle. The MEXICO CITY-Just as final negotia­ of the semi-corporatist Confederation of already been signed." They thereupon leaders of the wildcat strike were fight­ tions for the North American Free Trade Mexican Labor unions. The CTM is offi­ formed the "July 20 Movement," and the ing against a mortal threat to their union Agreement were winding to a close, cially part of the Institutional Revolu­ next day called a walkout which shut and their jobs. The official SITAVW workers at the giant Volkswagen of Mex­ tionary Party (PRI), the bourgeois party down the plant. leadership acted as the enforcers of labor ico plant in Puebla walked out. This dis­ that has ruled Mexico for the last 70 SITAVW militants of the July 20 peace for the bourgeoisie, even agreeing play of labor militancy was not the image years. But the independent unions failed Movement told Workers Vanguard that to the destruction of the union (and its Mexico's rulers wanted to present to to break politically with the bourgeoisie, the Bueno leadership had misrepresented reincarnation in a straitjacketed form) in potential investors. So the government and it was the narrow legalism of the the contract, hiding its new work rules, order to prepare for heightened exploi­ of President Salinas de Gortari responded VW union dissidents, appealing to the attacks on the seniority system, elimina- tation of the workers under the Free with an anti-union, pro-company hard Trade Agreement (NAFTA). What did line that presages what the "free trade" not emerge in the course of the struggle pact will mean: vicious union-busting on was a clear program to win. Once they both sides of the border. were locked out, the dissident unionists After a two-week wildcat strike that relied totally on discussions with the shut down the VW plant 125 kilo­ Labor Ministry. They did not appeal for meters east of the capital, the company class-struggle solidarity action from the locked out the workforce and appealed rest of the workers movement, in Mexico to the federal government to rescind or internationally. the union contract and decertify the A victory could have been won in this 14,200-member Independent Union of strike with real international labor sup­ Volkswagen Workers (SITAVW). To port. In the 1987 Puebla strike, when back this up, VW management claimed VW tried to put on an extra shift at the it was losing $10 million a day and made Kassel plant to replace parts not being noises about shutting down and moving made in Mexico, the German metal out of Mexico. The threat was com­ workers refused to work the shift. This pletely empty, as the company has just was a key element in the victory of that concentrated all its North American strike (see "Mexican Auto Workers Play operations there. Hardball," WV No. 435, 4 September But the government took its cue, and 1987). In the current strike, President on August 17 the Labor Ministry's Fed­ Salinas made insinuations about "foreign eral Conciliation Board complied with interference." Yet the bitter reality is that there was no international solidarity. the company's demands. This allowed WV Photo the company to fire the entire workforce Summer 1987: workers at Mexico's giant Volkswagen plant win hard-fought This time around, the plant council at and then rehire all but 1,500 workers! strike. the VW main plant in Wolfsburg, Ger­ This was with the complicity of the many didn't lift a finger to aid the SITAVW's executive board, which had government as a "neutral" agency, which tion of job classifications, and union jobs Mexican strikers. Repeating company earlier negotiated a sweetheart deal led to their defeat. being handed over to non-union employ­ propaganda about workers being pre­ behind the backs of the membership. The ees. It would radically change labor rela­ vented by violence from going to their hard core of union militants was thus VW: Insurgency and Defeat tions in the plant, adopting a Japanese­ jobs, claiming that "intra-union con­ excluded. A contract giving management The fight at Volkswagen goes back to style production "team" system leading flicts" made the situation "obscure," unlimited rights to "flexibilize" produc­ the election last December of a new to speedup and loss of jobs. At the end grotesquely accepting the management tion methods was imposed and the union leadership headed by Gaspar of July the company fired Valencia and argument that VW workers in Puebla union's statutes were modified to give Bueno Aguirre. Bueno called a strike at 13 other insurgent leaders for leading (who make $15 a day) already earned the bureaucracy a hammer lock on the the beginning of July, then abruptly can­ the wildcat. That same day Bueno more than workers in competing plants, ranks-all without a vote. celed it after less than a day, signing a declared the dissidents expelled from the a union spokesman shamefully declared: The Salinas regime is hoping to deal new contract that provided for a 15 per­ union. But the strike remained solid. "Can we accept that because of a strike a death blow to militant labor unionism cent wage increase. When a dissident On Saturday, August 15, some 10,000 in Mexico we have to go on short time?" in Mexico. The SITAVW, which has group of shopfloor representatives led VW workers mobilized by the July 20 (taz [Berlin], 11 August)! And while the struck 13 times in the last IS years, was by Jesus Valencia de la Luz approached Movement gathered in front of the American UAW had aided charm unions one of the strongholds of the "inde­ the executive committee on July 20 with Cuauhternoc Stadium in Puebla to hold striking U.S.