NUIBER 32 JUNE 1976 TlENTYCEm A CTU leaders refuse to fight e a es, e I an un eraHac

Treasurer Phil Lynch's 20 May "mini-budget", direct taxes on consumer staples. The aspiring the federal government's latest move in its pro­ heir to the leadership of the parliamentary ALP, gram of austerity, slashed an estimated $2600 Bob Hawke, proclaimed the Lynch package "good in million from proposed government spending and parts and bad in parts", and pontificated on the brought into focus the key elements of Fraser's "tragedy" of the Liberals' original opposition to anti-labour strategy. Programs for urban and Labor's own earlier attempt to impose a levy to regional development, health, aborigines and pay for Medibank (Sydney MOPning Herald, 21 May). transport were sharply reduced, with further cuts Hawke's stand was "moderate and encouraging", the promised in the budget proper in August. A right-wing Fairfax press editorialised approv­ major blow to the working class was the 2.5 per­ ingly (Sydney MOPning Herald, 22 May). cent levy on everyone choosing to remain within It was these reformist stooges of the bosses Medibank and the elimination of Medibank as a who laid the foundations for Fraser's attack on universal health scheme. Despite its severe in­ Medibank by watering it down to make it accept­ adequacies Medibank was one of Labor's few at­ able to capitalism. Despite their best efforts tempts at real reform, a timid step in the di­ in this regard, the bosses have succeeded in mor­ rection of what should be a basic right for all tally wounding it less than a year after its in~ working people -- universal free quality health troduction. Nothing could show more clearly the care. Lynch's levy has now decisively undermined bankruI?_;St?!_<~L,e~~t1.ng to achi~v~ an~ las~ing -_~~:i,I},;ijll.al aJvan&6, laying,the basis -for ref6rMs uliffer a capitafist system In hIstorIcal its complete destruction. A huge number of decline. people will be forced back under private health insurance, ensuring for lower-income working­ The other main features of the "mini­ class patients, who on the whole will retain budget" -- the introduction of tax indexation Medibank coverage, a second-class level of health and, to a lesser extent, the replacement of in­ care. come tax rebates for children with increased child endowment -- were, in Lynch's words, The Labor Party can offer no alternative to measures to "contribute to fruitful discussions Fraser, who, after all, is only carrying through with the unions next month". These fraudulent policies begun by the Whitlam/Hayden 1975 budget "reforms" of the budget, which as a whole took which initiated the first major cuts in govern­ back more than it gave, came as no surprise to ment spending and likewise introduced heavy in- the ACTU tops. The deal was all worked out be­ forehand, as revealed by Sun-Herald columnist Chris Anderson (23 May): "At a meeting a few weeks ago in Melbourne, Mr Street [Minister for Labour], Mr George Polites (employers), and ACTU leader Hr Hawke all came to the conclusion that there was room for broad agreement. That line was also taken in private talks between Mr Fraser and tough Queensland union boss Mr Jack Egerton. It is reported that such an agreement was that, in return for the Government's dropping secret Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. ballot legislation and introducing tax index­ ation, the union movement would talk seriously vocated by the Fraser government (giving a per­ about wage r.estraint." centage increase equal to the percent rise in the price index up to the average award wage of $125, The remaining obstacle to these talks, the but only a flat increase for wages above that). government's plan to bring all trade-union elec­ Indexation was never full compensation for in­ tions under the control of the Commonwealth flation due to numerous loopholes; but now some Electoral Office has been temporarily dropped, 60 percent of the workforce are supposed to get and the meetings duly scheduled. These fakers substantially less than even the official rise in must not be allowed to sell out workers' the cost of living, an undisguised attempt to cut interests behind their backs. No secret deals real wages. with Fraser! Reflecting the partial success of Fraser's Having sold out already, the ACTU could hardly strategy, the response from the unions to the have been expected to mount any opposition to the budget/indexation package was initially muted, decision by the Arbitration Commission, announced despite the threats of strike action if the full by its president John Moore on 28 May, to intro­ duce the so-called "plateau wage indexation" ad- Continued on page ten Bureaucratic rule spawns The end of. Peronist bourgeois nationalism rule in Argentina Titoism in by the Organizaci6n Irotskista Revolucionaria (OIR) of Chile trouble

PAGE 4 PAGE 6 Mihajlo Mihajlov. ;~

Fake Trotskyists refuse to defend Enriquez, Munoz CL plays games with militants' lives

Communist League matter of principle in so much as it intends to The Communist League has consistently been in Sydney defend the workers' movement, its participants the forefront in trying to gain unity in action This letter is to reiterate our proposal (made and allies, from politically motivated repres­ since the upsurge of activity following the coup by telephone to comrade Mike Keenan on 17 May sion. in Chile in September 1973. We, have argued for 1976) to the Communist League to join with the this unity inside every existing committee that Spartacist League in building a demonstration to On the other hand, we do not beleive [sic] we have obtained a hearing from, and we have defend the lives of Edgardo Enriquez and Mario that an alliance with your group nor the perspec­ argued to members of those committees that we Munoz, and to demand an end to political re­ tives of your campaign would help towards those have not been able to directly intervene in. We pression in Argentina and Chile. principled intentions. have argued in our press and have debated with other political tendencies who have disagreed We note,that you have not yet endorsed the On the contrary, our perspectives are quite with this perspective. What is even more im­ campaign to save the life of Mario Munoz, despite different. As outlined in the Militant article portant, we took direct action to initiate this the April assurances of your spokesman, comrade which your letter abstracts from, we have noticed unity and highlight its desirability for the John McCarthy, that you would. We also note that the debilitating effect on the overall Australian whole workers movement making concessions to the you did not see fit to mention the Munoz case in workers' movement's,effective response against Stalinists' committees around plans for the big your material on Argentina in the 6 May ~litant. repression in Latin America by the numerous con­ demonstrations of September 1974. On the other hand, Rouge (27 April) has taken tending "committees against repression", "cam­ note of the campaign and advertised the address We could not succed [sic] in gaining unity paigns again,st repression" and "non-partisan" with the Stalinists except by breaking with our of the Comite Pour Sauver Mario Munoz. And Luis partisan "cultural groups" etc. We believe your Vitale, Carmen Castillo, and the American Revol­ principals [sic] which we refuse to do, but we present campaign fits squarely into this context. continued our work and along with the Socialist utionary Marxist Organizing Committee have en­ Furthermore,'considering details which we outline dorsed the campaign.* Workers League and Antorcha, we proved an even below, we suspect your motivations 'of being pre­ more important point: that the far-left, through' Representatives of the Communist League at­ dominantly of a sectarian nature and also aimed initiatives in united action, can outflank the tending the 28 April meeting of the Mario Munoz soley [sic] at your propaganda objective of "ex­ traditional reformist working-class leadership at Defence Committee suggested activities which tied posing" all other political tendencies in the times. From that point we were not able to carry the case of Mario Munoz with that of Edgardo En­ workers' movement ... motivations which we do not on and use the strength gained by our actions to riquez, and this proposal is in the spirit of share with you. force the reformists to act on the basis of unity that suggestion. Although in Militant (6 May to build a strong campaign against repression in 1976) you hope for a "broad-based committee to Our perspectives are, in fact, to unite those Chile and subsequently in Latin America as a campaign in defence of Latin American political forces already active against repression in Latin whole. prisoners", neither we nor anyone with whom we America and to broaden all aspects of such We have continued to carry out that work to have contact has been approached regarding the existing work. We, too, have a deeper political formation of such a committee. Indeed we are un­ perspective for such work which includes fighting the best of our ability, but we will not unite in activity with because it was precisely your aware of any significant progress toward that against the misleadership and betrayals that have you end. We hope that you can see your way clear to facilitated repression, and also winning mili­ activities along with the sectarians of the CPA taking some action to defend these gravely en­ tants to our overall ideas and our organisation. and SPA and your subsequent lack of activity which jeprodised [sic] at every stage, our at­ dangered Latin American comrades even in the ab­ But that work, for us, takes place within the sence of such a committee. ' framework of building a real united campaign tempts to build unity in action. With the sole which can effectively respond to this repression perspective of "exposing" us and every other left We therefore hope to receive an early reply so this is based on the real needs of the work­ current you sabotaged the unity of the September that arrangements can be made to build a signifi­ ing class both in Australia and Latin America. 1974 demonstration. You split from the far-left cant demonstration. organising committee and at the demonstration you attempted to set up an "alternative" platform Fraternally, You imply that you do not think we are "really" trying to build such a campaign, that which became a provocation to both the Stalinists Bill Logan and to ourselves later on. You made it clear for the Spartacist League this is merely an excuse for inactivity ... pre­ that you were not interested in the immediate and 19 May 1976 sumably because we feel politically weak and are afraid to work side by side with you. There are real needs of the working class for a united cam- *Rouge is the newspaper of the French Ligue Com­ few who would be taken in by this ruse though. Continued on page ten muniste Revolutionnaire, which like the CL sup­ ports the majority faction of the United Secre­ tariat (USec) led by Ernest Mandel. (LCR leader Alain Krivine has also endorsed the campaign since this letter.) Luis Vitale is a leader of the Chilean section of the USec, and the Revol­ utionary Marxist Organizing Committee is a group Cops raid Melbourne leftists of CL/Mandel co-thinkers in the US. Carmen Castillo is a supporter of the Chilean HIR (Move­ Early in the morning of April 30 a group of The CL's Militant (20 May 1976) states: ment of the Revolutionary Left). gun-toting cops raided two homes of Melbourne supporters of the Communist League (CL). Packing " ... the Communist League vigorously opposes small demonstrations and pickets condemning ~ warrants authorising them to look for explosives, the raid [I!]. These are symptoms of weakness Spartacist League they ransacked both houses and interrogated the Sydney and isolation and cannot possibly help to stop inhabitants. From the first house, that of Gaele the repression. On the other hand, the sup­ We, of the Sydney Branch, Communist League, Sobott and Annette Hulme, they took address books port of the whole organised workers movement have received a number of requests by telephone and photographs of demonstrations. At the second for a full trade union inquiry into the raids and lastly by letter, to "join with the Sparta­ house the cops arrested David Armstrong and and the circumstances surrounding them is a cist League in building a demonstration to defend charged him with being in possession of stolen sign of strength and unity and will be a blow the lives of Edgardo Enriquez and Mario Munoz, goods -- one library book and several Common­ against the forces of , repression." and to demand an end to political repression in wealth biros! It was also alleged by the cops Argentina and Chile". that Armstrong was in a mythical conspiracy to The fact that mass demonstrations are unfortu­ assassinate the proprietor of a large daily news nately not immediately possible indicates the In answer to this request we have decided that paper, the director of a Victorian television actual strength of the campaign -- which cannot we will not actively join with you in "building station and a prominent Liberal Party minister. be wished away. Does the CL really think that a demonstration ... ". Armstrong was told that conspiracy charges would the cops will be fooled into believing there is a We give endorsement to the campaign in defence be laid sometime in the future and was released broad campaign by the absence of "small" (less of Munoz and the broadening of that campaign if on $150 bail. than 1000? 100? 50?) demonstrations? Or that it in fact occurs,. We endorse your campaign as a total inaction has a greater impact than small The cops' wild accusations of assassination but militant protests? conspiracies and their malicious and absurd charges of possession of "stolen goods" only Of course not. The CL itself has built or underline the fact that the real motivation for participated in numerous "small demonstrations or the raid was calculated political repression, in­ pickets" since it came into existence and in tended to intimidate not only the Communist fact, CLer Linda Boland, in meetings to defend Barratt and O'Loughlin in Sydney earlier this a monthly organ of revolutionary Marxism for the re­ League but also the left and workers movement in general. It is a 'blatant attack on basic demo­ year, supported a'proposal for such a demon­ birth of the Fourth International published by Sparta­ cratic rights and, if allowed to pass without ef­ stration. Not that the CL's past practice is any cist Publications for the Central Committee of the fective protest, will only embolden the cops to great surprise, since everybody knows small Spartacist League of Australia and New Zealand, extend this attack still further. An injury to actions can help build broad support and create section of the international Spartacist tendency one is an injury to all! the possibility of mobilising broader layers. What has changed? Only the fact that the CL, now There is a marked similarity between the raids EDITORIAL BOARD: Bill Logan directly under fire from the state, has rushed to Dave Reynolds (editor) in Melbourne and the cop raid on Communist Party the labour bureaucracy as a strategy for protec­ Adaire Hannah of Australia (CPA) members Libby Barratt and Mick tion. This is why the CL has now decided to Steve Haran O'Loughlin in Sydney in late November 1975. "vigorously oppose", like the bureaucracy, any Raids on the left of this type have been almost immediate militant action even in its own de­ (Melbourne correspondent: John Sheridan) commonplace in Queensland for years, and similar fence,! cop harassment is nothing new to blacks practi­ GPO Box 3473, GPO Box 2339, cally everywhere. These two raids, however, mark Thus, the only focus the CL has given the cam­ Sydney, Melbourne, a significant extension of police repression paign is a petition calling for a trade-union NSW, 2001. Victoria, 3001. since the political crisis last year. Yet the inquiry. Vfuy militant action is a sign of weak­ ness, and a weak-kneed petition for an "inquiry" (02) 660-7647 (03) 429-1597 response of the left, in particular the organis­ ations directly affected (the CL and the CPA), a "sign of strength", is beyond our feeble com­ has been either criminally negligent or grossly prehension. For our part, we are willing to sup­ SUBSCRIPTIONS: Two dollars for the next twelve port both. However, the utility of this proposed issues (one year). opportunist. In response to the Sydney raid the CPA did virtually nothing. And although the CL inquiry would certainly be severely limited. AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST is registered at the GPO, Sydney for has been a bit more active, it has taken an as­ \\That is there to inquire about? No new proofs posting as a newspaper •• Category C, , tounding stand against militant protest action. Continued on page nine Page Two AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST June 1976 International support grows for eHort. to save Chilean miners' leader Build the Mario Munoz campaign!

