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WfJliNEli1No. 103 ''1N''''1''~~) ..." 2 April 1976. Peronism Paved the Way

Army tanks and armoured personnel carriers guard the presidential palace on the day of the coup . • • • liar ou In

t .~i UPI • Helicopter carries Isabel Peron from the roof of the Casa Rosada after generals took power in Buenos Aires last week. re:entlna Down with the Juntal For Workers Revolutionl

MARCH 30~When the strategically popUlist, Peronist leadership of the bankrupt Argentine capitalism~the Iy expect a certain generosity. situated tanks started to move on the unions. Fake revolutionists from the gorilas are prepared to drench the Under the regime's announced plans Casa Rosada and troops took up their Brezhnevite Communist Party and the workers quarters in rivers of blood. for a drastic austerity plan (for the assigned stations in downtown Buenos Castroist PRT/ERP to ostensible workers), imperialist refinancing of the Aires, it was all over in a matter of a few Trotskyists have for years capitulated Imperialists Gloat more than $1 billion in debts due this minutes for the government of Isabel before the bourgeois popUlists, so that Now that only two South American May now becomes likely, along with Per6n. Not a shot was fired and the only the Argentine working class saw no countries (Venezuela and Colombia) further loans, investment and aid from one taken by surprise seemed to be the revolutionary alternative. When their remain with elected civilian govern­ the imperialist coffers. The new econ­ Argentine president herself. The heli­ Peronist misleaders fled, they were ments, the New York Times (28 March) omics minister, Jose Martinez de Hoz, is copter that was to take her home around without direction. There was no report­ haughtily editorializes about "Latin a major industrialist and managing midnight last Tuesday instead deposited ed resistance. America, the Growing Graveyard for director of the Acindar steel concern. her in the military section of the That the reactionary putsch came as Democracies." But like most of the His plans for "economic recovery" will municipal airport. There she was arrest­ an anti-climax does not make it any less imperialist press, the Times has all but no doubt be inspired by the experience ed at gunpoint, then swiftly spirited off dangerous. The new regime is taking demanded just such a coup throughout of the 1975 Acindar steel strike in Villa. to an isolated Andean lake resort in pains to appear as reconcilers. Videla's the last year. It only regrets that it took Constituci6n, where the army and Neuquen province. speech to the nation talks of a "healing so long in coming. The U.S. police arrested more than 200 union The March 23 coup d'etat was process"; the news agencies publish government~and its closest allies in the militants and occupied the city for certainly one of the most precisely photographs of soldiers feeding the Latin countries, Spain, Brazil and weeks. executed and publicly prepared "con­ pigeons in the Plaza de Mayo. But Chile~is no less enthusiastic. Its spiracies" in history. "More German behind the "moderate" image of the diplomatic recognition of the new Restoring "Essential Values" than Argentine" was the reported junta, including Videla, navy chief Vice government came almost before the The junta undertook its "national ',erdict of one approving rancher. But Admiral Emilio Massera and Air Force seizure of power was under way. reorganization" early Wednesday, vow­ I he true significance of the fact that commander Lt. General Orlando Agos­ So far the junta's moves show carefUl ing that its "fundamental objective will . army commander Lt. General Jorge ti, lurk numerous "hard-liners" scream­ attention to the sensibilities of world be to restore the essential values which Videla could hatch his plans so openly~ ing for blood. bourgeois opinion. Taking into account guide the state." Military officers are not even leaving the timing a secret-lay Despite the cynical talk of the vicissitudes of a U.S. election year replacing civilian administrators in all not in national characteristics but in the reconciliation, it is clear that the and the generalized revulsion caused by major institutions, as the governmental total isolation and impotence of the generals have taken power in order to the Chilean bloodbath, the new rulers in apparatus is flushed out from top to Peronist government. smash the workers movement. Videla's Buenos Aires characterize their project­ bottom. A string of tough comm uniq ues The bloodless coup revealed the program for the Argentine workers is ed policies as "pragmatic liberalism." dissolved congress, provincial legisla­ political paralysis of the strongest the same as Pinochet's remedy for Chile. Renouncing Peronism's occasional tures and city councils; removedjudicial organized labor movement on the South To the extent that rigidly enforced flights of "Third World" rhetoric, the authorities, and suspended all political American continent, left prostrate "moderation" is unable to break the level-headed officers call for a reconcili­ activity. In addition, six leftist parties before the gori/as (reactionary militar­ back of organized labor--which will ation with the international financiers. were outlawed, including the ostensibly ists) by the treacherous bourgeois now be made to pick up the tab for On that score, the junta can undoubted- continued on page Of

"1J (i) '"if> Sovi et Ag ri cu Itu re: A Stalinist Disaster .....6 For, An S.F. General Warmongering on Strike Against the Campaign Trail Kissinger Anti-Labor Offensivel Threatens workers and were hoping for reciprocal support when the Muni contract expires Blockade in july. Martin's speech received a standing ovation, but when it was suggested to end the meeting by singing of Cuba in LA TE BULLETIN "Solidarity Forever," the nervous bu­ reaucrats quickly ended the rally before Defense of the singing could start. As we go to press the San Francisco Labor Policy Only a militant struggle can prevent a rout of the workers at the Apartheid Committee has announced that S.F. municipal employ­ handsof city government. Already it is ees are on strike beginning at midnight, March 30. A beginning: as soon as the Board of key issue is the city board of supervisors' threats of a no­ Supervisors announced a partial settle­ "I solemnly warn Fidel Castro," ment with the major unions except the strike law. Also announced today was an outrageous intoned Gerald Ford, promising to craft unions, Crowley sighed with relief "take appropriate measures" to prevent reduction ofthe city's original $6.5 million wage offer to that a strike was now "much less likely" "another Angola." Since February 28, $2.3 million. Craft unions are now being asked to (San Francisco Chronicle. 