-owned auto parts plants pendent" unions which emerged in the complaints about the contract, they were a referendum on the SITAVW leadership. last January, out of bureaucratic solidar­ late 1970s from under the iron control told: "There is nothing to discuss. It has From the podium the insurgents empha­ ity it wouldn't touch the insurgent VW sized that they stood for democracy and strikers. autonomy for the union. The speeches stressed the legality of their movement Forge a Class-Struggle and the approval they claimed to have Leadershipl UAW Tops Knife Mexican Auto .Workers from the Labor Ministry to hold the Yet despite the labor fakers' treachery, The recently concluded strike by tlement affirms management's right to assembly. An overwhelming majority of defeat in this key battle was not fore­ United Auto Workers Local 1714 at the consolidate operations." those present cast votes to unseat Gaspar ordained. The Volkswagen workers were Lordstown, Ohio stamping plant had the But the stamping plant strike masked Bueno and the executive board. But at not alone in fighting against assaults on power to hurt General Motors. In just a a far more ominous deal between the that very moment, Bueno and his board their living standards. For six weeks few days, nine plants employing 43,000 union bureaucrats and GM. On Sep­ were in the capital negotiating a deal during July-August, tens of thousands of workers came to a halt, as plants tember 3, as the walkout was about to with federal labor minister Arsenio textile workers in more than 300 plants exhausted their shallow inventories end, a local agreement was signed at Farrell to dissolve theSITAVW! On throughout Mexico were on strike. under the "just in time" parts system. the adjacent Lordstown assembly plant, Monday, VW fired all 14,000 striking Although led by unions of the pro­ GM was losing almost $10 million per organized by UAW Local 1112, which workers. government Congress of Labor (CT), day. When the strike was settled, Soli­ says that any layoffs of workers assem­ After five weeks out of work, the this strike, also, was considered "non­ darity House claimed the workers won. bling Sunbirds and Cavaliers, the so­ majority of the Volkswagen workforce existent" by the federal Labor Depart­ They were joined by phony socialists called .l-cars, have to take place among buckled under the combined force of the ment. For a month and a half, the Zocalo, like the Socialist Workers Party, whose workers at the plant in Ramos Arizpe, company, their kept union bureaucrats Mexico City's main square, was occu­ misnamed Militant called it "an impor­ Mexico first! and the capitalist government, and went pied by an encampment of fired oil tant victory." Like hell. This backstabbing deal is designed to back to work under the new "contract" workers, peasants and street vendors Owen Bieber, Steve Yokich and the destroy the urgently needed class soli­ (whose terms they were not informed demanding that the federal government rest of the UAW traitors only intended darity across the Mexican-U.S.-Canadian of). Whenthe plant reopened on August come to their aid. They were later joined for the Lordstown strike to blow off a borders, even as the American capital­ 20, a few hundred union militants who by students from the northern state of little steam, as GM rolls over the UAW ists gear up to implement their "Free gathered at a gas station a kilometer Sonora protesting tuition hikes. with a massive job-slashing plan which Trade Agreement" rape of Mexico. It is down the road to demonstrate were met And at the height of the VW strike, will close 21 plants and wipe out another a gift to the auto bosses at a time when with police and attack dogs. The workers on August 18, there was a sharp clash 74,000 auto jobs in the next three years. the onslaught against the auto unions were beaten, eleven arrested and at least with the police as several thousand In the much-ballyhooed settlement the requires united class struggle. Like the six rushed to the hospital severely bitten. marchers of the Proletarian Independent company agreed to refrain from wiping UAW tops' betrayal at Caterpillar, the The dissident group is calling for Movement (MPI), based on Mexico City out the 240 tool and die jobs at Lordstown settlements pose the need to "moral support" from international bus drivers, attempted to reach Salinas' issue ... for one year. Then the jobs are oust the gang in Sacrifice House in the union organizations, saying it intends to presidential residence of Los Pinos. This gone. A GM exec bragged to the Watr interests of elementary defense of auto inform VW workers in Germany of "the unleashed a storm of hysteria from the Street Journal (8 September): "The set- workers throughout North America. _ abuses the company has committed PRI, other bourgeois parties and the against their Mexican counterparts." It media who thundered against "provoca- 12 WORKERS VANGUARD NYC: Another Racist Killer Cop. Walks Police Occupation of Washington Heights Once again, the NYPD gets away with munity cannot tolerate the recurrence of O'Keefe, is well known in the commu­ up in flames over the death of a poor murder. On September 10, District violence or destruction of property." FBI nity for his passion for shakedowns and man, allegedly a drug dealer, while Attorney Robert Morgenthau announced fink and Senatorial hopeful Al Sharpton long record of false arrests. Linares and other "leaders" are securing that no indictments would be made walked the streets telling people to "stay These thugs act as a law unto them­ their