While the Argentine national police continue their man-hunt of Mario Munoz with orders to shoot him on sight, a continuing campaign to publicise Munoz' plight and that of other victims of the Argentine terror remains extremely urgent. It is vital that international pressure be kept up lest Munoz - if caught - be summari Iy executed. Munoz protest outside United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Sydney. Hatred for the murderous torturers of Pinochet and his "gentleman" counterpart, the slightly less rabid Videla, has united sharply counter­ posed political figures and tendencies in an ex­ Munoz campaign endorsements cellent example of non-sectarian defence. In the month since th~ international campaign to save An international campaign has been mounted to save the life of Mari.o Munoz. Among its .endorsers are:- the life of Mario Munoz began unions, socialist AUSTRALIA Staff and Students of the Department of General Philosophy organisations, civil libertarian groups and a (University of Sydney) Abbotsford Branch ALP John Steinke (President of the Cunningham Federal Electoral Counci I large number of prominent individuals have Albert Park Branch ALP WR Albury (Lecturer, LaTrobe University) of the ALP) pledged support to the effort to save him from Anne Summers the executioners of the Argentine junta. In­ Altona Branch ALP W Sutching (Senior Lecturer, Department of General Philosophy, Uni- Amalgamated Metal Workers Union (Burwood, Melbourne and Sydney versity of Sydney) itiated following the appeal of the European­ Branches) Sydney University Communist Group based Committee for the Defence of Imprisoned Johann Arnason (Lecturer, LaTrobe University) Sydney University SRC .Australian Coal and Shale Employees' Federation (Miners Feder- Max Taylor (General Secretary of the NSW Teachers' Federation) Chilean Workers, Soldiers and Sailors (reprinted ation) MM Thompson in ASp 31) the campaign has obtained broad inter­ Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union Transport Workers Union of Australia (NSW Branch) Ausiralian Railways Union (Victorian Branch) David Tucker (Lecturer, Department of Politics, Melbourne national support. Demonstrations have been held Australian Tramway and Motor Omnibus Employees' Association University) in Australia, Europe and across the United (Victorian Branch) Victorian Labor College Australian Union of Students Vic.torian Trades Hall Council, E~ecutive COmmittee States. Daniel Berrigan, Angela Davis, Kate Meredith Bergman . Union of Postal Clerks and Telegraphists Millett and Tom Hayden from the US have endorsed Fred Betts (actor)* University of NSW ALP Club GH Boehri;ner (Senior Lecturer in Law, Macquarie University) University of NSW Students' Union the campaign. The Canadian Labor Congress and Ed L Brereton (MLA, NSW) Tom Uren (Deputy Leader of the Parliamentary Labor Party) Broadbent, federal leader of the Canadian New Elizabeth Brooke (Lecturer in Politics, Swineburne Institute of J L Vaux (Lecturer, Department of General Philosophy, University of Technology) Sydney) Democratic Party, have also endorsed. European BWIU (NSW and Victorian Branches) Water and Sewerage Employees' Union endorsers include Louis Althusser, Jean-Paul­ J Burnheim (Senior Lecturer, University of Sydney) Waterside Workers Federation of Australia Dr Jim Cairns (MHR) Mick Young (MHR)* Sartre, Daniel Guerin, Ernst Bloch and Jiri Canberra Trades Counc i I Pelikan (exiled former Central Committee member Dr Moss Cass (MHR) CANADA Max Charlesworth (Catholic Worker) of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party). Among Senator Ruth Coleman D'avid Archer (President, Ontario Federation of Labour} the British endorsers are Richard and Cristina David Combe (Federal Secretary, ALP)* Andrew Brewin (Member of Parliament, New Democratic Party (NDP» Combined Pensioners Association (Victoria) Ed Broadbent (MP, Leader, NDP) Whitecross (British citizens recently released Committee for Solidarity with the Chi lean People Canad ian Labour Congress after five months in Argentine jails), Ernie Communist League Oduarda Di Santo (Member of Provincial Parliament, Ontario NDP) Steve Cooper (Research Officer, AMWUJ Ros ie Douglas Roberts (assistant general secretary of the Amal­ Eva Cox Jan Duknta (MP, Ontario NDP) gamated Union of EngineeringWorkers*) and five Gregory M Dening(Professor 01 History, Melbourne University) Stu Leggett (MP, NDP) AF Donovan (Senior Lecturer, Department of Behavioural Science, Revolutionary Marxist Group British Labour Party Members of Parliament. University of NSW) John Rodriguez (MP, NDP) John Ducker (Member of the Legis lative Counci I, NSW; PreS ident of Sudbury and District Labour Counci I Amnesty International's London Headquarters has the NSW Branch of the ALP; Junior Vice-President of the Federal Vancouver Area Council of the NDP issued an Urgent Action memorandum. There are ALP; Secretary of the NSW Labor Council) Vancouver District Labour Council SO Oyster (Lecturer, Economic History Deportment, University of several new endorsers from Israel. Individuals NSW) , EUROPE from left-wing organisations who.have endorsed Grant Evans Louis Althusser, Paris, Federated Clerks Union of Australia (NSW Branch) Argentine Supporf Movement, London the campaign include Carmen Cas'tillo of the Federat"" ,Cold Storage and Meat Preserving Employees' Union of Ernst Bloch, philosopher Chilean MIR,.Luis Vitale, leader of the Chilean Australia (Victorian Branch) British Labour Party Members of Parliament Frank Allaun, Martin Federated Engine Drivers and Firemen's Association of Austra las ia Flannery, Tom Lifterick, Stan Newens and George Rodgers sympathising section of the United Secretariat, Federated Liquor and Allied Industry Employees' Union (Victorian Dr Peter Brandt, Berlin Pierre Lambert and Pierre Broue, veteran leaders Branch) Pierre Broue (Organisation Communiste Internationaliste), Grenoble Federated Miscellaneous Workers' Union (Victorian and South Carmen Castillo (Chilean MIR) of the French Organisation Communiste Inter­ Austra lian Branches) . Mario Felmer (Chilean Young Socialists), London nationaliste, and Alain Krivine of the French Federated Shipwrights and Snip Constructors' Association of Daniel Guerin, Paris Australia (Victorian Branch) Irish Republican Socialist Party, London Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire. Federation of Australian Anarchists Alain Kriyine (Ugue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR», France Dr Herbert Feith (Reader in Politics, Monash University) Miners International Federation This united-front defence campaign is import­ Firemen and Deckhands' Union of NSW Jiri Pelikan (editor, Listy) M Fisher (Organiser, Store men and Packers Union) Friedrich Prechtl (chairman, Rai Iroad Union ), Austria ant not only to save the life of one important OAT Gasking (Professor of Phi losophy, Me Ibourne University) Ernie Roberts (assistant general secretary, Amalgamated Union of working-class leader but also as a part of the Senator George Georges* Engineering Workers ), London fight against the bloody repressiveness of the Senator Arthur Gietzelt Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, London Caroline Graham Jean Paul Sartre, Paris Argentine military junta. Beneath the hypocriti­ R F Hall (Profe~sor, Department of General Studies, University of Luis Vitale cal assurances of the junta's "moderation" and NSW) Richard and Cristina Whitecross, London Frank Hardy (author}* "legality" there lies a brutal reality of murder, Bill Hartley (Member, Federal Executive of the ALP) ISRAEL torture and atrocities. Amnesty International Bob Hawke (Federal President of the ALP, President of the ACTU) Israel Shahak IIsrael League for Human and Civi I Rights) Stephen C Hill (Professor of Sociology, University of Wollongong) Committee of Arab Students (Jerusalem. University) estimates that there are 20-30,000 political Dr R Horn (University of Sydney) Robin Horne (Lecturer, Department of Sociology, University of UNITED STATES prisoners in Argentina who have been arrested Wollongong) . E qba I Ahmad . since the March 24 coup. Hospital Employees Federation (Victorian Branch 2) Daniel Berrigan' WE Hotchkiss (Lecturer, School of Economics, University of NSW) J Quinn Brisben (VP candidate, SPUSA) Among the victims of the Argentine junta and Michael Hourihan (Secretary/Editor, NSW Teachers Federation) Noam Chomsky Ted Innes (MHR) Angela Davis (co·chairperson, National Alliance Against Racist and the vicious death squads of the Argentine Anti­ Dr M Jackson (University Lecturer) Political Repression) Communist Alliance are the thousands of working­ Dr Evan Jones (Lecturer, Economics Department, University of Dave Dellinger Sydney) Frank Donner (General Counsel United E lectrica I Workers (UE), class militants who sought refuge in Argentina Senator Jim Keeffe (Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) member ACLU) from equally brutal juntas in their own Claire Kelly (VSTA member) Alexander Erlich (Professor, Russian Institute, Columbia University) Richard Kennedy (Lecturer in Australian Social History, University Thomas I ·Emerson (Professor of Law, Yale University) countries. Amongst these refugees are those who of NSW) Lawrence Ferlinghetti (City Lights Books, SF) have lived through the defeats of the working o Kirsner (Lecturer, Philosophy Department, Melbourne University) Eugene Genovese (Professor of History, Rochester University) K L Krishna (Senior Lecturer in Econometrics, Monash University) Dick Gregory class in Latin America and have experienced the LaTrobe Clubbe Communiste Tom Hayden bloody results of popular frontist treachery. LaTrobe University SRC . International. Socialists (Chicago localr David A Lawton (Lecturer, Department of English, University of Florynce Kennedy (Attorney) These cadre are the potential leaders of the Sydney) Labor Struggle Caucus, Loca I 6, United Automobile Workers (UAW) future socialist revolution throughout Latin Macquarie University Students' Council Lavender and Red Union, LA Patrick Maloney Amy le. (Director American Indian Rights Association, Kent State America. It is vital that their lives be saved. Alan Marshall (author} University) Michael Matteson Sidney Lens (author) Continued on page eight Monash Association of Students Longshore Militant, SF Municipal Employees Union (Federated Municipal and Shire Council Salvador Luria (Nobel Laure"te) Employees' of Australia) Staughton Lynd (author) Barbara Murphy (Senior Vice President, NSW Teachers' Federation) Michael Meeropol o I endorse* Bill Murray (Lecturer, History Department, LaTrobe University) Robert Meeropol. Kenneth C Ophel (Secretary,· Victorian Branch, Australien Theatrical Militant Action Caucus, Communication Workers of America (CWA) o· My organisation endorses* and Amusem-ent Employees' Association) Local 9410 the international defence campaign to Mar·io Munoz, C Pateman (Lecturer, University of Sydney) Militant.. Solidarity Caucus, National Maritime Union sa~e John F Pelly (Secretary, Ascot Vale ALP Branch) Militant-Solidarity Caucus, Local 906, UAW organised around the demands: Georr. Peterson (MLA, NSW) Kate Millett (author) Plum ers and Gasfitters Employees' Union of Australia, (Melbourne John Mitchell (International Rep, Amalgamated Meatcullers and Mario Munoz must not die! Branch) Butcherworkers) Ross Poole (Lecturer, School of History, Philosophy, Politics, National Lawyers Guild, Chicago and Massachusetts chapters Stop the political repression in Argentina and Chile! Macquarie University) New American Movement (national office) Printing and Kindred Industries Union (Victorian Branch) Oi I, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union, District Counci I 8 Caroline Ralston (-Universit¥ Lecturer} Dr Philip Oke (UN rep, Christian Peace Conference) Name Malcolm Rimmer (Lecturer, Department of Economics, University Revolutionary Marxist Organis ing Committee . of Sydney) Revolutionary Socialist League Organisati on - Dr Michael Roth (Visiting Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, Dennis Serrette (Pres, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists) Univers ity of Sydney) John Sharpe (Secretary, international Spartacist tendency) Address Jim .Roulston (Seni.,.. Vice-President of the ALP; Vice President Carl Shier (International Representative, UAW) ___ Signed of the ACTU· Victorian President of the AMWU) Martin Sostre George Rude (Professor of History, Concordia University, Canada; Spark Visiting Lecturer, LaTrobe University) IF Stone Edna Ryan Willie Tate (defendant, San Quentin Six) :~J I am wi lIing to work with the Committee to save Malcolm Salmon Studs Terkel (author) Mario Munoz. Heinz Schutte (Senior Lecturer in Sociology, LaTrobe University) Esteban E Torres (a,sistant director, international affairs department, M F Schulle (Lecturer, Department of French, LaTrobe University) United Auto Workers) [J I donate $ __ to help save Mario Munoz. (Make David Scott WIlrehouse Militllnt,-SF Seamen's Union of Australia payable to the Mario Munoz Defence Committee, Women's Coffee House Collectors, Ltd Ship Painters ond Dockers Union (NSW and Victorian Branches) Howard Zinn Ron Ske9lls (Secretary, Edithvale/Aspendale ALP Branches) Eddison JM Zvabgo (ZANU) GPO Box 3473, Sydney, NSW 2001.) Slate .. , Tiler. and Roofing Industry Union of Victoria Socialist Workers Party Endorsement indicates willingness to permit your name or your Positions anctorganisations of individual endorsers are given for * Dr Charles Sowerwine (Lecturer, History Department, Melbourne purposes of identification only. orgQnisotionls name to be used to internotionlly publicise the University) campaign of the Mario Munoz Defence Committe•• ~partacist League * verba I endorsement on Iy \. .J AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST June 1976 Page Three

/ , Brealc with Peronism, Stalinism, guerrillaism - for a Trotslcyist party! The end of Peronist rule in Argentina by the Organizaci6n Trotskista Revolucionaria (OTR) of Chile