23 March). when imperialism's commander-in­ The SEIU leadership quickly rammed accept substantial pay cuts. All S.F . labor must join the chief pronounced Castro an "interna­ through a tentative ratification vote on tional outlaw," the sound of sabre­ fight against this provocation! March 25. rattling in Washington has grown The agreement includes a gross deafening. Kissinger declared that "it is exacerbation of pay differentials, pro­ time that the world be reminded that viding lowest-paid categories­ America remains capable of. .. decisive SAN FRANCISCO, March 26-The tiations are possible. This is it" (San including many women clerical action." In Dallas this week he reiterat­ San Francisco County Board of Super­ Francisco Examiner, 19 March). workers-with only a 3 percent in­ ed his threat to militarily confront Cuba visors renewed its long-standing offen­ rhus the Hoard of Supervisors, tne crease, while the highest brackets get an (and necessarily the Soviet Union) over sive against city labor this week as governing agents of the San Francisco II percent jump. The deal reduces the possibility of a Cuban intervention 18,500 workers in several departments employing class. had thrown out a direct premium rates for overtime. knocking into the guerrilla war against Ian awaited an April I deadline on a new challenge to the workers movement. In double- or triple-time rates down to flat Smith's white supremicist regime in wage package. Leaders of key municipal ruling-class circles, the only question rates or time-and-a-half in some Rhodesia. unions have issued strike warnings. was: "W ill they fight? Or wi II they take it categories-a gross betrayal in a period Presidential candidate Fred Harris However, these labor fakers have a long lying down?" The weak-kneed re­ of high unemployment, when more sent a telegram to the Senate Foreign history of groveling capitula­ sponse of the trade union bureaucrats workers. not less, should be hired at Relations Committee on March 25 tion to "friend-of-labor" politicians in was to attempt to preserve labor "peace" shorter hours with no loss in pay. In saying that "trusted sources have indi­ city government who are leading the through capitulation. Jensen later re­ addition, department heads have been cated to me that the Ford Administra­ charge. Despite obvious militancy and ported that the leaders of the S. F. Cen­ granted the authority to send employees tion is planning a blockade of Cuba, solidarity in the ranks, the union tops tral Labor Council (CLC) had gone so home when no "appropriate work" is related to Cuba's possible involvement are refusing to prepare for the necessary far as to offer to submit to final binding available (San Francisco Chronicle, 23 in Africa" (New York Times, 26 March). city-wide general strike to stop these arbitration in order to avoid a "mass March). So the Cuban "missile crisis" is again on atta'cks. strike." No doubt sensing weakness, the The ploy by the city rulers to isolate the political and military drawing At issue is the wage package for Board turned down even this sellout and destroy the powerful craft unions, boards as the Pentagon and Ford "miscellaneous" city workers represent­ proposal to turn the workers' fate over beginning with the invidious Proposi­ "review" contingency plans. According ed by numerous unions, most important to "neutral" mediation. tion B, has for the time being succeeded: to military sources interviewed by the being the Service Employees I nterna­ Forced by the intransigence of the city the union leaders are now simply hoping New York Times (24 March), "A naval tional Union (SEIU) and the various government bosses into making a show to avoid a pay cut. I n a further attempt blockade. .. appears to be the most building trades craft unions. Included in of militancy, the top labor to weaken their main target. the munici­ obvious military option available to the the list are the city clerks. hospital leaders-including Jack Crowley of the pal tops are trying to slice out the critical United States" but that perhaps "a workers and others. plus the craft CLC, Harry Bridges of the IL WU, Operating Engineers-who allowed unions (machinists. plumbers. electri­ Stanley Smith from the Building sewage to drain into the Bay during the cians, carpenters, etc.). Trades, Joe Mazzola of the Plumbers 1974 strike-with a piece-off of 15 """ Newly-elected San Francisco mayor Union and Tim Twomey of the SEIU percent. CHICAGO George Moscone and the city -issued a joint warning of a city­ Taxes will be raised, services slashed supervisors have clearly been preparing wide strike, and held a pep rally on and fares increased-and all of it will be Spartacus Youth League Forum to carry out their anti-labor election March 22. Terrified by the blamed on the "greed" of the municipal The Struggle Against ar:Jeals to the "taxpayer" vote. The prospect of a real. class-struggle mobili­ unions-regardless. City workers must p:l'sage of the infamous Proposition B zation of San Francisco labor's ranks. not pay by worsening their living Fascist Terror i l 'he last election allows the Board to the bureaucrats contented themselves standards for the economic ills of the -For Labor/Black Defense rd. "e directly against the craft unions. with the usual gestures. Instead of pre­ capitalist system! Only through militant -Stop Nazi Terror in whose wages previously had to be paring for a city-wide general strike, nine class struggle can city employees both Marquette Park pegged to those in private industry. In building trades unions filed "unfair defend themselves against the union­ -The Lessons of History January. the supervisors began prepar­ labor practices" charges against the city. busting. wage-slashing Board of Super­ ing a new city charter amendment for At last week's rally for city workers. visors, and come to the aid of other Speaker: the June ballot which \vould make the labor traitors denounced working and poor people in the city who PAUL HUNTER striking an offense punishable by firing the "politicians." ignoring their own depend on the buses. trolleys. hospitals. for all city workers (the previous rule gross culpability in having helped elect etc. But the trade-union leaders stand in Thursday, April 8, 12 Noon had covered only police and firemen). Moscone. despite the latter's openly the way of a city workers general strike. University of Illinois "There's no place in our city for yet anti-labor campaign. Mazzola harked city-wide labor solidarity and a class­ Circle Center another crippling public strike." warned back to Joseph Alioto. the previous struggle program. The buzzards in the Room to be announced Moscone (San Francisco Examiner,' 21 mayor. as a model, "forgetting" Alioto's halls of labor know only one purpose: \.. ) February). crushing of the 1974 city workers strike how to find accommodation with the The negotiations have oeen l:vnduct­ with the help of state police. Mazzola's bosses. The workers' interests require a ed as a deliberate provocation to test conclusion was that he really didn't different program! """ labor resistance. The Board did not even want a strike, although he had earlier Oust the bureaucrats.' Build a class­ CHICAGO begin the talks until March I. only one complained, "I don't know how to struggle union. leadership! month away from the deadline. In the negotiate a downgrade agreement." He For a city-wide general strike' No meantime they hired a $3,000-a-month will learn fast-through capitUlation to wage cuts! For the right to strike of all "negotiator," Patrick Mahler, and the bosses' politicians in order to avoid city workers! passed a special ordinance barring all waging a successful strike! Not cutbacks. but jobs for all! For a negotiations which did not include him. The only sign of verbal militancy at shorter workweek at no loss in pay! Stanley Jensen of the Machinists' Union the rally came from Larry Martin, Essential social services must be pro­ described one meeting with Mahler in whose union. the Muni transit workers' vided free for all working people! which the latter told the union it would local of the TW U, is not directly Break from the capitalist parties I No have to forego double-time rates for involved in "It: negotiations but has a more capitulation to the Aliotos and overtime work and make other reduc­ very militant membership. Transit Moscones! Build a workers party to tions. Mahler's conclusion: "No nego- workers have voted to back the city fight for a workers government!. 