spots in the Democratic Party against the cops who killed Jose calm"; angry residents threw eggs at selves. Incensed that O'Keefe was even machine. "Kiko" Garda and Dagoberto Pichardo. him. under investigation, nightriders in blue Meanwhile, many leftists have bought The Dominican community in Washing­ The media worked overtime for the uniforms desecrated a shrine to Kiko. At into Bush's "war on drugs" rhetoric. The ton Heights is outraged by the verdict D.A.'s office. The outrageous news of 4 a.m., cops from the 34th Precinct piled Dominican Communist Party is part of and literally under a state of siege by the grand jury's failure to indict the killer out of their patrol cars, sealed the street a leftist coalition, the "Unidad Revolu­ the police. The New York Times reported cop was buried under mountains of racist and spray painted over the mural (while cionaria Caamafiista," which denounces that in preparation for the D.A. 's an­ crap. Story after story portrayed Garda's a brave resident hid and videotaped the Balaguer government of the Domini­ nouncement, some five thousand cops . family and the whole Dominican com- them). Cops threatened to strike if can Republic as a "drug power," and were moved in to "saturate" this single o neighborhood. (By comparison, the bour­ (5 J:: geoisie employs some 8,000 LAPD thugs 0-. to terrorize the entire population of Los ~ Angeles!) In the face of the massive police pres­ ence, 150 demonstrators took to the streets on September 10, chanting, "Pre­ cinct 34, a nest of racists!" and "Si no hay justicia, habra candela" (If there's no justice, there will be fire). Spartacist placards reading "For Labor/Black/ Angry protesters Latino Defense Against Racist Cop Ter­ march through ror!" and "New World Order: War on Washington Heights Blacks, Latinos and Labor" were eagerly on September 10 taken up by protesters. The murderous after NYPD killer of repression in Washington Heights, like Jose Garcia walks. the military occupation of L.A. follow­ ing the racist acquittal of the cops in the Rodney King case, is emblematic of American capitalism's increasing use of terror to maintain its "order." The Dinkins administration feared a repetition of the three days of rioting munity as drug dealers. The New York O'Keefe was indicted. They were so bold calls to clean up capitalism with a "dig­ which followed the July 3 execution of Times' demented reactionary A.M. as to heckle the mayor when he appeared nified and honest executive power"! But Kiko Garcia by killer cop Michael Rosenthal summarized the racist outlook at the 34th on the day of the D.A. 's an­ Balaguer is first of all a lackey of U.S. O'Keefe of the NYPD's notorious 34th of the ruling class: "A convicted drug nouncement to congratulate them as "the imperialism, like his former boss, the Precinct. After the grand jury made its peddler is shot by a cop in the worst best police force in the world." Dinkins dictator Trujillo, owing his position to decision, city officials delayed the an­ drug building on the worst drug street lost his cool and hotly defended himself the American troops who invaded Santo nouncement for a week until the cops' in the worst drug neighborhood in New from the charge of being "anti-cop": Domingo in 1965. Washington ousted plans were ready and rainy weather set York and other drug crooks help the "If I am so anti-cop... explain to me why Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega in. They even denied a decision had been neighborhood go up in flames." it is I stood up when people came to in the name of the "war on drugs," leav­ made after the Post leaked the story! Cops killing with impunity in Wash­ me and said, 'Dave, you're taking milk ing mass graves around Panama City. Is from little babies. We got homeless ... and Grotesquely, the blighted, impover­ ington Heights is the routine workings of you're giving the money to the cops. You' this what the PCD and URC want for ished neighborhood was remodeled-:for capitalist "justice." El Diarioil.a Prensa don't have to cut. Take it from the cops.' the Dominican Republic? the police! Gaping potholes were filled wrote in a front-page article titled "The And I didn't!" What's needed is a perspective of to expedite speeding police cruisers. Police Never Lose"; -Daily News, II September international class struggle for workers Streetlights that had been broken for "Someone killed 'Kiko' Garda, and Black social democrat Dinkins pre­ to take power, from Santo Domingo to years were repaired to enhance night Dagoberto Pichardo, and Federico Per­ sides over the cop terror on behalf of New York. The Spartacist League calls vision for foot patrols. Garbage cans eira, and Juan Rodriguez, and Luis a ruling class which denies the most for full citizenship rights for immigrant were hauled from the streets so that Liranzo, and David Cotto .... Someone basic social necessities to impoverished workers and their families and no illu­ who is the friend of the judges, of the would-be rioters could not "do the right D.A.s, of the politicians, of the cops, and minorities and immigrants who are the sions in reforming the capitalist cops thing." And with record-level unemploy­ of the factory owners and of the rich.... majority of the population here. On top and courts. In the face of the massive ment of minority youth, the city placed Someone who is no friend of the His­ of cop terror, residents' of the ghettos police occupation, we say: "Cops Out of 1,000 Dominican teens in jobs to get panics, of the blacks, of women, of our and barrios are plagued by miserable the