The coup d'etat in Argentina, carried out by a coup]: their war with the bourgeois army was junta composed of the three branches of the armed irreversibly lost ·from the beginning, no matter forces, marked the tragic and logical unfolding how heroic individual militants may have been. of a bourgeois crisis which had grown increas­ ingly acute with the Peronist government's total The Argentine armed forces, who have a great incapacity to resolve it. It is important to deal of experience in carrying out coups, wanted note that the takeover had already begun Tuesday to avoid the unfavorable international image which its neighbor, Chile, has received. Import­ the 23rd [of March] and not Wednesday the 24th as was officially reported. ant economic interests involving large foreign investments are at stake, and .could not simply be President Isabel Peron had attempted to ignore thrown overboard. There are even very good econ­ social tensions caused by the economic disaster, omic relations with the USSR. For these reasons instead abusing the demagogic prestige that the dominant sectors of the Argentine armed justicialismo had won through its lider maximo, forces were opposed to the Air Force-led coup General Juan Peron. Furthermore, the control attempt [last December]. over the working class which Peronism had exer­ cised through a veritable bureaucratic mafia in In this fashion the military takeover in the main Argentine trade-union federation, the Argentina appeared to the world as almost "peace­ CGT [General Confederation of Labor], was no ful" and without bloodshed. T-he only purpose of longer viable. The Argentine proletariat was the CGT1s call for a general strike was in order Isabel peron General Videla trying to break its dependence on these pimping to be able to bargain over the positions which misleaders, the agents of the bourgeoisie. The the bureaucracy had earlier obtained. But these the role of left face of Stalinism, under the most obvious proof of this was the recent general are only the appearances, behind which is hidden leadership of Fidel Castro, For them the princi­ strike just before the coup. a silent repression no less bloody than that of pal contradiction is between the imperialists and similar coups on the continent, most obviously the nation, not between bourgeoisie and prolet­ Since the bourgeoisie found its efforts at Chile. This repression vents its fury primarily ariat. Therefore, the revolution is to occur in economic and social planning stymied, it withdrew against the Argentine working class and likewise two stages: the first is bourgeois-democratic, all support from the government of Peron's widow. against its class brothers from other parts of naturally in alliance with the "progressive" The working class will certainly not be duped by Latin America who have been forced to emigrate to bourgeoisie, and the second will never be re­ bourgeois moral arguments concerning the squan­ Argentina, whether for political or economic alized. Even in the best case, this strategy dering of public funds by the president and her reasons (assuming that one could speak of pure leads only to the constitution of bureaucratic friend, Lopez Rega. The real reasons for the politics or economics), In particular, hundreds anti-working-class regimes, such as the Cuban de­ bourgeoisie's withdrawal of support from the of thousands of workers and peasants have crossed formed workers state. government are of a political order, ie, the the Andean cordillera from Chile; the brutal re­ raging economic crisis and the rise of working­ pression against them has already begun. By com­ Thousands of valiant young militants have been class struggle. mon agreement, the representatives of capital led to their death by their belief in the Castro­ When the bourgeoisie can no longer depend upon open their borders in order to communicate in the ite/Mandelite strategy of betrayal. The other the services of the government, it falls back language of death and destruction of the prolet­ groups which have joined with the ERP in the upon the state apparatus, and of course upon the ariat, Before Harch Peron had already handed Revolutionary Coordinating Council -- the Boliv­ armed forces as its enforcers. From its point of over hundreds of Chileans to the Chilean bour­ ian ELN (National Liberation Army), the view, the moment chosen to shatter the democratic geoisie; now this deadly traffic in human beings Uruguayan MLN (Tupamaros) and the Chilean MIR institutions was dramatically correct, since is increasing. (Revolutionary Left ~fovement) -- have all been there was no forceful opposition. The Argentine virtually destroyed in their respective countries working class has no mass parties capable of The demagogic populism of Peronism has been of origin. The Montoneros handed over their arms putting up any substantial class resistance (t!1US exposed. The illusions which it fostered among when Peron took office, only to have to pick them the counterrevolutionary class-collaborationist the Argentine working masses may well have re- up again later against the repression unleashed policies of the Communist Party, for example, ceived a death blow. Despite the brief duration by their own patrons. For its part, the PRT/ERP have led it to sell.out to Peronism). In Chile of the Peronist government, this period was suf- has nothing in common with genuine Trotskyism. an important part of the proletariat was organ­ ficient to demonstrate that the bourgeoisie (even_ It carries out its own war with the bourgeois ized in the two mass workers' parties, the Social­ those of its parties which have working-class army behind the back of the working class, which ist Party (SP) and the Communist Party (CP), support) necessarily bases its system on the ex- usually suffers the repercussions of the desper- which in spite of their reformist strat'egies were ploitation of the proletariat and of the lowest ado operations of these latter-day "Robin Hoods". nearly destroyed by Pinochet (above all the SP·). social strata, that there is no such thing as a progressive "anti-:-imperialist" national bour­ Also present are the representatives of the The guerrillas of the Argentine PRT/ERP (Revol­ United Secretariat (USec) of the self-proclaimed utionary Workers Party/Revolutionary People's geoisie. Capitalism is an international system of domination based on the exploitation of man by Fourth International -- an unprincipled feder­ Army) and Montoneros had neither the physical nor ation of the faeoist [Guevarist] majority, which political capacity necessary [to resist the man. Anti-imperialism, progress and the liber­ ation of humanity can only be brought about had built the Castroite PRT/ERP, and the reform­ through the violent destruction of the capitalist ist minority of Horeno Coral's PST, Consistent system of private property and the expropriation with its class-.collaborationist politics -- the of the bourgeoisie as a class, thus laying the same as those displayed by its American older bases of the future socialist society. brother, the Socialist Workers Party (eg, in the ~ movement against the war in Vietnam) -- the PST The Argentine Frente Justicialista [Frejuli, gave support to the bourgeois Peronist govern­ the official Peronist party] is a bourgeois popu­ ment, claiming that "the Peronist party ... list party, created by the bourgeoisie itself in since 1946 has been the organization .and the order to dominate the rising workers movement in ideology of the working class" (Revista de the 1940s. This is how the present CGT arose as America, March 1976). a trade-union organization built and supported by the bourgeoisie in order to destroy proletarian Furth'ermore, Politica Obrera -:-- affiliated to militancy. 11hen General Peron proved incapable the Organizing Committee for the Reconstruction of fulfilling his class function, he was viol­ of the Fourth International, led by the French ently removed and obliged to take an extended va­ OCI -- has abandoned the basic principles of the cation in Spain. However, the military govern­ Transitional Program by calling for a Latin ments which followed Peron's fall were also un­ American anti-imperialist united front to force able to attain social peace. Thus the bour­ the bourgeoisie to fulfill the program of geoisie was forced to recall the exile from national liberation; that is, the creation of a Iberia and once more offer him governmental con­ Latin American Kuomintang. trol. Thus the advent of a bourgeois bonapartist The illusions in Peronism which had been pre­ military junta in Argentina is the result of the served within the working class gave the general crisis of the bourgeoisie which, unable to halt an overwhelming electoral triumph. The "criti­ the workers' advances and to reduce social and cal" support by so-called "Marxists", such as the economic tensions through traditional democratic PST (Socialist Workers Party), to the Peronist methods, falls back upon its instrument of class government of Hector Campora objectively contri­ exploitation and oppression: the state. The buted to the working-class defeat which resulted armed forces therefore take. on their true role as from the military coup. guardian of capitalist interests, not that of "defense of the fatherland", temporarily raising It is interesting to observe the positions of themselves above the social classes. the different left organizations on the question of Peronist populism. On the one hand the petty­ Another chapter in the history of betrayal, bourgeois guerrillaist groups -- the Montoneros reformist illusions and class collaboration in Helicopter carries Isabel Peron away from Presidential and the PRT/ERP -- both put.forward the same Latin America has been brought to a close. This palace in abortive escape bid. strategy of "national liberation';, thus playin~ Continued on page nine . Page Four AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST June 1976 ,~ :':\- lario luiioz: miner,· working­ class leader, hunted refugee by the CommiHee to Defend the Worker and Sailor Prisoners in Chile

Mario Munoz Salas was born 8 June 1939. He out his threat it would result in the first mass­ miners' union. Also invited were the principal began working in the mines at the age of 14. At acre of "pacos" (cops) in Chile. leaders of the Central Unico de Trabajadores that time the "pirquineros" (contract miners) (CUT) [the Chilean labor federation, dissolved by were being exploited by Chile's mining barons After the CP's refusal to support his trade­ Pinochet in September 1973], the CP and the SP. with the complicity of judges, lawyers, poli­ union policies. Munoz quit the party and tore up However, neither these nor even the presence of ticians and presidents of the republic. Yankee his membership card in front of a mass meeting of Allende himself could silence the voice of Mario imperialism intervened directly in the mineral­ miners, at which all present followed his Munoz. The resolutions passed at this confer­ buying agencies to deprive the miners of the example. ence, which remained in the hands of the UP fruits of their years of labor. The September 1970 electoral victory of leaders, were never published. Mario Munoz was among the first to rebel, Allende's Popular Unity (UP) coalition did not In this tense climate the Allende government pushing forward the organization and consoli­ halt the revolutionary activities of the miners. attempted toward the end of 1972 to create the dation of unions to defend the workers' rights. From public platforms Munoz forced the leaders of Regional Miners Councils as an organization for This was no easy task, for 90 percent of the the popular front to not oppose the mine bureaucratically asphyxiating the working class. miners were illiterate, many afflicted with seizures. The first congress took place in Copiapo, a silicosis and dying by the thousands in the most In 1971 Munoz entered the Chilean Socialist province of Atacama. Four days before the open­ abject poverty. Party (SP). He was immediately impelled to lead ing the miners, with Munoz at their head, inaug­ urated the congress by occupying a mine in In 1968 the Interprovincial Union of Contract a left opposition in the party against Allende and his cohorts in high posts. Salado. The mine was owned by the vice-presi­ Miners of the provinces of Valparaiso, Aconcagua dent of the state National Mining Enterprise and Santiago was established. Its founder and A march of miners from Cabildo to Valparaiso (ENAMI), Eduardo Matta. Again Munoz' speech leader was Mario Munoz. The union sought to took place in March of the same year. The CP, hailing the mine occupation received an ovation qualitatively change the traditional struggles which opposed the march, closed the union hall of by the workers and in a unanimous vote they over basically economist demands in order to the Melon cement workers in the town of Calera elected him president of the Regional Miners give them a political thrust. Its program en­ where the marchers were supposed to eat and rest. Councils. visioned a thorough reform of the Hining Codes The slogans of the march, led by Munoz, were ex­ to end private ownership of the mines and make propriation without compensation of the mineral With this new victory of the mining prolet­ them exclusively state property. deposits and armed defense of the government ariat, another campaign of calumny was unleashed against possible imperialist attack. The against Munoz, accusing him of misappropriating For many years Mario Munoz belonged to the funds, union property, etc. Economic measures Chilean Communist Party (CP) of which he became workers' demonstration ended with a rally at the office of the Valparaiso provincial governor, were taken to undermine the support of different a regional leader. Despite his party's oppo­ sectors of miners. The workers did not wait long sition he led mine seizures, beginning with where Munoz denounced class conciliation, calling the provincial governor at his side (a member of to react. At the Bronca de Petorca cooperative, those not being worked by their owners. The the workers decided to detain the head of the De­ first mine in the hands of the workers was the the Radical Party) a representative of the bour­ geoisie. partment of Mines in the Pedro de Valdivia mine "Los Maquis de Pedernales", which they then re­ and put him to work pushing the ore carts. Faced named "La Rebelion". This was followed by many Subsequently the UP came out against the mi~e with the government's refusal to grant [the others. seizures. The first important confrontation took workers] deeds to the mine, Munoz marched at the place with the miners' occupation of the Bella The government attempted to repress the first head of the miners to Santiago where they seized Vista plant, whose owners were in the Radical the central building of ENAMI and the Ministry of seizure of a foreign-owned mine, but the troops Party. Mr Cantuarias, a Radical and the minister were forced to retreat in the face of the resol­ Mines. What had not been gained in nine months of mines, tried to speak to the miners, but Munoz was now obtained in less than an hour. uteness of the miners and consistent support from took the floor to denounce the government deals, the peasants. Under the leadership of Munoz, an calling Cantuarias a thief in the service of the Shortly before the coup a mass meeting of authentic worker-peasant alliance was created in bosses. As could be expected, this meeting ended miners took place in the building of the UNCTAD these provinces, as the miners also supported the in disorder. workers in downtown Santiago, where Munoz met seizures of "fundos" (large estates) carried out with Allende. In addition to assuring him of the by local peasants. In the face of firm and resolute opposition from the miners and their leader, the parties of unconditional support of the miners to defend the As a result of the widely publicized union the UP sponsored a conference of miners at the government against the impending reactionary mobilizations Munoz participated in a Channel 4 University of Federico Santa Haria in Val­ coup, Munoz asked how long he (Allende) would television interview. In an effort to intimidate paraiso. Through a campaign of slander they continue betraying the workers' interests in open Munoz, the angered Minister of Mines threatened tried to undermine Munoz' rising influence in the conciliation with the bourgeoisie. Some parties to use police force if such activities continued. Chilean proletariat. Of 152 delegates who at­ of the UP, principally the CP, tried to prevent Munoz answered that if the minister were to carry tended the conference, 25 were from the contract Continued on page eight MIR leader extradited to Chile Free Edgardo Enriquez!