2 WORKERS VANGUARD demonstration of the accuracy and lethality [sic] of new American weapons might reinforce Mr. Kissinger's warnings." Much of the warmongering talk Free Desmond Trotter' coming out of Washington is of course campaign warfare against Ronald Rea­ ized" key plantations. The two urban gan, who has appealed to right-wing Desmond Trotter's last chance for concrete example of working for change while linking with hard working peas­ port towns of Roseau and Portsmouth Cuban exile groups by declaring that the action by the imperial judiciary of the ants." Trotter's self-styled "socialism" is swelled with jobless youth, many of Ford administration is "soft" on Cuba. British Commonwealth to save him from the hangman's noose came to a an eclectic mixture of "Third World" whom call themselves "Dreads" and But stinging from the defeat in Angola, wear their hair in "locks" like Jamaica's Ford and Kissinger have taken to bitter end March 18. The British Privy rhetoric and mystical references to the Council refused to hear an appeal for will of "the Almighty." Rastafarian religious violence cultists. demonstrations that they too are willing The Dominican Dreads, however, have to blow up the world if necessary to the young "black power" militant, Trotter was arrested in May 1974 and not followed the violence cultism of the defend the considerable interests of despite international protest against the charged with the murder of an elderly Rastafarians. Instead, they advocate imperialism in southern Africa. Such outrageous guilty verdict and death white American tourist shot during the land reform and a romantic pastoral threats cannot in any case be taken sentence handed down by "Her Majes­ annual two-day carnival celebrations. life-style. lightly. ty's Court" on the Caribbean island of The sole accuser was a 16-year-old Dominica. Trotter, who has been in barmaid from the neighboring island of With unemployment at 50 percent The threats against Cuba are calculat­ solitary confinement for nearly two Antigua, who said that on the day of the and inflation out of control, Premier ed to provide arguments for a possible years, can now only hope that the boss killing Trotter told her that he "had shot John proclaimed the "solution" to military intervention on the side of of Dominica, Premier Patrick John, is a white man." During a line-up before Dominica's grinding poverty: tourism. apartheid and white minority rule in unable to ignore the outcry on his behalf In the name of "public safety" for the southern Africa. No doubt understand­ and will be forced to grant a reprieve. white tourists, the despot decreed a ing that the Smith regime in Rhodesia is series of so-called "anti-Dread laws" In a telephone interview with the doomed, the U.S. is officially on record which ban strikes and "subversive" London-based defense committee for FREE as favoring "majority rule" in Rhodesia literature and grant citizens the "legal Trotter, WV learned that the prisoner DESMOND TROTTER and South Africa. But in fact the core of right to shoot dead on sight suspected has only a 21-day grace period for his U.S. policy since the 1969 Kissinger­ radicals" (Manchester Guardian Week­ sentence to be commuted by a six-man ~ authored Operation ''Tar Baby" (which ly, 12 April 1975). John's small-time "Mercy Committee." If John has his poured U.S.,' NATO economic and tyrannical plantation regime, masked as way, Trotter will hang. On Monday, military aid into a regime the U.S. had a "Labour Party," has been on the March 29, John called for a "patrio­ hypocritically condemned in the UN rampage against those he calls "pseudo­ tism" demonstration in the capital. since 1963) has been to back­ intellectuals" and "agents of interna­ Reports indicate that this show of force sometimes openly, mostly secretly--the tional Communism." He has brought was ineffective and poorly attended. status quo in southern Africa, that is, down his boot (the party's electoral Most important, it \vas reported that white racism. So, while saying the U. S. symbol) particularly hard upon the after the rally, Patrick John replaced the will "do nothing" to prop up minority Dreads. A large number of these head of the Mercy Committee with rule, the U.S. prepares instead to fight unorganized youth claim general agree­ himself! The former head was against the "Communist menace"-with the ment with the black power, nationalist the hanging of Trotter. The internation­ same operational results. Imperialism is rhetoric of the M N D. al workers movement must forcefully consistently anti-Communist and racist. The MND, of which Trotter was a protest against this threatened judicial The same "logic" which demanded leading member, is but a pale and murder of an innocent young man, the destruction of Vietnamese villages in unfocused reflection of the black power whose "crime" is to dare to speak out sentenced to hang in Dominica order to "save" them was employed by movement that swept the Caribbean against the vicious little dictatorship in Kissinger last week as he announced islands during the late 1960's and early that the U.S. "cannot permit the Soviet the West Indies! Save Desmond the trial the barmaid pointed vaguely in 1970's. Since 1972 the MND has sought Union or its surrogates to become the Trotter! Trotter's direction, all the time keeping to breathe new life into that failed world's policeman" (New York Times, her face and eyes hidden. Back home on mixture of nationalism, "Third World­ 23 March). This from imperialism's top Who Is Desmond Trotter? Antigua, she sought out a lawyer and ism" and peasant romanticism. These cop-the terror bomber of Southeast confessed that she had been intimidated illusions are no hope for the oppressed Asia, the godfather of CIA assassina­ 1 plantation laborers, and still less for tion squads, the bank roller of right­ The youthfll prisoner was formerly by the Dominica police into signing the the editor of Twavay, newspaper of identification statement. During the urban workers. Only a socialist revolu­ wing military movements all over the tion led by the proletariat can establish a world. the Movement for a New Dominica trial, the judge kept this crucial piece of (MND), and a political figure on the evidence from the jury and denied the socialist federation of the West Indies, No one knows better than the Cubans by throwing out the sugar planters, who really is "the world's policeman": impoverished island of 72,000 people, defense the right to cross-examine the now an "associate state" of Britain. He "witness" on her contradictory state­ banana kings, village tyrants and petty U.S. imperialism, which organized an despots like Dominica's Patrick John. armed invasion of Cuba, which has led the Manicou movement which in ments. Additionally, Trotter's lawyer backed to the hilt every rabid Cuban 1970 exposed governmental corruption was killed prior to the trial and the No Detente in Dominica exile group and counterrevolutionary in Dominica, a political embarrassment accused murderer died in jail under scheme, which tried for years to assassi­ for John. Trotter was the main speaker equally suspicious circumstances. Some had hoped for a "detente" nate Castro, which risked a nuclear war at African Liberation Day rallies during The Trotter case took place against a inspired