Barrio!" Unlike the "Workers World" them off the streets. children...." wages, massive unemployment, rotten reformists, who rushed to Washington In the meantime, the city's "Human Charges of.false arrests, arbitrary search schools, scarce-to-nonexistent medical Heights to shore up people's belief in Rights" Commission spent the summer and seizure, drug-dealing and brutality facilities and rampant discrimination. the system, calling for "community con­ preaching faith in the bourgeois '.'justice" by the police of the 34th Precinct are so The Washington Heights explosion was trol" of the racist killer cops, we call for system and the D.A.'s secret grand jury. widespread that the NYPD's own Inter­ the first time the city has taken notice mobilizing the powerful labor movement A coalition of 57 elected officials, relig­ nal Affairs Department investigated the of the half million Dominican immi­ in this city in defense of the immigrant ious figures and community "leaders," precinct three times since 1989. The only grants in NYC. But the events showed communities. We're working to build a including Dominican City Councilman action taken was, finally, the transfer of the class contradictions within the com­ Bolshevik-Leninist party to lead the Guillermo Linares, mobilized on behalf the precinct commander for failing to munity: conservative bodega owners socialist revolution that will put an end of "lawfulness," declaring, "The com- "control his officers." Garda's murderer, worried that their businesses would go to racist cop terror once and for all. •

tion" by the workers. The staid Excelsior PRD militants were shot down in the of "modernization" and "productivity," Salinas has been able to complete nego­ (21 August) ran front-page articles de­ state of Michoacan, where they were while hunger and disease multiply. tiations for the "free trade" agreement nouncing the "Transition to Chaos" and protesting election fraud. And now What the VW strike dramatically with no real opposition from the Mexi­ warning of the "eruption of radicalisms" right-wingers are demanding regulations showed was the bankruptcy of the pro­ can workers. which could "lead to fascism." Worries limiting protests in the capital (the gov­ gram of trade-union "autonomy." As The various petty-bourgeois leftist were voiced about the August 29 dem­ ernment claims there were 8,000 last Leon Trotsky wrote in 1940, "the inde­ groups who push one or another variant onstration called by former presidential year!) and a revision of the federal labor pendence of the trade unions in the class of popular-frontism were conspicuously candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas and his law. sense, in their relations to the bourgeois absent from the Volkswagen strike. They Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD), Under NAFTA, the Mexican bour­ state, can, in the present conditions, be have understood for years that part of which brought out 50,000. geoisie is trying desperately to make its assured only by a completely revolution­ the tacit deal with the PRI/government But the cardenistas were well be­ way into the "first world" by squeezing ary leadership, that is, the leadership of is that they are tolerated so long as they haved, the MPI made a deal with the the working class ever harder and tying the Fourth International." The "inde­ stay away from the organized working "regent" (mayor) of the Federal District, itself ever closer to its yanqui imperialist pendent" unions, with their program of class, and particularly its key sectors. Manuel Camacho Solis (who also bro­ masters. Already "enjoying" some of the autonomous syndicalism, have proved The Grupo Espartaquista de Mexico is kered a deal between the fired oil work­ lowest industrial wages in the world, the unable to stand up to concerted govern­ seeking to cohere a nucleus of a pro­ ers and the PEMEX state oil company). Mexican capitalists and their govern­ ment union-busting, from the liquidation letarian vanguard party based on a The PRI regime managed to weather the ment are determined to enforce labor of Aerornexico in 1988 to Volkswagen revolutionary internationalist program upsurge of unrest thanks above all to the peace with a whip in order to attract today. Politically, they demonstrated that that can unite the powerful and class­ absence of a revolutionary leadership to foreign investment. Meanwhile, state­ they had not broken with bourgeois pop­ conscious Mexican working class with unite the multitude of struggles in a com­ owned companies-airlines, telephone, ulism by collapsing into the 1988 elec­ its class brothers and sisters beyond the mon class offensive against the govern­ steel, mines-are being sold off at bar­ tion campaign of former PRI leader borders. For the construction of a Mex­ ment of capital. In the wake has come a gain basement prices. Tens of thousands Cardenas. The cardenista popular front ican Trotskyist party, in the struggle to new crackdown. A few days later several - of jobs are being eliminated in the name derailed class struggle in Mexico so that reforge the Fourth International! • 18 SEPTEMBER 1992 13 is home to former Eastern Airlines work­ Hurricane ... ers. Many have refused to abandon dam­ aged homes and move into one of the (continued from page 16) tent cities set up by the military. In one of cholera. (The government's Centers instance two tenants prevented their for Disease Control in Atlanta pooh­ landlord at gunpoint from bulldozing poohed this warning.) Organized groups their still-livable cottage. (Landlords are of volunteer doctors were