• AUSTRALIA $2.00 • BELGIUM BF60 • CANADA $2.00 • FRANCE FF1 0 • ICELAND Kr150 • NEW ZEALAND $2.50 • SWEDEN Kr1 0 • UK £1.00 • U.S. $1.50 INSIDE Behind Belgrade's carnage in Yugoslavia THE l.ntemational Socialist Review- PAGES 9-16 A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF WORKING PEOPLE VOL. 56/NO. 28 AUGUST 14. 1992 Washington threatens Rightist killers military assault on Iraq terrorzze• BY FRANK FORRESTAL As the Militant goes to press, Washington is stepping up military pressure against the Sarajevo Iraqi government. Patriot missiles and mis sile launchers from a U.S. base in Germany BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS have been sent to Kuwait. Joint military SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina- exercises involving 2,000 U.S. Marines and As the French Hercules plane, carrying Kuwaiti forces are scheduled to take place United Nations insignia, landed at the air in the Persian Gulf this week. port here July 23, explosions could be heard Since early March Washington has been throughout the area. Incessant artillery and beating the '!Var drums. Its latest threats sniper frre by Serbian rightist forces based against Iraq are the most serious since the in the surrounding hills has made every day Gulf War cease-fife agreement was imposed a living hell forthe city's remaining 300,000 in 1991. residents. The crisis began July 5 when the Iraqi The plane, on which this reporter flew in, government denied United Nations officials brought another shipment of food for the access to the agriculture ministry building city's besieged population. UN convoys are in Baghdad. The UN officials claimed the now virtually the only means to get into ministry housed documentation on Iraq's Sarajevo. weapon systems and demanded the right to The three-mile ride from the airport, con search it. trolled by 1,500 UN troops, to the city's With each passing day, U.S. officials made burned-out center is one of the riskiest ones it clear they were preparing a massive bomb you can take. Also on July 23, Cable News ing campaign. Network camera woman Maggie Moth had "Pentagon officials suggested that they are her jaw blown off by a "dum-dum" explo drafting plans for days and even weeks of al sive bullet frred by a sniper just outside the lied bombing," reported a Wall Street Journal airport. article.Republican senator Richard Lugar ad The main street that run~> the length of the vocated "targeting Iraq's electric grid, its road city from north to south is best known as system and, specifically, the road from Jordan "Sniper alley." Dozens of people have been by which it receives many supplies, if an air Wclshington has 21,000 military personnel and hundreds of warplanes stationed in shot there by snipers on top of a few build attack comes," the Journal reported. Persian Gulf. Detailed plans have been readied for extensive bombing of Iraq. ings controlled by rightist killers led by According to the U.S. Defense Depart Radovaj Karadzic's Serbian Democratic ment, 21,000 U.S. military personnel are The big-business press relentlessly compliance with the cease-fire agreements, Party. stationed in the Persian Gulf area. More than cranked up its prowar propaganda as the I will support American participation in Drivers avoid it by flooring the gas pedal a dozen F-117 Stealth fighters, along with latest crisis mounted. "Time to Punish Hus such action." to race through a parallel back street. All the 140 Air Force warplanes, including F-15Es, sein - Again," editorialized the New York The tension was finally broken when the high-rise buildings downtown have been A-lOs, and F-111 s, are currently in Saudi Times on July 24. Democratic presidential Iraqi government agreed to allow UN in bombed by dozens of shells. More than a Arabia. Seventeen warships armed with contender Bill Clinton joined the chorus: spectors to search its agriculture ministry in third of the rooms at the Holiday Inn, the Tomahawk missiles are in the Gulf and the "Let there be no mistake. If the United Baghdad July 26. Qaiming victory, Presi- biggest hotel at the city's center, have been Red Sea. Nations decides to use force to ensure Iraqi Continued on Page 20 destroyed. The hotel is now inhabited by a few dozen foreign journalists. One reporter, staring at a 2-inch bullet hold in the cracked window of his room on the fourth floor is nervously assured by the War, depression face working people hotel maid that everything is okay because Continued on Page 19 Events of the past two weeks, from Iraq, as evidenced both by Bush's currying less, not more stable. They are part of a Washington's steps toward war against Iraq favor with Saddarn Hussein right up to the world of deepening instability, driven by the to Ross Perot's dramatic abandonment ofhis time of Baghdad's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, opening of the new world depression and presidential campaign, have sharply brought and by the goals of the war itself. intensifying inter-imperialist rivalries. 1992 International before working people the reality of a future But coming out of that war, both Iraq and The continuing turmoil in politics in the Socialist Conference of more brutal wars and economic depres the Middle East as a whole have become Continued on Page 22 sion for growing layers of the population. Washington is deadly serious in its prep arations for an attack on Iraq under United The Nations cover. While the latest crisis, over Socialist candidate concludes South Africa fact-finding tour Communist EDITORIAL Manifesto BY GREG McCARTAN zations, "broad numbers of people are dis JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Es cussing and deciding themselves what ac Today whether UN weapons inspectors would gain telle DeBates, Socialist Workers candidate tions will be most effective in showing the entry to the agriculture ministry building in for vice-president of the United States, con regime that it must stop the violence and Baghdad, was averted, it is only a matter of cluded a one-week fact-finding tour here accept majority rule." August 5-9 at Oberlin time before Bush and the regime of Saddam July 15 in the midst of a sharpening conflict Another way this is reflected, she said, is College, Oberlin, Ohio Hussein will be at the brink again. The Bush between the white minority regime and anti the fact that "so many people I met with - administration has detailed plans for mas apartheid forces. township residents, rank-and-file union Conference classes and feature sive bombing and destruction oflraq's elec What she found was "the growing polit members, student leaders -expressed a trical, oil-refining, and other industrial in presentations will discuss how ical self-confidence and organization of mil real interest in meeting a communist run frastructure. fighters and revolutionary lions of working people and youth who are ning for high public office. They were inter minded workers can draw on Washington's war moves take place as the determined to bring an end to apartheid and ested in an intensive exchange of ideas. brutal Hussein regime begins reasserting establish a democratic republic," DeBates They wanted to know about the struggles the historic lessons of the itself on several fronts, including once more said in an interview. working people and youth in the United working class and communist declaring that Kuwait belongs to Iraq. "The way in which the campaign of mass States are involved in." movement in confronting the For its part Washington feels the urgent action, aimed at forcing the government to DeBates's tour was hosted by the ANC wars, racism, and economic need to shore up its influence in the vital meet demands put forward by the African Youth League, which organizes tens of thou crisis of capitalism. Middle East region, especially with the National Congress (ANC}, is being con sands of young people in the struggle major power in the area, Iran, extending its ducted is just one sign of this," the socialist against apartheid. The Youth League has For more information call (216) influence more widely, from Afghanistan to candidate said. Through branches and re chapters across the country and is headquar 861-6150 or phone numbers listed the former Soviet republics of central Asia. gions of the ANC, the ANC Youth League, tered in Johannesburg, along with the ceo- onpage20. Washington seeks a compliant and reliable trade union locals, and community organi- Continued on Page 5 Britain: Communists fuse with young socialist groups- page7 ~ IN ~ BRIEf______Canada jobless rate increases rate of interest without cutting into the amount received by the creditor. Canada's jobless rate hit 11 .6 percent in 0&Y reported a net loss of $2.05 billion June, the highest among the major industri Canadian (U.S. $1.72 billion) for the 1992 alized nations. This is up from 11.2 percent fiscal year. On May 14, O&Y filed for the in May. equivalent of bankruptcy protection in a To Andrew Pyle, an economist at MMS Inter ronto court. 0&Y blamed the loss on weak national, pointed to the "still general weak ness in the real estate, energy, and forestry ness in Canada's economy" while Doug Por markets. The $2.05 billion loss compares ter, economist at the Bank of Nova Scotia, with a $359 million loss a year earlier. said that he could not rule out a 12 percent jobless rate before the end of the year. Trial of chemical plant officials begins in Bhopal, India Thberculosis on the rise The trial of nine Indian officials of Union The number of cases of tuberculosis has Carbide India Ltd. has begun. The nine are been rising steadily over the past three years. charged with manslaughter. This is the start More than 26,283 cases were reported in the of the first criminal case stemming from the United States in 1991. Experts estimate that gas leak of Union Carbide's Bhopal plant 39,000 "excess" cases have occurred since eight years ago. At least 4000 people were 1985. Many of the new cases are among killed in December 1984 when methyl iso high-risk groups, which include people with cyanate leaked from the pesticide factory. AIDS and the homeless. The Indian government had initially sued Don Kopanoff from the Center for Dis Union Carbide for $3 bilJion in damages but ease Control reports, "The norm has been to in a 1989 agreement accepted $470 million decrease [public health department) budgets and absolved the company of criminal liabil with no thought of whether proper faci lities One thousand youth rallied July 12 at a Greek border post across from Yugoslavia, ity. Union Carbide has paid the money al are there in case TB resurges." protesting US., German, and other imperialist threats of military intervention in though the600,000 people who claimeddam Yugoslavia. They were mainly high school and college students and young workers from ages have yet to receive their share. The Cen Drought in southern Africa cities around Greece. Youth organizations from Thrkey, Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, tral Bureau of Investigation has charged Britain, Serbia, Sweden, and the United States also took part. Most had eome to Union Carbide, its former chairman Warren A drought is devastating the II countries participate in a youth camp sponsored by the Communist Youth of Greece and the V\brld Anderson, and Union Carbide Hong Kong in the southern third of Africa, threatening Federation of Democratic Youth. A message from WFDY read at the rally called for a with manslaughter in the case. the lives of millions. Outside of South Af worldwide youth movement against the imperialist embargo and military intervention rica, 17 million are under the direct threat in Yugoslavia. The banner above says " No to imperialism; for peace and friendship in \\ar triggers famine in Somalia of starvation. And South Africa, usually an the Balkans." Two million Somalis, one-third of the exporter of cornmeal, will have to import country's population, are at risk of death by five million tons by next May. Court denies woman abortion pill effective chemical method of abortion that starvation in the next six months caused by The countries that have been worst hit by would make the right to choose abortion In a 7-2 vote, the Supreme Court refused fighting that has destroyed the country's the drought are Mozambique, Malawi, more accessible to millions of women. agricultural base and hindered the delivery Zimbabwe, and Zambia. Zimbabwe usually to order the return of pills containing the drug RU486 to Leona Benten. RU486, which in of relief food, according to the International produces 450,000 tons of sugar. This year Anti-Semitic headlines in Japan Committee of the Red Cross. About 25 the cane crop was just 12,000 tons. duces abortion, has not been approved for use in the United States. Benten obtained the drug Amidst its financial turmoil Japan is see percent of the nation's cattle and many of Bulawayo, the country's second largest city, ing an increase in anti-Semitism and "Jew its camels have died. A severe regional has only a 40-day supply of water left. in London and flew into Kennedy Interna tional Airport on July I in order to challenge ish conspiracy" theories. A headline in the drought has exacerbated the situation. the federal prohibition on importing the pill. Shukan Post, a Japanese magazine with a Civil war broke out in Somalia in January Russia sends troops to Georgia The drug was seized by customs agents and circulation of 800,000. read "Stock price 1991 , after the ouster of President Siad manipulation by Jewish Capital." The arti Barre. In November, fighting in the capital One thousand Russian paratroopers have Benten sued. The test case was the result of cle claims that "Jewish money" engineered city of Mogadishu killed an estimated joined Georgian troops on the Georgian bor work by the National Abortion Rights Mobi der near South Ossetia. North Ossetia is a part lization which had sought a volunteer to chal the 27 percent drop in the Tokyo stock 30,000 people and left the city in ruins. The famine and the war have pushed more than of Russia, while South Ossetia is in Georgia. lenge the law. On July 14, a federal judge market this year. 300,000 refugees into northern Kenya and Fighting has broken out between forces in ordered the pills returned to Senten, but an Other targets charged with being part of a appeals court quickly blocked the order. war against Japan include overseas Chinese forced thousands more to risk their lives on South Ossetia that want the area to join North dangerous ships headed for Yemen and the Ossetia and the Georgian government, which money, and Ross Perot, who, the Shukan Post In tests in several countries, RU486 has Kenyan coast. The Red Cross estimates that wants to hang on to the territory. article claims, made a million dollars out of been shown to be in some respects safer than Tokyo's fmancial troubles. A number of for from 2 to 2.5 million Somalis - more than Shortly after Russian president Boris a surgical abort ion. More than II 0,000 eign brokerage firms in Japan say they have a third of the population - have been dis Yeltsin and Georgian leader Eduard women have used it. Antiabortion groups received anonymous facsimile messages placed from their traditional lands. Shevardnadze agreed to the Russian troop have opposed the drug. The American Med blaming them for the suicides of Japanese The United Nations announced on July deployment, Georgia complained that too ical Association says RU486 is an unap investors. Several people have committed sui 19 that it would send 46 unanned military many troops were being sent. Moscow ig proved drug that could be hazardous if used cide in Japan in the wake of the falling market. observers to Mogadishu to monitor a cease nored the complaint and went ahead with without supervision. Abortion rights sup fire and facilitate the delivery of food. the deployment. porters have argued that it is a cheap and Olympia & York seeks -SARA LOBMAN government aid Olympia & York Developments Ltd., (0&Y) the world's largest real estate devel Circulation drive ends Subscribe opment company, is considering asking the The international circulation drive to Canadian government to help it out of its win new readers to the MilitanJ, Per· financial quagmire. 0&Y is attempting to spectiva Mundial, L'internationaliste, now! restructure $8.6 billion in debt related to its and New lnlernational, which opened Canadian operations by issuing distress pre on April 4, ended July 25. ferred shares in exchange for existing loans. Final results are still coming into the The Militant reports on: Distress preferred stocks must be approved Militant business office and will be re by the Canadian govement, which loses ported in the next issue of the Militant, • the fight against money on the stocks because they are tax dated August 21. cop brutallty exempt, allowing a company to pay a lower • Washington's drive mail). send $80. Asia: send $80 drawn on a to war The Militant U.S. bank to 410 West St., New York, NY Closing news date: July 27, 1992 100 14. Canada: send Canadian $75 for one • labor battles worldwide yearsubscriptiontoSocieted'EditionsAGPP, Editor: GREG McCARTAN C.P. 340, succ. R, Montreal, Quebec H2S • the sociallst Managing Editor: GEORGE FYSON 3M2. 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2 The Militant August 14, 1992 Caterpillar workers fight to defend union in aftermath of strike BY ERNIE MAILHOT offer is affecting the workforce. "There is a EAST PEORIA, Illinois - After being lot of stress on the job. I work on second back on the job without a contract for more shift inspecting road graders. Before, there than two months, UAW members who were two inspectors on that shift. but the struck Caterpillar continue to express their other one retired and hasn't been replaced. determination to defend their union. So now I'm doing more work by myself. It's Tom Nell, a UAW member with 17 years a glorified speed-up.'' seniority at Caterpillar, believes that "union The UAW Local974 News sent to mem strength is still there. There's definite soli bers in the Peoria-area plants outlined darity, shown by some who wear union some of the aspects of the final offer shirts and by others who won't take their implemented by Caterpillar management. The wages for new or recalled workers at Militant/Paul Mailhot sandwiches,'' he said referring to on the job March 1992 rally for Caterpillar strikers in Decatur, Illinois luncheons organized by management for two parts distribution facilities will be re workers and bosses. duced to less than half of what workers John Grayned. a longtime UAW member there presently make, and their benefits One of the concessions the company has members explain that this means nothing. at Caterpillar in Decatur, echoed Nell's view will be slashed as well. Caterpillar has also imposed that is most talked about affects "We were never fighting Cat around wages on strong union support. "The purpose of gotten rid of some of the previous contrac health care benefits. The company has set even though we make less than John Deere our strike was to provide a liveable wage for tual limits on how much work is sent out up a ' network' with certain doctors and workers," said Robert Cooling who will people in the future. Caterpillar is looking to non-union shops. certain hospitals. If a worker goes to a doctor complete 20 years at Caterpillar next Feb to break our union to up their profits,'' he Seniority rights have been weakened. or hospital not in the network, he or she must ruary. said. Workers can no longer transfer from one pay 30 percent of the costs. Caterpillar has also done away with dues Grayned also explained how working plant to another in order to hold a particular While the company has given a very checkoff, where union dues are automati without a contract under Caterpillar's final job or pay scale. modest pay raise to most workers, UAW Continued on Page 17 Staff changes will strengthen 'Militant' coverage
BY FRANK FORRESTAL June 30. It is valid for three years. ing of Larry Milton, a 35-year-old Black To strengthen its coverage of world pol Coming on staff as well are Sara Lohman worker. Lohman has also been an activist itics and the labor movement, the Militant and Naomi Craine, both of whom have been in the Mark Curtis Defense Committee. has made three changes to its editorial staff. active in the socialist and trade union move Naomi Craine, 21 years old, joined the George Fyson, an experienced journalist ments for several years. socialist movement in Detroit in 1983. Like and socialist from New Zealand, has be Sara Lobman, 30 years-old, joined the many other young people, Craine was at come the managing editor. For more than young socialist movement in New York in tracted to the Nicaraguan revolution and two decades, Fyson has contributed articles 1976. Lohman was propelled into socialist was active in opposing Washington's dirty to socialist newspapers and magazines, in and anti-apartheid activity by the upsurge in war to overthrow it. Craine was elected to cluding the Militant and Intercontinental South Africa, particularly the 1976 Soweto the YSA National Committee in 1987. Press!lnprecor, which ceased publication in uprising. Three years later, the Nicaraguan Craine has been an active socialist in the 1986. Fyson is 43 years old. revolution, combined with a visit to revolu trade union movement. For the past three In New Zealand, Fyson started writing for tionary Cuba, had a big impact on her. Lob years she has been a member of the Amalga the biweekly paper Socialist Action in 1969 man was a leader of the Young Socialist mated Clothing and Textile Workers' Union; as a young leader of the antiwar movement. Alliance for several years. In 1985 she was for the pasttwo years in ACIWU Local385T Launched in 1969, Socialist Action was elected to the YSA National Committee. at Fieldcrest Cannon's Decorative Bedding looked to by many as a major voice of the Lohman has ten years experience as a mill in Eden, North Carolina. Craine was a anti-Vietnam war movement in the country. socialist in the labor movement. She was a member of the steering committee for the Similarly, the paper became well known for member of the Amalgamated Clothing and work of the SWP's members in ACTWU. its coverage of political campaigns by the Textile Workers' Union (ACTWU) in Col During the last two years, Craine has written Militant/Paul Mailhot indigenous Maori people of New Zealand orado and West Virginia for six years and articles in the Militant about various textile in the 1970s. As a staff writer, and later as worker organizing drives in the south. George Fyson since 1988 she has been a member of the editor, Fyson covered a variety of activities, United Food and Commercial Workers' On the eve of the Gulf War in 1991 , Cra discussions, and debates in the Maori poJit Union (UFCW) Local 431. In the most re ine announced her campaign to run for ical movement. Fyson became the editor of cent period Lohman was elected to Mayor of Greensboro on the Socialist Socialist Action in 1976. the steering committee heading the work of Workers ticket. In addition to speaking out Fyson has written on New Zealand poli Socialist Workers Party (SWP) members in against Washington's criminal war, Craine tics and labor struggles, as well as covering the UFCW. slammed Imperial Food, a North Carolina the struggles of working people in the South Lobman was the Socialist Workers can poultry company, for their "greed and crim Pacific. didate for Mayor of Des Moines in 1991. inal indifference" after a September 3, In the 1980s, Fyson visited New Caledonia This past year she played an active role in 1991, ftre in their plant killed 25 poultry several times reporting on the independence speaking out against the brutal police beat- workers. struggle against French colonial rule. He at tended two congresses of the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), which was the main political organization in the Supporters and opponents of Mark forefront of the anti-colonial struggle. Fyson wrote a major article for the International Curtis participate in public debate Socialist Review, "The Struggle for Indepen dence, Democracy, and Equality in New Cal BY KAREN RAY story was Mark Curtis's rape of Demetria edonia," which was printed in the Militant in BOSTON -Supporters of framed-up Morris." She added that she and the execu 1988. unionist and political activist Mark Curtis tive board of the NAACP intended to expose Fyson also attended and wrote on the participated in a public debate on Curtis's ''the Mark Curtis Defense Committee as a Pacific-wide conference for a Nuclear Free case here at the Boston Public Library. The racist and sexist sham." Militant/Paul MaiJhot and Independent Pacific, held in Suva, Fiji July 18 event was sponsored by Men to End In his presentation Fred Pelka of MESA Sara Lohman in 1986. At the time, opposition was grow Sexual Assault (MESA) and the Boston stated that central to the case is th
August 14, 1992 The Militant 3 Mandela condemns white minority regime ANC leader calls on United Nations to help end apartheid regime's violence
BY SARA LOBMAN numerous court trials, inquests, and commis been offered or received huge pensions. UNITED NATIONS- Nelson Mandela, sions and has been confumed by the Gold Several have demanded immunity from speaking before the United Nations Security stone Commission as well as reports of inter prosecution. Council on July 15, placed responsibility for national fact fmding missions." The Gold "In February 1992 it came to light that the violence in South Africa squarely on the stone commission, headed up by Supreme local white policemen based at the Ermelo apartheid government of F. W. de Klerk. He Court Justice Richard Goldstone, is charged police station encouraged and actively urged the Council to appoint a special repre with investigating incidents of violence. helped a gang of vigilantes in Wessel ton. No sentative to South Africa who would investi "It is also clear that the central thrust of policemen concerned has been suspended." gate the situation and aid the Council in de the violence is to weaken the ANC and the ciding what measures it should take to help democratic movement of the country," Role of lnkatha end this violence. Mandela said. In 1986 the SADF gave military training Mandela, president of the African Na "In the face of this situation, it is also true to 200 Inkatha Freedom Party members who tional Congress (AN C), reminded the Secu that there are instances of counter violence later became members of the K wa Zulu rity Council that it had been considering the by members of the democratic movement. At police. Some of these trainees have been question of South Africa for 45 years be the same time, it is a matter of public record implicated in violence in Natal. cause of the apartheid system which the UN that ANC policy stands opposed to the pro "No action has been taken to control and has called a "crime against humanity." The motion of violence. We remain frrmly com limit the powers of the Kwa Zulu police," ....,# UN decisions on this question have been mitted to this position. But our task of ensur Mandela explained, "in spite of the fact that UN Photo 176007/M. Grant directed at transforming South Africa into a ing that this policy position is fully and com extensive evidence exists of Kwa Zulu po Nelson Mandela nonracial, democratic country. "1ltis objec pletely adhered to is made more than difficult lice partiality and involvement in the vio tive has not yet been achieved," he stated. because of the practice of the state security lence." In fact, on July I the powers of these the ANC leader explained. "South Africa continues to be governed forces [and] its surrogates." police were strengthened. 'The fact of the matter however is that by a white minority regime," he said. "The Mandela noted that both Amnesty Inter Mandela accused the Pretoria regime of the IFP has permitted itself to become an overwhelming majority of our people are national and the International Commission legalizing, for the first time since 1891 , the extension of the Pretoria regime, its instru still denied the vote. They remain deprived of Jurists have blamed the government for carrying of dangerous weapons in public, as ment and surrogate. of the right to determine their destiny." failing to act against the violence. many Inkatha supporters often do. This cre "Its activities have been financed by the Representatives of the South African gov "Not a single person has been convicted in ated a situation where "hordes of men would South African government. Its members ernment, Mandela warned, "will address connection with the 49 massacres that spill out into the streets and enter public have been armed and trained by the South you today. However sweet-sounding the claimed the lives of at least 10 people in each places carrying the most dangerous weap African governrnent. There is an abundance words they may utter, they represent the of the incidents that have occurred in the past ons." of evidence that it continues to benefit from system of white minority rule to which the two years in the Transvaal," he reported. The government, Mandela said, "is un United Nations is opposed. They continue able to explain why it virtually gave people covert co-operation with the South African to govern our country under a constitution Police convicted a license to kill and maim. It has never government. "It therefore becomes unclear when its which the Security Council has declared "Where there have been proper investi explained why its police and army regularly members act null and void." gations and vigorous prosecution, as re accompanied these killers to places of safety as an independent force or as sulted from the Trust Feed massacre of De after many murderous rampages and ar an agency on behalf of the South African Government responsible for violence cember 1988, convictions have been se rested nobody." government. However, it is not an indepen dent force with whom the ANC must enter The responsibility for the break down in cured. Those convicted were policemen," Covert police units the Convention for a Democratic South Af Mandela noted. In Aprill992, five members into an agreement to end the violence in the country." rica (Codesa) negotiations earlier this year of the South African security forces were There are eleven covert police units, rests with the government, Mandela ex convicted in the murder of II people in an Mandela told the Security Council, operat The record, Mandela concluded, "con plained. The Codesa talks were initiated by area called Trust Feed in Natal province. ing around Boipatong and other regions firms the criminal failure of the government the ANC as part of drawing the broadest Mandela explained the case of Matthew of the country. They "exist for the purpose to properly address the question of political number of forres into the fight for a demo Goniwe. He and three other Eastern Cape of suppressing the democratic movement violence which has claimed too many lives cratic, nonracial, and nonsexist South Af leaders of the democratic movement were which the government still regards as the already, is tearing our country apart, and rica. Nineteen organizations have been a murdered in l985. ln May of this year a letter enemy and a threat to so-called national making the process of negotiations impos sible." part of this process. from the South African Defence Force security." There are allegations, he contin The government "continues to look for (SADF), military intelligence chief, General ued, that these units are involved in covert Mandela reminded the Council of its ways and means by which it can guarantee C.P. Van der Westhuizen, then a brigadier to operations that "include the assassination of commitment to the ending of apartheid. itself the continued exercise of power," the State Security Council, was discovered. It leaders and activists of the democratic This makes it an "urgent obligation" that it Mandela said. "The regime insists that the proposed that the State Security Council au movement" as well as "acts of terror against intervene now "to help us end the violence." political majority, no matter how large, thorize "the urgent removal from society" of the population at large." Putting such an international spotlight and should be subjected to a veto by minority Goniwe and the others. The authenticity of "In order to confuse the issue and evade other measures opposing the government political parties." the document has not been challenged. No its responsibilities the government insists sponsored violence will "help the people of "Control of state power by the National moves have been made to suspend Van der that the source of violence is rivalry between South Africa to transform our country into Party [the ruling party] allows it the space Westhuizen from his position. the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party,'' a nonracial democracy," he concluded. to deny and cover up its own role as well as The ANC president noted other exam those of its surrogates and the state security ples. "No action has been taken to suspend forces in fostering and fomenting the vio the head of the South African Police (SAP) lence," the anti-apartheid leader added. forensic laboratories, General Lothar UN debates apartheid violence Mandela detailed the scope ofthe violence Neethling, after a Supreme Court civil case UNITED NATIONS- Meeting in emer in the Black townships. In the last six years at finding in January 1991 that his involve ment in South Africa, demanding that the least 11,000 people have died. In June alone, ment in the poisoning of activists was on the gency session, the United Nations Security ANC "reveal the names of the members there were 373 deaths and 395 injuries. balance of probabilities true. Council voted unanimously July 16 to send a of the Communist Party serving in the special envoy to South Africa to draw up rec The South African government, Mandela ANC executive." There was substantial "Despite a judicial commission finding ommendations to end the violence there. evidence, he said, "that the major cause of said, "has the law enforcement personnel and implicating several military personnel of the The meeting was called at the request of death in incidents of violence is the use the legal authority to stop [the] violence and Civil Cooperation Bureau in political vio ANC president Nelson Mandela after 49 of AK47 assault rifles" which he said were to act against the perpetrators." He noted that lence, none has been charged. At least 20 people in the South African township of the "complicity of state security forres is es bureau members, and probably more, re the property of the "ANC/Communist Boipatong, south of Johannesburg, were Party alliance." tablished by the evidence which emerged in main on the SADF payroll. Others have massacred in an attack organized by security The representative of the Pan Africanist forces. Congress, criticized the Convention for a Representatives of over 60 countries and Democratic South Africa (Codesa) talks, organizations spoke at the meeting. Djibo which broke down a few months ago, be Ka, foreign minister of Senegal spoke on cause the ANC and the South African govern behalf of the Organization of African Unity. ment. who were now "implicating each other "The South African government must be in the violence" were both part of those talks. made to shoulder its responsibilities," he He said the continuing violence vindicated said, noting that the situation endangered the PAC's refusal to take part in Codesa. not only South Africa, but neighboring countries as well. The Inkatha Freedom Party has "never had a policy of inciting violence against Nelson Mandela, speaking for the African anyone," said its president Mangosuthu National Congress (ANC) demanded an end Buthelezi, responding to documented to Pretoria's complicity in the violence (see accompanying article). charges by the ANC that it has collaborated U.S. Ambassador Edward Perkins com with the regime in attacks on supporters of plimented the Black majority in South Af the democratic movement and other civil ians. The massacre at Boipatong, he said, rica for their "skill and patience" and produced an ''orgy of propaganda against applauded the South African government Inkatha and the governrnent." Buthelezi. ac for "abolishing institutionalized apartheid." cused the ANC of maintaining "shock He proposed a UN goodwill mission. troops" to intimidate members of his orga R.F. Botha, South African Foreign Min nization and others. ister argued that his country was set "irrev ocably on a course towards freedom and Rene Mujica Cantelar, representative of democracy." "We still hear," he said, "the Cuba said that the violence in South Africa complaint that all South Africans are not was a result of some members of the interna represented in the current Parliament." This tional community taking unjustified moves is "no longer in question. and no longer an in lifting some of the sanctions against South Militant/Greg McCartan issue," he insisted, since "the issue is the Africa. He called on the Security Council to Pretoria march of 30,000 unionists, July 13. The African National Congress and other negotiation of a new constitution that will condemn the massacre in Boipatong and to democratic forces have begun a mass-action campaign to force the white minority bring that about." emphasize the responsibility of the South Af regime to yield power. Botha attacked the democratic move- rican government. _ S.L.