by the Labour Party govern­ in a naval blockade, which has for years 1971-73 and was generally regarded as a background of surging social turbulence ment, but there seems to be no "new era" maintained an economic embargo "black power leader." His defense and lynch-law repression. A political in Dominica. Any concession on the against Cuba. Now these vicious war­ committee writes that "He called for strike by civil servants, dockers and part of John will be the result of public mongers threaten Cuba in the name of liberation of the suffering Dominican hospital workers in June 1973 produced outcry for Trotter's freedom, and will "freedom." Socialists must stand pre­ masses and began organizing youth t<;> a "state of emergency." Uprisings by reflect a weakened position of the pared to unconditionally defend the work collectively on the land as a field laborers temporarily "collect iv- government. It does not guarantee that gains of the Cuban revolution, as the Trotter's life will be saved! International sabre-rArgentina ... (continuedfrom page 1) Trotskyist PST and Politica Obrera (guerrillaist groups such as the PRTjERP were already banned). Other decrees closed the universities. ordered the death penalty for attacks on military installations. and death or indefinite imprisonment for sabotage and attacks on police or military personnel. The borders were closed and any strikes or other activity impeding production banned. The military took over all state-owned enterprises and slapped censorship on the press. Al­ though the junta has not issued figures. an estimated 2,000 Peronists and labor leaders, Communists and suspected "subversives" have been arrested (Econ­ omist, 27 March). Prisoners were seen being loaded Gente onto two military transport ships an­ Left to right: Admiral Emilio Massera, General Jorge Videla and Brig. General Orlando Agosti swear allegiance to god, chored in Buenos Aires harbor. This re­ fatherland, national constitution and the "Process of National Reorganization." pression can be expected to deepen and encompass a broad range of labor and Government, even if it is a bad one .... If tion exploded in the interior industrial private account instead of in a Peronist left militants of all parties. Particularly a military government comes in and center of Cordoba in May 1969. Ever social charity foundation is certainly tells us there will be no wage increases endangered are tens of thousands of for three years, this is worse than the since the powerful cordobazo a pre­ only the tip of the iceberg.) Lopez Rega political refugees from neighboring Government's offer of wage adjust­ revolutionary situation has existed in was forced to flee into exile in Spain countries who now have nowhere to go ments to match price increases." Argentina. once again last summer after ultimat­ and no borders to slip across. The -New York Times, 14 March After several waves of guerrilla ums from both the army and union international workers movement has an So in the name of preventing a coup, the activity and, much more importantly, leaders. urgent obligation to protest the sweep­ Peronist union bureaucracy unrolled repeated mass strikes assuming semi­ In recent months, despite the absence ing repression and demand freedom for the red carpet for the military'S unop­ insurrectionary proportIOns on a local of their leader the AAA commandos all class-war prisoners in Argentina. posed stroll to power. As in 1955, when level, the armed forces leadership have intensified their murderous work Immediately after the declaration of General Juan Peron advised his follow­ decided to appeal once again to "el so that many politicians and union the coup a military administrator took ers not to mobilize against the threat of a viejo" (the old man), in the hopes that he activists were willing to countenance over the General Confederation of military takeover, once again, by could once a,gain derail the labor even a military coup in the belief that Labor (CGT) and all unions were put preaching reliance on the benevolence movement. Peron returned from exile in systematic repression was preferable to into receivership and their bank ac­ of "pro-labor" populist politicians, Spain firmly committed to root out the the unpredictable violence wreaked by counts seized. The headquarters of Peronism tied the workers' hands and "Marxist disease" in the unions and the Peronist pistoleros. For the Peronist Argentina's most powerful union, the thus paved the way for the coup. purge leftists from the heterogeneous tops, the main incentive in sticking with UOM (metal workers) is now occupied Justicialista movement. He succeeded in the totally discredited president was the by soldiers in battle gear. In effect, the Failure of Peroniam Without ousting a number of liberal state realization, as she put it, that "if my labor movement was beheaded in one Peron governors and enforcing a wage freeze, head rolls, they will then cut the heads fell swoop. CGT chief Casildo Herreras but died before the job was complete. During the 1940's, the Argentine off those who come behind" (New York was out of the country at the time, His wife and vice president Isabel bourgeoisie sought to use the charismat­ Times, 20 March). In this case, "they" however, and UOM leader Lorenzo ic young Peron to head off a threat­ proved unequal to the task of Bona­ could have been either the military or Miguel, Isabel Perons's staunchest ening labor upsurge by channel­ parte, and the Peronist movement the union ranks. began to fall apart at the seams. Witn Widespread ivv[ing of the supporter in the union, reportedly ing it I into state-controlled unions government coffers, running the treasu­ escaped to Uruguay, as did many other supervised by the ministry of labor. As The regime of tne former cabaret dancer, whose ticket to power was her ry printing presses at top speed and bureaucrats. the unionization of previously unorgan­ marriage, stayed in power almost from deliberate sabotage by the leading ized workers proceeded, however, even Workers Demobilized capitalists, thePeronist regime the Peronist-controlled unions became the beginning solely through a virtual state of siege. The only way she could managed to drive the economy into the The cowardly trade-union leadership, difficult to control. His foreign exchange keep unity within the Justicialist Libera­ ground. The military leaders issued which only three days before had reserves used up and faced with a tion Front (FREJULI) was through the periodic threats and calls for a return to bragged that any putsch attempt would boycott by domestic capitalists, Peron use of widespread terror carried out by order, but the generals willingly let be prevented by a general strike, the bonapartist cracked down on the the so-called Argentine Anti­ "Isabelita's" follies stagger on. Their collapsed like a house of cards. Trapped unions, smashing several important Communist Alliance (AAA), a cover for obvious purpose was to demolish the between their seething ranks-who strikes during the early 1950's. By 1955, the death squads made up of Peronist myth of Peronism as the "great benefac­ refused to accept a wage freeze in the the working class was sufficiently gunmen and "off-duty" secret police. tor" of the working class. "Let Peronism face of the 424 percent annual inflation demoralized for the generals to oust the The AAA night-and-fog operations hang itself," was their implicit motto. rate which was literally devastating their strongman in a misnamed "liberating The ignominious