Edgardo Enriquez has been delivered into the ity or public order" (Argentina Information, blood-stained hands of the Chilean se<::ret pol­ April 1976). itical police by the Argentine military junta. Enriquez, a leader of the far-left Chilean In the name of preserving this "public order" Movimiento Izquierdista Revolucionario O·UR -­ of official police-state terror and rampaging Revolutionary Left f,lovement), was working extra-legal, ultra-rightist assassination squads, clandestinely in Argentina when he was arrested UN refugee camps are raided and refugees turned April 10. On April 27 he was handed over to the over to the merciless grip of the police of their Chilean authorities for extradition. Now being respective countries, who are given free use of held at Monte-Maravilla in Chil.e, he is probably Argentine police stations to carry out their "in­ undergoing savage torture and faces execution. terrogations". This is the reality behind The only force which will free him is a massive Videla's cynical "respectability" ploy. campaign of international protest. Edgardo En­ riquez must not die! Our sharp disagreements with the MIR's futile guerrillaism and class-collaborationist orien­ Edgardo Enriquez Espinoza, 34 years old, was Chilean MIR leader Edgarda Enriquez. tation of seeking a common program with bourgeois working in Argentina with the Junta of Revol­ opponents of Pinochet's dictatorship will not utionary Coordination (which includes the MIR, impede our anti-sectarian solidarity with Edgardo the Argentine ERP, the Uruguayan Tupamaros and ation". This smokescreen must be exposed. Enriquez and all the victims of rightist terror. the Bolivian ELN) , according to a 22 April com­ Videla's henchmen have handed Enriquez over to The reactionary military dictatorships have munique of the MIR's Exterior Committee in Costa the bloodthirsty butchers who stridently pro­ joined forces to track down and murder the exiled Rica. Seized along with him was Regina Mar­ claim their war to the death against guerrillas and left-wing and labor militants. leaders of the Latin American working masses. condes, a Brazilian national. A member of the Videla's henchmen have delivered Enriquez into MIR since 1965 and of its leadership, Edgardo the hands of his torturers; his life hangs in the Enriquez is the brother of former MIR secretary­ Behind the Videla regime's lies and censor­ balance. All labor militants and socialists, all general Miguel Enriquez, who was killed by the ship, a reign of savage terror has been un­ those concerned with justice, must raise their Chilean military in 1974. leashed against Argentine radicals and unionists voices now in united and forceful protest against and against the thousands of political refugees this atrocity. Freedom for Edgardo Enriquez! The ferocity of the repression in Pinochet's who fled to Argentina to escape Pinochet's Freedom for all class-war prisoners! Chile has embarrassed the international bour­ butchers and their counterparts in Brazil, Uru­ geoisie, which prefers greater discretion on the guay and elsewhere. Two days after the March 24 Messages of solidarity and support may be sent part of imperialism's lackeys. General Videla's coup, the Argentine junta decreed its intention to: Office for Political Prisoners and Human Argentine junta hopes to avoid following Pinochet to expel foreigners who "abused ... traditional Rights in Chile, 339 Lafayette Street, New York, into public-opinion quarantine, and is seeking to Argentine generosity" or were involved in activi­ NY 10012, USA .• hide its brutalities behind a mask of "moder- ties which Haffect social peace, national secur- (reprinted from Workers Vanguard no 110, 21 May 1976)

I AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST June 1976 Page Five I. In his annual report, released in late Decem~ this period was that of Aleksandar Rankovic and into two classes and create a social explosion ber, the head of Yugoslavia's police reported the his followers in the latter half of 1966. bigger than the national antagonisms. Serbian arrests of some 200 opponents of the government. Rankovic, in his capacity as head of the secret party leaders Marko Nikezic and Latinka Perovic, This is reportedly the greatest number in any police and secretary of the LCY, was accused of both strong advocates of economic liberalism, year since the mid-1960s and indicates increasing organizing a secret faction to "re-Stalinize" "resigned". Also getting the ax were Macedon­ political problems for the regime of Josip Broz Yugoslavia and to oppose Tito's policies of pol­ ian party secretary Slavko Miloslavlevski and Tito. In the fall, Tito had issued a stern warn­ itical and economic decentralization. Slovenia's prime minister, Stane Kavcic, the ing, "I will not shrink from anything to neutral­ latter apparently for advocating too much "free ize the opposition, composed of a handful of Yet compared to the USSR or the other deformed trade" with the West. Cominformists, liberals and nationalists" (£e workers states, the Tito bureaucracy has for the While cracking down on rightists .and revision­ Monde, 1 November). last 10 years allowed an extraordinary amount of ists Tito also discovered a plot to "reconstuct freedom to its citizens. Now a halt is being Government statements have focused especially called. People who were previously allowed to the Fourth International" in Yugoslavia. Several on the arrests of so-called "Cominformists" (an write on subjects forbidden in any other deformed alleged culprits were soon arrested, among them Danilo Udonicki, for "activities hostile to Yugo·­ allusion to those Yugoslavs who sided with Stalin workers state or to organize cultural societies in the late 1940s Moscow/Belgrade split), but the slavia" _.- ie, for contacts he made in Belgrade or groups independent of the party and the state in 1971 and 1972 with alleged representatives of large majority of the prisoners were, in fact, are now being arrested in droves and charged with accused of being linked to "reactionary rightist counterrevolution. the "Fourth International". Nonetheless, Tito and neo-fascist organizations". Among the 13 has allowed Ernest Mandel, leader of the fake­ different categories of political detainees lito the Hydra Slayer Trotskyist United Secretariat (USec), to speak to Yugoslav students. listed in the police minister's report were the The origins of the present swing on the part Ustashi, a right-wing secessionist Croatian or­ of the Tito government can be traced back to as An absurd facet of Tito's many-sided re­ ganization; the Chetniks, Serbian monarchists; early as 1968, when left-wing student demon­ pressions was his demagogic attack on "Communist "technocrats", incipiently pro-capitalist el­ strators urged the regime to take a firmer stand millionaires" (entrepreneurs and kulaks, not ements involved in' the management of industry; against capitalist restorationist tendencies. privileged bureaucrats) whom his policies built and other anti-Communist or nationalist tend­ up in the first place. encies. Subsequent repressions did not prevent a dis­ sident intellectual movement from growing. There Thus casting himself in the role of hydra Although Tito's break with the Kremlin fol­ were jailings of student leaders from Belgrade, slayer, Tito has made haste to wipe out all the lowing the creation of the Communist Information Zagreb and Ljubljana who tried to organize a various deviations from Titoism. Between 1972 Bureau (Cominform) in 1948 was protested by sev­ stud~nt association of the three universities. and May 1974 he had managed to purge the party of eral high-ranking political and military leaders, In May of 1971 left-wing Slovenian students were over 10 percent of its membership, of which including the armed forces chief of staff, this arrested demonstrating against French premier 51,000 were expelled for nationalism/liberalism. opposition was quickly suppressed. The Yugoslav regime prides itself on upholding the equality of its component nationalities in contrast to the bloody history of antagonisms among the south Slavic peoples in the inter-war period. Never­ Bureaucratic theless, after more than a quarter century of Titoist rule, pro-Moscow tendencies in the bu­ reaucracy continue to surface while right-wing nationalist groups still pose a threat of rule capitalist restoration in Yugoslavia. Why? Tito cracks down spawns The government of Yugoslavia, which has long considered itself to be the most liberal and hu­ mane of the "Communist" regimes, has these past bourgeois several years launched a campaign of repression in order to reassert the supremacy of the party in nearly every sphere of Yugoslav life, regi­ menting dissident intellectuals, nationalists nationalism and sections of the party leadership.