4 The Militant August 14, 1992 DeBates tours South Africa to get first hand account of fight against apartheid
Continued from front page in the townships.'' tral offices of the AN C. These efforts are being aided by a new "We found the campaign of mass action mass distribution of posters and flyers pro wasn't a result of 'militant' youth pressing duced by the ANC, she said. For example, Nelson Mandela away from negotiations, as a four-page newsprint paper explains the the big-business media reports," DeBates goals of the campaign and some of the said, referring to the ANC president "It's a actions already planned, including a general political campaign to make the regime take strike at the beginning of August. concrete steps to end the violence," which Freedom Charter has claimed more than 1,800 lives across the Militant/Greg McCartan The paper focuses on some of the main country this year. It aims to "place the de Estelle DeBates, Socialist \\brkers candidate for vice-president of the United States, demands of the Freedom Charter, the revo mand for an elected constituent assembly at with members of the ANC Youth League during her recent fact-finding tour. the center of the fight for a democratic lutionary democratic program of the free republic, and as a result, recruit to the ANC dom struggle adopted by a broad conference and the trade unions. As Mandela points out, held in South Africa in 1955. Short sections building a disciplined organization, and one country and de Klerk's regime have balked the ANC is trying to get negotiations going outline the goals of the struggle, including that embraces the aspirations and historic at accepting the ANC's demands," she said. again, but only if the regime accedes to its demands such as: "A people's education;" goals of the broadest numbers of the popu Debates also explained the interest those demands." "There shall be houses and comfort!" "Shar lation-the ANC has scored important she met with expressed in political devel gains recently," DeBates said. At a rally of 30,000 union members in ing the land among those who work and opments in the United States and around the need it;" and "Health for all!'' The Congress One of these gains is the political isola Pretoria, DeBates marched in the lead del world. of South African Trade Unions, the major tion of the Inkatha Freedom Party, which egation and was welcomed by rally organiz "Because the media paints a picture of labor federation in the country, has also put had taken some stands against aspects of ers, who pointed to the presence of a social all politics in the United States moving to out a similar campaign leaflet. apartheid over the years, but had also col ist from the United States "as an example of the right, revolutionary-minded youth here A special box, addressed, "Dear soldiers laborated with the regime. Inkatha leaders the international solidarity that has made our were especially heartened when they and police," says that "our fight is not with sought to propel the organization into a victories possible." learned of the work that socialists carry out you. We are struggling against the National country-wide formation, but today have within the working class, the reception the "I was struck in my discussions with Party and its corrupt politicians. We are failed in that goal. rank-and-file workers how the demand for socialist election campaign is getting in opposed to the generals who lead the hit The ANC has also turned world public many countries, and actions being taken by a constituent assembly is now raised by squads and plan the murders, but refuse to opinion around to a certain extent on who millions in the country," she said of the rally. young people and workers to defend our take the blame." The ANC leaflet encour is responsible for the violence in the country. rights and standard of living," DeBates said. "Everyone I spoke to rejected [South Afri ages readers to "discuss this leaflet with For years the regime was able to point to can president F.W.] de Klerk's stance of your fellow soldiers and police." instances of violence as fighting between U.S. political situation holding onto veto rights for the white mi "In Boipatong township we spoke with the ANC and Inkatha or simply "Black on "I pointed to the fact that my running nority in any new constitutional arrange residents who had been attacked as part of Black" violence. The implication was that ment. They would simply tell me: 'We need the campaign of violence. Forty-nine peo Blacks were incapable of leadership. mate [James Warren] won an eight-month a democratic government in power in order ple died there in one assault in June,'' "Today," DeBates said, "the fact that apart leave of absence from his job at a steel plant, to begin to meet our needs.' Each person I DeBates said. "Every day in the newspa heid itself, and the government that organized with the help of fellow members of the met expressed a determination to keep up pers there are more stories about ANC and and defended that barbaric system, is respon steelworkers' union," she said, "as just one the mass action campaign until the govern union leaders being attacked, killed, or sible for the violence is understood by mil- example of the political space within the ment agrees and returns to the negotiating lions around the working class to carry out communist work. table on that basis." world. It has helped "Of course, many people wanted to find out more about the fight against police bru ANC recruitment isolate the regime fur ther. It has allowed the tality, the causes and the outcome of the DeBates pointed to discussions she had THE ANC PACKAGE revolutionary demo events in Los Angeles after the acquittal of with leaders of the ANC's Far-North sub-re cratic movement to the cops who beat Rodney King, and gion, whose two-room headquarters is lo SIMPLE STEPS TO PlACE press its demands and whether the labor movement was respond cated in the small town of Sibasa, Venda. As AND DEMOCRACY widen the space for ing to attacks by the employers." DeBates entered the room, volunteers had ltJIIi.se l>\!Jiift& ¥tf1Utl aft
August 14, 1992 The Militant 5 Communist forces in Britain join together to reach new generation of young fighters
BY FRANK FORRESTAL Workers Party in the United States. the early 1920s," said Barnes. ''The reason the other, a repressive state to keep the SHEFFIELD, Britain-The Communist Barnes explained that the fusion process for this is that in the late 1920s the majority workers down.'' But Barnes said there are League of Britain and groups of young so is a "political maneuver'' whose goal is to of fighters were politically destroyed - signs of growing resistance inside China, cialists in London, Manchester, and Shef increase the numbers and experience of many physically destroyed- by the coun including strikes, protests over unemploy field fused into a single organization at a younger fighters by bringing them into a terfeit of Marxism -the Stalinist move ment and rising prices and other fonns of special Communist League congress here communist movement that spans several ment, which destroyed the Bolshevik party resistance. Barnes referred to a recent arti June 27- 28. generations. Throughout the world, said that led the 1917 revolution. cle in the press that had the headline, "Cap In the "Tasks and Perspectives" report to Barnes, there are "handfuls of youth" inter- "Some of the best fighters were even italist-Style Layoffs Ignite Sabotage and the congress, Communist League leader Strikes in China." Tony Hunt said the fusion is part of the In their scramble to dominate the Chinese growing resistance to the deepening world market, the imperialist countries are trip capitalist disorder and the worldwide re ping over each other. After Hong Kong, sponse to it by working people and revolu which leads the pack in foreign investment, tionary-minded youth. Gertnany, Taiwan, Japan and the United Hunt pointed out that since the U.S.-led States are vying to become the dominant war against Iraq, during which the assault investors. Foreign investment has increased on democratic rights and living conditions from $1.8 billion in 1983 to $12 billion in in Britain was reinforced, "more and more I991 and is heading sharply upward. In the youth have resisted these attacks and a first three months of 1992 the rate of foreign growing number have been drawn toward investment doubled again, totalling $6.5 building communist organizations." billion. Tile congress was attended by 84 people, "Unlike what exists in Europe," said including 54 delegates from the Communist Barnes, "in Asia the United States is not League and young socialist groups in Brit integrated into any military alliances. The ain. Five of the 16 members of young so United States comes from the outside, cialist groups were not members of the which makes the situation more explosive." Communist League prior to the congress. He noted that China has one of the largest And for 11 of the participants, this was their armies in the world and it is the fourth first congress. One additional person joined largest exporter of heavy modem conven the Communist League at the congress. tional arms. More than half of the delegates were Goal: 'speak more forcefully' industrial workers and trade unionists. At the congress there were eight delegates who Militant/Mike Colly In the report on tasks and perspectives, are members of the Amalgamated Engineer Tony Hunt, a leader of the Communist League, said fusion with young revolutionaries Tony Hunt explained that the goal of the ing and Electrical Union (AEEU); two enables party to "speak more forcefully in the interests of the working class." fusion was to put the party in a better posi members of the National Union of tion to "speak more forcefully in the inter Mineworkers (NUM); 13 members of the ested in learning about communism and not turned into anti-communists," said Barnes. ests of the working class and revolutionary youth worldwide." Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers' a "counterfeit version of it." The challenge "But the Stalinist apparatuses that corrupted Union (RMT); and II members of the is to find the "handfuls," said Barnes. one generation after another are breaking Hunt said the fusion will enable the party Transport and General Workers Union "Youth today are coming forward in a down around the world. With the disintegra "to respond rapidly and politically to par (TGWU). way not seen for some time. Youth feel the tion of the Stalinist movement, it is now ticipate in the fights that break out under the crisis. The war in Yugoslavia is unaccept more possible to learn the real history of the growing tensions produced by depression International participation able to them. They are incapable of accept workers' movement." conditions as imperialism continues its na Delegates and participants came from a ing the ongoing horrors of capitalism. How Barnes added that the fusion was justified tionalist economic offensives and steps to range of countries including Australia, Can ever, they initially react not because they by the dynamics of the class struggle in the ward war." Hunt noted that the fusion is not ada. Cyprus, France, Ireland, Lesotho, New have found a winning strategy but because world, at the center of which are the deep ''a magic wand," but a maneuver that will Zealand, the United States, South Africa, they hate much of what's happening and ening conflicts among the imperialist pow strengthen "the nonns and rhythm of a party South Korea, Sudan, and Sweden. The lead come to dislike what is happening to them, ers. whose large majority is composed of indus ership delegations at the congress included the person they are becoming. "The world is heading toward a global trial workers." Young workers and students Michel Prairie and Daphne Wenham from "Young people want to know what is conflagration as the crisis deepens. But the will be more attracted to a party that has a the Communist League of Canada; Jean going on in the world the same way Farrell working class will have their chance to stop "collective daily rhythm" that reaches out Louis Salfati from the Communist Organiz Dobbs explained it in the Pathfmder book it. We will confront different fonns of with "the weekly Militant newspaper, the ing Committee of France; Carl-Erik Sven Revolutionary Continuity," said Barnes. Bonapartism and incipient fascism, as well Militant Labor Forum, and the arsenal of son and Kerstin Granberg from the Commu When Dobbs, who became a long-time cen as see the breakdown of bourgeois politics," revolutionary literature produced and dis nist League of Sweden; and Jack Barnes, tral leader of the SWP, was growing up said Barnes. tributed by Pathfinder." Estelle DeBates, Frank Forrestal and Ken during the depression in the 1930s he read "The horrors we see in Yugoslavia- the Hunt said "it's important to remember Riley from the Socialist Workers Party in H.G. Wells's Outline of History, hoping it systematic slaughter of civilians and de that being a student, like being young, is a the United States. DeBates, the Socialist would give him some insights into existing struction of whole cities - are the product temporary period in life. Sooner or later a Workers candidate for U.S. vice-president, social relations. of Stalinism. The terrible war there is not student has to earn a living- and sooner had spent the previous nine days campaign the result of mass 'ethnic consciousness.' It rather than later I personally assure you. ing in Britain. Real education demonstrates the complete failure of Stalin What's important is to give them a frame Leading up to the special congress, the "Farrell couldn't fmd the answer there," ism, which is the opposite of the course work for activity, and Marxist education. By Communist League and the young socialist said Barnes. "It was only after he came in Lenin set out on. reaching out to workers and youth our in groups were involved in joint political work contact with the communist movement that "The wars are led by remnants of the stitutions will come to life as never before." and common activity. Part of this work in his real education began. Just like today's fonner Stalinist parties in collaboration with Since 1988 when the Communist League cluded drafting a political resolution on the young fighters, Farrell's education began mafia-style proto-capitalists. 'Ethnic clean was formed, its membership,like that of all fusion itself. This resolution (printed below) with reading pamphlets like Karl Marx's sing' is their fascist-like rationalization for small revolutionary working-class organi was then adopted at a joint meeting of the Wage lAbor and Capital and Frederick the brutalization being carried out primarily zations in the imperialist world over the last Central Committee and leadership delega Engels's Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. from Belgrade." (See article on Yugoslavia decade, has declined, said Hunt. "That is a tions from the young socialist groups. Barnes said that more young people today in this issue by George Fyson and Jonathan function of the objective period opened in The special congress opened with a report are reaching for Marxist classics like the Silbennan.) the early and mid 80s and the retreat of the on"Advancing the fusion of the international Communist Manifesto and James P. labor movement. At the same time the communist movement with a new generation Cannon's Socialism on Trial. China will come apart League · has become politically stronger, of young fighters." The report was given by "Today more young fighters are attracted 'The same breakdown of Stalinism will functioning not as part of the 'British left,' Jack Barnes, national secretary ofthe Socialist to Marxism than in any other period since occur in China as well," said Barnes. "As in but as part of the international vanguard of the fonner Soviet Union and Eastern Euro the working class, reaching out with and pean states, China will come apart at the through the strengths of the world commu From Pathfinder seams. Similar to the petty-bourgeois social nist movement." castes in Europe, the vain but growing hope Revolutionary Continuity of the privileged caste in China is to inte International socialist conference grate itself into the declining world capitalist One of the goals of the fused organiza Marxist Leadership in the United States system. tion, said Hunt, "is to link up with a layer By Farrell Dobbs (2 volumes) "With a population of more than I. I bil of revolutionary and communist youth How successive generations of fighters took part in lion people, China has now gone the furthest worldwide who will be present at the inter the struggles of the U.S. labor movement, seeking to of all the deformed workers' states in intro national socialist conference at Oberlin in be part of an international leadership that could ad ducing the capitalist market system in grow August." We should organize to "win as !llllai£:~1i...___, vance the interests of workers and small farmers. ing parts of the country," said Barnes. 'This many young fighters and others as we can is most glaring in the two southern prov to attend the conference." Revolutionary Continuity: inces of Guangdong and Fujian. Guangdong During the congress, a lively discussion The Early Years, 1848-1917. $15.95 alone has a population of 63 million." and debate broke out. Martin, a young so Barnes explained that China is seeing a cialist member from Manchester, said he Revolutionary Continuity: massive expansion of foreign capitalist in became interested in working class politics Birth of the Communist Movement, 1918-1922. vestments. "All the daily newspapers were during the imperialist war against Iraq. He $15.95 worried that China was going to take over described the war as "a rotten corrupt cap Hong Kong (as if it belonged to the crown italist war." He said the perspective he heard Available from Pathfinder bookstores listed on page 20, in London). The opposite is happening. at a Militant Labor Forum during the war or by mail from Pathfinder, 410 West St., New York, NY What we are seeing is the growing Hong convinced him to get more involved in the 10014. Please include $3 postage and handling, $.50 for Kong-ization of China," said Barnes. work of the League. each additional book. "It's like a capitalist's dream come true. The recent tour of SWP candidate for On the one hand, there is cheap labor; on vice-president Estelle DeBates was impor-
6 The Militant August 14, 1992 tant, said Martin, because her campaign tion in the world and warned that such a helped "connect what was going on in Brit perspective will make it more difficult to win ain with other fighters around the world youth to the movement. He proposed, instead, from Yugoslavia and South Africa to Los that the Communist League build an indepen Angeles." dent youth organization now. Leading up to Several delegates said that in the recent the congress little leadership had "been taken" period they have been a part of more polit by the young socialist groups. he said. A few ical discussions and debates on the job and other delegates raised reservations about the in their unions. Many explained their expe fusion as well. riences selling Militant subscriptions and Bernie, a young socialist from Manches -C ' Pathfinder pamphlets and books at work. ter who also fused with the CL, disagreed. • Alan, who was a youth during the Korean He said the "best way to launch a youth War and served two years in the British organization in the future was through this - _.._.,. military. joined the communist movement fusion." He also said the young socialists Tbe G ulf war has had a big impact on youth and working people in Britain. Above, one in the I 960s. In the discussion, he com were a "real organization despite the defects of the British personnel carriers attacked by US. warplanes. Nine British soldiers were and that we confirmed in practice that we mented on the growing inter-imperialist killed as a result of 'friendly fire' during the war. conflicts between Britain and Germany. can bring young people around." ''The unveiling of the ' Bomber' Harris Another delegate, Doreen. who is an air statue, which the Queen Mother attended, is port worker, raised questions about the Mil who has been active in the communist Second, said Barnes, "is the break-up of a grim reminder of this. ' Bomber' Harris of itant article on the Canadian fusion conven movement since the 1940s, said that "we the main transmission belt ofimperialism into the British Bomber Command, was the ar tion that took place May 30-31 in Toronto. need to absorb the meaning of the historic the workers movement, the Stalinist murder chitect of the saturation bombing that killed The article, "Communists in Canada com break-up of Stalinism. What we can do with machine. This disintegration has weakened 593,000 German civilians during World War bine forces to win new young fighters to the our weapons, particularly Pathfinder Press, the forces of social democracy as well. II," he said. movement," was written by Militant staff in the world today is unlike any previous "Both these things have come together in "Some 35,000 Germans were killed by writer Paul Mailhot. period.'' depression conditions," said Barnes, "and U.S. and British bombers during the bomb Likewise, Connie said it was extremely pose special opportunities for the commu ing of Dresden, while the city was filled with Youth affected by labor 's retreat significant that the London Times, a major nist movement. refugees fleeing from the Soviet army," In Mailhot's article he wrote, paraphras British daily, wrote a feature article on the "We have not had this openness since the Alan continued. 'This [statue] is a reminder ing Communist League leader Steve Penner, Socialist Workers vice-presidential candi period after the Russian revolution in 1917 to the Germans that Britain still has illusions that younger people are "affected to a date. (See "A voice from the wilderness," through much of the 1920s. At that point, that it is the boss. greater degree by the retreat of the labor reproduced in the last issue of the Militant.) where Stalinism took hold, it became ex "In a similar vein, the protest by British movement, as they are less likely to draw This year Pathfmder has participated in tremely difficult to carve out any space for families over the United States's 'friendly on the lessons and continuity of past strug bookfairs in Havana, Cuba; the United States; the communist movement. Many were at fire' during the Gulf war that killed nine gles to help understand the temporary nature Britain; Iran; Australia; and has plans to attend tracted to the Stalinist movement thinking British soldiers has put a strain in U.S.-Brit of this retreat.·· This makes it harder to form bookfairs in Germany and Sweden this fall, that it was genuine communism. In the ish relations. The callous response by the and sustain young socialist organizations. said Connie. She also noted that Pathfinder process many able fighters were corrupted. U.S. government reinforces the view that Later in the article Mailhot explained a books are being distributed in South Africa "If this evaluation of the world is not true relations will never be the same," he said. point Jack Barnes made that ''individuals in by a well-known book publisher and distrib then we should alter our plans to expand the AnnaLucia, a member of the young so all parts of the world are more open to being utor there. "We should always remember that distribution of Pathfinder books and pam cialist group in London, described her ex reached by ideas of communist politics now Pathfinder is one of the best ways to promote phlets," added Barnes. "It would have prac periences on a recent Militant sales trip to than at any other time since the opening our revolutionary continuity." tical implications. We tend to underestimate an abortion rights demonstration in Dublin, years of the Russian revolution." the leverage Pathfinder gives us, as well as Ireland. While there the sales teams found Doreen said she found it difficult to Special opport unities the desire to read and discuss the books and pamphlets that carry the true history of the a lot of interest in the Militant as well as the reconcile these two seemingly contradictory ln a summary report to the congress, communist movement." Pathfinder pamphlet, The Catholic Church points. A few of the delegates focused their Barnes discussed two contradictory political and Abortion Rights. contributions on this question. "Both are developments that have come together in the Fusion will strengthen party AnnaLucia described her experiences in true," argued Pete, a TGWU member in world. The fiJ'St is the decline of the working the young socialist group in London. She London. "The labor movement is and has class movement in the last decade. 'The Barnes said the young socialist groups, said the group was on a different course than been in retreat but this doesn't mean workers trade union retreat, the absence of leadership which existed for only a few months, were the CL and that it was better to fuse the two are ground down and defeated. There is in the labor movement, the relative weak real organizations. 'They were responsible organizations. She said that some of their more openness to revolutionary ideas in the ness of the strike weapon, combined with people. Sometimes they went away from activities took the group away from working world, in places we were blocked off from the defeats ofthe revolutions in Grenada and the movement but the party reached out and with the party. The fusion will bring the before," he said. Pete pointed to the success Nicaragua, which in tum blocked off the brought them back in,'' explained Barnes. communist movement closer to the day ful Pathfinder promotion trip to Tehran, Iran potential for revolutionary change in El Sal Barnes emphasized that the fusion with the when a Britain-wide youth organization can as an example of this and drew on his vador- all of this has weighed heavily on young socialist groups "will strengthen the be formed, she said. experience of the favorable reception to the communist movement," said Barnes. "In party and it will aid in regrouping with Brian, a delegate from London and a mem Pathfinder books and socialist literature dur addition there is no ongoing socialist revo vanguard fighters who had diverged from ber of the AEEU, said the political report on ing a trip to South Africa. lution anywhere, unlike the early 1980s with the movement in the past." the fusion overestimated the political situa- Communist League member Connie, Nicaragua and Grenada." In the four years since the Communist League was founded in 1988, the League has recruited nine members. Six have joined over the last twelve months. Through the 'Youth attracted to communist movement' fusion five members of young socialist groups have joined the League and two The foUowing resolution was adopted politically to participate in the fights that the political space opened up. in order to former members have rejoined. by a May 23-24 join t meeting of the Cen break out under the growing tensions pro convince other workers, farmers and anti Coming out of the fusion, the newly tral Committee ofthe Communist League duced by depression conditions as imperial war youth that war grows out of the desper strengthened organization is now faced with in Britain and leadership delegations ism continues its nationalist offensives and ate attempts of the rulers to defend their the challenge of consistently carrying out from the young socialist groups in Lon drive to war. social system. We used the weapons of the communist youth work and recruiting don, Manchester, and Sheffield. The fused organisation can more effec Militant, New International and Pathfinder young fighters to the movement. The best tively reach out with the institutions our books and fought to get them into the hands way to do that is to advance the norms and The aim of the congress is to bring to common movement has been building - of others to explain the need for workers and rhythm of a party whose large majority is gether, in a common organisation, the mem the weekly Militant, the Militant Labour their allies to take power out of the hands of composed of industrial workers. A key as bers of the Communist League, most of Forum, and the panoply of revolutionary the rulers in order to stop not only this war pect of this will be to continue winning and whom are revolutionary workers organised weapons produced and distributed by Path but those that will follow. We sought to integrating the new members into the activ in industrial fractions, and the revolution finder. It will enable us to advance the pro centre our campaign through the work of ities of the Communist League. ary-minded fighters who are members of the fessional expansion of Pathfinder sales as our union fractions within the workplace A report on the "Guidelines for Election youn g socialist groups. we begin to implement the perspectives pre and unions and, at the same time, as revo of the Central Committee" was given by CL Explosive class tensions and sharpening viously adopted by organising to upgrade lutionary workers, in the mass movement. leader Andy Buchanan at the convention. political polarisation mark the deepening branch bookstores and train comrades in The work of the U.S. Socialist Workers The congress discussed and adopted a pro crisis of the world market order. As we every branch as experienced salespersons. Party as outlined in the "Opening Guns of posal to elect a central committee of 12 respond to the bourgeois-created reality of Since 1988 when the Communist League World War lll" remains our model in face members. Of the 12, five had been members depression, war, racism and reaction, the was formed, its membership, like that of all of the coming experiences we can antici of young socialist groups. fusion of the Communist League and the small revolutionary working-class or pate. Following the conference two Communist young socialists prepares us to speak more ganisations in the imperialist world, has de The war in the Middle East reinforced the League members joined international Mili forcefully in the interests of the working clined. That is a function of the objective assault on democratic rights and living and tant reporting trips to South Africa, Yugosla class and revolutionary youth worldwide. period opened in the early and mid 80s and working conditions in this country, as well via and Greece, where the World Federation The fu sion will place our movement in the retreat of the labour movement. At the as the more and more rabid nationalist and of Democratic Youth held a forum against Britain in the best position to fight to win same time the League has become politi racist bias of the bourgeoisie. imperialist intervention in Yugoslavia. more young people to a working-class per cally stronger, functioning not as part of the While the pace and intensity of politics At the congress messages were read by spective on world politics and to a commit "British left", but as part of the international today is not like that during the war, the axis leaders of the Communist League to the ment to the line of march of the modem vanguard of the working class. reaching out of our participation in fights against racist Central Committee of the Cuban Commu workers movement - towards wresting with and through the strengths of the world attacks. frame-ups and assaults on women's nist Party, to the African National Congress state power out of the hands of the capitalist movement. rights is the same: to explain to the young of South Africa, to the Democratic Peoples exploiters. oppre•· '>rs and warmakers and Through the short but intense political fighters we meet that the growing brutality Republic of North Korea, and to the World opening the do! building a new society. period of the assault on Iraq in 1990-91, the and violence of the bosses, at home and Federation of Democratic Youth. The aim of th Jsion is to organise the Communist League carried out a working abroad, is their inevitable response to the A total of $500 of Pathfinder literature current cadres o, ,he league, and young class campaign against imperialism and war. crumbling of their world order put together was sold at the congress. One of the more fighters in politi1 . solidarity with it, in a Calling for "troops home now" and "end the after World War II. In order to fight effec- popular titles was the new edition ofArt and way that enables us to respond rapidly and blockade". we fought to move into and use Continued on Page 18 Revolution by Leon Trotsky.