screaming for charging exorbitant rents as the market MASH units. The inept response was is swollen by the new homeless.) consistent with government handling of Bush moved as mounting condemna­ the 1989 Bay Area earthquake and Hur­ tion of governmental inaction eroded his ricane Hugo. Logistics and distribution remaining popularity nine weeks before were so bad that huge mountains of the election. Florida has 25 electoral donated clothing rotted in the rain and votes he needs. His two choreographed were burned. . "I care" visits were viewed with con­ After all, the government and the pol­ tempt. Said one survivor, "He didn't care iticians are the front men for America's about low-income people to begin with, ruling class, and their interests were not so why start now?" (New York Times, at risk here. Indeed they saw another 2 September). Moreover the visits dis­ opportunity to line their pockets. rupted relief efforts as clogged streets A 1926 hurricane wiped out Miami were blocked off for security reasons. In Beach and Miami. Hurricane Andrew, a cynical election year display of "crisis Bruneau/AP Migrant workers in devastated Florida City scramble for food aid. however, devastated the poorer residents management," he has said the federal of the county and spared the condomin­ government will pay 100 percent of all iums, banks and hotels. The exiled eligible disaster costs and that the oblit­ Times, 2 September). the Bill of Rights, allow for the seizure erated Homestead AFB would be com­ The rich agricultural lands of south of personal property, freeze wages and pletely rebuilt. Dade have been ravaged. For now the outlaw strikes. Implementation would This is not just pork-barrel politics. plant nurseries, lime groves and avocado be by an anonymous shadow govern­ This South Atlantic base had F-4 and fields are gone. These lands were worked ment. During the Iran/Contra hearings F-16 fighter jets and would be a key by migrant labor, mainly Mexican and there was bipartisan agreement that staging area for imperialist military Haitian. The labor camps, which were Oliver North would not be questioned action against Cuba. (A training camp spartan to begin with, were virtually about his role in plans for a secret for gusano invaders was set up at Home­ eradicated.. They were at the very end government. FEMA is part of the capi­ stead to prepare for the Bay of Pigs.) of the "relief line." Workers report talist state's apparatus for the suppres­ As Vice President Quayle remarked, that ambulances pulled up, surveyed sion of the population. Assisting victims "The Homestead Air Force Base is crit­ the wreckage and sped away. To top of natural disaster is decidedly not a ical to us. When you look at Latin off the racist treatment, the camps were priority. America, look at Cuba." Republicans visited by the INS immigration cops, The survivors of Hurricane Andrew are also touting it as a key base for ostensibly to distribute food. Many are being gouged by the "magic of the the "war on drugs." Democratic candi­ workers fled. The Everglades camp had marketplace," as Ronald Reagan used to date Bill Clinton tried to exploit this almost 4,000 workers; now there are call it, and shafted by a capitalist gov­ tragedy as well. His campaign slashed only a few dozen. In these camps work­ ernment that doesn't give a damn about at Bush for being "more skilled at ers claim to have seen storm victims the poor, minority and working people. addressing foreign crises than domes­ placed in plastic bags and removed with­ But it doesn't have to be that way. Bush tic." Clinton, who enthusiastically out their names ever appearing on any crows over the "death of Communism," backed the Persian Gulf "Desert Slaugh­ list. Clearly, foreign-born workers with­ but even the lead-ass Kremlin bureauc­ ter," also vows to bring counterrevolu­ out citizenship rights are not about to racy did a far better job of dealing with tion to Castro's Cuba. seek aid from government agencies for major disaster than the Beltway crowd. Well over 60,000 homes were de­ fear of retribution. In April of 1986 the Soviet Union expe­ stroyed or suffered major damage due to The Federal Emergency Management rienced a near meltdown at the Cher­ Andrew. This is the result of fraud and Agency (FEMA), created in 1979 by nobyl nuclear plant near Kiev in the Starr/SABA Under Code of Hammurabi, man­ shoddy construction. Hurricane straps President Carter, is charged with over­ Ukraine. Confronted with a major tech­ kind's first legal code, those who used to secure the roof to the frame were seeing disaster relief. FEMA grants nical problem-putting out a graphite killed through shoddy construction not used or not nailed down properly. for uninsured households are a paltry fire that was spewing massive amounts were guilty of murder. The Florida Building Code is the most $11,500. Many victims of the 1989 San of deadly radiation-with concentrated stringent in the country, but only honored Francisco Bay Area earthquake and Hur­ action, innovation and heroism, the Sovi­ Cuban bourgeoisie in Coral Gables was in the breach. Carl Hiaassen (Miami­ ricane Hugo have still not been declared ets came up with a solution: dumping hardly touched. The chichi life goes on based author of Double Whammy and "eligible" for money due them. In south wet sand on it from helicopters. Tens of in South Beach. For the beautiful peo­ Skin Tight) pointed out that "newer sub­ Florida it is not uncommon for people thousands of people were evacuated to ple, Homestead and Florida City were divisions exploded into match sticks .... to