removal of the presi­ incomes-and the Peronist government revolution." For the next 18 years, were run by her personal secretary. Jose Lopez Rega, who was also minister of dent in the dead of night, and the threat that enforced their bureaucratic power, Argentina's union movement was sub­ social welfare and one of the leaders of a to try her for corruption, are part of this the union tops' only contribution was to jected to periodic severe repression, small fascistic wing of the Peronist same operation. And Peronism did demobilize the working class. Although government intervention and semi­ movement. discredit itself, to the point that today it factories had been shut down by strikes legality. Real wages fell by more than 40 lies in a shambles, fragmented possibly in Cordoba and Buenos Aires province percent. "Let Peronism Hang Itself!" beyond repair. in recent weeks, the struggles remained But through the 1960's a new genera­ locally isolated. tion of workers grew up which was However, Lopez Rega's Rasputin­ The Bankruptcy of Guerrillaism In mid-March, strikes and prepared to fight the. mjJHary P2ctators like appetites for total power came into demonstrations in the key industrial and their civilian puppets. While the conflict with the rest of the Justicialist But while many erstwhile Peronist centers were squashed by Peronist labor Peronist leadership sought to maneuver leadership. His corruption was legen­ youth and militant unionists are certain­ fakers hurling accusations that any anti­ with different factions of the military, dary, and the stench extended to his ly disillusioned with the leaders who government protest would encourage a repeated militant strikes broke out among patron as well. (The discovery of a brought them to this disaster, they lack a military coup. Thus, when more than T ucuman sugar workers. Then a three­ $600,000 check for state funds which revolutionary Marxist vanguard cap­ 30,000 metal workers in the industrial day general strikeand popular insurrec- was mysteriously deposited in Isabel's able of drawing the lessons of the belt around the capital struck on March 10 against Mrs. Peron's insulting 20 percent wage increase, the leaders called off the powerful protest after only two days. Such a general wave of working­ class militancy could have been translat­ ed into a political force capable of crushing the military plotters. But to do so would have meant the workers organizations themselves taking power. thlls breaking with the Peronist regime and posing the most fundamental challenge to the capitalist state. This the union tops were not prepared to undertake, so instead they preached passivity in the vain hope that his would satisfy the bloodthirsty generals. When the auto industry had been crippled for a week, Jose Rodriguez, secretary general of the auto workers, told union delegates: "The labor movement must not be Isabel Peron and the Argentine general staff in 1975. responsible for bringing down this 4 WORKERS VANGUARL ...... ' . · Peronist experience. In recent years, the power. Concretely, despite numerous most publicized of those aspiring to this provocations and direct armed attacks mantle were various guerrillaist groups inspired by the CGT misleaders, Tosco­ ranging from the left-Peronist Monton­ Salamanca never organized a class­ eros to ostensibly Trotskyist groups. Yet struggle opposition in the unions or the last months before the coup also united workers militias to defend the demonstrated the utter impotence of the leftist unions' offices. They were part of guerrillaists in the face of serious action the union bureaucracy, and those by the military. ostensible socialists who tailed after The most dramatic early them were playing the game of Isabel demonstration of the inability of Cas­ Peron. troite foco theories and guerrillaist Throughout the second Peronist actions to mobilize the working masses regime-from May 1973 to March was the police coup in Cordoba in 1976-the pro-Moscow Communist February 1974. Even though this was Party (PCA) tailed after the capitalist Trotskyists the center of urban guerrillaism in demagogue it once denounced as a Argentina, and both the ERP and "Peronazi." In the September 1975 Excluded Montonero squads could freely operate elections the PCA uncritically called for in the factory districts, they presented votes for General Peron. Although the for no opposition whatsoever to a power Castroite PRT/ERP was formally in grab by the provincial police comman­ opposition to the regime, it repeatedly Criticizing der who ousted the left-Peronist local sought to distinguish between Peronist administration and drove socialist officials and the armed forces, calling Peronism union leaders underground. Yet a for a popular front against the gorilas. united general strike by the tens of Castro himself enthusiastically lauded thousands of auto workers on the day of every phony "anti-imperialist" utter­ - the coup could have easily swept away ance of Peron. the socially isolated police torturers. In contrast to these class­ NYC Demo Against Even the most spectacular guerrilla collaborationist Stalinist forces, the action to date, the attack on the Quilmes burning need of the Argentine workers arsenal 10 miles south of Buenos Aires, was-and continues to be-the forma­ Argentine Junta last December 24 revealed the bank­ tion of a Trotskyist party capable of ruptcy of guerrillaism. The operation breaking the working class from its MARCH 27-About 60 people picket­ When the SL/ SYL marchers refused to reportedly involved a massive attack by populist misleaders and leading it on the ed today in front of the Argentine stifle their politics, they were excluded more than 100 commandos seeking road of class independence. Unfortu­ Airways office in New York to protest from the line. They then crossed the weapons and explosives. Although the nately, however, the legacy of two the right-wing military takeover in street, joined by supporters of the PDC, details of the operation are not clear decades of Pabloist revisionism has Argentina. The demonstration was and attempted to hold a brief demon­ because of obvious propaganda distor­ taken its toll, with the largest ostensibly called by MASA (Anti-Imperialist stration but were quickly stopped by the tions by the armed forces, some combi­ Trotskyist organization in Argentina, Movement for Socialism in Argentina), cops. Significantly diminished in size, nation of military mistakes or inade­ the PST, adopting a policy of de facto a heterogeneous leftist group. MASA the MASA demonstration did not last quate firepower forced the guerrilla "critical support" for the Peronist supporters confined their chanting to much longer. fighters to retreat. Yet even though the regime. (This was a duplication of the bourgeois-democratic slogans like "We Straggling behind the Peronists were Quilmes arsenal is located in a poor policies of its main "theoretician," want free elections-right now!" and a few supporters of the International district which could be expected to be Nahuel Moreno, toward Peron ism "We want civil liberties-right now!" Workers Party, I nternational Socialists, sympathetic to the anti-government during the late 1950's.) Pledging its U.S. Committee for Justice in Latin Also present was the Partisan De­ America (US LA), Solidarity Commit­ forces, there was no popular response. support to "institutionalization" (bour­ fense Committee (PDC), which called tee with the Argentine People, Com­ The troops were able to rake the district geois law and