Symptomatic of the crackdown was the move in May 1974 to keep Tito president of the federal republic and commander-in-chief of the armed forces for an unlimited time. Tito had been set to ret~re in 1976 (at the age of 84) and relin~ Titoism quish power to a collective presidency. Instead, Tito will continue to preside over this collegial body in his capacity as president of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY). At present • the "collective presidency" is a nine-man body made up of Tito and the presidents of Yugo­ In slavia's six republics and two autonomous prov­ inces. In addition to making Tito president for life, a curb has been placed on the previous extreme federalism of the collective executive, whereby each federal president was permitted to veto any trouble proposal considered to be harmful to his repub­ lic'S vital interests. Now a two-thirds majority can pass a proposal. Pompidou. Journals such as Praxis, Student and And this figure does not even encompass the Kultura subjected to sharp criticism some of the masses of former members who simply drifted At the Tenth Congress of the LCY held in May most cherished myths of the Tito regime. away -- approximately one million between 1968 1974 the Central Committee (CC) was restructured, and 1975 (between the Ninth and Tenth Party Con­ with the army being elevated to the status of a gresses). seventh republic; that is, it was given 20 seats The repression, however, did not take a sharp upturn until late 1971 when Tito was confronted on the CC, the same as each of the six republics. with a more immediate threat, this time from the The succession crisis And nearly a year later another step was taken -­ right. In December leaders of the Croatian to establish a "federal council for defence of The problems the Tito government faces are the Student Union -- a collection of Croatian logical outcome of the policies it has pursued the constitutional order". Chaired by the vet­ nationalists, cultural nationalists, bureaucratic eran Titoist Vladimir Bakaric the council in­ from the time it was forced to make a break with reformers, liberals and a few genuine leftists -­ Stalin in 1948. The intellectual ferment, the cludes the party secretary, Stane Dolanc; the organized a student strike at Zagreb university prime minister, Dzemal Bijedic; and the federal Iwrker discontent, the 20 percent annual in­ to back the demands of leading Croatian party flation, the unemployment, the worsening trade ministers of defence, foreign affairs and the in­ members that the republic retain a larger share terior. balance, the flaring up of old national antagon­ of its industrial surplus and foreign exchange isms and the growth of capitalist restorationist earnings from tourism and remittances of Yugoslav tendencies are real enough. These moves toward a tightening of party con­ workers employed abroad. trol have been accompanied by a wave of re­ What gives the current crisis an exceptionally pression aimed at the various political forces sharp political character is that it comes at a seen to threaten the Tito bureaucracy's rule. Tito's reaction was swift and angry. The time when Tito, who has stood at the head of leaders of the demonstration were arrested. Cro­ Yugoslavia from the time of the victory of the Repression and purges are, to be sure, nothing atian party leaders Tripalo, Dabcevic-Kucar, partisan armies in 1944-45, must step down from new in Yugoslavia. Dissidents such as ~t!ihaj 10 Pirker and Bijelic "stepped down". Tito began to office because of his age. Tito is unique in the Mihajlov and Milovan Djilas have been jailed by stump the country making'angry speeches denounc­ ruling bureaucracy in his prestige and popu­ the Tito regime not only for their criticisms of ing "rotten liberalism" and warning that he would larity, both within the party and among the work­ Yugoslav society, but even for their anti-Soviet use any means necessary to "defend socialism" ing masses. Since his break with Stalin he has writings. Thus Djilas in 1962 was sentenced to against "counterrevolutionaries and class enem­ maneuvered with amazing skill between the Scylla over eight years in prison for charges stemming ies". of Russian domination and the Charybdis of intra­ from the publication of Conversations With Yugoslav regional/national antagonism. The re­ Stalin. Mihajlov was imprisoned last year (fol­ Continuing in the same vein Tito began to sulting historical compromise -- the "Yugoslav lowing his third trial since 1966) on a charge of "self-criticize" and saw the roots of the trouble road to socia'iism" -- has now been seriously spreading "hostile propaganda" against the in the Sixth Party Congress. It was at that con­ undermined.' The question now posed not only to government. (The New York Times of 22 December gress that the Yugoslav Communist Party (YCP) the workers and peasants of Yugoslavia, but to reports that he is currently on a hunger strike transformed itself into the LCY. The League was the international workers movement, is what turn to win release from solitary confinement and for a renunciation of the party's previous attempt to the Yugoslav road will take after Tito's depar­ other improved conditions.) control all aspects of the country's life. Un­ ture from the scene. Yugoslavia is a small like the YCP the LCY was to simply be "the van­ country, but a fundamental shift in its political Between 1960 and 1970 alone over 500,000 per­ guard" and lead by "setting an example". allegiances could have enormous implications. sons were dropped from the LCY. (During the same By the fall of 1972 Tito had enlarged his Especially aware of this are the Russian period some 557,000 new members were taken into criticisms and was raging that "laissez-faire Stalinists who have never quite managed to rec­ the party.) Most significant of the purges of economics" was threatening to divide Yugoslavia oncile themselves with Tito's successful resist- Page Six AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST June 1976 ance to Stalin in 1948. Recently, the government less, in order to re~n power Tito had to purge izes the economy and pursues the suicidal policy announced the arrest of Vladimir Dapcevic, former his party of the most pro-Stalin elements, who of "peaceful coexistence" with imperialism. This army colonel and brother of the vice president of also were the foremost supporters of centralized parasitic bureaucracy must be ousted by a politi­ the federal parliament, who in 1948 disagreed planning and collectivized agriculture. cal revolution organized and led by a Trotskyist with Tito's break with Moscow and later fled the working-class party. . country. His name was linked with 32 long­ It would be a mistake, however, to assume standing party members jailed for conspiring to Titoism emerged a fully developed tendency with The Titoists came to power on the basis of a form a new pro-Soviet "Yugoslav Communist Workers the 1948 split. The excommunicated Yugoslav guerrilla struggle which swept out the fascist and Peasants Party" (a so-called "f·!arxist wing" Stalinists' immediate aim was to survive. The occupiers and, along with them, the social basis of the LCY). This orthodox Stalinist group, economic and political policies and the ideo­ upon which capitalism rested. This struggle probably backed by USSR and Czech intelligence logical distinctions came later, in an ad hoc and composed mainly of former army officers and fashion. secret police agents, most likely intended to In fact, at the time of and immediately after place its members in high positions following the forced break with Stalin, the Yugoslav party Tito's death. The arrest of the so-called "Com­ aped Stalin's methods and policies. An attempt informists" demonstrates (despite Pravda's 27 to forcibly collectivize Yugoslav agriculture November disavowal of "sectarian plotters" and was made and mass labor mobilizations were insti­ "renegades" allegedly trying to poison "Soviet­ tuted. Referring to the economic chaos and bu­ Yugoslav friendship") the continued attraction of reaucratic abuses of the 1949 period, a close Kremlin-style Stalinism on sections of the Yugo­ Tito associate of the time, Vladimir Dedijer, slav bureaucracy. writes: More than sour grapes over 1948, however, lies "From that economic necessity, from that mis­ at the bottom of Moscow's pressures and in­ fortune came the beginning of Yugoslavia's trigues. A Yugoslavia friendly to the Soviet system of self-management. It developed as Union could not only quickly bring about a change we gained in knowledge of the Soviet social in the pro-Maoist Hoxha regime in Albania, but system; criticizing the latter, we worked con­ would also provide the Russians with deep water structively criticizing our own existing sys­ naval bases in the Mediterranean, something the tem. Norms and credit planning of the market USSR has lacked since 1972 when the Egyptians ex­ had to be revised." (Vladimir Dedijer, The pelled the Soviet navy from Alexandria. The Battle Stalin Lost) Tito greets Winston Churchill in 1944. spectre of this and of the presence of Soviet bloc troops on the Greek and Italian borders, es­ Dedijer also confirms that the institution of mobilized the peasant masses of the various pecially in the context of the current enmity of workers councils in 1950 (as well as the abandon­ nationalities which constitute the present Yugo­ Greece and Turkey, must put a chill in Henry ment of attempts to collectivize agriculture in slav state. The nearly thirty years which have Kissinger's vodka martini. It would, quite mid-195l) were originally measures of expediency passed have not erased from the memory of the simply, fundamentally alter the military balance to win the support of the masses in the anti­ working people of Yugoslavia these tremendous of power in the Mediterranean theater. Cominfbrm campaign. A close associate of Boris gains, especially the defusing -- through the Kidric, one of the architects of "workers self­ collective endeavor of driving out the fascists No one is more keenly aware of these facts of management", is quoted as saying: and reconstructing Yugoslav society along a new life than Tito and the imperialist NATO powers -­ social axis -- of a bitter heritage of murderous and so Tito has been able to hold up the spectre national hatred. The basis for the relative in­ of a pro-Soviet Yugoslavia to successfully ex­ dependence of the Yugoslav Communist apparatus tract foreign aid and diplomatic concessions from from the Russian state power is the more or less the capitalist West. direct result of the Titoists' independent rise Titoism to power with overwhelming popular support among the working masses. Indeed it is the international position occu­ pied by Yugoslavia that has in large part deter­ Yet Yugoslavia embodies a profound contradic­ mined the specific features of Titoism. tion between the gains of the revolution and the narrow confines of bureaucratic rule. The mon­ The break in 1948 with Stalin was forced upon opoly of political power by a nationalist ruling the Yugoslavs. Unique in Eastern Europe, the YCP clique and the continued pressure of imperialism was not installed in power by Moscow, but won its and the capitalist world market upon the Yugo­ victory through a long, bitter guerrilla war slav deformed workers state must ceaselessly against Axis occupiers, native fascists and roy­ regenerate social backwardness and dangerous alist bands. The Yugoslav Stalinists had their national antagonisms, which threaten to burst own.deformed workers state, their own army and forth when the bonapartist bureaucracy loses its " police, and were not dependent on Stalin for dominant figure. These tendencies are, in turn, their power. When Stalin began treating his greatly strengthened by the tremendous centrifu­ Yugoslav followers like something less than the Workers council meets in Yugoslav .factory. gal forces generated by the particular economic sixteenth republic of the USSR, the Tito bureauc­ structure developed by the Yugoslav Stalinists racy, with its aim of building "socialism" in since 1950. Yugoslavia first, balked. "One night Boris said we could keep the pro­ letarians on our side only if we expanded Yugoslav economy What sealed the split was the trade embargo their rights: factories to the workers and and cancellation of credits by the Soviet bloc the land to the peasants." (Dedijer, The While the Tito government abandoned attempts countries. Yugoslavia had obtained more than 55 Battle Stalin Lost) at detailed production planning and the collec­ percent of its imports and all of its credits tivization of agriculture, throughout the 1950s from these countries. The embargo utterly dis­ Workers self-management began as an exper­ and up to 1965 it held a potent lever for di­ rupted the five-year plan and eventually' forced iment. It did not get off the ground until the recting the trajectory of the economy, the so­ the Yugoslavs to abandon detailed production called Social Investment Fund -- the largest planning. Thus Yugoslavia was given its first late 1950s, and it has always been narrowly lim­ ited to the sphere of technical and trade-union source of investment in the-economy. impetus on its ultimately disastrous road of economic decentralization by none other than problems. Any attempt to organize a political But by 1965 the Yugoslav economy was in Joseph Stalin. tendency independent of the LCY on the basis of serious trouble, plagued by low labor pro­ these councils would be quickly smashed by Tito's ductivity, currency inflation and a spiralling In the battle against Soviet Stalinism Tito bureaucracy, which has always jealously guarded trade deficit. To rectify these problems a appealed to the masses in the name of anti­ its total monopoly of the political life of the series of "economic reforms" was introduced sur­ bureaucratism which he linked to political and country. passing in decentralization anything Yevsei economic decentralization. As he excommunicated Liberman proposed for the Soviet economy. Tito, Stalin reportedly said, "I will shake my Stalinism little finger and there will be no more Tito. Autonomously, the Yugoslav enterprise could He will fall" (Khrushchev'S "secret speech", In the last analysis, Titoism is merely a now buy and sell, set its own output and wage 1956). Stalin seriously underestimated the national variant of Stalinism. Like its Russian norms and even trade directly with foreign firms. The Yugoslav currency, the dinar, was sharply strength of Tito's domestic support. Neverthe- counterpart, Yugoslav Stalinism dedicates itself devalued and price controls were to be abandoned. ,------...... ::e to "socialism in one country" -- the Most importantly, control over capital investment Ig preservation of the bureaucratic rul­ was decentralized by abolishing the social in­ f ing elite whose survival rests vestment funds and turning them over to the banks : ultimately on two pillars: the -- nominally managed by assemblies of delegates ~ nationalized property forms and at from enterprises which are founders or large de­ ~the same time the failure of revol­ positors. The government still retains control, ~ utionary proletarian movements albeit far less direct, through members of the abroad, whose successful taking of LCY who hold policy-making positions in the power would threaten the Titoists' banks. But the state's former role in invest­ political expropriation of the ments has been restricted to operating from much Yugoslav workers. Like all version,s smaller funds for development of the underdevel­ of Stalinism, Titoism is character­ oped regions. ized by its nationalism, which places the diplomatic maneuvers of the Commenting on the reforms the London Times (27 Yugoslav state above solidarity with July 1965) noted: the other deformed workers states and "Resistance and opposition to reforms is con­ above the needs of the international siderable. It comes from government circles working class. in the less developed republics, which are bound to feel the unpleasant consequences more Because it rests upon a social than the better developed regions which have base of collectivized property, the been pressing for reforms. It comes also from Yugoslav state -- like the other de­ the trade unions, as unemployment, already formed workers states -- must be de­ high, is expected to increase with factories, fended against imperialist attack or now left to themselves, having to operate in domestic counterrevolution. But the independent economic units like any capitalist gains of the Yugoslav revolution are enterprise." placed in constant jeopardy by the Stalinist ruling clique, which de- moralizes the proletariat, disorgan- Continued on page eight AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST June 1976 Page Seven

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Continued from page seven pressures on sections of the bureaucracy to seek "~ to undermine economic planning and begin to dream of acquiring individual ownership of the means of Titoism in trouble • • • production now collectively held. In short, rito's "Yugoslav road" has led not The consequences of the reforms were quick in coming. There was a severe reduction in invest­ to socialism but to inequality among nations and ment in backward regions of Serbia, in Monte.­ regions, inequality amon.g workers, rapid growth of the private sector, unemployment, labor emi­ negro, Macedonia and the autonomous province of Kosovo-Metohija. Unemployment rose rapidly. By gration and the increased threat of penetration 1967 fully one eighth of the labor force couldn't by foreign capital. Continuation along this road raises a very real threat of bourgeois restora­ find work, and many became foreign workers in the tion through a bloody civil war which quite poss­ developed capitalist countries of Western Europe. Inflation galloped, and the living standards of ibly might provoke Soviet and American inter­ vention and trigger World War III. the masses dropped. Above all, the reforms were designed to make Tito's current campaign is a bureaucratic crackdown on the fruits of Titoism. It demon­ Yugoslavia more competitive on the international strates the folly of renouncing an active inter­ capitalist market. They did this, but at the national revolutionary struggle against capital­ price of making Yugoslavia much more susceptible to the economic crises of capitalism. Indeed, ism in favor of utopian attempts to build the current capitalist depression has profoundly "socialism" in one country -- a very tiny one at that, and one that would not last a week save affected the Yugoslav economy -- not only for the existence of the USSR. Caught in a bu­ through a drop in trade with the EEC countries, reaucratic straightjacket, ·all Tito can do is but also through the return of vast numbers of tack and veer, now closer to the Soviets, now emigrant workers whose remittances were a major "i' ,;, source of foreign exchange for the regime. further away. Only by the construction in Yugoslavia and in Yugoslavia today reproduces some of the worst " aspects of the NEP (New Economic Policy) in the other deformed workers states of Trotskyist Russia during the early and mid-1920s. State parties committed to a political revolution to oust the bankrupt bureaucrats can the gains of ownership of the means of production is seriously undermined by means of production the Yugoslav revolution be protected and bloody bourgeois counterrevolution averted. Forward to transferred into the hands of collectives which the Yugoslav Trotskyist party, for the rebirth compete with other collectives for materials and of the Fourth International! Oust Tito through markets. Under these conditions investment is political revolution! Fot a Balkan Socialist channelled into sectors and techniques of Federation! For international communist unity greatest profitability rather than of greater social use. Such circumstances have provided against imperialism, from Havana to Belgrade, Moscow and Peking! • Marshall Josip Broz Tito. excellent opportunities for petty-bourgeois entrepreneurs to amass small fortunes, generating (reprinted from Workers Vanguard no 91, 9 January 1976)