stand in a FEMA line for seven hours other areas of the country, and provided through-points on the way to the Keys. The people who should have been only to get an appointment a month away with housing and jobs. The future, however, is especially bleak listening were too busy counting cam­ to fill out paperwork! Democrats have In the case of Hurricane Andrew, the for the black, Haitian and non-Cuban paign contributions from big developers" attacked FEMA as a "political dumping government was tracking the tropical Latino population who went virtually (Miami Herald, 27 August). Homes near­ ground" for Bush loyalists. But this does storm for two weeks as it moved from unmentioned in the initial media blitz. by, built to code by the non-profit Habitat not begin to explain the bungling. Africa to the Atlantic through the Car­ Liberty City is seething as the retrial for Humanity, were substantially intact. Reagan transformed FEMA into an ibbean. It was known for days to be head­ starts up of the racist cop who shot and Now real estate speculators and apparatus to put down urban insurrec­ ing for south Florida with its four million killed a black motorcyclist in 1989. local governments see an opportunity tion. A top-secret master plan, Rex 84, inhabitants. There was plenty of lead Homestead is working-class; the aver­ to rid the community of "unsightly" called for the detention of up to 100,000 time to marshal resources. Yet the capi­ age income per household is $20,000. dwellings. A spokesman for the Flor­ political dissidents and immigrants in talist government's response was ...to Its population is 23 percent black and ida Homebuilders Association said a several concentration camps in the event send in the National Guard and army to 20 percent foreign-born. Many are from . "whole class of people" will be priced of "social unrest." FEMA has authoriza­ protect the bosses' property. They know Nicaragua, EI Salvador and Mexico. It "right out of the market" (Los Angeles tion for contingency plans that suspend what their "priorities" are._

Workers Vanguard Subscription Drive

Totals: Week Two of Five r--- Subscribe Now! ---, Name _ Local Quota Week % (In points) Two Address ~-_------Atlanta 200 151 76 ______Apt. # Phone (_) _ Boston 250 138 55 Chicago 515 280 54 City State Zip --=::- 559 Cleveland 85 33 39 SPECIAL! A free packet of Spartacist literature or pamphlet with full Los Angeles 250 110 44 subscriptions to both Workers Vanguard and Women and Revolution. New York 1,000 824% 82 Oakland 860 239 28 D $7/24 issues of Workers Vanguard D $3/3 issues of San Francisco 415 192 46 (includes English-language Spartacist) Women and Revolution D New D Renewal Washington, D.C. 150 100% 67 D $2/4 issues of International rates: Espartaco (en espariol) At Large 275 144 52 $25/24 issues-Airmail $7/24 issues-Seamail (includes Spanish-language D $2/10 introductory issues of Workers Vanguard Spartacist) National Total 4,000 2,212 55 ::::1< ~I3L Make checks payable/mail to: Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York,~ NY 10116 ~

14 WORKERS VANGUARD "community service"-including pick­ ing up trash in a Hollywood park and Latino putting up drywall for the city! Protest­ ing the arrests, hundreds of strikers and Strikers... their supporters demonstrated outside (continued from page 16) LAPD's Parker Center headquarters on July 28, demanding the charges be representative of the Sheriff's Depart­ dropped. And in August, over 150 strik­ ment met with prominent builders to dis­ ers, joining abortion rights demonstra­ cuss a "special enforcement team" to tors, rallied against President Bush when deal with the strikers, who had been tak­ he campaigned in Riverside. As Latino ing care of business at scab construction protestors chanted "Bush go home!" sites. When the strikers arrived at the the U.S. president was hustled out the jail, migra agents were already waiting back door. to grill them, without an attorney pres­ ent: All 153 were originally charged with Labor: Hands Across "conspiracy to kidnap"! The Orange the Border! County Register has since revealed that In the aftermath of the multiracial the county district attorney and sheriff eruption of outrage following the Rod­ have received over $100,000 in contri­ ney King verdicts, a shaken local bour­ butions from local developers in the last geoisie has targeted the increasingly few years; obviously money well spent. combative immigrant labor force in its Three weeks after the Orange County plan to "Rebuild L.A." as a haven for Tony Fatnerout arrests, the drywall workers found them­ sweatshops and union-free "enterprise PITTSBURGH LABOR DAY-Transit workers march bound and gal~ged selves up against the racist, labor-hating zones." With the final closing of the GM to protest court rulings eliminating their right to strike and placing LAPD, emboldened after the outrageous plant in Van Nuys last month and the on contract talks. Union tops say to beg the legislature, but solid strike action acquittal of the baton-wielding torturers loss of tens of thousands of aerospace can smash the bosses' anti-labor laws! of Rodney King. In a vicious rampage, jobs, the union misleaders are busy the cops drove nearly 100 strikers off a overseeing the gutting of the industrial picket line and herded them down an base of the Southland. cratic Party will defend workers' rights. racist protectionism but because we fight entrance ramp onto the busy Hollywood Workers Vanguard has covered the Faced with a union-busting drive for international workers solidarity. Freeway, severely beating several work­ drywallers strike, and spokesmen for based on the 1986 immigration "reform" Latino labor is a key component of ers. It is incredibly fortunate that no the Partisan Defense Committee have act which it supported, 'the AFL-CIO Southern California industry and agri­ strikers were killed as they were forcibly addressed their defense rallies. Recently set up a California Immigrant Work­ culture, from the docks to the fields. As "merged' into the 55 mph traffic. Then the drywallers' battle has gained national ers Association to assist applications one 56-year-old striker poignantly said, 68 strikers were arrested for "disturbing attention. The Carpenter (July/August for legal residency. But the workers "So many homes I have built, and none the peace"! One Latino picket was gro­ 1992), magazine of the carpenters union, want real unions, not a dues collection of them are mine." Organized labor must tesquely charged with "attempted lynch­ labeled the strike "the cutting edge of agency. Meanwhile, the labor bureauc­ come to the aid of these militants. As ing" because he allegedly led fellow unrest in the nonunion construction racy launches jingoist attacks on "illegal the Rodney King verdicts and the strikers in chanting "let him go" after industry." But solidarity is more than a immigration" and "exporting jobs." The drywallers' own experience shows, there one of their brothers was seized by the few bucks and a telegram. While the U.S. capitalist rulers are seeking to build is no justice in the capitalist courts. cops! labor fakers and a gaggle of their ref­ a "Fortress North America" based on the Labor must stop la migras union­ Ironically, prior to the cop attack, the ormist water boys wax euphoric about superexploitation of the Mexican prole­ busting drive! Stop the deportations­ pickets had planned to join a march of the drywallers, what they offer to the tariat and the crushing of unions on both Full citizenship rights for foreign-born the Janitors for Justice campaign of the embattled strikers is lip service rather sides of the border. The drywallers today workers! What's urgently needed is to Service Employees Local 399, a largely than the urgently needed mass union are getting a taste of what the capitalists build a class-struggle leadership that can immigrant union which had been the tar­ mobilization that can win the strike. The are dishing out to Mexican workers in forge a workers party with the revolu­ get of a cop assault at Century City two union tops counsel patience and trust the free trade zone maquiladora plants. tionary program to lead common class years ago. The 68 drywallers arrested in in the bosses' courts, while selling the We oppose the North American Free struggle from Mexico City to Los July have been sentenced to 50 hours of lie that the racist, protectionist Demo- Trade Agreement not on the basis of Angeles to Toronto! •

they produce. Initially, the strike com­ mittee was composed of the Metal Work­ Polish ers union (ex-Stalinist-led), Solidarnosc and Solidarnosc 80. However, the for­ Workers ... mer two pulled out, leaving the strike (continued from page 10) leadership in the hands of the right­ wing nationalists. The Polish working 21 demands of the OPZZ/Solidarnose 80 class should have been mobilized to bloc is protection of the economy from defend the FSM strikers against the man­ "outside capital," thus fueling Polish agement's move to replace them with nationalism. scabs. While the strike negotiation commit­ tee called for national strikes by other For Proletarian workers to support the copper miners, Internationalism! the OPZZ clearly wanted to avoid a gen- Workers cannot defend their living standards in the framework of the bankrupt Polish state seeking to restore capitalism without capital. The im­ miseration of the working masses by the counterrevolutionary Solidarnosc re­ gime has gone hand in hand with the clericalist-led drive to abolish women's Platforma Spartakusowcow right to abortion arid with violent attacks Warsaw, 15,000 march on May Day 1992denouncing "shock treatment" dictated on Jews, Roma (Gypsies) and most by world bankers' cartel. recently the victims of AIDS. In July, the Sejm (Poland's parliament) gave ini­ nected with Ernest Mandel's United suffering the devastation of capitalist tial approval to a bill to outlaw all abor­ Secretariat calls for an anti-Communist Anschluss, and with Soviet workers con­ tions, with jail terms of two years for witchhunt to "finish off the nomen­ fronting Yeltsin's counterrevolutionary doctors who perform them. klatura," and supported Solidarnosc 80 regime.• Yet some of the same reactionary members in the October 1991 elec­ forces promoting racist pogroms-such tions! The "socialists" of Dale}! also as Solidarnosc 80 and the KPN-are stood by at a July 21 miners' rally as seeking to place themselves in the lead­ the Spartacists were being physically Spartacist League Spiegel ership of workers' struggle against harassed by fascistic scum ranting Latest Solidarnosc prime minister Public Offices IMF-dictated "austerity." In August KPN against "Judeo-Cornmunism." Hanna Suchocka, would·be Polish -MARXIST LITERATURE­ "Iron Lady" Thatcher. fuhrer Leszek Moczulski traveled to the The nascent capitalist state of Lech Ukraine· to participate in ~ the com­ Walesa is fragile and can be shattered Bay Area eral strike, which it deemed "a disaster memoration of the UPA (Ukrainian Peo­ through mass workers struggles. In the Thurs.: 5:30-8:00 p.m., Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m. for Poland," thus showing its defeatist pie's Insurgency), the anti-Soviet fascist current wave of strike struggles, the 1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor (near 17th Street) face as a pro-capitalist force. With the guerrillas founded in World War II Spartakusowska Grupa Polski empha­ Oakland, California Phone: (510) 839-0851 government willing to keep the mines in collusion with Hitler's Wehrmacht. sizes the need for a revolutionary lead­ Chicago closed, the strike collapsed in late Moczulski and his ilk are a deadly dan­ ership with a program for the formation Tues.:5:00-9:00p.m., Sat.: 11:OOa.m.