order) and the "continui­ for freedom for all left prisoners in munist Cadre, Revolutionary Marxist with murderous fire, killing at least 100 ty" of Isabel Peron's government, the Argentina. The Spartacist League and Organizing Committee (RMOC) and and perhaps many more who went social-democratic PST lumped the Spartacus Youth League (SL/ SYL) ot hers. Most of these grou ps claimed to unreported in the press. guerrillas into the same category as the demanded "Free All Class-War Prison­ disagree with MASA's act of political In a Christmas day message, General anti-communist terrorists of the AAA. ers in Argentina!" along with other censorship, but without exception they Videla hailed the "resounding triumph A Trotskyist party in Argentina slogans pointing the way forward for the remained on the picket line and did not for the forces of order" represented by would have warned the working class of working class: "For Workers Revolu­ protest. the guerrillas' defeat at Quilmes. He also the mortal danger represented by tion to Smash the Junta" and "Break denounced "passive complicity" of Several embarrassed MASA mem­ Peronist bonapartism. A bourgeois with Peronism, Guerrillaism, bers afterward approached the SL/ SYL many Argentines with "subversive political current, this strain of national­ Stalinism-For a Trotskyist Party in contingent and attempted to justify their delinquents" and the "evidence of close ist popUlism was not based on the labor Argentina!" connections" of the Montoneros and movement, as the PRT suggested in organization'S sectarian exclusion. No ERP with left-wing factories. An article theory and the PST pretended in One Spartacist sign condemned Per­ such political scruples troubled the in the New York Times (24 March) also practice. Unlike pro-capitalist social­ on's advice to his followers 20 years ago, ;>seudo-Trotskyist RMOC, however, reported: "The influence of the guerril­ democratic and Stalinist labor refor­ "Del trabajo a casa y de casa al trabajo" whose leader, Hedda Garza, not only las on the factory floors has grown mists, the Peronists were quite capable ("From Work to Home and From did not protest the exclusion but partly because left-wing labor leaders of smashing the labor movement with­ H orne to Work"). This cowardly watch­ viciously attacked the SLers for raising have been largely wiped out or driven out destroying their own existence. And word was Peron's craven advice to the criticisms of Peronism "at this time." underground while the more conserva­ they were well along in the process of workers who were prepared to take up Tailing left-talking Peronists even as tive Peronist trade unionists have been physically liquidating all independent arms against the generals who over­ they attack revolutionary Trotskyists, torn between their allegiance to Presi­ union leaders when the military stepped threw him in September 1955. Fearful the Mandelite RMOC once again dent Isabel Martinez de Peron's econ­ in to complete their terrorist purges. that an armed proletarian uprising demonstrates that its pursuit ofthe "new omic austerity measures and the de­ While defending the leftist guerrillas would spell the doom of bourgeois rule, mass vanguard" only takes it deeper into mands of their rank and file." against state repression, the task of an the so-called "Great Benefactor" igno­ the morass of class collaboration. At a (1uthentic Trotskyist vanguard is not to miniously stepped down, leaving the time when Peronist treachery has once For a Trotskyist Party in undertake isolated military adventures Peronist-Ied unions to suffer 18 years of again left the working class prostrate Argentina! but rather to demonstrate to the vicious military repression. The SL sign and leaderless in the face of a military workers the need to break with all wings pointed out that then, as now, "Peron­ coup, the RMOC joins hands with the The article chronicles the murders of ism Paved the Way for the Coup." Socialist Workers Party-dominated left-Peronist labor leader Atilio Lopez of the bourgeoisie, including the most The S L's revolutionary criticism of USLA in solidarizing with more than and "socialist" unionist Agostin Tosco, left as embodied in sections of the their "jefe maximo" (supreme chief) so two decades of Pabloist capitUlation to and the driving underground of auto Peronist movement. Through implac­ antagonized left-wing Peronists in the union leader Rene Salamanca in Cordo­ able struggle against the anti-labor Peron and his heirs, the populist demonstration that MASA leaders roadblocks to socialist revolution in ba during the last year. These leaders of measures of the Justicialista govern­ insisted these signs be taken down. Argentina .• the left wing of the labor movement in ment, such a Marxist leadership could the center of Argentine working-class begin to group around it the most militancy were at one time in a position resolute sections of the working class to challenge the reactionary CGT tops and draw the lessons of the present tragic defeat. such as Lorenzo Miguel and Casildo Herreras. However, despite occasional A Trotskyist party would emphasize verbal militancy they were never pre­ that no answer to the military junta will be found in the formation of popular­ .'RIlERS pared to offer a political challenge to the frontist alliances with "progressive" Peronist union bureaucracy. Never did Tosco and Salamanca put forward a capitalists (such as Allende's Popular transitional program of demands lead­ Unity, which led to the bloody Chilean ing beyond simple trade unionism to coup), or in tailing after the Peronist ,,1."'RI) pose the question of working-class state misleaders. In close alliance with revolu­ Name ______~------tionary Marxists in neighboring coun­ tries (Chile, Bolivia, Uruguay), and Address ______. ______resolutely defending the labor move­ City/State/Zip ___--'- ______~ SPARTACIST edition fran~ise ment and all left organizations and 103 pour loute commande s'adresser, a: militants against gorila repression, its task must be to construct the independ­ SPARTACIST Brll.. " Porquier Spartacist PUbllslI.ng Co: Includes B.P.51 Box 1377 GPO, ent revolutionary workers party, as part 95120 Ermont New York, N.Y. 10001 Enclosed is $5 for 48 issues (1 year) . FRANCE USA of the struggle for the rebirth of the o Fourth International, to prepare for o Enclosed is $2 for 16 issues (4 months)-INTROO'UCTORY sub 3,00 F. $.75 US/Canada workers revolution to smash the order from/pay to: Spartacist Publishing Co'/Box 1377 GPO/NY, NY 10001 junta .•

2 APRIL 1976 5 Reapjng the Harvest of 50 Years of Bureaucratic Misrule Soviet Agriculture: AStalinist Disaster