August 14, 1992 The Militant 7 Warren, Curtis talk about world politics
BY CHRIS REMPLE many other aspects of the socialist campaign. DES MOINES, Iowa- A highlight of the Curtis asked about the efforts by the Cuban July 9-11 election campaign tour of Iowa by people to meet the challenges they face today James Warren, Socialist Workers candidate due to the U.S. trade embargo and the loss of for president, was a visit to Mark Curtis. trade resulting from the collapse of the gov Curtis is a fonner meatpacker who was ernments in the Soviet Union and Eastern framed up by Des Moines cops for his role Europe. Warren reported that right now work in defense of immigrant workers who were ing people in Cuba are organizing voluntary arrested by the immigration police in March, work brigades chiefly on farms to wage a fight 1988. Curtis tried to unite his coworkers to for food self-sufficiency. use the union to defend the victimized work Warren said many Cubans asked him ers. He was framed on rape and burglary about the possibilities in the United States charges and has currently served 4 years of of promoting solidarity with the Cuban rev a 25-year sentence in an Iowa prison. olution. He replied that those opportunities Curtis is one of the national chairpeople are greater now than in the past. of the Socialist Workers election campaign. Curtis had been able to tell some of his Warren visited Mark Curtis at the Iowa fellow inmates about Warren's upcoming State Penitentiary. He reported on his recent visit and several were standing in the prison James V\-arren and Mark Curtis at John Bennett Correctional Center in Iowa trip to Cuba and his discussions with working yard or tending the flowers near the visiting people there. His tour was organized by the area to meet or catch a glimpse of the So by U.S. rulers and their scapegoating of workers interested in his campaign in Perry, leadership of the Cuban Communist Party. cialist Workers candidate. different sections of worldng people for the Iowa. One, Sharon McCoy, is serving as an Warren spoke of the factory visits in Cuba At a campaign rally in Des Moines a economic crisis of capitalism. He pointed to elector for the Socialist Workers campaign. as a highlight of the tour. He reported a great statement was read ·from Curtis. He ex the international character of the working Another young worker, recently returned curiosity among Cuban workers about the plained, "Even though I cannot be at this class. Curtis concluded his greetings by urg from Mexico, decided to subscribe to Per Socialist Workers campaign in the United rally tonight, l am campaigning for the So ing supporters to join the campaign, stating, spectiva Mundial and purchased a copy of States, the petitioning drives to get on the cialist Workers campaign here at the Iowa "There is no better time to join the fight for the Marxist publication Nueva /nternacio ballot, thechangingpoliticalclimatein Miami State Penitentiary in Fort Madison." freedom and socialism." nal as well as other literature to read more in which communists function openly and Curtis blasted the nationalism promoted Warren also met with pacldnghouse about the communist perspective. New York petitioning campaign off to strong start
BY SARA LOBMAN the cop murder of two Dominican youths. purchased copies of the Militant, nine sub lets, and organized friends and relatives to Supporters of the Socialist Workers Cam Hundreds of people have signed the socialist scribed to the Militant. one subscribed to participate. Nineteen signatures were col paign in New York have hit the streets to petitions in that area alone. Warren and sev Perspectiva Mundial, and eight bought cop lected to put the socialist candidates on the collect the 15,000 signatures required to get eral supporters also brought the campaign ies of PM. ballot and more than $70 was raised among James Warren and Estelle DeBates, candi to a protest against a plant closing organized A Militant Labor Forum on the mass the 25 people who attended. dates for U.S. president and vice-president, by workers at the Tarrytown General Motors protests sweeping South Africa featured na "This campaign is for the future of our on the ballot. plant. tional campaign director Greg McCartan. A children and for the fight against police Mary Nell Bockman reports that eight Several supporters spent most of the week dozen of the 70 participants at the event had brutality," explained Adrian, who works at days into the drive, about 7,700 people have in Buffalo, N.Y. where, for several weeks just found out about the campaign. Two of the Monfort plant and attended the barbe signed the nominating petitions for Warren this spring, abortion rights activists success these young people are maldng plans to cue. and DeBates. The petitioning teams, which fully defended clinics from attacks by the attend the International Socialist Confer On July ll, campaign supporters col include a full-time team of 15 and dozens antiabortion Operation Rescue. Before ence in Oberlin, Ohio. lected I ,000 signatures to put Socialist of local supporters who volunteer before heading home, this team will visit the Sen Maurice Williams, who works at the Workers-endorsed candidate Milton Chee, and after work and school, report a tremen eca Indian reservation where there have Monfort packinghouse in Marshalltown, an aerospace worker, on the ballot for San dous interest in the socialist alternative. been major confrontations with the police Iowa, reports that supporters of the socialist Francisco Board of Supervisors, reports Warren, in New York between tour stops, stemming from Seneca opposition to pro campaign in the plant sponsored a campaign Cathleen Gutekanst. Petitioners then gath was able to join a team in Washington posed new taxes. barbecue in the town of Waterloo on June ered at the Pathfinder bookstore for a two Heights, scene of numerous protests against Petitioners report that 250 people have 20th. Workers sold tickets, distributed leaf- day educational conference on the Cuban Revolution. Seventy people attended the discussion. At a fund-raising party that weekend, $600 was raised to help campaign Socialists waging fight to gain ballot status supporters attend the upcoming Interna tional Socialist Conference in Oberlin, Ohio. BY SARA LOBMAN porters in Ohio have also petitioned to get these undemocratic requirements. Supporters of the socialist campaign in Socialist Workers presidential and vice Supporters of oil worker Joanne Kuni Campaign supporters launched an imme ansky, Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. Florida and Ohio are waging a fight to get presidential candidates James Warren and diate fundraising and protest effort. Many their candidates on the ballot. In both states Estelle DeBates on the baJlot. Congress in Pittsburgh, completed a drive people who bought the campaign newspaper, to get 4,(X)() signatures to place her name on they have already successfully collected the In addition to filing thousands of signa the Militant, donated toward the fees. Teams thousands of signatures required. tures, the state of Florida requires that the ballot in November "a week ahead of of campaigners called scores of people who schedule and with hundreds of signatures to Laura Garza is the socialist candidate for "minor parties" pay a $10,000 bond and a had expressed an interest in the socialist cam spare," according to Arnold ~issberg . U.S. Congress in the 18th District in Florida. I 0-cent-per-signature fee before filing nom paign. More than 8,000 signatures were filed, Among the young people who have come Ronald Garmez Parks is running for U.S. inating petitions. A Federal Court ruled July in 52 counties, much greater than the 5,625 to campaign-sponsored forums and classes Congress in the II th District in Ohio. Sup- I against a lawsuit filed to win relief from required. In addition, thanks to the contribu are Melissa. 21, who met socialist petition tions raised, $800 was paid in fees. ers at a Gay Pride Day event she helped However, supporters have been notified organize; Damon, 20, who met the socialists by officials in Dade County, where over at a pro-choice demonstration; and Ron, an Socialist campaign fund results 6,000 of the signatures were filed, that only active-duty GI, who attended a forum on 2,200 there were accepted as valid. The Socialist Workers election cam A total of $50,474 was received to Haiti after signing a campaign petition the paign fund ended on July I. wards the $75,000 goal. The results from Garza explained in response, "These previous afternoon. Contributions to the fund have helped around the country are listed below. moves by government officials and the Marea Himelgrin reports a victory for finance the extensive international travel Further contributions are welcome. courts restrict the rights of millions of ordi democratic rights in Minneapolis when po of the candidates, insure expanded press Please send them to the Socialist Workers nary people by favoring candidates with big lice were forced to allow the campaign to coverage of the campaign, and field teams 1992 National Campaign, 191 7th Ave., financial resources and screening out any continue a 20 year practice of setting up of volunteers petitioning to get the candi New York, NY 10011. Tel: (212) 675- alternative parties or candidates." Her cam literature tables in a neighborhood called dates on the ballot. 6740. paign supporters are asking all supporters of Dinkytown. Since the streets are full of democratic rights to urge the state to put the tables staffed by merchants and other polit Contributions to the 1992 Socialist Campaign socialist candidates on the ballot. ical groups. the socialists were surprised Supporters of the Socialist Workers cam when police officer Lt. Jack Nelson ordered City Goal Received City Goal Received paign in Ohio recently filed 3,107 signatures the table down. They figured it had some Atlanta $2,800 $2,415 New Haven $700 $30 to get Parks on the ballot. They have now thing to do with the campaign signs de manding "Justice for Rodney King! Federal Baltimore 2,300 1,070 Newark 7,000 1,461 launched a public campaign to ensure ballot status. Statements of support for the right of prosecution for those who beat him." Birmingham 2,200 1,330 New York 9,000 3,735 the socialist candidates to appear on the Several days later, as supporters of the Boston 3,000 705 Philadelphia 2,500 2,034 ballot have come from a number of promi socialist campaign were preparing for a pro Chicago 3,500 2,075 Pittsburgh 2,100 2,570 nent individuals in the Cleveland area. test, an officer came up and "fonnally apol Cincinnati 700 250 Portland 500 These include Tom Buckley, Professor of ogized." He said a statement from the police Cleveland 2,600 1,755 Salt Lake City 3,000 3,060 Law at Cleveland State University; Amanda chief was in the mail and the tables would Des Moines 2,000 2,010 San Francisco 6,000 5,800 Byrne, vice-president/action of the Cleve not be taken down again. Detroit 2,200 1,000 Seattle 2,000 800 land chapter of the National Organization Support is growing at the Ford assembly for Women; and Terry Daughterty, shop Greensboro 1,600 1,155 St. Louis 2,500 2,660 plant in Atlanta where Miguel zarate, so steward of United Auto Workers Local cialist candidate for U.S. Senate in Georgia Houston 2,700 1,647 Twin Cities 3,600 3,125 2262. and Bob Braxton, candidate for U.S. Con Los Angeles 5,500 4,682 Wash., DC 2,300 2,385 gress, work, Susan LaMont reports. Thir Miami 2,000 1,555 Other liS Maggie McCraw from Miami and Roni Mc teen workers at the plant have subscribed to Morgantown 1,800 550 TOTALS: $75,600 $50,474 Cann from Cleveland contributed to this theMilitant and $40 ha- ">een donated to the article. campaign.
8 The Militant August 14, 1992 International Socialist
~e~ie~ ...... s .u.pp.le•m•e.nt•t•o •~•e•MU·· .uum.. t..... A. u.~..t .t ~... •. s.~.~ Behind Belgrade's • BY GEORGE FYSON carnage 1n advance variations on the approach to getting out of the ANDJONATHANSaBERMAN mess the country is in. Although they drape their rhetoric Over the past year Yugoslavia has been gripped by a in different "national" colors, they share the desire to murderous civil war orchestrated above all by the regime shove the effects of the crisis onto the backs of working in Serbia, as well as by leaders of Croatia and other Yugoslavia: people. These petty-bourgeois and aspiring bourgeois republics. The Yugoslav working people, who 45 years ago layers are only interested in safeguarding their own made a mighty socialist revolution, are the ones who are privileges, diverting workers from acting in their own paying with their lives. class interests, and continuing the fruitless attempt to be Into this situation the rival imperialist powers of Europe What road to welcomed as equal partners into the world capitalist and the United States are seeking ways to intervene, wield system. their forces, and place their stamp on the outcome of Today this is a less realistic perspective than ever. The events. Acting through the United Nations, they have world capitalist system is in the initial throes of an historic placed an embargo on Serbia, and are weighing the pros unite working crisis. Instability, economic depression, social crisis, and pects of serious military involvement beyond the UN war are what this system holds in store. forces currently stationed there. Out of the class struggles that will inevitably result, The military conflict in Yugoslavia has now been going workers will have their chance to build communist on for just over one year. Beginning in June 1991, people? parties capable of leading revolutionary anticapitalist skirmishes in Slovenia were followed by a devastating war struggles to establish governments of the workers and in Croatia. carried out a powerful revolution in the 1940s that over farmers and join in the worldwide fight for socialism. In recent months a further slaughter in Bosnia turned the rule of the exploiting landlords and capitalists The future battles that workers face in Yugoslavia, in Herzegovina has been going on. Indiscriminate massacres of different tongues and creeds, and forged a united Yugo overthrowing the parasitic caste that today presides over of civilians and devastation of cities to a degree rarely seen slavia. the bloody dismemberment of the federation, are part in the history of warfare have resulted in at least 7.000 The conflicts of the past year have been noteworthy of this worldwide struggle. deaths in only three months. (The government of Bosnia for the inability of the regimes to mobilize large numbers The tasks working people face can be best appreciated Herzegovina puts the death toll as high as 50,000.) Earlier, of working people to fight; for the large number of by reviewing the road they have already traveled -what some 10,000 people were killed in the war over territory desertions from the Yugoslav army; for the cases of the workers and peasants achieved in the Yugoslav revo in Croatia in the second half of 1991. fraternization between soldiers and those they were sup lution of the latter part of the 1940s. and how that revolu The war has created as many as I million refugees in posed to be fighting; and for the mounting protests tion was betrayed. Croatia, and some 1.2 million in Bosnia-Herzegovina just in against the war, especially in Belgrade. Just in the past the last three months. The number of refugees in Bosnia weeks, tens of thousands of people have demonstrated Herzegovina - now one quarter of its population- is the in numerous protests against the war, including a rally The rise, accomplishments, highest anywhere in Europe since World War ll. The former of 100,000 June 28. Yugoslavia has a population of 24 million. and degeneration of the Capitalist-minded political commentators argue that the Modern class struggle Yugoslav revolution current conflicts in Yugoslavia are the modem expression Despite the nationalist demagogy of the bureaucrats and of centuries of tribal or ethnic strife that has gripped this protocapitalists, what is taking place is not national. reli The Yugoslav revolution is one of the historic conquests part of the world. They use this to justify the need for gious, ethnic. or tribal struggle. It is the modem class of the working class, just like the Russian revolution of outside intervention in the form of an economic embargo struggle. 1917; the Chinese revolution of 1949; and the Cuban and possible military attack, claiming the people of Yugo The events in Yugoslavia are not the product of com revolution of 1959. It was a mighty "festival of the op slavia are helpless to solve the problems they face through munism, but of its counterrevolutionary opposite: Stalin pressed," as Lenin described the Bolshevik-led October their own struggles. ism. The Yugoslav crisis is one in a series that has gripped revolution in Russia. The revolutionary example set by the the workers states in Eastern and Central Europe and the toilers in Russia and elsewhere in the old tsarist empire Cr ude drive for control former Soviet Union over the past two years, bringing inspired generations of working-class leaders in Yugosla The truth is the opposite. Today's conflicts in Yugo down govemments and shattering the ruling Stalinist par via. slavia have nothing in common with the historic rise of ties. Yugoslavia was an economically backward country at nation-states that accompanied the bour the time of the revolution. Indeed the geois-democratic revolutions against Balkans, which comprise Albania, Bul feudal conditions in the period from garia, Greece, Romania, and Yugosla the 16th to the early 20th century. Nor via, were the most backward part of are they similar to modem national Europe. The region accounted for just liberation struggles against colonialism 2.5 percent of European industrial pro and imperialist oppression. Instead, duction, most of this closely connected what is involved is a crude drive for with agriculture - milling, wine-press control over territory and resources ing, and manufacture of vegetable oils. among the conflicting bureaucratic About 80 percent of the Yugoslav pop gangs that rule in the regions of the ulation of 16 million were peasants, I former Yugoslavia. million of whom were landless and As in the former Soviet Union and worked as migratory, seasonal elsewhere in Eastern Europe, elements farm workers. of the old Stalinist bureaucracy have The land was in the hands of a few discarded their previous verbal claims large landowners and the peasantry to "communism" as easily as a snake was oppressed by the hangovers of sheds its old skin. Now they are gang semifeudal conditions, onto which the ing up with would-be capitalists to harshest of capitalist social relations grab as big a portion of the loot as had been grafted. Agricultural taxes in they can, just as any mafia operates to the Balkans were among the highest protect and enlarge its turf. And they in the world. The mortgage and loan are competing among themselves for debts of the peasants were enormous. a poor cousin's place at the table of Interest rates for seed and tools in the world capitalism. region ran up to 80 percent. In many The main aggressors on the Yugo areas the peasants were restricted to slav battleground are the bureaucrats subsistence farming. The modem ~rking people and youth throughout Yugoslavia oppose the Belgrade regime and its policy of based in Serbia, the dominant republic working class numbered at most war. ~men in Belgrade demonstrate demanding an end to military conscr iption. in the former Yugoslavia, whose larg 100,000. est city, Belgrade, had been the federal Yugoslavia was dominated by foreign capital. The regimes of the Croatian and other republics Today the components of the former Yugoslavia have capital, frrst British and French, and then by growing have shown themselves to be no less keen to plunder an enormous foreign debt to imperialist banks and financial German interests in the 1920s and 1930s. It was effectively resources for themselves, as the Croatian regime's an institutions, rampant inflation, and massive unemploy a semicolony of these European imperialist powers, with nexation of a piece of Bosnia-Herzegovina in early July ment. Yugoslav workers have been forced to migrate in its economic and social development held back in their demonstrates. search of work. Even before the latest wave of war-gener interests. None of the fights being waged by the regimes and their ated refugees there were 600,000 Yugoslav workers in Yugoslavia was united as a country at the end of World surrogate forces in Yugoslavia today are in the interests of Germany alone. War I with the coming together of six republics under the working people there, whose parents and grandparents Different sections of the ruling stratum in Yugoslavia Continued on next page
August 14, 1992 The Militant 9 International Socialist Revievv ...... Ju.• y.~~--2 --~.s~-2
Continued from previous page The Serbian monarchy set up shop in Brit Serbian monarchy. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and ain. Pro-monarchy forces, known as Chetniks, Slovenes, established in 1918, took the name Yugoslavia established a guerrilla operation under the in 1929. When World War II opened, there was little or no royalist general Draza Mihailovic. They re all-Yugoslav industrial infrastructure. Within this frame ceived financial and military aid from the work, the north and west were relatively more modem and Allied powers - the governments of Britain, advanced, the south more backward. the United States and the Soviet Union. The principal opposition to the occupying Different languages, alphabets, religions forces was the armed "Partisans." Led by the The legacy of colonial domination by the "European" League of Communists of Yugoslavia, the Austro-Hungarian or by the "Asian" Ottoman empires Partisan movement was a national liberation as the bourgeois press insists on designating them today army. It was originally set up to harass the - left its mark in the form of different languages and occupying forces, not to launch an insurrec alphabets, ethnic origins, and religions. Serbia, home of tionary struggle. This was in line with dictates the oppressive Karageorgevich monarchy, dominated from the Stalin regime in Moscow, which had Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Mon recognized the occupation administration and tenegro, Slovenia, and Vojvodina. National oppression was was loolcing to avert a German invasion of enshrined in law. There was no separation between the Russia. state and the church -the Serbian-linked Greek Orthodox The Yugoslav party, now headed by the hierarchy, that is. Croatian-bom Josip Broz Tito, followed The workers' movement was weak, beset by both the Moscow's instructions, establishing small objective backwardness of the country and harsh repres armed unit~ at first. It had no idea, nor inten sion. Many political oppositionists were imprisoned, some tion, that within four years it would be in were executed. power. Despite the weakness of the organized Communist Party But the armed resistance to both the home and workers movement, the 1917 Russian revolution had grown and occupying fascist forces proved great prestige there. Yugoslav peasants were attracted by tremendously popular, and the peasant masses the revolution's agrarian reform; the youth by its demo pressed for broader social goals. Following cratic and broader social conquests. In the brief democratic the German invasion of the Soviet Union, interlude following the country's formation after World Stalin gave the go-ahead to the Partisans to War I, the Communist Party grew rapidly. By 1920 it had organize a military struggle, calling on them 60,000 members and in the elections of that year, the party to act jointly with Mihailovic's Chetniks and came in third, winning 12 percent of the vote. But a period all forces opposed to the occupation. of severe repression followed. By the outbreak of World Workers and peasants poured into the ranks War II, the Communist Party -which was underground of the Partisans, who waged a courageous or semilegal from 1921 onward, and whose leadership struggle that tied down 33 Axis divisions spent many years out of the country - numbered about some 500,000 troops. The fight was bitter and I 2,000, with 30,000 in the Communist youth organization. hard: nearly 2 million Yugoslavs, or 11 percent Indiscriminate massacres and devastation of cities have left at least It had also gone through a qualitative political transforma of the population, died in the war. 17,000 dead and 2 million homeless. tion through its adherence to the course of the Stalin-led Popular committees Communist International. The Partisans took on the character of a mass social This was the general condition of Yugoslavia at the In the course of the successful struggle, popular com movement. Without aid from any outside source, the outbreak of World War 11. In April 1941 the Axis powers mittees were elected to administer liberated zones, organ movement won working people from every nationality. invaded- primarily German troops, assisted by Italian, izing education, health care, and munitions production. This included substantial recruitment from German, Ital Bulgarian, and Hungarian forces. The Axis occupation Peasants seized the land of landowners who had fled or ian, Bulgarian, and Hungarian prisoners of war and desert won the support of the Yugoslav landowners and capitalists collaborated with the occupying armies. As liberated zones ers, a recruitment policy that became the subject of sharp in their majority; the rise of German imperialist domination became linked, a newspaper began to be published three criticism from Moscow. times a week, a railway system was organized, and a mail had ensured their pro-German orientation. The Partisans took steps to mobilize women in the system established. In November 1942, a broad national struggle, organizing two national conferences for this pur Military coup body based on elected representatives of the popular com pose. The predominance of young fighters was reflected Prior to the Axis invasion, the Karageorgevich monar mittees was established- the Anti-Fascist Council of in the peasants' description of the armed Partisan detach chy had concluded an agreement with Hitler, and petty People's Liberation, or AVNOJ (pronounced Avnoy). ment~ as "the youth.'' bourgeois forces within the army officer corps then ousted A year later, in November 1943, AVNOJ set itself up as The big majority of fighters were peasants, including in the government in a coup. The king fled, along with the a provisional government and announced that the king the Proletarian Brigades, which formed the backbone of "royal purse." The new government. which proclaimed could not return. At the same time, at the meeting of U.S. the Partisan army. Many workers from the cities joined the neutrality, organized no resistance to the Axis forces that president Franklin Roosevelt, British prime minister Win brigades and other Partisan units as well. The Proletarian soon crossed its borders. After I I days, including the ston Churchill, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in Tehran, Brigades were the first fighting units that were not re horrific bombing of Belgrade, which ranks alongside the Iran, the allied powers first agreed that influence in post stricted to operations in a particular region. devastation of Coventry and Dresden, the German occu war Yugoslavia would be shared equally between the pation was complete. imperialist allies and Moscow. Against chauvinism In the Croatian capital of Zagreb, a fascist regime under By the autumn of 1942, the Partisans numbered 150,000. In uniting the toilers from every nationality behind the nationalist colors, the Ustasha, was established. It actively By the end of 1943 they had grown to 300,000, and by the antifascist struggle the Partisans advanced a program that collaborated with the occupation forces, carrying out mass end of the war they were effectively a full-fledged army struck at the heart of national privilege and went a long killings of Gypsies, Jews, and Serbs. numbering 800,000. way to overcoming national enmities. It called for equality and mutual respect for all nationalities and opposed the chauvinism and domination of one nation over others. The Partisans combined this with the objective of im plementing social and economic advances in the interests SPECIAL OFFER of working people. The Partisans also looked beyond old "Yugoslavia,'' and presented the perspective of a broader 25% discount off Usted prices to members Balkan federation. Already by 1940 the Communist Party had adopted a of the Pathfinder Readers Club program that provided for the right to self-determination for all oppressed nationalities. The success of this approach in uniting working people in the Partisan movement con finned in life that defense of national rights and opposition GENOCIDE AGAINST THE INDIANS to national privilege are not the path toward nationalism, but the only road to unite the working class in the inter ITS ROLE IN THE RI SE OF U .S. C APITA LI SM nationalist fight for socialism. This stance allowed the Partisans to win over masses of by George Novack, ~ $1.50 peasants and workers from the murderous Croatian fascists and Serbian nationalist forces. In the town of Focha in Bosnia, for example, Ustasha forces in May 1941 killed all Serbs who had not fled. Six months later a Partisan unit. THE LONG VIEW OF HISTORY made up of Serbs and Croats. seized the city. They tried and executed Ustashi who were guilty of these crimes, but by George Novack, $p!J(f $1.85 did not touch any Croat simply for being Croatian. Then . ---"' -- the bourgeois-led Chetniks defeated the Partisans and captured the town. They, in tum, killed every Croat they The could round up. Communist THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO Manifesto Workers and farmers make revolution by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Under pressure from the "Big Three" - Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union - who demanded the $1.85 restoration of the monarchy at the end of the war, Tito $J3f agreed in early 1945 to a joint government responsible to Please include $3 shipping for the ~rst copy, $.50 each additional copy a regency -a representative of the crown - whose orvis i tthebooks~oreslistedon poge 20. POth~nder,410WestSt., New York, NY 1001.4. Offerends0ctober31 . members would be approved by the national committee of the AVNOJ. The AVNOJ would have full legislative pow-
10 The Militant August 14, 1992 July 1992 ISR/3