Continued from page tlree mittee that after discussing the matter with ation", its National Committee would have to de­ Gough Whitlam, he brought it to the attention of cide. As yet no reply has been received. The • Mr Andrew Peacock, the i.1inister for Foreign prize for hypocrisy however, must go to the • • • Mufioz campaign Affairs. As a result the Australian diplomatic Communist League who loudly proclaim the import­ representatives in Argentina have been instructed ance of defending Latin American political pris­ Already there have been reports of as many as to make inquiries regarding rl\unoz with the oners in the pages of Militant. Whil e giving a 1300 Chilean refugees being taken back by bus to Argentine government. And the UNHCR centre at token endorsement (after a month!) the CL refuses face Pinochet's torture chambers. Unless the Geneva has replied to a telegram from Dr Moss to take part in the campaign because, according international working class publicises their Cass assuring him that the High Commissioner is to them, the Spartacist League is sectarian!! plight they face annihilation at the hands of the "following [ther matter closely together with his (see p 2) gorilas. regional representative [in] Buenos Aires who The success of the Munoz campaign will make it himself [is] in contact with [the] Argentine harder for the junta's subterranean torturers and Mario Munoz, a founder and leader of a major authorities [at the] highest level". Chilean mining union with an exemplary record as killers to carry out their filthy and sordid work a proletarian militant, crossed the Andes into Two demonstrations have been held so far -­ and will contribute to saving other victims of Argentina with thousands of other Chilean workers one in Sydney on 5 May outside the office of the the repression as more cases come to'light. How­ following Pinochet's coup. There he continued to UNHCR, the other in Helbourne on 11 May in City ever, unlike the juntas and their CIA backers, organise among the refugees. The fact that he Square. The Sydney demonstration was attended by the partisans of little-known refugees do not was marked for extermination almost immediately about 40 people including individual members of have unlimited budgets. Internationally, thou­ the Argentine generals came to power demonstrates the Communist Party of Australia, the Inter­ sands of dollars have been spent on telephone that he had become a symbol of resistance to the national Socialists (IS) and a contingent from calls, telegrams, individual visits and letters barbaric rule of the generals not only in the the Spartacist League (SL). Other left-wing and tens of thousands of leaflets to publicise eyes of the oppressed but in the eyes of their groups, despite having been informed of the dem­ the case. And much more will be required for oppressors as well. Saving Munoz' life will be a onstration, were conspicuous by their absence. A continued publicity and to actually get Munoz and defeat for the generals and will give hope to representative of the Hario Munoz Defence Com­ his family out of the country. Despite encourag­ those straining under their jackboots. mittee outlined the background of the case, re­ ing success in fund raising, there is a long way ported on the progress of the campaign and made to go. Munoz' life is at stake and money is In Australia the Mario Munoz Defence Committee an appeal for solidarity. He was followed by a needed extremely urgently. Only a powerful out­ has gained considerable support. A substantial speaker from the SL who solidarised with the cry of international protest can save him from number of trade unions have endorsed the campaign defence of Munoz and went on to explain that in Pinochet's and Videla's butchers. and many have made financial contributions. ALP capitulating to Peronism, ostensible revolution­ * (organisation for identification purposes only) leaders who have endorsed the campaign include aries in Argentina had politically disarmed the Bob Hawke, David Combe, Jim Cairns, Moss Cass, working class and left them defenceless in the Senators Gietzelt, 'Georges and Keeffe, and Bill face of the coup. Hartley. Student councils from Sydney, New South Wales and LaTrobe universities have given their The Melbourne demonstration was attended by Continued from page five support as have a number of professors. about 25 people -- individual anarchists and mem­ bers of the IS, the Socialist 110rkers Party (SWP) Many of the endorsers have sent telegrams of and the Miscellaneol,ls Workers Union, and a con­ Mario Munoz • • • protest to either the Argentine government or the tingent from the SL. The rally Ivas addressed by Munoz' speech with goons in the service of their United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees George Crawford (Secretary of the Plumbers' (UNlICR). The Waterside Workers' Federation has treacherous politics. The miners forcefully de­ Union), a speaker from the defence committee and fended workers' democracy and their leader, and informed the Argentine authorities that "unless a speaker from the Spartacist League. Despite [the] rights of Munoz and other working class marched afterward to the center of Santiago their small size these demonstrations have been shouting "Break with the Bourgeoisie!" and "Stop representatives [are] respected Maritime Union­ an important element in the defence and have ists will organise appropriate protest action". the Fascist Coup!" As a result Munoz broke with aided in furthering publicity and gaining the social-patriotism of the SP, demanding free­ The Miscellaneous Workers' Union has pledged support. itself to "support democratic trade union action dom for workers and peasants (of Pangal, etc) imprisoned by the UP government. against this execution". The Australian Miners' The protests and pressure being exerted to Federation requested the ACTU Executive to take date show that the campaign has had a real Because of the violent persecution against him whatever action is possible to save Munoz' life. effect. But as long as Mario Munoz remains in -- he was ordered shot on sight -- at the time of Jim Keeffe, Deputy Leader of the Labor Oppo­ Argentina, his life hangs by a thread. Unlike Pinochet's coup d'etat, Munoz was forced to cross sition in the Senate, wrote to the defence com- the prominent intellectuals and former government the Andean cordillera to seek refuge in Argen­ ministers who became targets of right-wing re­ tina. One of his brothers was murdered, beaten to death by the forces of reaction. AUSTRALI,I\N COUNCIL OF TRADE UNIONS pression after the fall of Allende in Chile, Munoz, although widely respected by his class In Argentina he dedicated himself to defending EXECUTIVE RESOLUTION brothers, is not well known outside of Chile. the thousands of Chilean workers and peasants who TI1US an energetic campaign of publicity is were also forced to leave the country. The The following resolution of th", Australian Council of Trade necessary to galvanise support in his defence. Unions Executive in respect to treatment of trade·union leaders 'Peronist government issued a decree for his ex­ in Argentina was passed on 20 May 1976: The broad response gained by the Munoz cam­ pulsion from Argentina. As a result he had to The ACTU expresses the strongest condemnation of the attack paign is a rebuke to those left groups in remain underground until the birth of a new son, on the Trade Union Movement and Working-Class Leaders by the Australia who through criminal sectarianism have which opened the possibility of meeting the con­ the Argentina Military Junta, as reported to us by the Inter­ abstained from this campaign of elementary class ditions for'legal immigration. This was bureau­ national Metal Workers' Federation. We demand an immediate cratically postponed up until the coup. Within a restoration of trade union basic rights and freedom. solidarity. Until recently the only left organ­ In particular, we call for an end to the harassment of Mario isation to endorse the campaign besides the few hours of assuming power, the Argentine mili­ Munoz Salas and his family, and a guarantee of protection of Spartacist League was the Socialist Workers tary began to search high and low for Mario Munoz their lives. Party, though their endorsement proved to be in order to shoot him. They stopped at nothing, The ACTU decides to protest to the Argentina Ambassador. purely formal -- they did not think it important pursuing his entire family and venting their fury We ask the President to raise these matters at the ILO [Inter­ on his companera and their children. The UN has national Labour Organisation] whilst he is in Geneva, with a enough to either mobilise for or participate in view to the ILO taking action in Argentina. the two demonstrations. When IS leader Tom taken no responsibility for his life, which hangs Further, the ICFTU [International Confederation of Free Trade O'Lincoln was asked in early May if his organis­ by a thread. Only international working-class Trade Unions] be requested to take all possible appropriate ation would endorse the campaign he replied that solidarity can save him! • action. the IS " being a democratic-centralist organis- (reprinted from Workers Vanguard no 107, 30 Apri! 1976) I Page Eight AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST June 1976 I t Painters and dockers at Garden Island GOyt mOyeS to smash union

Sharp attacks from the employers are threaten­ the court rejected the SPDU's central position paign as an attack on all Garden Island workers, ing the very existence of the militant Ship that flow-ons be automatic as in the past, and and show the Navy that they won't succeed in Painters and Dockers' Union (SPDU). To date declared that they will be decided on a case-by­ picking off one section of workers at a time. A painters and dockers at the Garden Island Naval case basis instead. When after the second strike Garden Island-wide strike run by the shop com­ Dockyards in Sydney have faced the brunt of the the Navy finally consented to discuss the ques­ mittee. in response to the next Navy provocation attack, a series of blatant provocations from the tions of the roster and transfers, State Secre­ could be key in bringing about a nationwide soli­ Navy. On 6 May, less than a week after Garden tary Issie Wyner was "very pleased with the re­ darity stoppage by other unions. Island painters and dockers returned to work from sult" because the "essential" demand, "that a 10-week strike against the Navy's attempt to the decisions should not'have been made by deny'the normal practice of automatic flow-ons management without consultation with us" had been For a revolutionary program for maritime workers. from the federal award, painters and dockers Ivon (Tribune, 26 May)! Echoing the union leader­ working in the boiler shop were ordered to work ship, the CPA's Tribune heralds the return to the But to attack the.gen~ral problems of ship­ on the dock. This broke a decades-long practice status quo (which is only a temporary delay, building workers there must be a fight for a pro­ of hiring new labour from the union roster rather pending negotiations with the Joint Industry Com­ gram in the ranks of all the maritime unions that than transferring workers between classifi­ mission) as "Island workers win round two." can link the fight at Garden Island, the closure cations. When the men refused an.rJ were stood of private dockyards such as Brisbane's Evans­ down, all workers walked off the job and the Deakin and the 600 threatened lay-offs at the painters and dockers began their second strike Preparations for "round three" Newcastle shipyards. Instead of reformist calls this year. But the Navy has made only a temporary for protection of Australian shipbuilders against tactical retreat. The essential question is .the foreign competition, the threat of closure in the union roster, and that must be non-negotiable -­ private shipyards must be answered by occupations The Navy has made its intentions clear from and the demand for their nationalisation without the outset. As the 10-week strike ended, the if it is undermined, with or without "consult­ Navy immediately announced that it would no ation", it will be a grave defeat for the union! longer abide by the roster system and that In the meantime the Navy is scheduling overtime workers sent from the union roster to fill jobs to clear up overdue work in preparation for would now be screened by the Navy to determine "round three". The. false complacency of the SPDU their "acceptability" before being hired. At a leaders is only a feeble attempt to cover up meeting of the Joint Industry Commission (Garden their utter failure to politically prepare the Island unions and management) on May 5, the Navy groundwork, in the ranks of their own union and arrogantly refused even to discuss their decrees. amongst all maritime workers, for the battles ahead. The roster system is the Navy's real target. Union control of hiring, which the union won in Nor can the reformist CPA, itself represe~ted '1946, is critically important to the union be­ in the SPDU bureaucracy, put forward any strategy cause of the casual nature of much of the work, to fight the Navy's attack. The bulletin of the especially in private industry. Previously CPA's shipbuilding branch, The Shipbuilder (May painters and dockers had to make the rounds of 1976), describes the current struggle as "the the shipyards virtually begging for daily employ-~ thin edge of the wedge in [a] massive move by ment while the employers were free to weed out Fraser and his big boss mates to bust. not only the militants. If the Navy wins its demands, the waterfront and tne dockyards, but the whole private employers will undoubtedly follow suit Australian working class ... ". But outside of and the roster would become a mere employment re­ platitudes about the need to strengthen and co­ ferral service, scarcely better than the pre-1946 ordinate rank-and-file organisation, all they system. offer is a vague call to "find our positive demands". "Red-baiting" covers for union bashing. With the desperate situation at Garden Island, In addition the right-wing Fairfax press has. unity among all shipyard workers is an urgent been fueling the dispute on the propaganda front, SPDU banner at May Day. necessity~ The workforce, however, is divided claiming that the Navy's actions stemmed from "a among a number of unions which has led to the deep con~ern ... that the Communist Party of compensation. Available work must be shared painters and dockers, a small union, consistently amongst all workers through a sliding scale of Australia is trying to build a strong union power going it alone. Amalgamations. moving towards in­ base through the Painters and Dockers' Union" dustrial unionism are at present blocked by craft hours with no loss in pay. (Sydney Morning Herald, 7 May) -- an assertion prejudices and bureaucratic self-interest. The The struggle against Fraser is the struggle based on the fact a number of ex-BLFers, expelled unity needed now can nevertheless be achieved to against capitalism; there is no viable solution from the BLF last year by Gallagher, are working a limited extent through the existing combined unless and until the whole system along with its as painters and dockers. Shortly afterwards the shop committee -- but only if it acts on behalf parasitic ruling class is overthrown. Only with Sydney Morning Herald printed a letter to the of and in the interest of all Garden Island a leadership committed to a revolutionary program editor (15 May) from a woman "disturbed" that workers and not just as a device for the re­ that has as its central aim a workers government ;'our defences" were "being held to ransom by in­ conciliation of sectional union interests. Thus to expropriate the capitalist class as a whole dustrial blackmail" and by "a left-wing union the shop committee should treat the Navy's cam- can the success of the struggle be guaranteed .• into the bargain". Next the secretary of the Government's Foreign Affairs and Defence Com­ mittee suggested to the House of Representatives that naval ship repair establishments be staffed Continued from page four Fourth International. Exploitation recognizes with military personnel or people subject to no national borders -- only under a revolutionary military law. The chauvinism and red-baiting are leadership ~entralized on a world wide scale will an attempt to isolate the militant painters and •• • Argentina socialism replace capitalist barbarism. dockers from other workers; behind it lies Fair­ Organizacion Trotskista Revolucionaria (OTR) fax's and the Navy's desire to repeat the union­ must be added to the lessons of the Chilean popu­ of Chile bashing job done on the NSW BLF. lar front, where the bourgeois solution to the 15 April 1976 crisis, Kennedy's Alliance for Progress, failed completely during Frei's Christian Democratic (reprinted from Workers Vanguard no 107, 30 April 1976) It is by now obvious that it is part of the government. Counterrevolutionary Stalinism Navy's strategy to weaken the union by provoking built the 'Popular Unity with the bourgeoisie -­ continual isolated strikes. Yet the leadership the Radical Party, the Social-Democratic Party, of the SPDU has consistently refused to spread Continued from page two the strikes to painters and dockers beyond Garden API and the mass workers parties (SP and CP), the Island, completely vitiating their call in the t.lIR acting as their left appendage, and then led second strike for sympathy action by wharfies and the proletariat to bloody defeat and destruction •• • raids of its class organizations, seamen. Despite the fact that the union leader­ are needed that the CL has been grossly victim­ ship recognised the Navy's moves as an attempt to We are experiencing the crisis of capitalism, ised by cop harassment and is under threat of smash the union, their motion at the 11 Hay stop­ its death agony. Only the proletariat led by an more. By itself the call for a trade-union in­ work meeting of all Sydney SPDU members called authentic Trotskyist party armed witn the revol­ quiry is essentially passive and amounts to for all painters and dockers, except those at utionary program can deliver the final blow. relying on the reformist trade-union bureaucracy Garden Island, to return to work! When the Navy This must be a party of irreconcilable opposition to defend democratic rights, the futility of moves again what is needed to begin with is to the bourgeoisie and its popular-frontist rep­ which was graphically illustrated by the exclus­ nation-wide strike action by painters and resentatives. The principal obstacles to the ive focus on a similar call for a union inquiry dockers, for only if the SPDU mobilises all its construction of a revolutionary workers' leader­ in the Barratt/O'Loughlin case (see "Reject own forces can it expect to get the support they ship in Argentina today are those deserters from Ducker-Police Assn whitewash!", ASp no 29). In absolutely need -- the shutting down of the whole the camp of Trotskyism who will try to raise anew that case the defence committee eventually dis­ waterfront nationally, to hit at the more vulner­ the putrified corpse of Peronism. These are the solved, still waiting to "hear from Ducker". able commercial shipping interests and to drive centrist and reformist renegades from the Tran­ the employers' attacks decisively backward. The damage done by the CL's opportunism in sitional Program, the destroyers of the Fourth this case can be seen in Melbourne, where the CL International: the USec Pabloism and the Organ­ initially voted in the defence committee for an Instead of making the political preparations izing COQmittee of the OCI. The bourgeoisie and SL proposal for a picket outside Prahran Court its system of oppression will not be defeated by for solidarity action against the Navy's cam­ for Armstrong's scheduled June 1 trial, only paign, the union leadership has resorted to manu­ anti-imperialist or anti-fascist fronts, or any other bombastic name which the betrayers may use later to beg off. For all its rhetoric about facturing a facade of optimism, hailing setbacks "militancy" and "struggle" the CL's politics are or stalemates as victories. At the settlement of to cover up their capitulation te the bourgeois program. in reality quite tame. Blinded by opportunism, the first strike SPDU NSW President John Rainford the CL leadership is reneging on the defence of claimed that the Arbitration Commission's de­ The crisis of humanity is the crisis of revol­ its own raided members, only helping to insure cision "vindicated" the workers' case in the dis­ utionary leadership of the working class, and that;the cops can continue to operate with im­ pute over flow-ons (Tribune,S May), when in fact this will only be overcome by the rebirth of the punity .• AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST June 1976 Page Nine