-2:00p.m. August. The miners got a one-time pay­ ger to the working people of Poland and of workers councils (soviets) as organs 161 W. Harrison St., 10lh Floor , Chicago, Illinois Phone: (312) 663-0715 ment equivalent to around $100, no wage its neighbors. of dual power and the basis of a new increase and no pay for the period on However, various ostensible leftists proletarian state. New York City strike. who treacherously supported Solidar­ We oppose all forms of national chau­ 'Iues.: 6:30-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m. 41 Warren St. (one block below The FSM/Fiat auto workers demanded nose counterrevolution in 1981 continue vinism and seek to link the struggles of Chambers St. near Church St.) an increase in their wages to 10 per­ to act as cheerleaders for Polish clerical Polish workers especially with neighbor­ New York, NY Phone; (212) 267-1025 cent of the price of the Cinquecento car nationalism. Thus the Dale}! group con- ing workers in eastern Germany, who are 18 SEPTEMBER 1992 15 WfJ!iIlEIlS 'AMIIA!iIJ

Barrera/L.A. 4,000 immigrant construction workers in Southern California are battling cop and migra repression. L.A. Deportation Trials of

LOS ANGELES-For more than four and Warehousemen's Union-to mobilize months, over 4,000 drywall construc­ now to stop these deportations and win the tion workers in Southern California strike! Show the arrogant INS union­ have waged a pitched battle for union Latino Strikers busters the power of labor with a mass recognition. The courageous strikers, turnout at the trial! An injury to one overwhelmingly Latino and mostly sion against them. Hundreds have been held at the L.A. Federal Building on is an injury to all! Victory to the immigrants from Mexico, have shut arrested by the cops and subjected to the September 23 and 24. The strength and drywaferos! down construction sites from Riverside racist courts and fa migra, the hated determination shown by these immigrant The current deportation hearing stems south to San Diego with militant mass Immigration and Naturalization Service. workers must serve as an urgent call to from a well-orchestrated mass arrest of picket lines. Contractors and rent-a-cops Already, 28 workers have been forced the integrated labor movement of South­ 153 strikers on July 2 in Mission Viejo. have pulled guns on the drywallers, and into "voluntary" deportations. ern California-from the heavily Latino This, the largest arrest in Orange County the politically potent builders associa­ Another 25 strikers still face depor­ hotel and service workers of L.A. to the history, came just three days after a tion has marshaled naked state repres- tation, and nine of these trials are to be powerful International Longshoremen's continued on page 15 . Hur-ricane Andrew· Relief­ ACapitalist Disaster

Hurricane Andrew slammed into south "looting" in Miami Beach and Coconut Florida just before 5 a.m. August 24. Grove. One paper reported, "Police set Average winds were 140 miles per hour; up perimeters in Liberty City," obviously gusts topped 200 mph near the eye. The to keep the black residents penned in. National Hurricane Center was knocked If the hurricane was a "natural disas­ out. There: were 52 deaths reported in ter," the massive suffering in its wake is Florida, Louisiana and the Bahamas. a manmade disaster, the product ofa cap­ Over 250,000 were homeless and south italist economic system which produces Dade County's entire electrical grid and for profit, not to satisfy human needs. power plants were destroyed. The sew­ And in racist America it is the poor black age treatment system was demolished as and Hispanic minorities who get the raw sewage was pumped into lakes. shaft. Cheap construction that skirted Hardest hit were Homestead, the tenth­ building codes meant that many workers' poorest city in the United States, and the homes simply collapsed, while trailer migrant labor camps in the citrus fields. homes were crushed like tin cans. Rblief The Bush administration's foot­ went first to better-off areas, and last of dragging response to the devastation all to the flattened migrant workers' wrought by Hurricane Andrew has camps in the rural areas. And with build­ become a campaign issue for Democrat ing costs soaring, even insurance money Clinton. It was widely commented that won't build a new house. the Pentagon could get desalination After days of waiting, Kate Hale, the plants to Kuwait in 48 hours for the Gulf Dade County emergency director, com­ War, but a week after the big blow plained to the media that relief efforts residents of south Florida were still were a victim of"political games." Water drinking rain water. Of course, Demo­ contaminated with feces and pesticides Sladky/AP cratic governor Lawton Chiles called out -caused authorities to warn of the danger National Guard and army were mobilized to defend bosses' property as poor 3,000 National Guard troops... to prevent continued on page 14 went without water, food, shelter. . 16 18 SEPTEMBER 1992