ers until a constituent assembly convened to make final ing Stalin's murder of the previous leader, Milan Gorkic. workers and youth around the world. Revolutionaries in decisions. A joint government of Tito and Ivan Subasic, The party had loyally followed Stalin's previous twists and other countries reached out to defend and assist the Yugo prime minister of the royal government-in-exile in London, turns. slav revolution. was established on March 7, 1945. Faithful to this approach, the program of the first session Thousands of workers and youth went on work brigades At the same time, the revolutionary mobilization by the of AVNOJ in 1942 guaranteed "no radical changes what to Yugoslavia to build roads, rail roads, and other public Partisans encroached on capitalist property relations more soever in the social life and activities of the people". But works. In the summer of 1950,3,000 people from France and more. A Partisan decree of November 24, 1944, or the dynamics of the struggle and the scope of the revolu were organized in the Jean Jaures Brigade, the Rosa Lux dered the confiscation of the property of occupiers, includ tionary mobilization of the toilers imposed shifts on the emburg Brigade, and the Renault Brigade made up of auto ing extensive German capital, and their Yugoslav collab CP leadership, which was determined to lead the antifascist workers from Renault Billancourt. Brigades went from orators. This amounted to 80 percent of industry, most strUggle. Britain and elsewhere in Europe, and plans were made for banks, and almost aU large commercial enterprises. (The The alliance with the Chetniks proved impossible. As a U.S. brigade that never came to fruition. subsequent nationalization law of December 1946 largely early as 1941, the Chetniks were organizing armed actions Imperialism reacted to the Yugoslav revolution with registered an already existing fact.) against the Partisans, and as the war progressed the over economic pressure, hostile propaganda, and overt military The new government also enacted a massive land reform whelming bulk of the Chetniks • operations were of this threats. Between July 16 and August 8, 1946, Yugoslav in August 1945. This confiscated the property of the great character. airspace was violated 172 times by British and U.S. bomb landowners without compensation, put 95 percent of the The Yugoslav CP leadership, based on its own apparatus ers and fighters. But the postwar relationship of forces did cultivated land into the hands of the working peasants, and that more and more took on the character of an independent not permit a direct military intervention aimed at overturn placed a limit of 30 hectares (74 acres) on the sale of land. govemrnen" charted an independent course from Moscow, ing the revolution. The government instituted steps toward economic plan while continuing to subscribe to a Stalinist political frame The revolution in Yugoslavia was not the only social ning, including a state monopoly of foreign trade. It took work. overturn that came out of World War II. In Albania a measures that during the initial years of the revolution popular revolutionary struggle of a similar character substantiaUy narrowed the gap between different parts of Hungary achieved success in 1944. A civil war continued to threaten the country. capitalist rule in Greece. and was only finaJJy defeated in This increasingly anticapitalist course of the govern 1949. ment made clear that Subasic and the four other represen Romania The wartime victories over fascism spurred massive tatives of the bourgeoisie and landed nobility had no real mobilizations throughout Europe. In Italy the workers and sway in the country. It was acting as a workers and peasants farmers were armed and in a position to press for a government on the momentum of the revolutionary strug government of the toilers. The Communist Party, however, gle. Power was in the hands of the Communist Party, the was a major force in the coalition government that fol leading force in the AVNOJ. lowed the fall of Mussolini and was determined to preserve The bourgeois figures resigned over the course of 1945, its bloc with the bourgeois parties. The CP organized the including Subasic. In the fall of 1945, the monarchy was disarming and demobili zation of working people, thus abolished - implementing the AVNOJ decision of two saving capitalist rule. years earlier-and the bourgeois parties boycotted the As the victorious Soviet army swept through Bulgaria, November 11 elections to the constituent assembly be Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and eastern cause they knew they would be heavily defeated. The new Germany, it prompted a wave of workers' strUggles and Federal People's Republic was installed on November 29 mass uprisings. The first response of the Kremlin was to and the new constitution adopted on Jan. 31, 1946. move quickly to crush the developing independent move In the course of implementing these anticapitalist mea This was important in facilitating a different outcome ment and to prevent radical social transformations and the sures, and propelled by the mobilizations of workers and to the strUggle in Yugoslavia from what happened in overturn of capitalist property relations. Coalition govern peasants that went along with them, a workers state was Greece, where the CP did carry out StaHn 's orders. The ments were set up with the most prominent bourgeois established in Yugoslavia - a state based on the workers' Greek Partisans were disarmed under the British occupa politicians that would go along. successful conquest of state property in the basic means of tion. The strUggle was then drowned in blood. The Yugo production, a thoroughgoing land reform, economic plan slav CP was also from the Stalinist stable, but it was able Buffer zone ning, and a state monopoly of foreign trade. to lead a determined national liberation fight that, in the Stalin's goal was to implant pliant coalition regimes in exceptional circumstances of war and foreign occupation. order to use Eastern Europe as a buffer zone to protect the Moscow's hostility ensured the success of the anticapitalist revolution. USSR against future invasions, while at the same time To lead this revolution through to completion, the Par preserving capitalism in an attempt to maintain the wartime tisans had to break from the attempts by Moscow to alliance with British and U.S. imperialism. strangle the struggle of the toilers in Yugoslavia. Stalin's The Kremlin also imposed its own "war reparations," policies subordinated the interests of the working class and The world at the end of dismantling factories and taking them to the Soviet Union, its allies in Yugoslavia - and everywhere else - to the World War II siphoning off cash and raw materials, carrying away prod interests of the materially privileged bureaucratic caste in ucts to the USSR, and establishing joint economic enter the Soviet Union. The emerging imperialist war victors were alarmed by prises with the new governments that were under Soviet For the Moscow bureaucrats, the task of Communist this development. The revolution meant more than just control and to Moscow's economic benefit. The property Parties in other countries was to do whatever was necessary material conquests for the Yugoslav toilers, important as of the old landlord classes was expropriated and agrarian and expedient to advance the shifting foreign policy needs these were. Its success engendered solidarity by fighting Continued on ISR Page 7 of the Soviet regime. This was justified in the guise of "defending" the Soviet Union. Under the banner of "so cialism in one country," the Communist International was transformed by Stalin into a tool for the counterrevolution SPECIAL OFFER ary diplomacy of the Soviet government. In May 1943 Stalin dissolved the Comintem altogether to emphasize to 50% DISCOUNT TO MEMBERS OF THE Washington and London that Moscow had no thought whatsoever of attempting to extend the world socialist PATHFINDER READERS CLUB revolution. In the course of World War II, Stalin wished above all OFFER ENDS AUGUST 31, 1992 to maintain the alliance with his British and U.S. aUies. To prove his reliability, Stalin used Moscow's influence and How did the oppression of women begin? the Communist Parties in various countries to ensure that Who benefits? What social forces have the power revolutionary struggles against capitalism were defeated. to end the second-class status of women and In relation to Yugoslavia, Stalin loyally followed have common interests in the fight for women's Churchill's and Roosevelt's dictates. liberation? "It seems that Great Britain and the Yugoslav govern This three-part series makes available ment [in London} have good reasons to suspect the partisan movement of having a communist character and aiming at documents, reports, and resolutions of the a sovietization of Yugoslavia,'' said a Comintem letter to Socialist Workers Party that wiJl help the Tito in 1942. "Why have you created, for instance, a special generation of women and men now joining proletarian brigade? At the present moment, the main duty battle in defense of women's rights find answers is to merge all anti-nazi trends.'' to these and similar questions. The Partisans were not mentioned in the Soviet press, their radio broadcasts were censored; until 1944 they were Communist Continuity and the refused any aid by the Soviet Union. The CP was urged to organize jointly with the Chetniks and Moscow publicly Fight for Women's Liberation supported the return of the monarchy to Yugoslavia. At three international conferences - Tehran in November Documents of the Socialist Workers Party, 1971-86 December 1943, Yalta in February 1945, and Potsdam in July 1945, Stalin reaffirmed his commitment to a 50-50 Women's Liberation and Women, Leadership, and Abortion Rights and the sphere of influence split between Britain and the Soviet the Line of March of the Proletarian Norms of the Rebirth of a Feminist Union for post-war Yugoslavia. Working Class (Part I) Communist Movement Movement; The Party Leadership trained as Stalinists $10.00 (Part II) $9.00 Campaigns for Women's The Yugoslav CP did not enter the strUggle with the [special offer $5.00] [special offer $4.50] Rights (Partlii) $11.00 intention of breaking from Moscow. Its leadership had [special offer, $5.50] been trained in Russia or by Stalin's secret police in the Join the Pathfinder Readers Club Spanish Civil War. In 1937, on orders from the Kremlin, For a $10 (£5) annual fee you can take advantage of special offers such as this and get a 15% discount on all other Pathfinder the entire central committee of the party with the exception titles. Send $3 for the first title and $.50 for each additional to cover shipping and handling. Available from your local Pathfinder of Ttto was purged. Ttto himself had spent two years in bookstore (seep. 20 for addresses), or write Pathfinder. 410 West St., New York, NY 10014 Moscow and had become leader of the party only follow-
August 14, 1992 The Militant 11 International Socialist Jtevievv ...... A.u.gu. st•t•~-2--·Is-~4 International volunteer effort helps open library at Pathfinder Building Preparing for resistance to the capitalist crisis by new generations
BY FRANK FORRESTAL Britain. The volunteers spanned several generations and In early May, Pathfinder Press moved into its new included some of the newest and youngest members of the offices on the fourth floor of the Pathfinder Building in communist movement. New York City. The construction of the offices is part of Dozens of volunteers, many of them trade union activ the Pathfmder reconstruction project launched more than ists, came in after working jobs during the day. It took a one year ago. The Pathfinder Building houses the offices tremendous effort to finish. Supporters worked six- and of the Militant newspaper and Perspectiva Mundial, Path seven-day weeks, often late into the evening. finder Press, and the national offices of the Socialist Work During the seven-week project, many volunteers were ers Party. also actively engaged in political work at the same time. A team of international volunteers remodeled the floor. For example, carloads traveled to participate in the mobi Next to the new editorial and business offices ofPathfmder, lizations in defense of the abortion clinics in Buffalo, New they built a referen~ library. York, and then returned to New York City to continue work lb.is library is riow being used by staff writers for the on the library. Others traveled with fellow unionists to Militant and Persp~'ctiva Mundial newspapers, Pathfinder support the strike against Caterpillar by United Auto Work Press, and by the leadership of the Socialist Workers Party. ers members in Illinois. It is a working library, designed for the requirements of Resistance: reason for library writing Militant articles and reports, as well as for putting out new pamphlets and books by Pathfmder, and other Why put all this effort into organizing a library? It is research work. part of preparing for the resistance by new generations to The library has some unique features. In addition to the ,, ______hundreds of books cataloged on its shelves, there are several rows of working files. These political files contain documents from the history of the most important work The great thing that the ing-class struggles that have shaped the modem commu revolutionary workers' movement nist movement. The library is well organized. It is maintained by the ______has is its ideas ... ,, writing staffs of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial and the editorial department of Pathfinder. There are no librar ians on the premises. To increase productivity a new the effects of the capitalist crisis at home and abroad, Militant/Eric Simpson microfilm reader and a xerox machine specially designed including the drive toward a third world war by the rival Many unionists and young activists donated their time for libraries were installed. The library catalog has been imperialist powers. after work to help in setting up the library. put on a computer network, which is a big aid in finding reference material. Also installed on the computer network The first few weeks of the mobilization were capped by is an index of SWP discussion and information bulletins. a celebration in New York. Participants heard a talk by Following the completion of the project Barnes spoke Jack Barnes, national secretary of the SWP. "New gener In the course of preparing what was to remain in the about it further at the May 30- 31 fusion convention of the ations of fighters are becoming political in a world where library, a large quantity of files and other items stored in Communist League and Young Socialists in Toronto. "Put fewer walls than ever before separate working people from the Pathfmder Building had to be systematically sorted ting the library together is putting together the future, not each other," said Barnes. "Over the past two years, workers through. As a result of this work, two large donations of the past," he said. and farmers of the former Soviet Union and throughout documentary materials were shipped to the Hoover Insti "lt 's what Farrell Dobbs used to say: when you become Eastern Europe have had the door to world politics opened tution on War, Rev.olution, and Peace in California and to part of the revolutionary workers' movement you have to to them after decades of being blocked off from participat the State Historical Society of Wisconsin in Madison. Both first learn to be a citizen of the world." Dobbs wa's national ing in politics by the Stalinist parties and regimes in those institutions will ensure that these files are protected, well secretary of the SWP from 1953 to 1964. "Bourgeois countries. organized, and accessible for use. democracy is a very selfish set of institutions," Barnes said. Completing the library was the final and most time-con "The regimes that were responsible for ruthless censor "You're taught to believe in 'your own country' and when suming part of moving the editorial and business offices ship, brutal repression, and the stultification of ideas and you get right down to it, to take care of ' number one.' The of Pathfinder Press. What began as a simple office move working-class political activity have crumbled. Not since last thing they want you to do is to recognize that you're turned into a massive project that drew on the labor and the years after the Russian revolution in the early 1920s part of an international class - the workers of the world." creative energy of more than 200 people from 23 cities in has the world been more open to being reached by Marxist "Farrell explained," said Barnes. "that you also have to the United States and from Canada, New Zealand, and ideas. become a citizen of time. You have to get rid of the 'The spreading depression conditions throughout the self-centered view that what happens in your own lifetime capitalist world, and the shattered illusions in the stability is the only thing that's important.'' and longevity of the counterrevolutionary Stalinist appa Barnes said that one of the most important accomplish ratuses, are heightening interest and hunger for revolution ments of the library project was the reorganization of the ary literature in the world." files on the Cuban revolution. noting that the way these "The historic interests of the capitalists as a class were organized will serve as a model for other political wouldn't be harmed if all the libraries in the world burned files that were not tackled in the project. down," Barnes said, "so long as they held onto the scien For ten days central SWP leaders worked on reorganiz tific and technical books they need. The opposite is true ing the political files on Cuba. The scope of these files for the working class. We would be devastated. reflects the fact that the Cuban revolution has played a "The capitalist rulers have no historical world view or decisive role in the advance of the working-class struggle strategy to confront the terminal weakness of their system. and renewal of revolutionary leadership in the 20th cen They produce not ideas, but ideological rationalizations for tury. It has been central to the recruitment and political the brutal and ruinous consequences of their rule. Their development of the cadres and leadership of the SWP. decisions are made pragmatically with only one thing in Documentation on every question that mattered in the mind: how best to shore up their profits. Their tools are Cuban revolution- from the U.S.-organized Bay of Pigs not books and pamphlets but military power, corruption, invasion in 1961 to Cuba's agrarian reform in the early and violence by cops, and ultimately by organized fascist 1960s, to the internationalist missions to Angola. to the gangs, against those who resist their exploitation and op rectification process in the late 1980s- is now organized pression. and accessible in the new library. 'The great thing that the revolutionary workers' move Pathfinder: 'pamphlets for proletariat' ment has is its ideas," said Barnes. "Often you hear that Today in its new offices, Pathfinder is busy at work the bosses have all the property and all the wealth, but the filling new orders for bookstores, book distributors, and workers have organization and that's what is important. book chains from around the world. During the past few 'This is true, but the working class needs more than years sales of Pathfinder books have expanded signifi organization. The bravest fighters in the world will be cantly. defeated until they can learn from the victories, as well as In an article for the Militant in 1931 , James P. Cannon, the defeats, in earlier battles, drawing the lessons of them a founding leader of the Communist Party who was ex together and discussing them. Working people and young pelled from that organization in 1928 and who then became fighters entering politics are handicapped by lack of expe a central leader of the SWP for decades, pointed to the rience and knowledge about dleir history. They need to central place leaders of the revolutionary workers move learn the lessons of previous struggles and revolutions. ment had always given to the publication of newspapers, Militant/Eric Simpson 'This is why the new library, which opens doors to the pamphlets, and books. This was true, Cannon said, of both More than 200 people from 23 US. cities and several ideas. experiences, and political conquests of the modem Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, the founders of modem other countries worked on setting up the new library. working class, is so important," said Barnes. communism.
12 The Militant August 14, 1992 August 1992 ISRIS
Marx wrote on one occasion, "We still lack a printing Stalinists in Moscow "were already beginning to negate all At t.he time the question of how to fight anti-Semitism press, but as soon as we have money we intend to purchase the benefits won after the revolution" for women's rights. and prevent a repeat of the horror of Nazi death camps was one. Then our printing establishment will be in a position, Throughout Trotsky's exile he was hounded and finally a hotly debated issue in the workers movement because of not only to run off our newspaper, but likewise to print the murdered in 1940 by the Stalinist secret police. In his the rise of Zionism, which had been a minority point of pamphlets necessary for the defense of the proletariat." writings Trotsky mentions several ti mes his concern for view among Jews -especially those who were workers The first pamphlets and books produced by the move the safety of his working files and those of his collabora - prior to the war. Leon's materialist approach to the ment that Cannon led grew out of the Militant newspaper, tors. Large sections of Trotsky's files were in fact stolen origins of Jew-hatred, and the particularly virulent form it which was launched in 1928, and can be found on the new in the 1930s by Stalin's agents. They were also ransacked takes during the epoch of imperialist decline, was wel shelves in the library. The books and materials from this by Nazis in Norway. comed in the United States. period were printed under the Militant Press imprint; later ,, ______A 1945 letter by an SWP leader pointed to the potential it changed to Pioneer Press in the 1930s and to Pathfinder interest in an English edition of the book, given that Press in the early 1970s. Working people and young fighters "there is much agitation among the Jewish people in this The main publishing by the early movement was of country, just as there is the world over, over the plight pamphlets and books by Leon Trotsky, one of the main entering politics are handicapped the Jews have suffered during the war and the fai lure of leaders of the Russian revolution and Bolshevik party. the big powers to provide a haven for the homeless Jews After Lenin's death in 1924 Trotsky led the fight in the by lack of experience and who have survived the terrible war." The Jewish Ques Soviet Communist Party and Communist International knowledge about their history ... tion was published by Pathfinder in 1950 and remains to defend and put into practive the internationalist pro ______,, an important title in Pathfinder's catalog. gram charted while Lenin was alive. By the latter 1920s in the Soviet Union, a petty bourgeois social layer led Fighting files by Joseph Stalin reversed the direction of the revolution It was for this reason that Trotsky in the late 1930s ln preparing the new library, some 20 volunteers assem that had begun in 1917. Leaders and parties in the transferred them to a major research library where they bled and organized the library donations to the Hoover Communist International, which was set up to extend would be more secure. "1be GPU [Stalinist secret police] Institution and to the State Historical Society of Wiscon the revolutionary process initiated in Russia, were bullied is going to do everything in its power to get its hands on sin. During the month-long projec4 75 file cabinets filled or enticed into following a parallel course in their own my archives. It would be best to deposit them with an with political files from many decades were rearranged, countries. Those who refused to do so were expelled, as established scientific institution," wrote Trotsky. Trotsky reorganized, and prepared with careful packing lists for was Trotsky in 1927 and Cannon in 1928. ended up placing his papers at Harvard University. shipment. More than a dozen pallets of materials were Though some letters and articles by Lenin were suppressed final ly shipped. by the Stalin regime, the basic works of Marx, Engels, and Documents find way to New York Barnes stressed that the library is a living tool that Lenin were in print and available at the time. 1be job of Under the difficult conditions of the rise of fascist contains "stripped-down working political files. What we revolutionists, a small handful at first. was to publish new Germany and in the World War II period, Barnes pointed have assembled is an honest account of the gains and books and pamphlets that continued the revo- experiences and fights of the Marxist move lutionary course set out by the founders of ment. It 's there and usable as active, fighting Marxism. files." Their early efforts included such pam In this regard, Barnes said it was important phlets as The Turn in rhe Communisr Inter to see the donations to the two institutions in national and rhe German Situation ( 1930), the right framework. "The library of our World Unemploymenr and the Five Year Plan, movement is in a building in New York- the (193 1) and Communism and Syndicalism central library," he said, "but it now has big (193 1) - all written by Trotsky and trans extensions in California and Wisconsin." lated by members of the Communist League Both the Hoover Institution and the Madi of America, the predecessor of the SWP. son library are open to the public, and a good From these first pamphlets, this publishing portion of the new material has already been effort has never been a profit-making en made accessible. ln return, both institutions deavor, but has been based on voluntary con are responsible for preserving the materials, tributions of those who used the publications which includes microftlming and cataloging. in their political work on the job, in the unions The vast majority of the material is acces and mass movements. sible without restrictions. To ensure the integ Upon receiving a copy of The Third Inter rity of future publishing plans, a large percent national After Lenin in the late 1930s, Trotsky age of the papers are protected by copyright. gave "his heartfelt thanks to aU the collabo In addition, time restrictions have been placed rators from the typesetters to the general ed on access to materials that deal with internal itor and back again." Trotsky recalled that discussions to ensure the democratic norms "six years ago I looked a bit skeptically upon of the party. your plans to establish a publishing house in order to publish my books. Now I have to Madison donation concede that my unjustly arrived at skepti The donation made to the State Historical cism has been ' harshly' punished, in a way Society in Madison, Wisconsin, significantly that makes me very optimistic." expands the scope of documents on the So Later in 1937 Trotsky wrote, "'The [pub cialist Workers Party, Young Socialist Alli lishi ng) enterprise must be developed at any ance, and related collections there. After re cost if we are willing to educate new Marxist ceiving the shipments, Madison archivist cadres and to build up a new International. Rick Pifer commented that "the recent dona No sacrifices are too great in supporting and tion is one of the richest bodies of material on developing Pioneer Publishers." socialism that I have seen." Militant Pifer stressed that, because the "flles and Movement's first library Mass demonstration of Cuban workers on May Day, 1990. One of most important accomplishments of library project was organizing valuable files on Cuban revolution. other materials were maintained and organ Stalinist opponents of the new movement ized so well by the Library for Social History, recognized the power of ideas also-and the papers will be accessible right away. This sought to do what they could to squash them. After he had out in his Toronto talk, New York became the repository is uncommon," he said. been expelled from the Communist Party in 1928, for all sorts of files. leners. documents, and manuscripts The State Historical Society is known for its collection Cannon's aparttnent was ransacked on two occasions on of revolutionary organizations around the world that col of materials on the labor and trade union movements and orders from Stalinist leaders of the party. Most of his books, laborated with the SWP. At the time the SWP was associ on U.S. socialist and communist organizations and social papers, and documents were stolen. As a resu14 JjttJe ated (it could not join because of reactionary U.S. govern protest movements. The SWP papers are among the most material is now available from the pre-1928 period when ment legislation) with the Fourth International, which was comprehensive collections in the library. Cannon was a leader ofthe Industrial Workers of the World founded in 1938. This organization's purpose was to re The SWP collection includes particularly comprehen (IWW) and later of the Communist Party. group revolutionists who were continuing the communist sive collections of the papers of central SWP leaders James policies of the Bolshevik party and Communist Interna P. Cannon and Farrell Dobbs, as well as substantial collec A letter from Fannie Curran, a founding member of the tional under the leadership of Lenin. SWPwho lives in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, was unearthed tions of papers of George Novack, Evelyn Reed, Vincent During the war revolutionists in many countries were R. Dunne, and other party leaders. Some 150 tapes of talks during the work on the library files that gives a feel for the forced to work under clandestine conditions. Many of the atmosphere in the Stalinist movement toward new ideas and and reports by party leaders are also included, as is material organization's leaders were killed or exterminated in Nazi on the internal history of the SWP and on the participation critical thought. Curran described her early experiences in concentration camps and some in Stalin's prison and labor the Young Communist League (YCL), the youth group of of the SWP in the trade unions, civil rights organi7..ations, camps as well. and civil liberties cases spanning several decades. the Communist Party, in a 1977letterto Evelyn Reed, author Barnes cited the story behind the publication of The The State Historical Society prides itself on its anti of Woman's Evolution, Sexism and Science, and other Path Jewish Question, A Marxist Interpretation, by Abram fmder books and pamphlets on the origins of women's Leon. Leon was a leader of the Belgian communist move Vietnam War movement collection. Central to these are oppression. Curran said that she and a few of her friends had ment and was active in the revolutionary underground. He the papers of SWP leader Fred Halstead, of the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, and set up a study group to read and discuss Frederick Engels's, fmished writing The Jewish Question in the shadow of the of the National Peace Action Coalition. Origin ofthe Family, Private Property, and the State. Nazi occupation. Just after completing the work, he was "I was very happy to be teaming and especially Engels's captured by the German Gestapo in 1944 and died a Other collections at Madison of movements that the Origin ofrhe Family, Privare Property, and rhe State, where martyr's death in Auschwitz. SWP has supported and participated in include the papers he spoke so highly of women's roles, that I mentioned it to The French edition of this book was sent to Mexico and records of: one of the leading members of the YCL," she said. who had where it was translated by Duncan Ferguson, who was • The Young Socialist Alliance, including its forerun great pretensions of being a "theoretician." She recalled that there on assignment overseeing the household where ners beginning in 1930. he was "absolutely incensed" that Curran was studying the Trotsky had lived and his family still resided. Ferguson • The Civil Rights Defense Committee. The CRDC book together with non-members of the YCL. Later in the was a long-time member of the SWP and also a trained was organized in 1941 to defend 18 members and leaders letter Curran explained the real reason why the Stalinist YCL sculptor. Many of the chapters of Leon's book were seri of the SWP and Midwest Teamsters union who were leaders were upset: "The study of women was the last thing" alized in the Fourth International magazine, which was railroaded to prison under the anti-<:ommunist Smith Act the Communist Party ~n the United States wanted since the published in New York. Continued on Page 14
August 14, 1992 The Militant International Socialist Revievv ...... A.u~.s.•.~~-2 ... ~.~.6