!~e head o.f yet another Soviet by Joseph Seymour M tnlster of Agnculture rolls. After a 30 percent drop in the grain harvest in 1975, it was predictable that Dmitry Polyansky would be sacked. It is standard Stalinist practice that after a .~""" disaster those directly in charge are punished while the top leaders are held blameless. But Leonid Brezhnev and " d"'~ ...." Alexei Kosygin know that the worst .... ,~ ~::~:),,~ Navast; Press harvest in it decade is not due to %' mismanagement by Polyansky. To be ...., Modern irrigation system in Ararat responsible for agriculture in the R us­ Valley. Water is delivered through massive pipes (above) and moni­ sian degenerated workers state is an ;..~. tored at control center (below). unenviable position. The bureaucracy's inability to ensure the steady growth of food production is endemic to the post- 1929 Soviet political economy. Frequent and major declines in agricultural production are the most serious factor retarding improvement in living standards and disorganizirlg flational economic planning. With much bureaucratic self-congratulation, the 1970-75 Five Year Plan had an­ nounced a reversal of the traditional Navast; Press pattern of heavy industry growing faster than consumer goods. This target had to were not a continuation of Lenin's NEP, be abandoned after the bad harvest of but were far more permissive toward 1972. agricultural capitalism. Given this year's far worse harvest, The Stalin Bukharin strategy for the 1976-80 Five Year Plan reverts back economic development was to allow the to heavy industry vanguard ism, with pace of industrial expansion to be consumer goods projected to increase at gowrned by the freely marketed agricul­ a very modest 31 percent, compared to tural surplus. To maximize this surplus, 44 percent in the original 1970-75 plan the regime tended to concentrate land, (Economist, 20 December 1975). It will labor and finance in the hands of the take until 1980 to restore the livestock wealthiest. most productive farmers. By which had to be overslaughtered this 1927, this policy had not only failed on year due to ,lack of fodder. the economic level, but had also The sorry state of agriculture is not strengthened consciously anti­ Communist elements in the villages. only the most important contributor to the material deprivation of the USSR's ,Ji" .,' The Left Opposition population, but it is also the most >t~ .,';./"", immediate current source of external As early as the 1923 "scissors crisis," Mechanization on a collective farm. Navast; Press weakness. U.S. imperialism regards Trotsky and other left oppositionists Soviet dependency on American grain Russian agriculture was more backward as much of their harvest as the rest of the had rejected an industrial policy gov­ exports, usually on an emergency basis, and far less market-oriented than under peasantry. erned by peasant demand for manufac­ as its best weapon for political black­ tsarism, when great landed estates had During the early 1920's, when the tured consumer goods and equipment. mail. One of the themes of presidential dominated. main task was recovering from the As against Stalin! Bukharin, the left hopeful Henry Jackson, mouthpiece of In addition, the destruction of indus­ effects of the war and the revolution, the regarded an acceleration of industry as a the hard "cold warriors," is using try during the imperialist war and then NEP was more or less successful. By necessary precondition for increasing American "food power" against the the post-1917 civil war mape it impossi­ 1925, this process was essentially com­ agricultural production by both en­ "Reds." ble to supply the peasants with manu­ pleted and the new situation required couraging mechanized collectivization After 50 years of economic planning, factures at pre-war terms of trade. This the systematic expansion of the econo­ and improving the terms of trade for the Russian bureaucracy still cannot manifested itself in the so-called "scis­ my. Here the contradictions of NEP, farm commodities. The initial resources guarantee ev.en modest steady growth of sors crisis" (a widening disparity be­ with its backward, small holding agricul­ for expanded industrialization would agriculture. The wound inflicted on the tween agricultural and industrial prices) ture, came to the fore. After 1926, food have to come from additional taxation Soviet economy by Stalin's forced of 1923. This further discouraged production stagnated while the industri­ on the wealthier peasants. But the long­ collectivization of agriculture continues peasants from supplying produce for the al labor force continued to expand. The term strategy of the left was extracting a to bleed. The present agricultural crisis urban market. winter zagotovki (state procurement of larger share of farm output on the basis can be understood only in the context of of increasing the productivity of the In 1914, grain production per capita grain following the harvest) became a the entire history of the relations entire agricultural sector. The heart of had been 584 kilos; by 1928 it had fallen dominating, crisis-ridden event in the between the peasantry with the regime the left's approach to agriculture was to 484 kilos. But the most drastic economic life of the country. emerging from the Bolshevik Revolu­ summarized by its leading economist, declines were in production for the The policy of the Stalin; Bukharin tion of October 1917, as well as with that market (i.e., the surplus over peasant bloc, the ruling group after 1925, was to Evgeni Preobrazhensky, in The Ne\\' which was the product of its bureaucrat­ household consumption). In 1913, encourage greater output from the Economics: ic degeneration under Stalin. "The task of the socialist state consists marketed grain was 1,300 million poods wealthiest, most productive farms, here not in taking from the petty­ Peasant Smallholding and Soviet (a pood is about 36 pounds). In 1928, it thereby increasing class differentiation bourgeois producers less than the Economic Development was less than half. 630 million poods. in the countryside. This attitude was capitalists. but in taking morefro/11 rhe Even more startling than the fall in encapsulated in Bukharin's notorious sri!! fartier incomes. which will be Peasant discontent with the forced slogan directed at the kulaks: "enrich secured to the petty producers by the marketed surplus was the share avail­ rationalization of the whole economy. requisitioning system of "War Com­ able for export; in 1925-26 Russian yourselves." In 1925 the laws restricting including petty production. on the bas'is munism" forced the Bolshevik govern­ grain exports were only 24 percent of the the hiring of farm labor and the renting of industrializing the country and ment in 1921 to introduce the New pre-war level. of land were greatly liberalized. intensifying agriculture." [emphasis in Economic Policy (NEP) instituting free Naturally the wealthiest farmers, the The early NEP legislation, drawn up original] trade in farm produce. The egalitarian kulaks, contributed a disproportionate under Lenin's direct guidance, while When differences between the Bu­ break-up of the great estates had created share of marketed produce. While 3-5 allowing free trade in agricultural kharin and Stalin factions emerged in 25 million smallholding families gener­ percent of the farming popUlation were produce, severely restricted the use of 1927, the latter began viewing collectivi­ ally cultivating scattered strips rather kulaks, they supplied 20 percent of wage labor and acquisition of land. zation as a panacea, a cheap means for than compact farms. Thus in the 1920's marketed grain. The kulaks sold twice Stalin/ Bukharin's post-I925 policies overcoming the agricultural crisis. The