.....,...~.::'f,:/. Continued from page two is not because of political or tactical differ­ What did happen at the Chile demonstrations in ences with the proposed demonstration or because 1974 -- the only concrete instance you give? ·~he , you have some alternative plan of action that SPA, passively supported by the CPA, imposed a CL pia,s games • • you have refused to give them concrete aid but closed pla~form at the main rally to exclude any • because you don't. like the Spartacist League! speakers critical of the Allende regime. The paign, but instead, to preserve your "revolution­ Such petty sectarianism with regard to basic Spartacist League split from the Chile Action ary" purity, you broke away and directed your class obligations is beneath contempt. And to Committee (CAC) ("the far-left organising com­ venom at all of those who were trying in any way wait a month to endorse the Munoz campaign "as a mittee") only when you, along with the SWL, ca­ to do something to stop the repression in Chile. matter of principle" (while refusing to aid the pitulated to the Stalinists' blatant attack on This tactic of carrying on with long-winded de­ campaign in any way or mention it in your press) workers' democracy, and refused to fight it by bates in committees only to break away to pre­ ,is almost sick in its cynical dishonesty. agitating for an alternative open platform (see serve purity has become a hallmark of the Sparta­ ASp no 13). (While the SL fought for this, we cist League. If you have found in the past that For the sake of political hygiene, your reply never unilaterally "attempted to set up" any the Communist League has been more readily avail­ also demands some clarifications. We do not need platform as you lyingly claim.) All you suc­ able to listen to your schemes for sectarian to make a "critical and public assessment" of our ceeded in doing with your self-proclaimed "con­ activity, that has been because we were more tol­ role in defence and solidarity work. Our record cessions to the Stalinists' committees" was to erant of teh [sic] ridicule and abuse which your is clear -- for example in defence of individuals legitimise their closed platform of reformist activities bring upon yourselves. But we have such as Denis Walker or the Brisbane 3, in strike treachery then in order to get a hearing for learned through our experiences generally and support work such as around the LaTrobe campus your own speakers you split the demonstration to more specifically with you, to better conserve workers strike or the Melbourne printing strike set up your own closed platform! TIle CAC, sup­ our forces and time from useless and even harmful last year and our defence of arrested pickets in posedly the greatest achievement in the CL's initiatives on your part. the latter, the campaign we initiated to free search for "unity" (of yourselves, the SWL and Chilean MIR leaders Romero and Van Schowen in Antorcha), fell apart a few months later, after Until such time as you are able to make a early 1974 and our Jparticipation in the demon­ putting out some bulletins, showing some films, and attending one demonstration, initiated by the critical and public assessnent o~ your devisive strations around Chile and Timor. Much of it [sic] role in the "defence" and "solidarity" has been reported, along with your own record SL and held in Sydney on 28 Novemb.er 1974. (which bears far less scrutiny), in detail in movement you should not expect the Communist . \ League to view your suggestions and initiatives past issues of Australasian Bpartacist. through­ The 28 November demonstratlon completely re- except with suspicion. out all this work our approach has been rigorous­ futes your claim that our supposed "lack of ac­ ly consistent. tivity" after the September 11 1974 demonstration If in mQst recent times the Communist League prevented you from building unity in action. On has not taken initiatives to gain the sort of Defence work, by its very nature, demands an the contrary: a demonstration held in Melbourne united campaign outlined in l~litant, that is a approach that can, within the framework of prin­ on 22 November 1974 in defence of Chilean politi­ problem of our ability for the moment. That is ciple, mobilise groupings and individuals across cal prisoners was severely damaged by the Commu­ not a problem of our perspectives which we pub­ a range of often sharply differing political out­ nist League's unexplained failure to carry out lish for all to see. If the perspectives are looks. It demands the widest possible united ac­ ,the tasks it had accepted at planning m(;letings correct, if they truly assess the immediate needs tion and, as a necessary complement, political and by its unprincipled boycott of the demon­ of the working class and outline an organis­ autonomy for the participants -- the ability to stration (see ASp no 15). ational means of achieving those needs, then it raise their own program and to criticise others. is for the whole of the left or any group Our approach is nothing new; it is based on the Happily our perspectives are quite different to take them up and begin this work. We do not principles of the united front -- "unity in ac­ from yours. You are eager to liquidate your or­ claim our perspectives as guarded property, ex­ tion, freedom of criticism" -- in the tradition ganisation and your program, your "deeper politi­ clusive to us only. of the early Comintern and the Trotskyist move­ cal perspective", into propaganda blocs and non­ ment. Of course opportunists will try to sab­ aggression pacts in the hope of a short-cut to David Fagan otage such a principled approach either by im­ "influence". We are not. But what should be' for the Communist League posing on the united front a social program pointed out to your supporters and to class­ Sydney Branch rather than limited, clearly defined objectives, conscious militants is that while today you can 28 May 1976 or by suppressing workers' democracy to avoid only play stupld sectarian games with the lives embarrassing criticism, or both -- that is what .of desperately endangered comrades overseas to­ Spartacist League replies: one expects. We do not apologise for fighting morrow the vacillating, cowardly politics of hard in such committees against this sort of op­ which you are a part have the possibility at some Your reply to our proposal damns you. For portunism, nor for splitting if a principled point of tying the working class to the reformist despite your self-righteous attempts to cover it basis cannot be established. What centrists such traitors in a life and death situation. That is under evasions and outright dishonesty, one thing as yourselves cannot tolerate is our refusal to the very nature of centrism and the gulf between is perfectly clear: you have refused to join in subordinate our political independence -- what us. acti vi ty that could help save l-runoz and Enriquez. you refer to as our revolutionary purity -- to Their lives, and thousands of others that they the exigencies of a rotten bloc of fake "unity", Your endorsement of the Mario Munoz defence symbolise, hang in the balance. Enriquez is nor our insistence on our right to put forward campaign is.to be welcomed, precisely because it already in the hands of Pinochet's murderous revolutionary criticism in the context of soli­ stands in complete cont·radiction to the rest of Chilean torturers. But what is this to you? It darity in action. your letter .•

Continued from page one taken in by the idea that unity against the struggles today are political struggles, in which bosses' offensive requires a.closing of labour's in the fight against the government the working ranks behind the official leadership against the class, whether 'it is conscious of it or not [!] common enemy. They are being encouraged to do so is actually entering the struggle for power"! So Wages, Medibank • • • by the likes of the new ALP deputy leader, Tom what the Healyites really mean by the struggle indexation increase was not granted issued early Uren, whose rhetoric about "mass action" outside for power is -- trade-union struggles! Aside in May by Stalinist BWIU leader Pat Clancy. But parliament (Sydney Morning Herald. 23 April) is from its absurdity, this equation of reform now, following the Lynch budget, Victorian unions intended to make workers forget the anti-working­ struggle with revolution is wholesale Pabloism: have called a four-hour stoppage on June 16 over class policies which he was responsible for pur­ if the working class can fight for power unaon­ Medibank, and the left union bureaucrats are suing as a minister in the capitalist government. saiously, the role of the vanguard party is re­ agitating for a national four-hour strike of pro­ But the fight against Fraser must become a duced to tailing the existing level of struggle, test against the cutbacks -- sometime in June or struggle against the whole capitalist system; and that is, the reformist misleadership in practice. July. A serious fight requires more than these that requires a struggle to oust the reformist token stoppages designed to act as a safety valve misleaders of all hues who remain wedded to that Precisely because wage struggles or struggles for rank-and-file anger. Medibank cutbacks and system. against Fraser can at best achieve a temporary the indexation fraud could be defeated by strong, victory which can only up the stakes of the class swift action, but never through foot-dragging, struggle, it is necessary to have a program which weak-kneed gestures! The largest organisations to the left of the links the felt needs of the workers at present ALP claiming to represent some sort of alterna­ levels of consciousness and struggle to the need AMWU leaders share bosses' fears tive, the "independent" CPA and the Moscow-loyal for a workers government, precisely what the The powerful Amalgamated Metal Workers Union Socialist Party of Australia, are both reformist bureawrats' "unity against Fraser", is designed (N~~) is adding to the 1976 log of claims the to the ?ore: as the behaviour of the CPA's Baird to obscure. It is characteristic of these cen­ demand that the metal industry employers rec­ and the SPA's Clancy demonstrate, they are them­ trists masquerading as Trotskyists that they drop ompense workers for the Medibank levy via the selves tied to the reformist bureacracy. While this demand in their truncated versions of the ~etal trades award. Not only is this an entirely the SPA talks about a popular-frontist union of transitional program. Their opportunism makes inadequate substitute fo,r a real fight to defeat all "progressives" in an "anti-Fraser coalition", the CL and SLL incapable of anything but follow­ the levy outright; the official leadership of the Tribune, which echoes both the SPA and Tom Uren, ing the reformists into betrayal. AMl~ has no intention of conducting any serious tenders economic advice to the liberal bour­ struggle in the already overdue 1976 award cam­ geoisie, opining in a 12 May editorial that the paign. Instead, the metal union tops have Lynch package "makes no sense economically"! For national strikes against the Medibank cut­ already made an agreement with the employers for backs! Extend Medibank -- free quality medical a joint campaign to demand greater tariff protec­ Centrists' rhetoric tails reformists care for aU including f:t'ee abortion and contra­ tion for the bosses. AMWU Commonwealth Organiser Looking for a shortcut to revolution, the much ception on demand! Jim Baird, a member of the Communist Party of smaller centr.ists of the Socialist Labour League Smash the indexation "guidelines" wage freeze -­ Australia (CPA), joined the protectionist chorus: (SLL) and the Communist League (CL) try to cash for a full automatic cost-of-living adjustment "After hearing the employers we find they share in on mass resentment of Fraser, with their ident­ based on the highest wage ,in the industry! our worst fears that manufacturing industry is ical,fake-agitational campaigns to "force the No mo:t'e sackings -- for an immediate 35-hour week doomed unless the Governm~nt changes its poli­ Liberals to resign" or "bring down the Fraser with no loss in pay for all workers! For a slid­ cies" (quoted in The Australian, 22 April)! government". At present such demands have no ing seale of hours: Shorten the workweek to pro­ Protectionism not only results in the export real content -- except that of accomodating to vide jobs for all with no pay loss! of unemployment to workers in other countries; the mistaken belief of the masses that Whitlam's Reject proteationism! Expropriate the metal its nationalist class collaboration helps rival AL~ is qualitatively better than Fraser. It industry! leads to no practical conclusion for action, be­ national capitalist classes to use the prolet­ Government hands off the unions! For the com­ ariat as cannon-fodder in inter-imperialist wars, cause it is not really a call to action but either a political program of limiting the class plete independence of the labour movement from and ultimately its chauvinist logic will rebound the bourgeois state! Abolish-all anti-union against migrant workers. Such is the logic of struggle to the struggle against one specific capitalist government, or an economist tailing of laws! reformism -- pitting one section of workers Oust Whitlam/Vl'en/Hawke/Halfpenny! For a against another in a fight over a shrinking existing struggles disguised with a "political" label. leadership of the working class pledged to exp:t'o­ supply of crumbs from the bosses. priate the capitalist class! Class-conscious workers disgusted with the be­ The SLL's Nick Beams really gave the game away Down with the Fraser Government! For a workers trayals of Hawke and Whitlam may nevertheless be in Workers News (6 May): "all trade-union goverrrV1lent based on workers' organisations! .' Page Ten AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST June 1976 Continued from page twelve duce concrete attacks on the actual policies of There is nothing inherently revolutionary the leadership, completely divorcing theory and about "on the job" organisation. l~at is decis­ practice. The "alternative program" they have ive, in either shop committees or trade unions, Old wares. put forward, "A revolutionary strategy", is a is not the form but the content -- political pro­ • • misnomer. It is neither very programmatic nor an gram and leadership. But here, where it counts, party to their position by arguing politics, alternative, but an eclectic and inconsistent the LT has no alternative to Aarons -- its pro­ not by organising a faction and recruiting for patchwork with a potted history of world and Aus­ gram is almost exactly the same. Under the it." tralian capitalism, a number of quite incredible heading "Fight for socialist change" they list stupidities (such as comparing the defeat of the only three points: the same Kautskyite concep­ It has not always been so clear. In April 1975 proletariat in Germany in the 1930s with the ef­ tion as Aarons of "expanded democracy and control the "comrades associated with the left" expelled fects of the Cold War in Australia and drawing an over society itself", nationalisation of the Steve Haran (then a member of the CPA) from mem­ analogy between trade unions and rape crisis monopolies (quite consciously omitting a call for bership in the LT because they didn't like his centres), one of the idealist "models" of social­ no compensation, making it indistinguishable from political views. But this is not meiely an adop­ ism of which the CPA is so fond, and a general reformism) and "support and fight for the demands tion of a form of words by which to comply with Australian parochialism, defining the CPA's aims of the social movements". the requirements of staying in the CPA. Rather purely in terms of the Australian revolution, and it is a capitulation in principle to the CPA totally failing to address any of the burning Revolution is postulated as a linear progres­ leadership. It is now, in the view of these issues facing the proletariat outside of Aus­ sion from today's (reformist) shop committees to people, "mistaken about left politics" to believe tralia. soviet power; the insurrection and smashing of that the struggle for a political program in the Nevertheless the LT document focuses on sev­ the state power become essentially a mopping-up CPA must be through organised recruitment to a eral positions which are clearly decisive for operation to rid an obstacle to the further program. They either believe that the revol­ spread of soviets. But what if the possibility utionary program can be embodied not only in a of insurrection arises before soviets are formed? collective but equally in a scattering of indi­ I~at if, as in 1917 Russia or 1918 Germany, the viduals or alternatively that the Aarons leader­ soviets are controlled by ~lenshevik reformists? ship adequately embodies a revolutionary program, I~at the LT omit from their mechanical scenarios with only such few and slight flaws as -are per­ is precisely the factor that can alone guarantee fectly capable of correction without organised success in a revolutionary crisis, whether the opposition. For a revolutionary organisation the best organisational forms already exist or not -­ right of faction, to be able to politically or- - the revolutionary party able to win mass support, ganise internally against the party leadership the fundamental prerequisite for the seizure of within the context of rigorous external disci­ power. pline, is not just a question of abstract democ­ racy but a necessity for principled political struggle when fundamental differences inevitably LT gets a practical lesson in syndicalism arise under the impact of the class struggle. Not even on the question of the state can the LT pin down the CPA. Their introduction notes The CPA leadership's determination to stamp that the (majority) draft outline "inad­ out any element of disciplined political struggle quately[!] characterises the capitalist state" not associated with any power base is clearly but exactly how we never get to find out; there expressed in an amendment to the draft consti­ is nothing of its treacherous "inadequacy", prac­ tution by "L Aarons (Sydney)". Aarons' amendment tically exposed in last November's political proposes that, except with the permission of the crlS1S. Their "analysis" of the degeneration of party leadership and in bi-annual four-month pre­ the Russian revolution and the lack of workers' congress discussions, there can be no meetings 6f democracy in China, Cuba and Indochina is en­ oppositionists. Even when meetings of oppo­ tirely objectivist -- a crude pseudo-materialism sitionists are allowed any interested party mem­ apologising for the betrayals of Stalinism by ber must be supplied with any documents to be declaring in effect that Stalinism was/is inevi­ discussed and be allowed to participate in the Sydney University Communist Group at May Day. table. And there is no mention of the way for­ meeting. ward for the workers in these countries. Reform? its supporters; what they think distinguishes Political revolution? The LT isn't saying; but it Aarons' amendment legalises the subjection of them from the Aarons "centre" and the Taft wants to maintain relations l"lith all (unspeci­ any oppositional grouping to the intervention of "right". The most important of these is th·e fied) "revolutionary" groupings along with the the leadership's agents even while it is in the syndicalist fetishisation of job-level organis­ political representatives of what it defines as process of working out its programmatic positions ation outside. of and parallel to the unions. the "ruling bureaucracies" of the deformed and fighting out subordinate differences. This According to the LT's "alternative program", workers states! will make it extremely difficult for any real "communists work to assist, as a major left opposition to build a tendency in the CPA on priority, organisation in the working class on Just as it turned its back on organising to the basis of recruitment to clearly worked-out and between jobs, industries and areas, and to struggle politically for its own program in the openly stated political positions. But it and extend and link these organisations .... Trade CPA, the LT has turned its back on the central makes it quite inevitable that there will be con­ unions and other workers' organisations thrown task in the working class: the necessity for tinual conscious underground cliquism as the only up in the economic class struggle, such as revolutionaries to organise to struggle politi­ available method of opposition. shop committees, are essentially defensive in cally for the revolutionary program. Thus it is character. These latter organisations, how­ rather fitting, and a damning practical refuta­ "Analysis" without consequences ever, based on the workplace are the embryo tion of the LT's idealisation of rank-and-filism of the future offensive organisations of the divorced from political prograEI, for it to be long-time CPA militant and one of the key leaders The existence of the LT has been a continuing class." (Praxis, May 1976) sore spot with the Aarons leadership because, of the NSW power workers' rank-and-file organi­ There is no place left for "defensive" unions -­ sation ECCUDO, Jock Syme, who, in a sharp polem­ however incompletely, unseriously and timidly, it there are no long-term reforms to be had. The ical rebuke in the same issue of Praxis, gave his still questioned basic reformist assumptions and trade unions can either grow increasingly balked at the worst betrayals of the class by the personal backing to the ban on organised tenden­ together with the state power, serving as second­ cies and the end of the LT .• party trade-union bureaucrats. But the LT was ary instruments of imperialist capitalism for the rendered impotent by crippling political flaws; subordination and disciplining of workers and for / , it was capable only of irritating the party lead­ obstructing revolution, or, on the contrary, they r------__~ ership but not of fighting it. can become instruments of the revolutionary move­ ment of the proletariat. Documents Initially emerging out of a layer of ~cademics To define trade unions as inherently "defens­ around the 'journal Intervention who joined the ive" is reformist in essence, erecting a barrier Price: of the CPA in 1972-73, the LT's influence has since re­ between reforms and revolution. I~en the rank­ mained mostly confined to a closed petty­ ONE DOLLAR Bolshevik and-file are won to a revolutionary program by an bourgeois milieu in and around the CPA. Badly organised grouping fighting politically against compromised when in July of last year they voted, Tendency along with the Aaronsites, for the expulsion of the incumbent reformist leadership, trade unions issues 1-3 can be transformed into a revolutionary instru­ (the documenta.-y record of the Bolshevik Tendency member Steve. Haran for his distributed by ment, or, depending on the actual course of Trotskyist opPOsrtionists eJiciuded from "disloyal" views and having denounced factional­ the Communist Party of Australia i events, the ,fight can give rise to other organis­ Spartacist League, ism as an original sin, they can present nothing, GPO Box 3473, outside of the desire to remain a permanent or­ ational forms infused with the consciousness of ganised clique, to justify their existence. revolutionary struggle. The LT's belief that the Sydney, NSW 2001. trade unions are inevitably defensive, economist, one dollar reformist, becomes just an apology for CPA union After almost three years, the LT is now barely bureaucrats. a shell. Its South Australian group around SA '- ./ State Secretary Rob Durbridge, formerly its main r strength, is now firmly a part of the CPA bu­ reaucracy.In Melbourne almost the entire LT " grouping follow'ed the logic of their syndicalist, Australasian liquidationist politics and limped quietly out of the party to drop out or regroup around the (il. openly syndicalist publication Link. In Sydney the LT has partially decomposed into two loose groups along the lines of different social SPARTACIST cliques. One group has tended to submerge itself in Link-type syndicalisiJl, while the other, con­ centrated in the CPA's tertiary education branch and centring around the Sydney University Commu­ nist Group, has partially distanced itself from Subscribe 12 issues. - $2 the most extreme expressions of LT syndicalism and workerist class guilt and is characterised by a somewhat adventurist student-centred, petty­ NAME mai I to/make cheques payable to: bourgeois activism and a taste for abstract aca­ ADDRESS ___ _ demic I'.larxism., Spartacist Publications, CITY STATE GPO Box 3473, The LT's pre-Congress documents are charac­ POSTCODE Sydney, NSW, 2001. terised by abstract generalities that never pro- AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST June 1976 Page Eleven CPA 25th Congress to adopt new program Ol,d wares in new packages