produced by the committee that publicized speeches by material on the history of the Iranian communist move Cuban leaders. There were more than 40 FPCC groups on ment. college campuses in the United States in the early 1960s. • Additional materials to the Fourth International col • U.S. Committee for Justice for Latin American Polit lection. ical Prisoners (USLA). USLA was formed to aid in de • A unique archive of the books and pamphlets pub fending victims of political persecution and injustice in the lished by Pathfinder Press and its predecessors. This col countries of Latin America, regardless of the political lection contains various editions of each Pathfinder book views of the opponents of dictatorial regimes. Launched and pamphlet (with differing introductions, translations, in 1966, the committee played a major role in freeing and contents); non-English language translations (Farsi, several political prisoners from certain death at the hands French, Greek, Japanese, Icelandic, Russian, Sinhalese, of repressive Latin American governments. Spanish, Swedish) or editions of these works licensed by • National Black Independent Political Party (NBIPP). Pathfinder. Formed in 1980, the party openly called on members of • A collection of speeches by Cuban leader Fidel Castro the oppressed Black nationality in the United States to end and other Cuban leaders beginning in the early 1950s, their support to the two parties of big business, capitalist described by the San Francisco Chronicle as "what is war, and racial and sexual oppression. It adopted an anti believed to be the most complete collection of annotated capitalist and anti-imperialist charter and had chapters and [Castro] speeches." local organizing committees in over 50 cities. The SWP • A collection of materials on the Grenada revolution, and YSA were active builders of the NBIPP until its including the speeches of Maurice Bishop, a central leader dissolution in the mid-1980s. of the revolution and the New Jewel Movement, historic copies of New J ewe/ and Free West Indian newspapers, Hoove.r Institution and other materials. The Hoover Institution contains one of the largest collec • The papers of Peng Shu-tse, a founder of Chinese tions of political materials in the world. In 1991, the Library communism and a leader of the Fourth International. The for Social History, which had been established in the Path San Francisco Chronicle reported that Peng 's works "are finder Building in the early 1970s, donated its holdings to regarded as the only reliable scholarly source on the early the Hoover Institution. This donation included a comprehen history of Chinese communism." Militant/Eric Simpson sive collection of newspapers, pamphlets, and internal bul William Ratliff, curator of the Americas and Interna Files of politicaJ documents we.re organized in the li letins from revolutionary organizations around the world, tional Collections at Hoover Institution, said in a phone b.ra.ry and donations sent to othe.r lib.ra.ry institutions to especially those associated with the Fourth International. interview that the donation of the Trotsky and SWP mate be archived. The donation included important materials from orga rials are "one of the most important acquisitions ever made nizations in North and South America, Western Europe. by the Hoover Library and Archives." Deputy Archivist Continued from Page 13 ,, ______for opposing World War II. • The Committee to Combat Racial Injustice. This com What we have assembled in this library is an honest account of the gains mittee was formed in 1958 to defend two Black children, aged eight and nine years old, who were imprisoned in North and experiences and fights of the Marxist movement. It's there and usable Carolina for kissing a seven-year-old white girl. Through their efforts, the two Black boys were freed in 1959. ______as active, fighting files ... ,, • The Kutcher Civil Rights Defense Committee. Kutcher was an SWP member fired from his job at the Veterans Administration in 1948 for his socialist views. Asia and the Pacific, and Africa. Many of the materials Dale Reed added, "I have been extremely impressed, not • The Committee to Aid the Bloomington Students. date back to the period before the Fourth International was only with the quality of these collections and their research This defended three students oflndiana University indicted founded in 1938. The collection also contained a wide potential, but also with the obvious care that has been taken under an Indiana thought-control law (Anti-Subversion range of materials from other political currents in the in organizing and maintaining them." Act of 1951) for attending a public meeting sponsored by international working-class movement. the YSA at Bloomington in 1963. The public meeting was The more recent collection put together during the Tape .recordings a YSA-sponsored forum on "The Black Revolt in Amer library project completes the transfer of the Library of The audiotape preparation was a popular task during the ica." The case was won in 1964 when a judge found the Social History to the Hoover Institution. Since it was Pathfinder Building library project in April. For hours Indiana law unconstitutional. established in 1973, the main organizers of the Library volunteers listened to tapes, some of them several decades • Court records and other materials involving the IS of Social History took special care to ensure that the old. The tape project was organized by Bob Schwarz, one year battle by the SWP and YSA against the spying and materials were well organized and maintained. Their of the many volunteers working on the project. harassment by the FBI and other government agencies. It painstaking work made the transfer possible. During its Schwarz said volunteers listened to 150 tapes, all ofwhich includes the lawsuit, SWP v. Attorney General, that re 20-year history the central people responsible for the are now part of the Madison collection. "There are tapes of sulted in an unprecedented judgement in favor of the SWP library included Reba Hansen, Rob Cahalane, Rich SWPconventions and meetings that dealt with the Yugoslav and YSA in 1986. Lesnick, and Barbara West revolution," Schwarz said, "debates on the meaning of • The Committee to Oppose the Deportation of Joseph The latest donation has received substantial publicity. Stalinism after the Khrushchev revelations, interviews and Johnson. This involved the case of a U.S.-bom worker, The Hoover Institution issued a press release entitled, talks on how the McCarthyite witch-hunt affected SWPwork Joseph Johnson, who had his citizenship revoked and was "Hoover Institution Archives Acquires Major Holdings in the labor movement, the impact of the emergence of the threatened with deportation in the mid-1960s under the from Socialist Workers Party of the United States." The civil rights movement in the 1950s, and much more." 1952 McCarran Immigration Act. cable TV station CNN covered the story on July 16. The volunteers spent considerable time checking the As a result of the recent library project, several new The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Researchers at the quality of the tapes ac; well as cross-referencing to determine donations were sent to Madison. These collections in Hoover Institution Archives at Stanford University were which tapes were already in print in part or in full. The cluded: enthusiastic yesterday about the scholarly opportunities cre transcription of these tapes is now under way. "Volunteers • Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC). The SWP and ated by the acquisition of the main archives of the Socialist from 23 cities and three countries are involved in this work, the YSA worked with other political groups, currents, and Workers Party ... , including a massive collection of letters, and more are needed, To help out, all you need is a cassette prominent individuals in the United States and Canada in notes and manuscripts of Leon Trotsky, the exiled Bolshevik Continued on next page the Fair Play for Cuba Committee following the Cuban revolutionary slain by agents of Josef revolution in 1959. The committee sought to disseminate Stalin in 1940." accurate information about Cuba. Many pamphlets were Here are some of the highlights of the donation to Hoover: • Substantial new additions to Hoover's collection of manuscripts, Help needed to transcribe letters, and other materials of Leon Trotsky. 'They include Trotsky's testa revolutionary leaders' talks ment and drafts of his biographies of V.I. Lenin and Joseph Stalin," the press Volunteers are needed to transcribe more than 75 release issued by Hoover explained. tape recordings of speeches and interviews by revo Hoover- together with Harvard and lutionary leaders given in the past fow decades. These the International Institute ofSocial His tape$ a key component of 150tapes that have are some tory in Amsterdam - was already one been reviewed. cataloged, and placed in the State of the major repositories of Trotsky's Historical Society of Wisconsin for the use of class papers. In addition, a quantity of Span struggle fighters and·. scholars and .historians of the ish translations ofbooks and pamphlets wodc.ing"'Class movement by Trotsky was donated. These tape recordin~ coqtain in:valuable historical • A substantial collection of the ma~al that wiU be used in research .and publishing projects. Transcription is essential both m preparing writings and correspondence of SWP some items for poblicarioo and in malPng others leader Joseph Hansen. In the 1930s Hansen was one ofTrotsky's secretar available for refereJ)Ce and serious ~y. ies. Later he was the editor of the Vqlunteers need only ,J:aave a c.asSeu; tape play~ Militant newspaper and several mag arid a typewriter, While most of' the pipeS are it1 azines, including Fourth Interna English, tluee of themse in~~ A timtHitnjtof tional, World Outlook and Interconti six DlOfltbs has been set for CQtnPklior! ofthe Pr9~· nental Pressllnprecor. Hansen was Anyone interest in volunJeerigg {ot this pr.oject the author of Dynamics of the Cuban theirJocal SocialiSt shOuld contact Workers P3itY or Revolution and The Leninist Strategy 20) Q:lminurust teagUe brBoch (see ~ 14 The Militant August 14, 1992 August 1992 ISR/7 premacy and industrial monopoly of the United States, the and dredged up conflicts from the civil war and before. relative decline of Britain and France-convinced Wash The Yugoslav leadership condemned Moscow's plunder ington to go onto the offensive. of the so-called buffer zone of Eastern Europe. Yugoslavia But the split was not over political perspectives. The This was codified in a bellicose March 1947 speech by President Harry Truman branding the Soviet Union an open breach developed because Moscow sought to impose Continued from ISR 3 Page "aggressor." The wartime alliance was definitively over. on Belgrade the Soviet bureaucracy's "national" interests. reforms were carried out, but with the objective of fostering (Churchill had made his "Iron Curtain" speech along the It demanded unequal economic relations with Yugoslavia the freest development of capitalism. same lines at Fulton, Missouri, a year earlier). and opposed independent political initiatives by the Yugo Stalin thought he had secured imperialist agreement Guided by the Truman Doctrine, Washington committed slav regime. Moscow feared that if Tito's attempts to with the course in the secret Potsdam accord with the U.S. huge forces to Europe, including active intervention establish a Balkan federation were successful, such a group and British governments in July-August 1945. Building on against the Greek insurgents. The Central Intelligence of workers states not completely under its control could earlier conferences during the war at Tehran and Yalta. the Agency was estabHshed in 1947, and the foundations were present an alternative pole to the current Kremlin clique Potsdam agreement set down guidelines for these three laid for the formation of the NATO military alliance be - in the world and in the Soviet Union itself. major powers to maintain their wartime alliance, divide up tween the North American and major European imperialist These conflicts brought the Soviet Union to the brink the spoils of war, and parcel up Europe: Britain and the powers in 1949. The new militarization drive was accom of war against Yugoslavia. Moscow imposed an economic United States would run Western Europe through tradi panied by a renewed antilabor and red-baiting drive at blockade and conducted threatening troop movements on tional economic penetr.ttion; Eastern Europe would fall home. the border. It recruited agents inside Yugoslavia for oper into the Kremlin 's sphere of influence; and Germany, to The "economic" complement to the Truman Doctrine ations against its opponents, including assassination, and be destroyed as an economic power, would be run as a was provided by the Marshall Plan, named after the U.S. attempted to organize a coup against the Yugoslav regime. joint military enterprise of the three, with a minor cut for secretary of state. This paved the way for the reconstruction BetweenJuly I, 1948,and Sept.l,l949,therewere219 France. of Europe through Germany. U.S. imperialism pushed armed incidents on Yugoslavia's eastern borders. Stalin Washington and London, however, had different plans. aside Britain and France, its junior wartime allies, in an and his supporters declared Tito to have been an agent of They acted to prevent the workers' struggles that were effort to unify and develop capitalist Europe under its own the Nazi secret police, the Gestapo, and vilified "Titoism" exploding across the conti nent from being victorious. They banner. internationally. For example, in a series of purge trials encouraged the local capitalist classes in Eastern and Cen Stalin's response in Eastern Europe was to order the conducted in the late 1940s in Czechoslovakia against a tral Europe to use whatever political leverage they had to local Stalinist parties to aboUsh the coalition governments section of the bureaucracy, the defendants were denounced the detriment of Moscow. They sent troops to Greece to and carry out the expropriation of capitalist property-a as "Trotskyite-Titoist-Zionist bourgeois nationalist trai crush the civil war. popular move given the unemployment, inflation, and tors." Potsdam crashed on the rocks of reality. An "agreement" social dislocation following the war. Tight bureaucratic Marxists at the time sought to counter the hysterical could not hold back the class struggle. The colonial revo control, backed up by the occupying Soviet army and the worldwide campaign that was launched against Tito, lution was advancing. The division of Europe was shutting use of secret police forces based on the Kremlin model, aimed at cutting off the support and sympathy the Yugoslav off Eastern Europe from capitaHst penetration. The crimi held the active participation and mobilization of the masses revolution had gained among revolutionary-minded work nal deindustrialization and plunder of Germany was drag in this expropriation within the limits set by Moscow. In ers and youth. They reached out to the Yugoslav workers ging down the rest of Europe economically too. Britain this way, several deformed workers states came into being. and farmers, seeking to present a political course that could not play the world power role assigned to it; its This was Europe as the 1940s drew to a close: successful would deepen the revolution. The Political Committee of decline was being sharply exposed in its inability to hold popular revolutions in Yugoslavia and Albania, civil war the Socialist Workers Party of the United States explained the line in Greece or in any way contribute to European in Greece, social overturns in Eastern Europe, unresolved in an August 1948 statement: economic reconstruction. Meanwhile, in the United States conflicts between the victorious wartime imperialist pow "The open break between the Cominform [the a labor upsurge developed. ers. Comintem's short-lived successor] and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia is the clearest expression to date of Truman Doctrine Tito-Stalin Split the deep crisis convulsing Stalinism .... Revolutionists can only hail this development- this first rift in the ranks The U.S. rulers made a sharp foreign policy tum. The In 1948 a fierce struggle that had been developing changing relationship of forces within the imperialist camp between Moscow and Belgrade broke out into the open. of world Stalinism which must unfold in open view of the coming out of the second world war - the military su- Moscow criticized policies of the Belgrade government world working class. . . . What is more, it confronts the rank and file of the Yugoslav CP and of Stalinist parties elsewhere with the need of reexamining the ideas and the methods of Stalinism." But the Yugoslav leadership did not tum toward the New library in Pathfinder Building world's toilers. Instead, the Tito leadership acted to break the forward motion of the revolution and hastened its Continued from previous page target will be to upgrade the printing equipment bureaucratic degeneration. Although Tito had broken with tape player and a typewriter," said Schwarz (See box on The goal is to model the print shop on the high standards Stalin, he had not broken with the class-collaborationist opposite page). that have guided the reconstruction of the upper floors of politics of national socialism he had learned in the school One thing that struck those working on the tape project the Pathfinder Building. To make all of this possible, of Stalinism. substantial funds are needed. was how many speeches by SWP candidates were broad Not internationalist cast on the radio and TV networks. It wasn't until the late The project is financed by the International Expansion 1950s that at least minimal access to the radio and TV Fund, which was launched in August 1990. The fund grew The Yugoslav regime initiated a conciliatory foreign media was virtually cut off by the government to candi in response to the increased opportunities for the distribu policy toward imperialism. The Yugoslav CP had never dates oul'>ide the framework of capitalist politics. tion of Pathfinder books and socialist periodicals that had a proletarian internationalist perspective. For five emerged in the late 1980s. To date, $ 1,800,000 has been years after World War n, for example, Yugoslavia kept Until then, the party was received very weU by radio and 100,000 German prisoners of war-workers and farmers TV audiences. Consider the following excerpt from a Mili pledged by 176 supporters of the project and more than $ 1,600,000 has been coiJ ected. conscripted into Hitler's armed forces - turning them to tant article, "Viewers Praise Dobbs-Weiss TV Broadcasts" efforts of economic reconstruction. (German prisoners of in 1952, at the height of the anti-communist witch-hunt: Much of the print shop machinery is old and needs to be replaced. The four-unit web newspaper press is over 20 war were kept throughout Eastern and Central Europe.) "In the first mail after the national convention of the years old, the two sheetfed presses were manufactured in Most telling of all, Belgrade lent credence to the U.S. Socialist Workers Party, at which presidential candidate the 1960s and the book guillotine was built in 1954. To organized war to block national unification and social Farrell Dobbs and vice-presidential candidate Myra Tan complete the reconstruction and capital expansion, the revolution in Korea. The Yugoslav regime joined Wash ner Weiss made radio and TV speeches on national fund must reach $3,000.000. ington and its allies in denouncing the workers and peas hook-ups, 81 letters and postcards were received. Of Major donations are needed to carry the project through ants government that had come to power in northern Korea these, 77 asked for copies of the speech and SWP to completion. Currently there are enough funds in hand for its "aggression" against the U.S.-imposed puppet gov literature; most expressed agreement and interest with to complete the section of the factory where books and ernment in the southern half of the country. Tito demanded the views expressed in the telecasts and broadcasts. There paper used to be stored. Also urgently needed are skilled that Chinese forces withdraw from Korea, while support were four enclosures of money. The TV-Radio stations volunteers -electricians, plumbers, brick masons, and ing the presence of the U.S. fleet off the coast of China. received phone calls asking for ' programs like this.' Four carpenters-to sign on to the volunteer crew. The project While sharply at odds with Stalin, the Yugoslav leaders of the mail responses were hostile." is now at an important turning point. also joined him in stabbing the Greek revolution in the In addition to talks by SWP leaders, several taped speeches Only contributions by supporters- and the volunteer back. They closed Yugoslavia's borders and halted all aid by Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara were found, four of labor of the international reconstruction teams - make the to the Greek fighters, since the Greek Communist Party which were given while Guevara was in the United States. reconstruction possible. The fund, which is made up of supported Moscow. Tito subsequently declared Yugoslavia Ten recordings of unpublished speeches by ANC leader donations from those who can contribute $l,{)(X) or more, neutral during the U.S. war against Vietnam. Nelson Mandela will also be transcribed, said Schwarz. is slated only for capital expenditures. It is not used to meet In the late 1950s, after Nikita Khrushchev had become ongoing operating expenses. Soviet head of state a few years following Stalin's death, Rebuilding Pathfinder's print shop The contributions made by supporters have come from an accommodation was reached between Moscow and The accomplishments of the move into the new fourth a variety of sources: trust funds, estate and accident settle Belgrade. These relations, however, always remained floor have put the communist movement in good stead for ments, special bonuses that industrial workers have re within the framework of satisfying the separate interests tackling the final piece of the overall project - the recon ceived, and savings. of the caste in Yugoslavia. struction of the Pathfinder print shop on the lower floors Anyone interested in making a contribution to the fund or Foreign policy is always an extension of domestic pol of the building. Already, work has commenced on trans seeking more information should send in the coupon below. icy, and Tito was no exception in this regard. The secret forming a 4,000-square-foot area, formerly used for stor police, modeled on its Soviet counterpart, was used to age of paper and books, into more space for a modem .r••••••• •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• ••••••••··~. eliminate all opposition in the party and society. While the printing facility. Major pieces of printing equipment have · Contribute to the International : repression did not reach the levels of that in the Soviet been temporarily stored in warehouses so that the recon Expansion Fund Union in the 1930s, the secret police nevertheless became struction brigade has space to work. This has put a pre Enclosed is my contribution of$, ______the base of the corrupt and ruthless regime. mi um on fini shing the project as rapidly as possible. Name ______The remodeling of the print shop is essential both for shop 'Workers' self-management' safety and to have sufficient space for meeting the production Address ------Capitalist methods of competition among enterprises goals of Pathfinder. The print shop needs new floors and City State ___ and profitability were institutionalized in industry, pack ceilings, better lighting, new plumbing, and air conditioning Zip Phone ______aged as "workers' self-management." Market mechanisms to create the best conditions for high-quality printing and to were extolled. A private market for peasant trade was Write to International Expansion Fund: widely extended. As a result, Yugoslavia began to import meet the long-term needs of future Pathfinder publishing , 406 West St., New York, NY 10014. , Continued on next page efforts. Once the plant infrastructure is in place, the next L ------·--· - · ---·---~ August 14, 1992 The Militant 15 International Socialist Revievv ...... Ju.ly_l~--2--l.sw.s Continued from previous page 1.300 zinc and lead miners occupied their mines, many coal and all manner of agricultural goods that the country Workers, students confront going on a hunger strike. Miners in Slovenia and unionists could itself have produced, since particular enterprises did bureaucracy as economic in Croatia sent messages of support. not find it sufficiently profitable to produce, store, and The Stalinist rulers in Belgrade responded with a hys distribute these items. The state monopoly of foreign trade crisis sharpens and national terical chauvinist campaign. They said that Kosovo is part was allowed to erode. of a Serb "homeland" and that Albanians "breed too Emesto Che Guevara. a central leader of the Cuban divisions reemerge much". They circulated false stories of rape of Serbian revolution, remarked after his visit to Yugoslavia in 1959 women by Albanians in Kosovo. that "the enterprises compete among themselves in the Protests by workers and students in Yugoslavia They mobilized massive demonstrations in Belgrade national market as if they were private capitalist entities." emerged in the 1960s, focusing especially on the new with a lynch-mob atmosphere against the people of Within a short period of time social differentiation began privileges of the ruling social layer. These began to Kosovo. After whipping up this wave of Serbian nation to reappear and widen. Those who benefited were first and spread on a Yugoslavia-wide basis. Forty thousand stu alism, the Belgrade government not only refused to meet foremost layers of state, party, army, and management bu dents occupied the University of Belgrade in 1968, the Kosovo Albanians' demand for separate "republic" reaucrats. Also favored were a layer of rich peasants and the promoting a petition that opposed the ruler's privileges status within the Yugoslav federation but revoked what professional petty-bourgeoisie, some skilled workers, prop and calling for democratic rights. The petition was then autonomy Kosovo previously had. erty owners, and artisans from the pre-war days who rapidly signed by 200,000 students around the country. The The bureaucracy in Croatia and Slovenia supported became the privileged technicians of the new economy. students also opposed the U.S. war in Vietnam in the Belgrade's crackdown against Kosovo. All the bureaucrats Unemployment and part-time work, often designated as face of official government neutrality. had been shaken by the worker resistance of the previous "unpaid vacations," grew. The gulf between rich and poor Over the next four years a deep economic crisis set in, years. In the frrst six months of 1988 there had been 800 in Yugoslavia began to approach that of a capitalist country with a real explosion in mass unemployment. This marked strikes involving 150,000 people across Yugoslavia. with a comparable level of development. the beginning of a prolonged economic crisis, the product The rulers in Croatia and Slovenia orchestrated their What these developments signified was that by the mid of bureaucratic mismanagement and the slowdown in own nationalist mobilizations, eventually holding plebi 1950s a bureaucratic caste, the Yugoslav counterpart of world capitalism. scites for independent statehood that received a majority that existing in the Soviet Union and other Eastern Euro Following the worldwide recession of 1975, investment of votes. The Belgrade government countered with further pean workers states. had consolidated itself at the head of declined, the foreign debt escalated, production fell, and appeals to Serbian nationalism, arguing in favor of "Yu government and in society. unemployment grew rapidly. By 1985 the average wage was goslavia" and in the same breath for Serbian ascendancy. This privileged social layer enjoys incomes and access only 40 percent of what was officially considered necessary These processes led to the civil wars and murderous to goods and services far greater than that of ordinary to support a family of four at 1979living standards. Inflation onslaughts of the last year. working people. While it remains a minority of the popu skyrocketed, to a rate of 2,500 percent by January 1990. lation, it is nevertheless a broad social grouping. It exists In the 18 months leading up to the summer of 1991, Way forward for working people as a parasitic layer, playing no special or necessary role in the Yugoslav economy contracted by more than 40 per- These events reflect the crisis of bureaucratic rule in the society other than to use its position to guarantee context of the absence of any independent work its own perks and privileges. The resources of ing-class leadership in Yugoslavia the state make up the trough from which it feeds. , \'f'ti What is decisive for the working class is not merely its strength in relation to the bureaucratic Differentiated layer rulers, but its understanding of its historic line of The privileged bureaucracy has differentia march as part of an international class and its tions within itself. At one end are those with the allies in this struggle. higher positions in smaller institutions in society The Yugoslav revolution itself represented a such as productive enterprises; educational, giant stride in that direction for the workers and health, and other such institutions; and the cul peasants. This is the direction working people tural establishment, including leading artists, there need to take up again, by organizing them perfonners, and sports stars. At the other end are selves to sweep away the parasitic bureaucracy the administrative chiefs of the state, ruling that has led them to the disastrous position they party. and army. are in today, and replacing it with a government The caste is a petty-bourgeois social layer. of workers and farmers. standing between the working people on the one The revolution that is required in Yugoslavia is hand, and world imperialism on the other. Its a political revolution, that differs from the revolu members share bourgeois aspirations, habits, tion needed in capitalist countries only in the sense and values, often aping the lifestyles of bour that working people will, in the course of over geois layers in western capitalist countries. throwing the bureaucratic caste and its system of The Yugoslav bureaucracy - like its coun domination, safeguard and build on the achieve terparts in Russia and elsewhere- was from ments of the first. anticapitalist revolution. Those early on a breeding ground for regional com conquests are the nationalized property in the basic petition. The bureaucrats in the most advanced means of production, wholesale trade and banking; regions used nationalist demagogy as a weapon the state monopoly of foreign trade; and the con for self-enrichment - demanding control of sequent capacity for economic planning. the spoils of foreign investment and of trade Partisans united workers and farmers of all nationalities in the antifascist struggle In order to carry through the political revolu conducted across their international borders, during \\Orld 'Wclr II. They opposed domination of one nation over another. tion, a vanguard party must be forged by the most for example. politically conscious, active, and self-sacrificing In the 1960s and 1970s, a section of the bureaucracy in cent. A number of local governments and enterprises workers in the factories and fields, a party conscious of Croatia called for income from the lucrative Dalmatian announced bankruptcy. the line of march of the working clac;s and drawing on the coast area to be allocated entirely to the Croatian, not the It was not Tito's death in 1980 but the drastic economic lessons of past struggles to point the way forward - a federal, government. They resisted using such resources to decline and crisis that led to the disintegration and resulted communist party. Such a vanguard party can draw in others even out the imbalances across Yugoslavia by advancing in the civil wars that have raged over the past year. However, committed to this working-class perspective. the less developed regions. the Bonapartist ruler's demise did mark a turning point in The last thing the people of Yugoslavia need is an Provinces and republics closed their markets to one the acceleration of the centrifugal forces in Yugoslavia. imperialist military intervention, which on whatever basis another. seeking to become self-sufficient. This inevitably These strains finall y shattered the ruling Communist it begins will end up being turned against them. Over the worked to the detriment of the least developed regions. By Party. The party was fonnally dissolved in early 1990. past year, sections of working people in Yugoslavia have 1985, for example, the income of the average Slovene was Many members left the party before its fmal break-up, shown by their own actions the potential they possess to 70 percent higher than that of the average Macedonian; declaring themselves to be Croatian nationalists, Slovenian place their stamp on events: by 1989, it was 125 percent more. nationalists. or some other variant. The caste in Belgrade • The hundreds of thousands who have protested The historical roots of national divisions in Yugoslavia demagogically advanced Serbian nationalist goals, often against the war in Belgrade and elsewhere in Serbia; had been dealt huge blows by the revolution. But the behind the cloak of being the defender of "Yugoslavia." • the widespread refusal by those under the rule of bureaucrats began the process that they continue today Belgrade to fight in the "Yugoslav" anny against fellow Redividing the loot to do their utmost to revive the old nationalist causes, working people in Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia; seeking to mobilize workers and farmers around their This process has amounted to the bureaucracy restruc • the mothers of soldiers from Serbia who joined their reactionary appeals, for the purpose of holding onto power turing itself - redividing and reapportioning the loot, the Croatian counterparts in Zagreb in opposition to and expanding the resources under their own control. caste's pillage of the social surplus, among itself and using Belgrade's war against Slovenia; Their ability to do this has been limited by the deep workers and peasants as unwilling pawns in their bloody mafia turf war. • the fraternization between soldiers of the Yugoslav rooted gains of the Yugoslav revolution, which is seen in army and those they were sent to fight in Slovenia; the extent to which. despite the appeals of the demagogues, At the same time as each wing of the bureaucracy has • the preparedness oflarge numbers of Sarajevo citizens large layers of working people do not see themselves as sought to gain control over more resources, they all cherish of Serbian and Croatian origin to defend their city side by "Croatian," "Serbian," or some other nationality, and re hopes of linking up with those they have the closest side with their Mus lim brothers and sisters against the rightist fuse to endorse the chauvinist course laid out by the economic re lations with among the imperialist powers. cutthroat gangs of the Serbian Democratic Party. bureaucrats. A common response reported over the past Depending on which wing of the caste and which region, year is: "We are Yugoslavs, not Croats or Serbs." this may be either the Gennan, French, or other capitalists. All these are examples of the class solidarity that pow In proportion as social inequality grew and tensions The Belgrade bureaucracy's first sharp use of nationalist ered the Yugoslav revolution and that can point the way forward again. developed - between working people and the rising par demagogy was in response to protests by working people asitic caste; between the rulers of different regions; and and students in the Kosovo region of Serbia. People of Rather than imperialist intervention, what working peo within the bureaucracy as a whole- the Yugoslav Albanian ethnic origin make up 90 percent of the popula ple in Yugoslavia need above all is time to engage in bureaucrat 's needs called for a powerful arbiter, standing tion of Kosovo, and they are victims of sharp social and politics-to test out leaderships, organizations, and pro over society as a whole, to secure their rule. In this situation economic discrimination by the Serbian authorities. grams that can advance their interests. Out of these expe Tito, a figure with great authority deriving from his iden In November 1988, a march of 500,000 in Kosovo's riences, and through contact with class-<:onscious fighters tification with the revolution, was able to emerge as a main city, Pristina, demanded an end to second-class treat throughout the world, a new vanguard can be forged. Bonapartist leader. In this role he straddled the interests of ment of the province's Albanian population. The march This vanguard will lead the struggle to overthrow the the caste and the workers and peasants, keeping in check was headed by miners, carrying pictures of Tito and Yu bureaucratic regime, reach out to workers around the world the interests of the bureaucrats, and functioning as the goslav, Albanian, and Turkish flags. The following Febru in the process; and take up the march toward socialism as supreme arbiter within the caste itself. ary a general strike took place with similar demands. Some part of this international struggle. 16 The Militant August 14, 1992 Gov't plan threatens farmers' livelihood BY JACK GARFIELD stock farms grew by 26 percent; and farm deduct the cost of foreclosure procedures to worsened this squeeze, he said. "If we don't ST. PAUL, Minnesota-The livelihoods production per hour increased 30 percent, compute the cost of the farm for obtaining get a crop out, crop insurance just covers of tens of thousands of debt-ridden family while time used in producing crops declined loans from other sources. This can result in inputs. We can end up even further back." fanners have recently been placed in greater by 16 percent. dropping the farm price by up to 20 percent, Nearmyer, vice-president of the Iowa jeopardy by the Fanners Home Administra The AAM is trying to help fanners facing enabling the farmer to get a loan sufficient American Agricultural Movement, raises tion (FmHA), an agency of the U.S. Depart the 60-day deadline fmd ways to work to pay off the FmHA debt. com, soybeans, hay, oats, and hogs. His ment of Agriculture. through complicated regulations to arrive at But this discount may now be offset by the wife's job, and the vegetable stand they In recent weeks, FmHA spokesman Joe debt restructuring proposals, Mitchell ex inclusion of non-essential assets, pushing the maintain in the summer, provide cash O'Neill said, 30,000 farmers across the plained, a task which is "extremely compli farm's value over $300,000-the new ceil "when we run low," he said. country received notices of delinquency in cated." ing for being able to receive such credit. Fanners receiving the FmHA notices, loan payments. Several facts explain this. The final catch in this tightening tangle Neannyer said, " have been very quiet. This figure represents one fourth of all 'This is the busiest time of year for fann of restrictions, according to Lynn Hayes, an Receiving one is sometimes seen as proof FmHA borrowers. The FmHA is currently ers," National Farmers Union president Le attorney for the St. Paul-based Fanners of your own fa ilure. So people try to figure carrying $5.6 billion in farm indebtedness. landSwenson stated in the/1/inoisAgri-News. Legal Action Group is the "good faith" out what to do on their own. But now the Farmers who get these letters have 60 Now, they're faced with a 60-day deadline to clause. government has figured out all the angles days to respond to a series of options for put together a debt-restructuring component. If the FmHA fmds fanners " withholding we've used to stop them in the past." reorganizing their debt. The FmHA has 90 This whole process is just devastating to farm or concealing what it believes are nonessen "It is a chaJlenge every day to keep days to reply. families and their communities. We are losing tial assets, they can add fmancial penalties, going," the Iowa farmer said. The agency's responses can range from more than 30,000 fanners a year as farm interest or deny approval to a restructuring approval to foreclosure. income continues to drop." package," she said. "I don't think we'll have mass foreclo In addition to these pressures, the maze From Pathfinder sures," stated Gary Mersinger, a supervisor of rules, guidelines, and procedures reflect Antifar mer policies in the agency's Madison County, Dlinois. changes coming out of the bipartisan 1990 The potential disaster unleashed by the FARMERS office. "Most of these debts can be restruc farm bill. delinquency notices means that "everybody FACE THE tured. Some cases won't be saved, and there who thought they had their problems solved, will be some sad farmers who might need 1990 far m bill at least for the time being, doesn't," accord CRISIS OF to look for other jobs." This law strictly limits debt writedowns ing to Jo Bates, president of the Empire State THE 1990s If fanners who receive delinquency let (reductions) and buyouts to $300,000 - a Family Farm Alliance. I ters "don't respond we're going to get mean figure often topped by family farms - The plunge of milk price supports means _.,.,.. and nasty real quick," Mersinger told the while allowing farm borrowers to be eligible that her upstate New York dairy farm is ....- Granite City Journal. only once for debt restructuring. losing between $1,100 and $ 1,500 a month. More than 1,000 illinois fanners received In addition, Kathy Ozer, director of the "You can't make payments. Everybody's DOUG JENNESS delinquency notices. Family Farm Coalition, said in an interview, in trouble," Bates said. Texas, Mississippi, and Oklahoma farm there is a new method of determining the Carroll Neannyer, who operates his Iowa ers topped the FmHA's list of delinquencies. value of the farm. farm in bankruptcy, believes that the current Farmers Face For the first time, " non-essential assets" run of delinquency notices won't be the last. the Crisis Farmers do not get fair prices are computed as part of the net worth of the "This is a continuation of a government "The root of the problem is not ' farmer farm, she explained. They could "include a policy to drive family farmers out of busi ofthe 1990s indebtedness'," Larry Mitchell, director of second or third tractor, an IRA [retirement] ness, in favor of the agribusiness corporate by Doug Jenness federal and state relations for the American account, the worth of a life insurance policy giants like Tyson, Cargill and the rest," he Pamphlet 35pp., $3 Agricultural Movement (AAM), said in an and so on." commented. These huge companies are eli interview. "The root is not receiving a fair gible to buy farms that have been foreclosed Available from bookstores listed on page Since these assets are now part of the 20 or from Pathfinder, 41 0 West St., New price for what they raise. As long as the cost farm's value, they cannot be used as collat or taken over by the FmHA. York, NY, 10014. Add $3 for shipping, $.50 of production is greater than the price of the eral for new loans. An unusually long spate of dry weather for each additional copy. crop, this [indebtedness] will continue." The FmHA continues to allow farmers to in Iowa and southern Minnesota has Mitchell, who raised cotton. com , grain, and sorghum until his Texas farm was fore closed in 1988 by a commercial bank, said he thought "up to 50 percent of those getting the [delinquency] letters could end up in Caterpillar workers continue fight foreclosure." This would be a big increase in foreclo Continued from page 3 strikers for having predicted that at least 400 ruining the reputation for quality and pro sures compared to the number of fanners cally deducted from U AW members' checks oftheirranlcs would cross the picket line. Only ductivity that has been the reason for the who lost their land in late 1988 when the and turned over to the union. II out of almost 2,000 workers crossed at the company's tremendous success in the mar government sent out 80,000 delinquency One indication of the continuing strength Decatur plant. ket place. notices, Mitchell said. In Minnesota that of the union is that, despite frustration and In his keynote speech to the UAW con "The UAW has no intention of putting year. according to the state FmHA, 2.126 confusion over the UAW officialdom's vention in San Diego in mid-June, union Caterpillar out of business. Just the oppo farmers responded to the notices. Of these, abrupt halt to the strike on April 14 and their president Owen Bieber reported no progress site: We are determined to keep the com five were foreclosed. Around 88 percent order to go back to work without a contract, in talks with Caterpillar. He defended an pany in business by saving Caterpillar from underwent some kind of debt restructuring. union members report that there is little ''in-plant strategy" as the way forward for the incompetence of its own managers, who The Farm Credit System, another major problem collecting union dues. UAW members there. can't seem to realize that a veteran, dedi federal lending agency, "is on the hunt" for Larry Solomon, president of Local 75 1 in The UAW has held training sessions on cated work force is the most precious re those in arrears of payments, Mitchell said, Decatur, about 80 miters southeast of here, this strategy with shop stewards who are to source any company has." compounding the crisis facing working reported that members regularly come into pass this on to other UAW members. The UAW international officialdom con farmers. the union hall to pay their dues and others Larry Solomon explained that the training tinues to look to electing Democratic poli The Farm Credit System lends to "as many pay by mail. sessions for the "in-plant strategy" call for ticians in November and to the National or more farmers as the FmHA," he noted. One of the company attacks most felt by following the work rules exactly and doing Labor Relations Board as the way to fight As debt and the threat of foreclosure en the workers at Caterpillar is the ongoing no more than what the boss orders. Caterpillar. However, only one of the UA W circles working farmers, their productivity victimization of 10 or so UAW members Some UAW members at Caterpillar sup members that this reporter spoke to even continues to increase. The U.S. Department whose firings were strike related. port the "in-plant strategy" as their only mentioned the elections and many pointed of Agriculture recently reported that during One of these workers, Roger Suddith, alternative today. Others, however. don't out that recent National Labor Relations the 1980s, crop production per acre rose 27 who worked in East Peoria for 26 years was think it accomplishes anything. Board rulings show the agency is in percent; output per breeding unit on live- fired, according to the company, for harass As John Grayned put it: "How can you Caterpillar's comer. ing a coworker while off the job. have an "in-plant strategy" when the com On July 16 Caterpillar management an After the strike, Local 974 organized a pany is on speed-up? How can you have an nounced a net loss of $53 million for the Gov't to slash demonstration at Caterpillar's corporate of "in-plant strategy' when 1 have to do any second quarter. The company claims this fices in Peoria in support of the fired UAW thing the boss tells me?" loss is mainly due to low sales and not the farm safety funds members. At the UAW convention, Bieber also an five-and-a-half-month UAW strike. UAW members in many of the plants nounced that the international union was ask UAW members point out, however, that BY JACK GARFIELD have expressed solidarity for these workers. ing several cities that have passed anti-apart their strike had a tremendous effect on ST. PAUL, Minnesota - Forty-nine farm Some workers wear caps or buttons with heid resolutions to not do business with Cat Caterpillar's ability to meet orders. As proof safety programs in 28 states are slated for names of fired coworkers. erpillar because of their ties to South Africa. of this they point to letters of complaint sent elirnination under funding cutbacks proposed At the Mossville plant some workers Several hundred delegates to the UAW to the company by Caterpillar dealers. by the Bush administration. The programs are wear caps and T-shirts with the slogan convention were also organized to demon The Peoria Journal Star reported on an sponsored by the National Institute for Occu "Where's Clem?" calling attention to fired strate at a Caterpillar dealership in San April 7 letter from Hewitt Equipment in pational Safety and Health. coworker Clem Mize. Diego during the convention. At the end of Montreal that said several dump trucks built The slashing of such programs means Cooling felt that the union needed to the convention the central negotiating team by management and scabs during the strike farm safety work "is going to be set back lO provide fired workers with funds. "And I for the union at Caterpillar was brought on needed 92 hours of repairs after being de years" in the upper Midwest, according to don' t mean $100 a week" he said, mention stage to a standing ovation. Members of the livered to them. Dr. Jan Graves, a director of occupational ing strike pay, "but closer to what they'd be team from Local 974 in Peoria were flown health at the University of Minnesota making if they were on the job." to the convention late since the local's lead In their discussions U AW members at School of Public Health. Management reacted to shows of solidar ership had decided not to send a delegation Caterpillar express mixed views. " A few even think we have to take the company Fanning and mining are the deadliest oc ity with fired coworkers and other expres to the convention. They stated that their offer," said Larry Solomon. He added, cupations in the United States. Nearly 1,300 sions of support for the union by banning finances would not allow for the trip. 'There's a lot of tension and we have some people, 300 of them children, are killed an certain buttons and clothing. Bieber's real attitude toward affecting angry people, but they'll get stronger." nually in farm accidents. Another 170,000 InEast Peoriacaps with "I didn't", referring Caterpillar's business was expressed in a farm residents yearly suffer disabling injuries. to crossing the picket line were banned. An letter he sent to the Peoria Journal Star after A number of UAW members show an The pending cuts aim at research, educa other with the word scab and a slash through the convention. llris letter complained attitude similar to their determined mood at tion, accident prevention, child safety, and it was also banned. In Decatur management about the paper's reports that Bieber had the end of the strike. cancer screening programs, along with Fann made workers remove a button with the slo called for putting Caterpillar out of business On the final day of the strike last April, Extension Services safety staff positions. gan "I'm not a hero." This addressed a state when he had compared Caterpillar to East Tom Nell insisted on being on the picket line Currently, Washington spends 30 cents ment by the top manager at the Decatur plant, em Airlines. In his letter to the editor, Bieber in East Peoria until the lines were fmaiJy yearly for individuals working on farms; Ron Diamond, who called those who crossed stated that the UAW officials ended the taken down. Today he and many others miner safety programs receive $ 183.68 per the picket lines heroes. Diamond, who is strike at Caterpillar to prevent the company continue to look for ways to fight for their worker annually. retiring, is well remembered by the Decatur from "hiring inexperienced replacement and union. August 14, 1992 The Militant 17 Brazilian peasants struggle for land Six participants in land occupation convicted in frame-up murder trial BY AARON RUBY tions, which have been sufficient to supply AND ARGIRIS MALAPANIS the 40-day takeover and they have brought SAO PAULO, Brazil- On June 27, a sound truck each day for entertainment. after a three-day trial in the city of Porto CUT and the MST are circulating state Alegre, in southern Brazil, five men and one ments explaining the occupation, appealing woman, members of the Landless Rural for support and donations, and inviting Workers Movement (MST) were convicted townspeople to visit the camp. of complicity in the murder of a soldier. The Benedito Meireles Dos Santos, a factory trial received a lot of publicity in the Bra worker who had heard about the occupation zilian news media. by word of mouth, came to the local MST The frame-up charges stemmed from an office in Sorocaba, donated by the CUT, to August 8, 1990, army assault against 600 ask if he could join the occupation. He landless rural workers who were demanding explained, "I want to farm because of low government recognition of land they had pay and jobs are too insecure and I'm not occupied six months before. The MST is a afraid of the government." ma'iS movement of landless rural workers Most of the landless workers and peas canying out land takeovers and fighting for ants currently have no options to fmd jobs an agrarian reform law. in the cities. Jose Rodia, a leader of the PT's The six "were denied bail for 17 months union work, said that today there are offic because the judge said they were going to ially 1.3 million unemployed in Sao Paulo continue to participate in other land sei in a population of 12 million. Nationally I I zures," explained Neuri Rossetto, an MST million were unemployed or underem national leader, in an interview at its national ployed in 1990, a figure which has in office in Sao Paulo. creased considerably. Some 60 million re Despite voting 5-2 that the six did not 'Militant' correspondent Aaron Ruby (left) speaks with Miguel Serpa, leader of the ceive an income below subsistence levels commit the crime, the court handed down Landless Rural V\brkers Movement at the Fazenda Ipanema camp. according to MST and CUT leaders. Only sentences of up to seven years, stating that one out of three Brazilians receives ade "in some way [the peasants) contributed to zenda lpanema outside of the city of of some of the land. The UDR fields candi quate nutrition. Inflation is running at about the death of the soldier.'' Sorocaba. an hour west of here. Participants dates in the elections. Besides support of the 22 percent monthly. The peasants and farm workers had set came from 13 cities around the area. " It is military. landlords have their own private This crisis is intensified by government up a camp in the main square of Porto AJegre the largest of the 300 current occupations in armies, which they use to attack peasants austerity programs implemented to make and were in the middle of negotiations with the state of Sao Paulo," explained Francisco and farm workers fighting for their rights. increasing debt payments to foreign banks. the state government to fulfill a two-month Alves, an organizer for the MST along the In 1991 there were some 383 violent Some $15 billion was paid in the last 2 old promise to grant legal recognition of road to the camp. conflicts involving 242,196 people, result years. Brazil's current foreign debt stands land. The military police attacked the pro "Land is not given it is conquered!" reads ing in 49 deaths, according to a CPT report at $142 billion. testers with bayonets and tear gas. The sol the main banner at the entrance to the occu The Fazenda lpanema camp of 3,000 is Days after the Ipanema takeover the gov dier was killed in the melee after shooting pation, defended by a security perimeter well organized, with its own cleanup and ernment declared the land a "national for a woman protester in the abdomen. manned by MST members. While there sanitation, health clinic and school for the est" and demanded they leave. There were Considerable evidence contrary to the have been threats and the military maintains 1,100 children. Everything including field virtually no trees on the land. According to state's version of the events, including pho an armed roadblock the government has work, cooking, construction, and washing is Da Concei~ao, this treeless "forest," which tographs of four of the accused being ar retreated from initial attempts to cut off the divided up among the members and disci has been fallow for decades, was presented rested before the incident took place, was occupation. pline is strict. Planting has begun and a to the June Earth Summit conference by the presented by the defense. For many of the millions oflandless peas number of wells are being dug. Entertain Brazilian government as an example of its A campaign of vilification against the ants, direct occupations offer the only way ment is organized by the camp members and ecological program. MST members, using photos of the dead to obtain land. Once the land is occupied it a band recently gave a concert in the camp. Miguel Serpa, an MST camp leader on soldier and interviews with his widow, must be defended from the landlords, whose Ezequiel Da Concei~ao, part of a delega his thirteenth land occupation, said they are sought to cut off support for the frame-up response is often violent. tion from Sorocaba, said that there is broad willing to exchange the occupied land for victims. The MST, the Central Trade Union The landlords and capitalist farmers support in that city. He pointed to a demon another lot but will not leave empty-handed. Organization (CUT), the largest of three formed the Democratic Rural Union (UDR) stration on May 28 and to the food, medi "We have no other option but to fight and nationwide union federations, and the in 1985 as a direct response to the movement cine, and clothing donated. The local unions we will. Each time we fight we get better Worker's Party (PT) organized a campaign of rural workers and peasants to take control in the town have been organizing collec- and more confident," he said. of support for the six, which received mes sages of support from across Brazil and internationally. Many MST organizers are members of the PT. The six plan to appeal the verdict and the 'Youth attracted to comtnunist tnovetnent' MST called for messages of support to be Continued from Page 7 By starting from the actual size of our In line with the actual size of our move sent to their offices in Sao Paulo: MST, Rua tively, we explain, it is necessary to chart a movement today, rather than being frus ment, and in order to cany out the deci Ministro Godoy 1484, 05015-001, Sao course to unite working people to take trated by it, and integrating ourselves more sions of the February 21 Central Paulo, SP, Brazil, Fax 55- 11 -87 1-4612. power out of the hands of the rulers. systematically into the world movement we Committee meeting to transfer more of the The experience of our movement world are part of, we will establish measured and administrative functions of the national Exploitation of the countryside wide over the last two years demonstrates consistent work on the axis of class politics office to the London branch and other The frame-up of these workers is part of the attraction of young people to the com and deepen our convergence with revolu branches insofar as possible, we should a series of attacks by capitalist landlords and munist movement. This reality has been tionary and communist forces on a world further restructure the leadership in the industrialists against this movement. There reinforced by the experience of the Commu scale. This orientation puts us in the best weeks leading to the fusion conference. are over 4 million families of landless peas nist League and the young socialists in Brit position to respond rapidly to events and Following the example set by several other ants in Brazil. The MST is currently in ain. It makes possible the perspective of the thus increase our attractiveness to young components of our international commu volved in occupations by 12,000 of these fused party pursuing youth work more ag fighters who can be won to building the nist movement, we should elect a smaJl fami lies. gressively, heading to the stage of establish communist movement. working Political Bureau composed of One percent of landowners in rural Brazil ing a communist youth organisation. Our goal is to better organise the youth three Central Committee members resident control forty-four percent of the land, with We strive to get into the hands of every work of our movement along the lines that in Sheffield and Manchester plus one some properties reaching nearly 3 million fi ghting youth our fundamental guides have always guided the communist move leader of the young socialists and move hectares. much of which is fallow. The rich "The Opening Guns of World War 10", ment. The organisational forms have been the seat of the Political Bureau to Shef est 20 land owners possess 5 percent of the "Buchananism, What It Is and How to Fight and will remain many and varied, and more field. The Political Bureau will elect its land. On the other hand, the other 90 percent It" and The Changing Face of U.S. Politics: often than not youth work is done without convenor from among the members in divide 21 percent of the land between them. The Proletarian Party and the Trade the form of a separate youth organisation. Sheffield. There are some 23 mi!Jion rural toilers of a Unions. The accuracy of each of these basic When the opportunity to build a communist By making such a move now, we will be population of 147 million. documents has been daily tested against the youth organisation is created by political acting in a timely way to cut back on the As a result of rapid industrialization there unfolding events of world politics, and they conditions, however, the relationship of the leadership structure and apparatus to bring has been a violent transformation of Brazil have held up well. communist youth to the party is that of an it more in line with our real financial and ian society. One-third of the population lives Above all, the fusion and the political auxiliary organisation: organisationally in cadre resources today and allow us to grow in the countryside today, compared to two course we are charting through it aim to dependent and politically subordinate. This into new structures as our future needs and thirds of the population 20 years ago. advance the norms and rhythm of function is the opposite of any kind of youth van size dictate. Exploitation in the countryside has ing of a party whose large majority is com guardism, with its politically destructive el Our goal in organising to carry out the reached the level of virtual slavery in some posed of industrial workers. The fusion en evation of youthful energy and drive to a fusion perspective is not to maximize the cases. Twenty-seven such cases involving ables us to strengthen and maintain not only substitute for communist program, or numbers of youth brought into the fusion 4,833 persons were documented in 1991. a weekly rhythm built around the distribu ganisation. education and discipline that in a "hot house" manner, but to come out These workers are often lured into remote tion of our weekly newspaper, the Militant, consciously knits together the past, present of the fusion with the kind of organisation areas, not paid, and are kept there by force. at plant gates and elsewhere, but a co!Jective and future of the revolutionary workers that is capable of maintaining the rhythm The Catholic Pastoral Land Commission daily rhythm of political activity and out movement. and activity of a proletarian, campaign (CPT), which supports the MST, estimates reach which is the heart and soul of a cam Through the fusion we want to advance party that will consistently carry out com that there are some 40,000 persons in those paign party. It advances us toward more our efforts. along with young socialists in munist youth work and recruit young fight conditions today in Brazil. disciplined proletarian norms of organisa the U.S., Canada, Sweden, Australia, New ers to our movement in increasing Rising struggles by workers and peasants tion and leadership as described by James Zealand and Iceland, to link up with a layer numbers. in the late 1970s and early 1980s brought to P. Cannon and Leon Trotsky in The Struggle of revolutionary and communist youth an end 2 1 years of dictatorship in 1985. As for a Proletarian Party and related corre worldwide who will be present at the inter a result of these struggles the MST was spondence. The fusion enables us to combat national socialist youth and campaign con Tbla publication Ia available in mi founded that year, explained Adihon Do more directly the drift toward petty-bour ference. at Oberlin, Ohio, this August. One croform from University Mlcroftlma Paula, a national leader of the group. geois norms of functioning in which indi of the immediate goals of the fused or International. On May 18 of this year, some 800 fami vidual decisions on priorities and prefer ganisation is to turn out and to win as many Call toll free 1-800·521-3044. Or mallln quJry to: UniVersity Microfilms lntemaUonal. lies occupied 1,800 hectares of fallow gov ences effectively negate democratically ar young fighters and others to attend the Obe 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Aibor. Ml 48106. ernment land and set up a camp called Fa- rived-at collective decisions. rlin conference. 18 The Militant A ugust 14, 1992 Belgrade protesters march against war Demand an end to 'ethnic cleansing' BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS outexception-expressedoppositiontomil BELGRADE, Yugoslavia- About 2,000 itary intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina by people surrounded the federal Parliament U.S. forces, European Community troops, or buildinghereJuly 15linkinghandsinaprotest other imperialist powers. "This is for us to against the war. resolve," said student leader Branimir Pi pal. " I am a Croat. Jew, Albanian, Serb, "More people will get killed ifforeign troops Muslim, Macedonian and Hungarian," come in." read a sign a woman carried around her Most of the same students were also neck. Many other protesters held up sim against the embargo imposed by the United ilar signs. The picket line was led by a Nations Security Council against Serbia and group of women dressed in black with a Montenegro. "The sanctions hurt us," said banner reading, "Women in Black Against Sonja Todorovic, a 23-year-old electro Militant/Argiris Malapanis the War. " technical engineering student. "Unemploy July 15 protest at the federal parliament building in Belgrade. Marchers demanded an "In this region of the world all nationali ment now is huge. My father's pension is end to "ethnic cleansing'' in Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. ties used to live peacefully," said Lina 80 German marks while rent is 170 German marks. Young people can't find any apart Yukovic, one of the marchers. "Now it's a World War II was like a medicine. It united ments," she said. had any problems in the past." mess." His best friend was expelled from Zvornik people," Josie remarked. "But later, maybe The protest, organized by the Center for Not everybody opposed the sanctions because he is half-Croatian, half-Serbian. 