For some years now, the Communist Party of "The, parliamentary opposition will be ineffec­ Australia (CPA) has been engaged in a continuing tive unless there is mass action outside par­ attempt to establish a niche and a base in the liament .... If the Labor parliamentary opposi­ Australian labour movement for an alternative re­ tion really wants to fight Fraser, it will formist party to the ALP. Two years ago the have to base itself upon the mass movement party's 24th Congress -- the second after the outside parliament in a completely new way." split of the hard Moscow-liners who went on to (Tribune, 7 April 1976) the right to public criticism of the party -- as form the Socialist Party 6f Australia (SPA) -­ long as it is maintained "as a matter of personal opinion". strongly endorsed CPA National Secretary Laurie This is hardly "new" -- it is the same impotent Aarons' call for "bolder independence" from Mos­ strategy of attempting to push the Labor leaders cow and a more critical stance towards the ALP This hostility to Leninism is in order for the gradually over into socialism through "mass pres- CPA. Reformism needs external freedom of criti­ against attempts led by Victorian CPA leader sure" that the CPA has followed for decades. ' Bernie Taft to develop a more conciliatory atti­ cism and organisational looseness both to allow tude towards both the Stalinists and the ALP. its trade-union bureaucrats to do as they please Following the split with the lloscow-liners the and to provide a safety valve for dissidents. In Preparations for the 25th Congress, to take place CPA had to establish its ,anti-Stalinist "demo­ in mid-June, reveal only a continuation of the n practice "freedom of criticism, unity in action" cratic credentials, a process which had its be­ always means unity behind the bureaucrats and the CPA's basic reformist course despite some changes ginnings in an identification with the Czechoslo­ in orientation. apparatus and, within limits, freedom of criti­ vakian "Prague Spring" 0:: 1968. The resulting cism to cater to the differing bureaucratic appe­ organisational and political liberalisation pro­ tites and antagonisms within the party. At the time of the last congress we pointed duced an inevitable pressure towards dissolution out that the differences between Taft and Aarons and extreme political heterogeneity which was were merely tactical (see ASp no 9, June 1974 and potentially dangerous in allowing the possibility The newly reasserted 'limits of democracy are ASp no II, August 1974). The shift in the CPA of the development of tendencies hostile to re­ clarified in the material on the right to organ­ leadershii)' s orientation in response to the formism. ised oppositional te;'ldencies. In a note ;rOn ten­ events of the intervening years has now proven dencies" by three Sydney spokesmen of the CPA's this. The demise of the NSW BLF led by conser­ The new constitution 'that the Congress will be Left Tendency (LT), Peter Murphy, Craig Johnston vationist Jack Mundey, the reaction of the CPA's approving along with a rehashed "new" program is and Gary Nichols (Praxis, May 1976), they say: trade-union bureaucrats to the impact of the re­ specifically designed to counter the widespread cession, the October-November political crisis anarchistic, new-leftist organisational habits "First of all, comrades associated with the and the fall of the Labor Government have re­ that have become a barrier to efficient reformist Left do not form an organisation, a faction, sulted in a pulling together of all wings of the functioning. It also codifies on an organisa­ and any individuals referring to themselves as party leadership, particularly Aarons and Taft, tional level the break from Stalinist reformism 'members' of the Left tendency are mistaken by suppressing the main active sources of to social democracy by explicitly adopting the about left politics. Comrades associated with conflict. menshevik principle of "freedom of criticism, the left want to win over the majority of the unity in action". The draft constitution clearly The end of the "Prague Spring" assumes what is now standard practice in the CPA, Continued on page eleven The end of the Mundey era of CPA union bureau­ crats meant the sealing off of what had been a potential avenue to enlarging its toehold in the labour bureaucracy through a militant reformism typified by "workers' control" tactics and "green n bans , as well as the partial destruction of the Israel out of the ~'Iundey-BLF milieu. What remains of the CPA's trade-union base is represented by the more re­ sponsible reformist, if occasionally militant­ talking, bure~ucrats typified by John Halfpenny and Laurie Carmichael in the AMWU, South Coast occupied territories! Labor Council head Merv Nixon and Queensland B1'lIU 1 eader Hughie Hamil ton, all of whom are, unlike the former BLF leadership, firmly tied in The recent waves of militant thl,art the possibility of to the rest of the union bureaucracy. protests, strikes and demon­ Israel's relinquishing any part The political crisis and the fall of the Labor strations in the tOlVJ1S and vil­ of the West Bank. Government eliminates a major bone of contention -lages of the Israeli-occupied within the CPA hierarchy, allowing it to move \'lest Bank,and their vicious re­ Israel must immediately and back into the shadow of "unity against Fraser" pression by the Israeli miljtary unconditionally get out of the where the conflict between the need to tail the starkly reemphasise the continu­ occupied territories. Yet, as ALP and the need to set itself off from the in­ ing assault on the national Palestinian nationalists will creasingly exposed treachery of the I'lhitlar.t rights of the Palestinian quickly point out, the pre-1967 government becor.tes moot '. Yet although fake, people. The outpouring of anti­ borders of the state of Israel Aarons' "anti-reformist" rhetoric previously Zionist outrage, fueled by a are also, as in the clear case directed against Taft is not accidental and does brutal and humiliating foreign of Galilee, "occupied terri­ reflect an appetite to compete with the ALP for armed occupation, was triggered tories". The Hebrew nation was influence over the masses, for expanding its base by the provocative sprouting 'of forged out of the forcible dis­ "illegal" Israel i squatter persal and destruction of the in the labour bureaucracy. This does not at all settlements in Samaria, the entail any fight against reformism or even basic Palestinian nation. But a truly ALP class-collaborationist policies, but rather northern section of the West democratic 'resolution of the criticising the ALP variety of reformism. Bank. The Samaria settlements, just national claims of the Pal­ established on the initiative of estinian people will never be In the crucible of sharpened class struggle the Gush Emunim (Band of the achieved by some West Bank mini­ during last year's political crisis the CPA Faithful), a Jewish clerical­ state or through the denial of emerged as the loyal left appendage of Labor re­ fascist movement that mobilises the Hebrew people's right of forl:1ism. Its goal became, in Tribune's words, to under the banner of "the in­ self-determination. The so­ "put the Labor government back and force it to alienable right of every Jew to called "democratic secular Pal­ adopt policies which express the people's de­ every part of Israel", have been estine" of the PLO which pro­ mands". It called for a class-collaborationist implicitly endorsed by the Is­ jects the peaceful cohabitation bloc of "all democrats" against Fraser, diverted raeli Government. Like the "of­ of I1ebrews and Arabs without the agitation for a general strike into protest stop­ ficial" settlement plans on the prerequisite of a socialist pages, and transformed Tribune into a daily un­ Golan Heights, along the Jordan transformation wou~d lead merely critical propaganda organ for the Uren stripe of valley, in Judea, Gaza and the to another Lebanon. Only within "left" Laborism. Gulf of Aqaba, they will con­ the context of a socialist fed­ stitute' a front-line border eration of the Near East can the The National Committee draft political resol­ guard in Israel's conflict with just national claims of the ution for the Congress explicitly defines the neighbouring Arab states and, Palestinians be equitably re­ CPA's projected "anti-Fraser coalition" as a for the Zionist right wing, Workers Vanguard solved. pressure group on and base for the ALP reform­ ists: Page Twelve AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST June 1976