10 years later, all progress stopped." Josie's Antiwar Action, focused on denouncing the though. "Many people in Serbia still listen Last May in the majority-Croatian town view, though, was rare. Most of the several escalation of forced removals of populations to Slobodan Milosevic. They believe him," of Hrtkovci, in Yojvodina, Serbian refugees dozen people this reporter talked to, all in Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina said Djordje Popovic, a high school student began to arrive from Croatia. They were put opponents of the Milosevic regime, thought in operations widely known as "ethnic at the July 15 picket line. "Maybe the sanc up by residents there. that not much progress was made towards cleansing." Serbian and Croatian rightists tions will help to wake them up." On June 4 Seselj's Serbian Radical Party resolving ethnic divisions among working are trying to create all-Serb or all-Croatian Students reported that opposition to the organized a rally in Hrtkovci and along with people by the 1945 revolution in Yugosla towns in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Vojvodina, draft in Yugoslavia was deep. local rightists demanded that all Croats via. and other regions of former Yugoslavia "I can't kill my fellow human beings just leave town to make room for the Serbian where people of all nationalities have lived The Serbian government-controlled because they are Croatian," said Aleksandar refugees. news agency Tanjuc reports almost daily together for decades. Josie, a 21-year-old student. When antiwar activists, reporters, and alleged atrocities committed by Muslim or "We are against the government of Josie is from Zvornik, a small town in local residents began denouncing the right Croatian paramilitary groups in Bosnia [Slobodan] Milosevic and especially fas Bosnia across the border from Serbia. There ists campaign, the Serbian Radical Party Herzegovina. A July 14 dispatch said that cist forces like [Yojislav] Seselj's Radical are now barely 10 or 15 Muslim families organized a "town meeting" and took over "Muslim forces committed another serious Party," said Biljana Bakic, a law student left in the town, which used to be 70 percent the town. Hundreds of Croatian families crime against the Serb population in the at Belgrade University who took part in Muslim, Josie said. have already been forced out of the town. eastern part of the ex-Yugoslav republic of the protest. ''There are 11 Serbian paramilitary for Josie was appalled by the forced removals Bosnia-Herzegovina," killing 20 civilians The Serbian Radical Party, formed last of populations. ''The first time I heard I was July 12 near the town of Bratunas. These year, advocates a Serbia "only for the mations in Zvornik now and I 'II be forced to join one of them if I go back," he said. a Serb was five years ago," he said. stories could not be confrrrned through Serbs" as its general secretary Milko ''The revolution in Yugoslavia after other sources. Vugicic put it in an interview. In the May "They moved all the Muslims out. We never 31 parliamentary elections in the recently declared new Yugoslavia, comprised of Serbia and Montenegro, the party won 30 percent of the vote becoming the second Refugees displaced by Yugoslav war largest party in the new federal parliament. The elections were boycotted by most op position parties. now number one and a half million "This war is terrible and it wasn't neces sary in the first place," Bakic explained. BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS their countries. On July 16 the government with her three children by Croatian immi "People at the head of this government want ZAGREB, Croatia - Croatian President of neighboring Slovenia closed its border to gration officials. She had fled the war and to grab anything they can get their hands on. Franjo Tudjman and Alijeh lzetbegovic, all refugees. was trying to visit relatives in Zagreb. That's why there is a war," she added. president of Bosnia-Herzegovina, signed a In response to Zagreb's newly announced "They told me in Budapest I did not need While several pedestrians joined or military pact here July 21 to fight against policy on refugees, the government of a visa to get into Croatia," she pleaded. The waved in solidarity with the protesters, not the forces of Radovan Karodzic, leader of Hungary said it will impose strict controls immigration cops did not give in despite pleas everybody agreed with them. Once in a the Serbian Democratic Party in Bosnia. on travel of anybody coming from the for for sympathy from the train conductors. while the pickets faced shouts like, "Go to Meanwhile tens of thousands of refugees mer Yugoslav republics. As the train approached Zagreb, hundreds Bosnia and tell it to the Croats and continue to stream out of Bosnia as fighting The human tragedy facing millions of of refugees could be seen in overcrowded Muslims!" has intensified in the northeastern part of working people as a result of the war was train cars with their laundry hanging out of The Center for Antiwar Action was what used to be Yugoslavia. The total. num graphically illustrated at the Hungarian the windows. In one rail yard dozens of founded in July 1991. "The Center ber of refugees displaced by the war is now Croatian border July 17. people had spread along the tracks eating strongly believes that there is no greater estimated at 1.5 million or more. A woman from the Bosnian city of lunch, left stranded after Slovenia shut its evil than the affliction of war, to which Serbian forces have carried out heavy Mostar was removed from the train along borders. we have arrived because three national shelling of Sarajevo, the majority-Moslem leaders - Tudjman, Milosevic, and Kucan city of Gorazde, and other towns in Bosnia - refuse to agree on a peaceful settlement during the last week. to the Yugoslav crisis," its founding state At the same time Croatian rightist Rightist killers terrorize Sarajevo ment declares. Their national projects have paramilitary forces have become more ac dragged us into a dirty war. We represent tive in Bosnia. The biggest such group, Continued from Page 1 Croats, are under anack by Karadzic 's those who do not see this as our war and known by initials HOS, is the official, al the hill across the way is now in the hands gang." who know that ethnic states cannot be though formally illegal, military wing of a of Bosnian army forces. The night is considered quiet by all ac established in the Balkans, even at the rightist party called the Croatian Party of Daily life is nerve-racking. "I play russian counts-only a few shells, a mortar attack highest possible price - human life." Law (HSP). Its leader, Paraga, advocates roulette every day ducking bullets on my against the Bosnian presidency building in The center appeals "to all citizens. irre annexing all of Bosnia-Herzegovina to way from work," says Azra Gluhic, a school the early morning hours, and lots of shooting spective of their national and political af Croatia. HOS members, numbering 50,000, maintenance worker. Schools have been around the Holiday Inn. filiation, to join us by setting up antiwar fight under their own command, They dress shut down since April 5 when the siege of "On a heavy night you have up to 600 centers around the country." in black uniforms and can frequently be seen Sarajevo began. Most factories and other shells lobbed into the city," said Mic Mag The July 15 protest was preceded by a mingling with Croatian army soldiers. Some businesses have been destroyed or forced to nusson, of the UN Protection Force (UN series of demonstrations by students at Bel HOS soldiers display Ustasha signs on their close. PROFOR) at next morning's press briefing. grade University. The students declared a vehicles. The Ustasha was a fascist Croatian Gluhic goes to work twice a week for a The day 's toll: three dead and more than 30 strike June 8-10 shutting down many of the nationalist group that ruled Croatia during few hours. Since a 150-mm shell turned her wounded, most civilians. university's operations. the German occupation of Yugoslavia in house in the majority Muslim "Old Town" By day, when under the sun the artillery ''The current situation in this country World War II. north end of the city into rubble, she lives eases, people line up for bread, as well as forces us to be no longer quiet obse.rvers of HOS members often have been joined in with her sister next door. As she speaks the meager portions of mostly canned food the events endangering the very existence banle by members of small fascist groups electricity goes off and a candle is lit. brought in by two dozen UNPROFOR of the Serbian people," the student's strike from other European countries. These At dusk several families from the neigh flights daily. organizing committee said in a statement. groups carry names such as Viking Youth, borhood gather at the makeshift shelter, the While the conditions of life could give "At this moment we are exposed to the Flemish Military Order, and Nazi Skinheads Gluhics' basement. Bookcases, couches and the impression of desperation approaching, drastic sanctions and we have already expe for Power. In recent months the Croatian bedding are stuffed into the main stairwell most people interviewed are not broken. rienced the isolation that makes both life and government has attempted to curb the activ to provide protection from shrapnel. They seem more determined to defend the work unbearable," it continued. ity of such groups in Croatia and Bosnia. Two Serbian families and one Croatian city from "these madmen who want ethnic The students are demanding dismissal of On July 15 Serbian artillery fired 15 family are crammed into the basement along cleansing," as Halilovic put it. the parliament, the resignation of Milosevic, shells into a stadium filled with refugees in with another dozen neighbors who are On July 24 two Bosnian athletes from and the formation of a "national salvation the Croatian city of Slavouski Brod, across Muslim. "This is nationalistic madness," Sarajevo flew from the airport, along with government" that would include leaders of the border from Bosnia-Herzegovina. At says Haris Halilovic, a hotel worker. "You an escort of 30 people, to Spain to partici the opposition and would organize new least eight people died and more than 30 can see it here, this is not a war between pate in the Olympic competition in Barce elections for a constituent assembly. were wounded. Serbs and Muslims. lona. Ten thousand high school and college The number of refugees in Croatia has "It is true that Serbian people are under 'This is a small breach in the siege," students marched July 7 to press their de already surpassed 700,000. Meanwhile attack in Sarajevo," he says, referring to the 3,000-meter runner Mirsada Boric com mands. President Tudjman announced that his gov argument used by the rightist forces to attack mented while waiting for the plane at the In two dozen interviews students - with- ernment will begin deporting refugees to the city. ''They, together with Muslims and airport. August 14, 1992 The Militant 19 U.S. gov't -MILITANT LABOR FORUMS The Militant Labor Forum is a weekly 6:30 p.m., program: 7 p.m. 4905 Peon Ave. MICHIGAN Donation: $3. Tel: (412) 362-6767. free-speech meeting for workers, farm Detroit threatens ers, youth, and others. All those seeking Haiti: the St:ruggJe for Democracy. Speakers: to advance tbe f.ght against injustice and Cecilia Green, Haiti Solidarity Group, Ann WASHINGTON exploitation should attend and partici Arbor; representative, Socialist Workers Party. Seattle pate in these discussions on issues of im Sat., Aug. I, 7:30p.m. 5019 1/2 Woodward Ave. Hear Estelle DeBates, Socialist \\brkers Iraq portance to working people. Donation: $3. Tel: (3 13) 831 -1177. Candidate for US. Vice-President. Sat., Aug. At the Militant Labor Forum you can 1. Reception: 7 p.m., program: 7:30p.m. 1405 Continued from front page express your opinion, listen to the views MINNESOTA E Madison. Donation: $3. Tel: (206) 323-1755. dent George .Bush said Hussein "caved in" or fellow fighters, and exchange ideas on St. Paul and warned that "the real test of his behavior how to best advance the interests of work New US. Threats Against Iraq. SaL, Aug. I, • will be in future UN inspections." ers and farmers the world over. 7:30p.m. 508 N Snelling Ave. Donation: $3. Tel: Iraq's deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz (612) 644-6325. CANADA contradicted Bush 's statement. He argued CALIFORNIA Vancouver that Baghdad had "put the United Nations Los Angeles MISSOURI Hear Estelle DeBates, Socialist \\brkers in a position in which it was forced to deal The Fight to Bring Down Apartheid. Video, St. Louis Candidate for US. Vice-President. Sun., Aug. with us in a different way." Stop the Violence, followed by a panel discussion. Defend a \\bman's Right to Choose Abortion! 2, 7:30 p.m. 3967 Main St. (between 23rd and This set off a debate in Washington, in Sat., Aug. I, 7:30p.m. 2552-B W. Pico Blvd. Speakers: Rhett Ruecher, student representative, 24th Ave). Donation: $3. Tel: (604) 872-8343. which some are saying .Bush compromised Donation: $4. Tel: (213) 380-9460. Students for Choice at the University of Missouri, himself by allowing the Iraqis to determine St. Louis; Rollande Girard, Socialist Workers the composition of the new UN inspection Party; others. Sat.. Aug. I. 7:30p.m. 1622 S. NEW ZEALAND CONNECTICUT Broadway. Donation: $3. Tel: (314) 421-3808. Christchurch team. No one from the United States, or New Haven members of the so-called allied coalition, \\as \\brld w.u- U a \Y.lr for Democracy? Sat., Iran and Its Neighboring Republics of Cen Aug. I, 7 p.m. 593a Colo10bo St. (upstairs). were members of the team. tral Asia. Speaker: Ma'mud Shirvani. Fri., July PENNSYLVANIA Donation: $3. Tel: (3) 656-055. The .Bush administration is now planning 31, 7:30 p.m. Dwight Hall, 67 High St. (be Pittsburgh The Myth of Overpopulation. Sat., Aug. 8, 7 to speed up arms inspections. tween Elm and Chapel). Donation: $3. Tel: Hear James Wlrren, Socialist \\brkers Candi p.m. 593a Colombo St. (upstairs). Donation: $3. In recent months, the Bush administration (203) 772-3375. date for US. President- Sat., Aug. I. Reception: Tel: (3) 656-055. has been increasingly put on the defensive. Recent studies show many of Washington's self-proclaimed military feats of Washington during the Gu If War were outright lies. " Ofthe Public debate on Curtis case held in Boston· 50 Scud launchers (30 fixed, 20 mobile) Iraq was srud by General [Norman] Schwankopf Continued from Page 3 jury was all white. Dixon responded by Supporters of Mark Curtis held a reception to have possessed when the war started, 81 had tion Service, Dixon explained, adding that explaining that skin color does not deter at the Pathfmder Bookstore. About 50 peo reportedly been wiped out by the time the war this was a big political issue in Des Moines mine a jury of one's peers. "Who would ple came to continue the discussion and ended," wrote Mark Crispin Miller, in a New -a city run by the packinghouse bosses. be a jury of Judge Clarence Thomas's fmd out more about the fight. Morell. York Times op-ed article last June titled, "Op Dixon pointed out that 30 minutes be ' peers,' be asked, " Black youth from Dixon, and Stu Singer, a founding member eration Desert Sham.'' fore Curtis was arrested, and during the Roxbury?" of the Mark Curtis Defense Committee in Des Moines, answered questions from Mmer said, "All those upbeat claims time the rape was supposed to have oc Curtis supporters set up a literature table those in attendance. Three new endorsers must make the truth now seem incredible. curred, he had been at a local restaurant in front of the library and had a steady In fact, for all their sorues, the u.s. forces and bar with his coworkers discussing the stream of people come by and take material. added their names to the defense effort. did not destroy a single mobile launcher." defense effort underway at work, and ex Following the debate the New England This point is corroborated by the fmdings plained that Curtis was arrested by "a cop of Rolf Ekeus, head of the United Nations who wanted a collar. The frame-up began commission charged with destroying Iraq's when officer Gonzales pulled down his Curtis campaign completes fund drive arsenal of weapons. " Hardly any missile, pants," he said. " Once going to Curtis's Scud missile, was destroyed through attacks. car the cops found political literature and BY MIKE GALATI awarded by the court to C urtis and his knew who they had. What followed was ... What has been destroyed is through the DES MOINES, Iowa- Supporters of attorneys as part of his victory agrunst the a beating by the cops who called him 'a peaceful means of inspection," Ekeus said. imprisoned uruon and political activist Marl< cops, this goal has been surpassed. For the Mexican lover just like you love those President George Bush has been vulner Curtis completed one of their most success first time since the committee was formed coloreds.'" able to accusations that his admirustration ful fund-raising efforts ever on June 1, col almost four years ago, it has no outstand "appeased" Iraq before the Persian Gulf Andrea Morell responded to statements lecting $60,641 for the Marl< Curtis Parole ing debts. War. Probes for investigations into this by Pelka and Russo that this is a case about Now! Fund. New support was won for Cwtis's fight what is called " lraqgate" - are focusing on rape. She said "it is an important episode The Parole Now! Fund appeal was as well. From France, the Movement the charge that Washington was involved in in the ongoing battles between workers, launched in February, after the victory Against Racism asked to be listed as an a series of questionable economic and mil the employers, and their government in scored by Curtis in his federal civil rights endorser of the Defense Committee. The itary transactions with the Iraqi regime, right this country and around the world." lawsuit against the Des Moines cops for the M25 Three Campaign from Britrun, a com up to the point when Saddam Hussein in " It is above all about the cynical use of brutal beating he received the night of his mittee organized to defend three Black men vaded Kuwait in August 1990. the criminal charge of rape of a .Black arrest. framed by the cops, wrote to express sup The Washington-led coalition facing Iraq woman against a union and political ac The goals of the fund campaign were port. A letter of support from a prisoner in today is a far cry from the 30 countries that tivist to make an example of him," Morell to take advantage of the political openings Morocco was forwarded to the defense com backed the United States in the Gulf War. added. She explained that a central asser resulting from this court victory, to mittee by Amnesty International. Former coalition supporters Egypt and Syria tion of Curtis's opponents is that " women broaden the support for Curtis's fight for Th.is victory puts all supporters of Cwtis 's publicly pulled out of the alliance in March and children don't lie and you lose your justice, and to raise the substantial funds fight for justice in the strongest position to by opposing any new military attack on Iraq. right to be presumed innocent in such needed to pay a large part of the financial organize a broad campaign to demand his This has put pressure on the Saudi regime, cases. This is an argument for giving up debt owed by the Mark Curtis Defense release on parole. which clearly does not want to be the only the presumption of innocence, with a pro Committee. Arab government that is part of any military gressive veneer." With the money raised during the Parole Mike Galati is a meat-packer in Marshall intervention. During the question period Pelka in Now! Fund by supporters around the town, Iowa, and a member of United Food The Turkish government dealt one of the sisted Curtis had had a fai r trial since the world, coupled with the more than $60,000 and Commercial Workers Local SON. biggest blows July 24 when it announced its airbases were off limits to coalition war planes. An article in the Wall Street Journal last April anticipated just how significant - IF YOU LIKE THIS PAPER, LOOK US UP this was: " In the next few months, the most Where to find Pathfinder books and Zip: 63104. Tel: (314) 421-3808. code: M4 4AA. Tel: 06 I -839 1766. important decision affecting the ability of NEW JERSEY: Newark: 141 Halsey. Zip: the U.S. to mruntain military pressure on distributors of tbe MiliJant, Perspectiva Shef'rteld: 1 Gower St.. Spital Hill, Postal 07102. Tel: (201) 643-3341. code: S47HA. Tel: 0742-765070. Iraq won't be made in Washington or Mundial, New lnternolional, Nouvelk In ternationak, a nd Nueva lnternacionaL NEW YORK: New York: 191 7th Ave. Zip: Baghdad. It will be made in Ankara." 10011. Tel: (212) 727-8421. CANADA Britrun is the most consistent backer of UNITED STATES NORTH CAROLINA: Greensboro: 2000-C Montreal: 6566, bout. St-Laurent. Postal the U.S. government in Europe. But it is ALABAMA: Binning.ham: I I I 21st St. S. Elm-Eugene St. Zip 27406. Tel: (919) 272- code: H2S 3C6. Tel: (5 14) 273-2503. clear that even this alliance is on weaker South. Zip: 35233. Tel: (205) 323-3079, 328- 5996. 3314. OHIO: Cincinnati: P.O.Box 19484. Zip: Toronto: 827 Bloor St. West. Postal code: ground following emotional protests in Brit M6G IMl. Tel: (416) 533-4324 ain of the " friendly fire" deaths of British CALIFORNIA: Los Angeles: 2552-B W. 45219. Tel: (513) 221-2691. Cleveland: 1863 W. Pico Blvd. Zip: 90006. Tel: (213) 380-9460, 25th St. Zip: 44113. Tel: (216) 861-6150. Vancouver: 3967 Main St. Postal code: V5V soldiers during the Gulf War. 380-9640. San Francisco: 3284 23rd St. Zip: OREGON: Portland: 2310 NE 8th #1. Zip: 3P3. Tel: (604) 872-8343. While Paris claims it baclcs Washington's 94110. Tel: (415) 282-6255. 97212. Tel: (503) 288-0466. war threats, it is no secret that U.S. relations CONNECTICUf: New Haven: Mailing ad PENNSYLVANIA: Philadelphia: 1906 ICELAND with that country are icy. During a recent dress: P.O. Box 16751, Saybrook Station, West South St. Zip: 19146. Tel: (215) 546-8196. Pitts Reykjavik: Klapparstig 26. Mailing address: visit to Washington to discuss European Haven. Zip: 06516. burgh: 4905 Penn Ave. Zip 15224. Tel: (412) P. Box 233, 121 Reykjavik. Tel: (91) 17513. defense policy, it was reported that French FLORIDA: Miami: 137 N.E. 54th St. Zip: 362-6767. foreign minister Roland Dumas was bluntly 33137. Tel: (305) 756- 1020. TEXAS: Houston: 4806 Almeda. Zip: 77004. MEXICO asked by U.S. secretary of state James GEORGIA: Atlanta: 172 Trinity Ave. Zip: Tel: (713) 522-8054. Mexico City: Nevin Siders, Apdo. Postal27- 30303. Tel: (404) 577-4065. Baker, "Are you for us or agrunst us?'' UfAH: Salt Lake City: 147 E. 900 South. 575, Col. Roma Sur. Mexico OF. ILLINOIS: Chicago: 545 W. Roosevelt Zip: 84lll. Tel: (801) 355-1124. Inside Iraq, newspaper reports indicate Rd. Zip: 60607. Tel: (312) 829-6815, 829- WASHINGTON, D.C.: 523 8th St. SE. Zip: NEW ZEALAND that .Baghdad has renewed its claim to Ku 7018. 20003. Tel: (202) 547-7557. Auddand: La Gonda Arcade, 203 Karan wait territory, as Saddam Hussein confronts IOWA: Des Moines: 2105 Forest Ave. Zip: WASHINGTON: Seattle: 1405 E. Madison. gahape Road. Postal Address: P.O. Box 3025. instability at horne. Food prices have risen 503 I I. Tel: (515) 246-8249. Zip: 98122. Tel: (206) 323-1755. Tel: (9) 379-3075. KENTUCKY: Louisville: P.O. Box 4103. WEST VIRGINIA: Morgantown: 242 20 percent in the last month as the U.S.-Ied Christchurch: 593a Colombo St. (upstairs). Zip: 40204-4103. Walnut. Mailing address: P.O. Box 203. economic embargo on that country enters its Postal address: P.O. Box 22-530. Tel: (3) 656- MARYLAND: Baltimore: 2905 Greenmount Zip: 26507. Tel: (304) 296-0055. third year. Several merchants have been 055. rounded up on charges of profiteering. Ave. Zip: 21218. Tel: (410) 235-0013. MASSACHUSETTS: Boston: 780 Tremont AUSTRALIA ~llington: 23 Majoribanks St., Courtenay Sydney: 19 Terry St., Surry Hills, Sydney Everything points to a continued drive by St. Zip: 02118. Tel: (617) 247-6772. Pl. Postal address: P.O. Box 9092. Tel: (4) 384- NSW 2010. Tel: 02-281-3297. Washington to confront Iraq. Bush briefed MICHIGAN: Detroit: 5019~ Woodward 4205. Congress July 27 to emphasize that his threat Ave. Zip: 48202. Tel: (313) 831-1177. BRITAIN of military intervention was real. According MINNESOTA: Twin Cities: 508 N. Snelling London: 47 The Cut. Postal code: SEI SLL. SWEDEN to a White House official, .Bush warned that Ave., St. Paul. Zip: 55104. Tel: (612) 644·6325. Tel: 071-928-7993. Stockholm: Vtkingagatan 10. Postal code: S- the situation "could explode at any moment" MISSOURI: SL Louis: 1622 S. Broadway. Manchester: Unit 4, 60 Shudehill. Postal 113 42. Tel: (08) 31 69 33. 20 The Militant August 14, 1992 GREAT SOCIETY------Peddling new brand of poison Benefits of U.S. rule - Ten Let's not be too rational - A lronicaJ type - "The irony is long record of spying on workers -Margaret Thatcher, Britain's hospitals in Puerto Rico have been study commissioned by the Envi that American industry needed - and helping to bust strikes, is ped former Tory prime minister, is now cited by Medicare as having above ronmental Protection Agency con and still needs -to reduce the size dling a new service E.N.D.S. (En average numbers of deaths. The cluded that by the year 2000 global of its worlc force in order to prosper vironmental Narcotics Detection local government responds that warming could increase the world's and grow" -James Cramer, a Service.) It claims to use "advanced many people don't have the money hungry from 640 million to a bil Wall Street investment manager. detection technology to test any Harry for medicines or the knowledge of lion. What to do? Simple. Curb the surface ... for molecular traces of .. proper diet and, therefore, are more population. Golden shaft - a California narcotics." ,, Ring sick when they enter a hospital. judge ruled that the posh Neirnan \*· -. No designated driver - In Marcuschain illegally deducted $1.3 Thought for the week - 4 " '. Capitalism, it's wunnerfui Bowling Green, Kentucky, James million from employee paychecks. 'There's people out there with nu Colorado ski resort operators made Jaggers, an amputee, was going When an item was returned, N-M clear bombs and yet we've got all a bundle selling luxury home and home in his wheelchair after a couple deducted the commission from the these politicians trying to make a a $!-million-a-year consultant to condo lots around the bases of their of beers. Encountering a blocked salesperson's pay. When there was political platform based on a re Philip Morris. She will help block ski slopes. Now they have a bill in sidewalk, he steered into the road. A no employee ID on the return, they cord. . . . Arnold Schwartzenegger attempts to ban tobacco ads in the Congress to give them 40 acres of cop busted him for drunk driving. deducted the commission from the blew away dozens of cops as the European Community and fight to federal land for employee housing. Under protest, Jaggers accepted the entire staff of the department. Terminator. But I don't hear any bacco taxes. Currently, she's a non The available private land, they ex D.A. 's deal to drop the charges after body complaining about that." Ice smoker, but maybe she ' 11 take up plain, is too expensive to use for a year. if he didn't operate the wheel StiU snitTmg around - Pinker T, responding to the attacks on his the habit. workers' housing. chair under the influence. ton, the private cop agency with a rock song. ''Cop Killer." Nuclear threat remains 47 years after Hiroshima BY SARA LOBMAN It had cost over $2 billion dollars to build and many of them will. This fact will be bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Forty-seven years ago, on August 6, the bomb. An entire city had been built and come a favorite excuse for the U.S. capitalist August of 1945 will question Washington's 1945, the U.S. government dropped an the best scientists drafted to develop the rulers to drive toward wars with those gov motives. For the fact remains that the atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hi project. Many of these scientists begged the ernments or peoples who conflict with their United States is the only government to roshima. Three days later a second bomb government to call off the bombing of interests. have ever used a nuclear weapon against was dropped on Nagasaki. Tens of thou Japan. They suggested that detonating the But those who know the truth about the human beings. sands of people died instantly and the bomb over the ocean would be enough to death toll, due to radiation, continues to establish the vast increase in U.S. military mount even today. strength. The devastation from these bombs was On August 6, after Hiroshima had been almost unimaginable. Hiroshima was a city destroyed, then-president Truman threaten with 76,000 buildings. Ninety-two percent ed the people of Japan. You face "a rain of were destroyed. The intense heat and pres ruin from the air the like of which has never sure from the blast melted roof tiles and been seen on this earth," he said. Three days buckled steel. Even three miles from the later Nagasaki was annihilated. center of the bomb's impact the majority of Today, the U.S. government claims it has buildings were damaged. For a mile in a right to use military force to prevent the every direction, the city was reduced to proliferation of nuclear weapons to other ashes. countries. "Stop the Subcontinent's bomb", In the years since 1945 U.S. government aNew York Times editorial said in late April. officials and school textbooks have claimed It went on to explain that India and Pakistan that the U.S. goal in dropping the A-bomb both have "well-advanced nuclear pro on Japan was humanitarian. They argue that grams." "U.S. analysts worry North Korea this act ended World War II, thus eliminating may be hiding nuclear potential," ran a Wall the need for an invasion of the Japanese Street Journal headline in June. home islands and saving more lives than it The continued e mbargo against Iraq and cost. This is a lie. In fact, the Japanese other U.S. attempts to force the Iraqi people government had already agreed to negotiate into submission are carried out in the name a surrender. Its armies had already been of destroying that country's ability to de defeated. velop nuclear weapons. The United Nations Japan's requests for peace reached Wash Security Council, led by Washington, issued Hiroshima on Aug. 7, 1945, the day after the US. atomic bombing. Thus of thousands of ington by July 13. Five days later an A a warning to Iraq on July 17 that it risked people died instantly. Of the city's 76,000 buildings, 92 percent were destroyed. bomb was exploded in a test in the New military intervention if UN "inspectors'' Mexico desert, confirming its destructive were not allowed into the Agricultural Min power. The only two other bombs in exis istry to search for documents they claim -25 AND 50 YEARS AGO-- tence were quickly shipped to the Pacific. have information about Iraq's nuclear weap The United States government was deter ons program. and dying for Indian independence as Brit mined to use its new weapon before the end With today's technology, it is possible for THE ish imperialism attempts to drown the move of the war. many countries to build nuclear weapons ment in blood. The AU-India Congress party general MILITANT committee, yielding to the nationwide de Publhh• d in th• lnt•r••t of the Working P• opl• mand for immediate action to win indepen Wo~nen coaiiDiners IDeet August 7, 1967 Pfi« •o• dence, endorsed on Saturday, August 8, a More than 4,000 persons were arrested resolution for a "civil disobedience" cam BY JEANNE FITZMAURICE of affirmative action in all hiring. One Penn during the Detroit uprising and charged with paign. placing its direction and the date for MORGANTOWN, West Virginia - The sylvania miner pointed out that there would crimes ranging from inciting to riot and the beginning of the campaign in the hands 14th National Conference of Women Min be no women miners if the coal operators sniping to breaking the 9 p.m. curfew and of Gandhi. ers was held here June 26-28. The gathering were not forced to hire them. The idea of looting. Impossible bonds of $10,000 to At dawn the next day Gandhi, Nehru, and was sponsored by the Coal Employment preferential seniority for women miners in $25,000 were set for even minor charges. other Congress leaders were arrested and the Project (CEP), which has supported women layoffs was not discussed. Residents in the areas where the uprising Congress was declared outlawed, precipitat in their efforts to get mining jobs and to fight A number of women from the conference was strongest describe how police invaded ing the immediate launching of the indepen sexual harassment and other discrimination. joined striking miners from UMWA Local homes without warrants, smashing doors dence campaign. No sooner were the flfSt Since 1983 the United Mine Workers of 3009 as well as other unionists from the and furniture, injuring inhabitants and tear crowds on the streets than British police and America (UMWA) has endorsed the meet Morgantown area on a picket line at the ing rooms apart in a search for guns and troops fired into their midst. while airplanes ings and encouraged union locals to send home of a coal operator who has refused to ammunition. A number of black persons, spewed teargas. representatives. negotiate with the union. The miners are on including women and children, were shot Ever since Britain, without consulting any A workshop entitled "Political Action: strike in eastern Tennessee, and have been and some killed by police firing wildly into section of the population, declared India in Women in Politics," discussed sexual ha sending delegations to Morgantown to carry homes with rifles and machine guns. the war in September, 1940, the tide of out a corporate campaign against Dipple and rassment, abortion rights and the 1992 pres The police used the uprising as a pretext colonial revolution has been rising. The Dipple, the mine owners. idential elections. to arrest and harass black militants. One of masses of India do not want to fight and die Bonnie Boyers, a workshop convenor, During the Morgantown gathering, a the defendants in the August police-created in this war in order to maintain British rule pointed to the approaching Supreme Court much discussed topic was the January 31, riot of last year was arrested for looting as in India. decision on the Pennsylvania law restricting 1993, expiration of the UMWA contract he stepped out of his own store. The defeats in Malaya, Singapore, the abortion rights. She urged the worlcshop with the Bituminous Coal Operators' As Vaughn's Book Store, a nationalist center East Indies and Burma had destroyed British participants to actively defend a woman's socation. UMWA president Richard Trurn in the city, came under vicious anack. Eye prestige in the Far East and had brought to right to choose. ka, campaigning for re-election in a nearby witnesses saw four carloads of uniformed unprecedented heights the national self-con The meeting reaffirmed the purpose of town, came by the conference. white police break windows and show cases. fidence of the Indian masses. the CEP- to get women hired in the mines There was considerable informal discus Books were shoved onto the floor and The way out for India, and for all the and to fight discrimination. sion of safety questions, including the May drenched with water. They also burned the peoples, will not come from Churchill or The conference was attended by close to 9 explosion at the Westray coal mine in back room of the store. A fund has been set Roosevelt, Hitler or the Mikado. The way 50 people. About 30 were women currently Nova Scotia, Canada, where 26 miners were up to help reopen this center for black out is the brotherhood of the peoples against working in coal mines in nine states, east killed. thought and activity. all the oppressors. A Free India will be a and west. While this is fewer than have Participants agreed to hold the 1993 con powerful and reliable ally of Free China and come to past gatherings. the women spoke ference in the Southwest, in the area of the the Soviet Union. A Free India, putting an of the CEP as a support group and as a tool Navajo reservation, where the Peabody and end to the imperialist privileges of British to fight discrimination. Pittsburgh and Midway coal companies TH£ MILITANT capitalism and the crumbs it hands out to its Women, who only won the right to work have large mines. f>U. U IMIO JN fMI UlttflltU Of,... WOii•INe JIIOPU labor lieutenants, would speed the British in the mines in the 1970s, rarely have the ,.:EWYOIK NY working class on the road of socialist revo seniority to survive severe layoffs. While Jeanne Fitzmaurice is a member of UMWA August 15, 1942 lution. discussing a resolution that proposed find Local 1570 and is the Socialist Workers Every worker, every honest democrat, ing jobs for women on the UMWA staff, candidate for the West Virginia House of Under the slogans "Freedom or Death," throughout the world must give uncondi several miners spoke out adamantly in favor Delegates from Monongalia County. "Do or Die," the masses of India are fighting tional support to India's fight. August 14, 1992 The Militant 21 - EDITORIALS Pittsburgh Big victory in spy files release workers rally 111e recent decision by the Puerto Rico Supreme Court created, as the Miami Herald noted, "a swirl of ... indig to support ordering the government in that U.S. colony to release its nation and outrage" throughout the island. vast "subversives" files is a resounding victory in the fight As the contents of the "subversive" files reveal, the against political spying and harassment, both in Puerto ~litical cops h~ve resorted to wiretapping, mail intercep 'Press' strike Rico and the United States. It is a blow to the FBI and uon, use of srutches and provocateurs, disruption pro other political police agencies that are used to victimize grams, and much more in their war on democratic rights. BY BILL SCHEER striking unionists, protesters against cop brutality, defend Large U.S. companies operating in Puerto Rico were given PITISBURGH -Thousands of workers massed at the ers of women's rights, and other fighters for social justice. access to the files to screen out union militants and inde Pittsburgh Press and Post-Gazette newspaper buildings This victory reflects the wide respect and hearing that pendence supporters. Government employees and students throughout the night of July 26, preventing delivery of advocates of Puerto Rican independence have won. It have been blacklisted. newspapers. points toward the opportunities to gain even broader sup The Press, using scab drivers, was unable to move its port for that fight. The pro-i.ndependence movement, the main target, has delivery trucks as hundreds of workers blocked the truck fought and exposed this government harassment for years. As we reported in our last issue, the government was exit~ and kept the trucks from leaving the building. Police Their efforts, and the most recent victory, have helped forced on June 30 to start releasing its illegal spy files on arrested 39 strikers and supporters. educate hundreds of thousands of working people and 135,000 people and many organizations in Puerto Rico - About 600 members of Teamsters Local 211 went on youth - including in the United States. This is precisely primarily independence supporters and other political and strike May 17 when the Pittsburgh Press tried to institute why the government feared the disclosure of the spy files. union activists. The files were compiled by the intelligence a new distribution system that would eliminate 450 drivers' division of the police, with the active involvement of the The court ruling comes in the wake of the Puerto Rican jobs and replace 4,500 youth carriers with a small number FBI. Senate hearings on the 1978 Cerro Maravilla murders, in of adult delivery workers. The other daily newspaper, the The police, the FBI, and both ruling colonial parties on which the police, with FBI complicity, killed two pro-in Post-Gazelle, which uses the same distribution system, the island fought tooth and nail to prevent the release of dependence youths. The hearings confirmed the use of also stopped publishing May 17. the files. 111ey brazenly argued that issuing the uncensored police frame-ups, death squads, and other government . The company was able to print some papers at remote files would invade the "privacy" of the cops who snooped crimes, which have been at the center of political discus ~1tes and S?me.papers were delivered. The police, includ on people's homes and infiltrated private meetings. Under sion among working people and others. mg a spec1al not squad equipped with helmets and long massive public pressure, however, the court ruled that the clubs, announced they would wait for a court injunction This victory can be a powerful weapon to explain the before trying to clear the workers from the streets to allow files had to be released in fuJI, including the names of the nature of the imperialist government in Washington, and cops, undercover police, and informers. So far 5,000 peo the delivery trucks to pass. its colonial domination of Puerto Rico, and how the FBI Bill George, president of the state AFL-CIO, said the ple have started lining up at a government office in San and other cop agencies are used to enforce this oppression. Juan to receive their files. 11ley include workers, students, striking Teamsters union had accepted a federal mediator's It can be used to win broader support in the fight to free proposal for a seven-day cooling-off period during which teachers, pro-independence parties, civil liberties groups, the two dozen Puerto Rican independence fighters locked socialist organizations -even a former judge and a retired the picket lines would come down and the paper would up in U.S. jails for their political beliefs. In this period of not print. The company rejected the offer. president of the University of Puerto Rico. Some have used growing capitalist depression and social crisis, it will the court ruling to sue the government for damages. On the evening of July 26 workers from more than a become more important as working people seek to defend dozen unions began showing up at the United Steelworkers The files, which demonstrated the vast number of people themselves against the U.S. rulers' greater use of police union building, next to the Press building, as word spread targeted and the extent of the cops' dirty tricks, have violence and frame-ups. of the company's plans to print. "I had to be here," said one worker who came on his own. "They say Pittsburgh is no longer a union town. We'll prove them wrong tonight," he said. A group from the carpenters' union organized a quick calling and got "a couple hundred" members to come out Workers face war, depression "We'll stay as long as it takes," said one carpenter who planned to call off work. Cont.inued from front page financial establishment As many as 5,000 workers turned out during the night. United States is promoted by the same reality of economic Much of what Perot says about the state of the capitalist Marching around the Press building the crowd chanted decline. Many commentators have pointed to the deep economy is true. Widespread estimates persist that the "Stop the Press" and "Stop scabs" as they marched by "malaise" that persists over this both among worKing current "recovery" will be short-lived. "America's slowest the Vance Security guards. · people and the middle class. economic recovery on record is again showing signs of Impromptu rallies and chants broke out as a bullhorn These factors have plagued the Bush administration with faltering. After a flurry of awful economic figures, there was passed around One student wearing an "Abolish the low levels of support, and have led to divisions in the is talk of a 'triple-dip' recession," notes a July 21 article Death Penalty" button came over after a rock concert Republican camp, including open debates over the possi in the Financia17imes, adding that the latest "surge in the ended nearby and received a rousing ovation when he bility of dumping top administration figures from Danforth unemployment rate, to 7.8 percent-sent shock waves brought greetings to the crowd. Quayle to budget director Richard Darman and treasury through financial markets." A ~hant of "Homestead 1882- Pittsburgh 1992" caught secretary Nicholas Brady in order to make the Bush pres Despite Perot's demise in this campaign, depression on bnefly. The reference was to the historic strike in nearby idential ticket look more attractive. conditions are guaranteed to continue to contribute to the H~estead where w?rkers defeated the Pinkerton guards Perot's decision to throw in the towel followed a series rise of more Bonapartist-type figures of his kind. sent m by the Cameg1e Steel company. The strike was later of attacks and exposes against him by politicians of the Democratic Party presidential candidate William Clin defeated when the governor of Pennsylvania called in the two major capitalist parties and in the press about his ton is hoping to ride the tide of alienation from politics, National Guard. autocratic methods as a company head and in politics with his latest pitch for the "forgotten middle class." Larry, a striking Teamster, carried a sign that said "Scabs generally. Many of those who were initially attracted to Clinton has just completed a Midwest speaking tour, where are Scum." He told the Militant he had been in three Perot's demagogic rhetoric and promises to clean up a he addressed truck drivers, farmers, and unionists, and previous strikes against the newspaper including one that corrupt system were less keen when they learned more demagogically harped on his low-income origins in the lasted five months. But this is the flrst time the company about nis history and methods. Vice-president Danforth South. Clinton claims that his proposal to spend an extra has tried to print during a strike. Quayle accurately depicted Perot as a "temperamental $200 billion in public investment over four years will pull "'They have no intention of settling," he said. "They tycoon who has contempt for the Constitution of the United capitalism out of its decline. want to break the unions and take us back to the tum States." The warlike face of the Ointon-Gore ticket came of the century." Looking around at the thousands of Early in his campaign Perot made himself notorious with sharply into focus when Clinton gave a blank check to wo~e~ from many unions, he said, "We're finally begmnmg to understand that my problem is everyone's his statement that he would not have homosexuals in his B~sh to take any action he felt necessary against Iraq. cabinet, and supported banning them in the military. Clinton has also been more energetic than Bush himself problem." Shortly before he quit, he was heckled at the NAACP in advocating that the United States begin bombing "Serb . Newsstands around town have posted signs saying they convention when he used the phrase "your people" in ian targets" in Bosnia-Herzegovina and tighten the em will not carry the Press or Post-Gazette. Union spokespeo singling out the problems of Blacks. bargo on Serbia. Elsewhere, Ointon has emphasized his ple say the Press phone lines have been jammed with The capitalist rulersclear ly decided that, for the time being, support for Washington having "the strongest defense, people trying to cancel their subscriptions. the risks of putting such a person as Perot in office outweigh ready and willing to use force when necessary." He has Mayor Sophie Masloff announced the city would cancel any benefits they would gain from having such a "strongman" also called for tightening the economic boycott of Cuba. all advertising in the Press, and said she had canceled her subscription. However, the mayor also declared the city inchargeoftheadministration. Theywouldratherkeeptrying Speaking in Houston July 23, flanked by police officers, to shore up the battered two-party system. Ointon proposed the hiring of 100,000 more cops. would mobilize the police. Meanwhile, "Stop the buttons, stickers, and post Since he gave up his campaign, Perot has released a Clinton is demonstrating his readiness to follow in the Press" ers have appeared all over town. package of draconian proposals for creating a "balanced footsteps of his Democratic Party predecessors, who took budget," on the backs of working people. These include the United States into all the major wars of this century, raising gasoline taxes by 50 cents a gallon; doubling the from World War I to the Bay of Pigs in Cuba to Vietnam. cigarette tax; slashing farm subsidies by $17 billion over There is no better time than right now to join the fight Keep the reports five years; big cuts in expenditure on mass transit and arts for the socialist alternative to the twin parties of war, programs; and reductions in spending on social security racism, and economic depression: the Socialist Workers and articles coming! pensions, Medicare, and Medicaid. A study commissioned ticket headed by James Warren for U.S. president and by Perot himself estimated that implementing this program Estelle DeBates for vice-president would lead to higher unemployment. The bulk of his This campaign demands, "No to another war against Over the past weeks while the Militant has been on a proposals would hit working people the hardest. Iraq!" It is a demand that should be widely raised now. ~iweekly schedule dozens of articles about significant 1ssues and struggles have continued to be sent to the Perot urged that unless such decisive action is taken an Rather than war, what working people need is interna by worker correspondents from around the world. "economic catastrophe" is imminent. He added that the tional solidarity with all those fighting against capitalist Militant We would like to thank everyone for these important and United States is "on the edge of a severe recession or exploitation and oppression, from South Africa to the timely articles that help make the Militant a better paper. depression," and predicted the complete collapse of the strikers against the Pittsburgh Press. Unf0r1Wlately we have been unable to print many of these due to space limitations. With our next issue we will be back to a weekly schedule and should be able to fit in more reports, so k.eep them coming. 22 The Militant August 14, 1992 Detroit grocery workers end strike at Kroger This column is devoted to re Local 876 ended their strike against consecutive weeks particularly an stration was not attacked. Metal Workers win victory porting the resistance by working the Kroger grocery chain June 18. gered part-time workers who had The victims of the 1990 attack at Stockholm factory people to the employers' assauJt Meat cutters represented by UFCW already worked for Kroger for sev were members of the Service Em on their living standard, working Local 359 also voted to ratify the eral years with no health coverage ployees International Union strik The workers at Ericsson's main conditions, and unions. contract. The nine-week strike was or other benefits. ing against a contractor who pro factory in Stockholm, organized by W>rking people around the the longest grocery chain strike in Under the five-year contract, vides janitorial service in commer the Metal Workers Union, won a world are involved in skirmishes the history of the Detroit area. which clerks ratified 2,078 to cial office buildings. As they victory when they defeated a com pany attempt to take away a $!-an over speedup, forced overtime, Kroger underestimated the re l, 132, Kroger agreed to wage in marched in Century City, members layoffs, and attacks on health and solve of the striking workers, espe creases of $2 an hour over the life of the Los Angeles Police Depart hour bonus by refusing to work safety benefits. Some unionists cially the resistance of the part -time of the contract for all workers on ment in riot gear attacked them, overtime. the basis of seniority. The average beating people with their billy Ericsson, a company in the elec number of hours a week a part-time clubs. Some 150 people were in tronics industry, has laid off many worker must work to be eligible for jured and dozens of demonstrators workers while pushing the remain ON THE PICKET LINE "full-time" benefits was reduced were jailed. ing workers to work overtime. from 40 to 34 hours. However, the TV cameras were there during "They know we are so low paid that faced with sharp takeback de workers who make up two-thirds of 12 consecutive weeks requirement the attack, and the graphic scenes in most cases we say yes to over mands, lockouts, and union-bust the union membership. "We scared was maintained. Many part-timers of cop violence on the news that time work," explained one worker. ing moves have gone on strike to Kroger," explained Omar Williams, voted against the contract, which night made a strong impact. In the section where the job ac force the bosses to back down. a 22-year-old clerk. "They told us, still limits the number of full-time Three weeks later, the strikers tion took place, doors for telephone \\e invite you to contribute to 'You aren't going to be out a week.' workers to 2,000. Ali Harnmoud, a won a contract. Currently, accord and telegraph offices are painted. this column as a way for otber We showed them." Only 350 out of part-time meat clerk who voted ing to a union staff member, 7,000 When the quality of the doors is fighting workers around the the 7,000 striking workers crossed against the contract, said, " It might janitors in the city are under union deemed high, workers get an extra world to learn from these impor the picket line. The strike cost Kro have been good for the full -timers, contract. But many janitors remain dollar an hour. One day the boss tant struggles. Jot down a few ger an estimated $100 million. but there was nothing in it for me." unorganized. was not satisfied with the quality lines to let other MilitonJ readers Kroger had demanded conces Both the UFCW negotiating and The janitorial work force is and decided to take back the bonus. know about what is happening in sions from the union which eventu advisory committees called for re mainly Latino, mostly men and So the workers refused to work your workplace or in your union. ally would relegate all workers to jection of the contract. At the same women from Mexico and Central overtime. If there is an interesting discus part-time status. Part-time workers, time UFCW officials publicly America. Wages are very low. "'The boss didn't like the action, sion going on at work, we would under Kroger's pre-strike contract warned that if strikers rejected the Those under union contract make neither did the union officials. But like to hear about that too. offer, would start at $4.50 an hour. contract, the strike would drag on up to $5.95 an hour and have med they couldn't stop us," said one of A clause in the contract that re and Kroger would hire permanent ical benefits. Nonunion workers get the workers who participated. Members of the United Food quired part-time workers to work an replacements, giving workers no paid as little as $4.25, the minimum "We did all we could to make the and Commercial Workers (UFCW) average of 40 hours a week for 12 perspective for continuing the fight wage, and have no benefits. workers stick together. The best of to press their demands. "The con They are subjected to intense all is that workers from Pakistan, tract wasn't acceptable, but we speedup. A worker is forced to Turkey, several African countries, were all ready to take what we clean as many as three floors of an Finland, and Sweden participated," could get at this point," said Brad office building in a single night. a worker from Latin America ex Osada, a meat clerk. In its continuing effort to orga plained. "We are just 29 workers in nize the unorganized. the union is my section, but we won the bonus Janitors march to mark demanding a single set of wages, back and we are doing what we can anniversary of cop attack benefits, and working conditions to inform other workers of our vic throughout the mainly unorganized tory. We hope this will make it Justice for Janitors held a march office buildings in the area from easier for others to see that we all and rally in Los Angeles to mark Century City to Beverly Hills. face the same problems and that it the second anniversary of a violent Two other demands were made will encourage others to fight the police attack on a peaceful march by the recent demonstration. One is same way we did. The bosses do of janitors fighting for union recog that janitors be paid for time lost all they can to divide us and if we nition. during the riots sparked by the ac want to win. we must be united." Several hundred janitors and sup quittal of the cops who beat Rodney porters assembled in Cenrury City, King. The following contributed to this scene of the 1990 police attack, and The union is also demanding that week's column: Arlene Rubinstein. marched from there to Beverly Hills. the city stop stalling and make "a member of United Food and Com Along the way they circled several fair and rapid settlement" of the mercial Workers Local 26 in De big office towers to press their de janitors' lawsuit pending against troit: Candace Wagner from De mand for union contracts. the police department and the city troit: Harry Ring and Joel Britton May support raiJy for workers on strike against the Kroger grocery Cops were on hand throughout on behalf of those beaten and jailed f rom Los Angeles: and Kerstin chain in Detroit. W>rkers ratirled a contract on June 18. the march, but the June 15 demon- in the 1990 police riot. Granberg from Stockholm. -LETTERS Abortion fight George Bush has stated that any 100 North Senate Avenue, India attack on the UN forces would be napolis, IN 46204. I think the recent activity around a pretext for U .S. intervention. A prisoner the fight for abortion rights at the Second is the idea expressed by 1992 Democratic Convention Westville, Indiana U.S. General Galvin that imperial needs some discussion. Although I ism must "stabilize this part of the find it inspirational that the conven world." The conflict in Yugoslavia Union contract ignored tion has turned into a forum on this reveals not only the growing inter Anyone who wants to see man issue, I think it is important to rec imperialist rivalries but also the agement rights in action should ognize that the fight for abortion weakening of imperialism as a visit the lDS Newspaper Distribu rights cannot be won in this context. whole as a result of the break-up of tors in Farmingdale and New Ro NOW [National Organization for the Stalinist regimes in the Soviet chelle, New York. To enter the Women]'s perspective that the issue Union and Eastern Europe. While plant, you must pass through a will be decided in November indi this idea of "stabilization" is not the metal detector and receive a pass. cates a collaborationist perspective key element driving imperialism to You will then enter the "high tech" of the women's movement as a war. it is certainly a factor and ex world of newspaper delivery where IHOMELEG6 whole. I think it is important to ex plaining it helps expose the role of your every move and sound is taped plain that the fight for women's so-called peacekeeping forces. by a revolving camera and micro rights, including the right to abortion AI Cappe phone. on demand, is only one fight of many Toronto. Canada The workers are not allowed to against the offensive against talk at all and the "mike" is there to worl August 14, 1992 The Militant 23 THE MILITANT French truck protests result in gains BY NAT LONDON small farmers also blocked road transporta for small outfits that employ PARIS-Thousands of angry truck driv tion and, in one instance, severed the main less than 10 workers. All of ers. demanding government relief from eco north-south rail lines, effectively cutting the them have been deeply af nomic austerity and worsening working country in two. fected by the worsening eco conditions, succeeded in closing all main nomic conditions. Today. it is highways and many secondary roads Collapse of freight rates not uncommon for drivers to throughout France for ten days in a massive These actions were a continuation of pro work 60 or 70 hours a week action launched June 30. Major cities in tests by truck driver owner-operators and and earn less than the mini cluding Lyon, the second largest city, and small farmers that started last fall. On No mum wage. Toulouse in the south were entirely cut off vember 4. truckers blocked the main high Drivers employed by big from the rest of the country. way linking Paris and Lyon for three days freight companies have also Large auto assembly plants such as the demanding reductions in sales taxes on die seen their working conditions Renault factory in Douai, the MCI plant in sel fuel and highway tolls for trucks. deteriorate. The big trucking Maubeuge, and the Peugeot plants in Many truckers trace their problems to the bosses. who contract out work Sochaux and Mulhouse were temporarily end of fixed freight rates, which were abol to owner-operators when prof closed. All French highway traffic connect ished in 1986 as pan of the French govern itable to do so, have used this ing Spain with the rest of Europe was also ment's moves tOward integration into the to try to pit their employees cut off. The action cost the French tourist European Community. Since then, there has against the independent driv industry $200 million. been a sharp drop in freight rates which has ers. At the high point of the protests, over been aggravated by the economic recession However. while the protests 160 barricades of tractor-trailers were in France has been in during the last year and launched last fall involved only place. The main barricade outside of Tou a half. Today, one out of four drivers who the owner-operators and driv louse involved I ,000 trucks and was rein own their trucks earn less than their operat ers in small trucking outfits. forced by I I other truck barricades around ing costs. Last year 2,400 trucking firms out the more recent actions have the city. of a total 36.000 went into bankruptcy. drawn in drivers from big firms The truckers won broad backing among Owner-operators are a small minority of side-by-side with the indepen working people. They were supported by the 500,000 truck dri vers in France. Only dent truckers. Many drivers actions of ambulance drivers and taxi driv 14,000 drivers own their own rigs and em from other countries such as ers. A simultaneous wave of protests by ploy no other workers. Many drivers work Belgium. Germany, and Italy also took part in the blockades Police violence against strike was widely criticized on the French highways. The truckers were protesting Pathfinder Mural Bookstore a new severe penalty system for drivers' drivers. It also took measures to guarantee licenses that the government put into effect that freight rates would not fall below op July I. Under this system truckers would erating costs for owner-operators. opens in New York City lose their licenses, and therefore their jobs, Limits were imposed on the use of the when they accumulated six points for driv penalty system for truck drivers' licenses. If BY MERYL LYNN FARBER are now distributed by Pathfinder Press. The ing violations. The drivers insist that current a company gives a driver an order that NEW YORK- The Pathfinder Mural three different posters available feature the economic conditions make it impossible for cannot be fulfilled under the legal speed and Bookstore opened its doors to the public portraits of Malcolm X and Nelson Man them to earn a living wage while complying weight limits, the company and not the here July 28. deJa, each for $8, and a large poster of the with the weight and speed limits and other driver will now be legally responsible. The Friends of the Pathfinder Mural and full mural for $20.00. driving regulations imposed by the govern The truckers' action was spontaneous. It supporters of Pathfinder publications around Postcards of Malcolm X and Nelson Man ment. was not supported by the National Trucking the United States and other countries led a deJa can be ordered in packets of I 0 for $8.00. Federation FNTR - which is dominated six-month campaign to raise the funds neces There are also bulk order discounts for the Police violence by freight companies -or by the various sary to open a professional and attractive posters and postcards. Contact Pathfinder When the government called in the army, unions of fleet drivers. It was the result of bookstore adjacent to the Pathfinder Mural. Press at 408 West Street, New York. NY French television was filled with scenes of the social crisis in France and the failure of The mural, which covers a wall of the 10014 for bulk prices. A video on the story tanks trying to tow away the trucks while the existing trade union officialdom to mo Pathfinder building by the Hudson River in of the mural. as well as 4 x 6 color photos of riot police broke truck windows and beat bilize workers against the attacks by the Manhattan's Greenwich Village, fearures the details of the mural. can still be ordered from drivers with their clubs. One picture, which bosses. portraits of leaders of revolutionary struggles the Friends of the Pathfmder Mural at 191 appeared in almost every paper, showed a At the same time, many workers around around the world, whose writings and Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10011 . policeman forcing a driver out of his truck the coutnry noted how these actions speeches are published by Pathfinder. These The sales of these items have been an at gunpoint. showed the potential power of working include Fidel Castro, Malcolm X, Karl Marx, invaluable source of funds which allows for The police repression was widely criti people. One worker at a Renault auto Frederick Engels, Nelson Mandela, Rosa the ongoing defense, maintenance, and pub cized and the truckers won increasing sup plant, for example, told a truck driver Luxemburg, Farrell Dobbs, and many others. licity of the mural. In the past 8 months more port for their action. A public opinion poll delivering a load of steel, "If during our One display features photographs ofDum than $5000 has been received through the showed 60 percent of the French popula Last strike we had organized a common ile Feni, the internationally renowned South sales of posters, postcards, photographs and tion supporting them and 38 percent op action of Renault workers with the truck African artist who painted the portrait of Nel videos. posed. The government was unable to ers, we would have had the power to win son Mandel a on the mural and traveled around The Pathfinder Mural Bookstore is open shake the growing unity between the a clear victory instead of the defeat we the country helping to publicize the mural Tuesday through Friday from II :00 a.m. to owner-operators and the fleet drivers. After suffered." All workers present agreed. project and raise funds toward its completion. 9:00 p.m., Saturdays from I I :00 a.m. to 6:00 a week the government was forced to open At the opening, the bookstore was dedi p.m., and Sundays from 12 noon to 5:00p.m. negotiations. Nat London works at the Renault auto plant cated to Feni, who died in New York in The store is located at 167 Charles Street. The The government agreed to take measures in Choisy-le-roi and is a member of the October of last year. An original Feni litho telephone number is (212) 366-1973. to limit the amount of overtime for fleet General Confederation ofLabor (CGT). graph is displayed in the store. The opening of the new Pathfinder book store was made possible by the donations of thousands of dollars and the sale of mural East Timor activist reports on independence fight posters, postcards and photographs. The United Nations Special Committee against TERRY COGGAN ceived terms from 8 to 18 months. negotiations without pre-conditions to pro Apartheid awarded the Friends of the Path WELLINGTON, New Zealand - East 'The Indonesian military have set up duce a diplomatic solution to the crisis in finder Mural a grant of $2000 toward the Timor has been closed to the world since the what they call 'Ninja units' to create an our country." Pereira said. opening of the store and visitor center. massacre in Dili, the island's capital, last environment of terror among the 1imorese "Many people make the mistake of look Pathfinder Mural artists Cliff Joseph, November 12, 1imorese activist Agio Per people," Pereira said. He explained that In ing at the Indonesian regime as a rock that Renee Majeune. and Carole Byard were eira said in an interview. East Timor is a donesian soldiers raid homes dressed as tra will last forever," Pereira explained. "But among those who came to the bookstore on country north of Australia that is occupied ditional Japanese warriors. Up to 200 people it's a military dictatorship coming into in the opening day. Joseph is the artist who by military forces from neighboring Indo have "disappeared" since the massacre. creasing conflict with the aspirations of its painted the portraits of Martin Luther King nesia. East Timor was invaded by Indonesian own people. The Forum for Democracy, the Jr. and Steve Biko. Byard painted the por Pereira. secretary of the East 1imor Relief forces in December 1975. Prior to that it was student movement, and other groups inside trait of Malcolm X. Association in Australia, was in New Zealand a colony of Portugal. The Timorese National Indonesia have expressed concern about the Customers bought nearly $300 worth of to gain support for an independent interna Liberation Front, known as Fretilin, led the situation in East Tunor. This is a meaningful Pathfinder books the first weekend the tional commission of inquiry into the massa successful struggle against Portuguese rule, change in Indonesian politics." bookstore was open and also purchased cre. Eyewitness reports indicate 198 people and is now leading the resistance to Indones Pereira said that Fretilin and its armed mural posters and postcards. were killed when Indonesian troops opened ian occupation. According to Amnesty In wing Falintil try to win over Indonesian The opening of the Pathfinder Mural fire on unarmed protesters. The Indonesian ternational, 200,000 Timorese have died at soldiers serving their six-month term in East Bookstore represents a step forward in the government has admitted up to 50 deaths. the hands of the Indonesian military during Tunor. "Many of them go home saying that distribution and reach of Pathfinder books. Pereira pointed to the difference in jail the 17-year occupation. East Tunor has a right to independence just The hundreds of people who come to see terms that have resulted from trials follow The United Nations Decolonization as Indonesia itself did when it was fighting the mural can now purchase books that con ing the events of November 12. Thirteen Committee, which still recognizes Portugal Dutch rule." tain the speeches and writings of the fighters student leaders who organized the demon as the legal governing authority of East depicted in the six-story public work of art. stration received sentences ranging from 6 Timor, is due to meet this year to discuss the Terry Coggan is a member of the United Bookstore customers can also purchase months to IS years, while six army officers island's status. "The need is urgent for the Food and Chemical Workers Union in Wel posters and postcards of the mural, which who directed the attack on the protest re- broadest possible international pressure for lington, New Zealand. 24 The Militant August 14, 1992