6 WORKERS VANGUARD left absolutely rejected the utopian "speculators" but the 1928-29 zagotovki modern equipment, the private plots policies, despite their apparent rational­ notion that collectivization could suc­ was only 9.5 million tons. produced more than half the potatoes, ity, demonstrates that the backward ness ceed without fundamentally raising the In the winter of 1929-30, the Stalin vegetables and livestock. The free of Soviet agriculture is deeply rooted technological basis of agriculture. The regime embarked on the immediate market contributed about two-thirds of and cannot be overcome through 1927 Platform of the Joint Opposition forced collectivization of agriculture, the peasants' money income. quantitative changes in planning within called for "the systematic and gradual the so-called "liquidation of the kulaks By 1935 the Stalinist regime had the bureaucratic framework. introduction of that most numerous as a class." Under the slogan of evolved a two-tier agricultural system Efforts have been made to improve peasant group [the middle peasants] to combatting the kulaks, all peasants who which remained little changed until the living standards of collective farmers the benefits of large-scale mechanical­ resisted joining the kolkhoz (collective 1958. Grain was produced on the and narrow the income gap between collective agriculture." farm) had their property confiscated­ collective fields and requisitioned by the them and the rest of the working state at confiscatory prices. On the other popUlation. Shortly after Khrushchev's The Left Opposition rejected any that is, whatever they did not destroy hand, more than half of all potatoes, fall, state-financed pensions were first notion of achieving collectivization first. The poorest peasants had been vegetables, dairy and meat products extended to the kolkhoz aged. State through state coercion. I ts policy was to induced to join the kolkhoz by promises came from the private plots, while free­ procurement prices have been steadily encourage collectivization through of unlimited credits for mechanization, market sales accounted for the bulk of raised and in 1972-73 stood 22 percent strictly economic means, primarily a a demagogic commitment impossible to peasant money income. This system higher than in 1965. Since the prices of steeply progressive income tax on fulfill. When the poor peasants became could only be maintained by the use of manufactures purchased by collective private farms coupled with subsidies rapidly disillusioned and sought to state coercion to prevent the peasants farmers have remained fairly constant, and easy credit for cooperatives. dissolve the kolkhozy, they were met by violent repression of the Red Army and from deflecting their labor from the this represents a significant increase in Because of Trotsky's insistence that special terrorist squads of party and kolkhoz grain field to the private plots. peasant incomes. the fundamental solution to the agricul­ Komsomol members. Although real industrial wages fell 40 The main effort of the Brezhnev tural problem was inseparable from Once undertaken, Stalin's brutal percent between 1929 and 1938, condi­ regime has been more mechanization, industrialization and the technological campaign for "complete collectiviza­ tions on the collective farms were so chemical fertilizer and land reclama­ advancement of agriculture, the Stalin tion" proceeded with frightening swift­ terrible that peasants flooded into the tion. In 1960, only 15 percent of state clique accused him of "underestimating ness. The proportion of collective farms, cities looking for jobs. In Stalin's Russia investment was directed to agriculture; the role of the peasantry." Trotsky which at the beginning of 1929 had been in the 1930's those peasants who could in 1975 the share had risen to 31 percent acidly retorted that: 1.7 percent, reached 23.6 percent in 1930 not find work were rounded up and (Economist, 14 February 1976). Be­ "There ought to be an end to the and 52.7 percent in 1931. The toll in shipped back to their village~or, if they tween the 1960-65 and 1970-75 Five jabbering about underestimating the role of the peasantry. What is really terms of human suffering was incalcu­ resisted, to Siberian labor camps. The Year Plans, the production of tractors needed is to lower the price of the lable; the legacy of material destruction peasants were legally bound to the increased from 1.1 to 1.7 million and of merchandise for the peasants." and the alienation of the peasantry from kolkhoz and could not leave without chemical fertilizer from 90 to nearly 300 -The NeH Course, 1923 the Soviet regime remain to haunt the official permission. In fact, children million tons (Izvestia, 5 December It must be emphasized that the Left bureaucracy to this day. born on collective farms had a legal 1975). Opposition's policies were in no sense The peasants resisted forced collec­ status different from that of other Soviet Agriculture is no longer the abused anti-peasant. The 1927 Pla(/orm called tivization in the only way they could~ citizens. They were bound to the step-child of Kremlin investment priori­ for an increase in agricultural procure­ the mass destruction of agricultural kolkhoz and even on reaching the age of ties. Unlike in Stalin's day, a large and ment prices, particularly for grain, and capital, particularly the slaughter of legal adulthood could not leave without increasing share of industrial output is for reduced taxation on poor peasants livestock, important for draft power and government approval. Thus Stalin had devoted to agriculture, where the and no tax increase on middle peasants. wool clothing as well as for food. In the reimposed elements of serfdom on the resulting increase in labor productivity From the kulaks, however, it called for a terrible winter of 1929-30, 30 percent of Russian peasants! is far lower than it is for investment in forced loan of 100 million poods of Soviet livestock was destroyed. By 1932, manufacturing. The regime's frustration grain. the number of horses and pigs was only Khrushchev's Hare-Brained comes through clearly in Kosygin's Schemes and Brezhnev's economic report last December: "Rationality" "For the past ten years the country has continually invested large and ever­ Not only did Stalin starve the peas­ growing sums in agriculture. The Party and the government have" a right to ants, he also starved agriculture for demand that these funds be spent productive resources. In the Stalin properly, thriftily and with a high rate period, only 10-15 percent of total of return. Unfortunately, wastefulness, investment was directed toward agricul­ carelessness and indiscipline still sur­ ture, a sector involving more than half vive in some quarters." the labor force. For example, in 1940 Why does productivity lag so far only one percent of electricity was behind the increase in non-labor inputs? consumed in rural areas (Voprosy The answer is, as it has been for decades, Ekonomiki. June· 1974, translated in the lack of incentives for collective Soviet Review, Winter 1975-76). With a farmers. While the income gap between labor system based on coercion and a kolkhoz members and state employees backward technology, it is far from has narrowed since the 1950's, it remains surprising that agriculture has been the significant. In 1971, the income of weak link in the Soviet economy. While kolkhoz members was 73 percent of heavy industry recovered its 1940 level those of state-farm employees doing by 1948, agricultural production did not comparable work. And the latter, in the reach the pre-World War II level until same year, were receiving only 77 1955. percent of the average industrial wage (Voprosy Ekonomiki, June 1974). Keystone Attempting to overcome the back­ Russian peasants in the 1930's. wardness of agriculture has been the Moreover, these figures understate the dominating economic problem for the real difference in living standards since The economic strategy of the Left half the pre-collectivization level, while post-Stalin regimes. Nikita Khru­ city dwellers have access to social and Opposition can be summarized as the stock of cattle had fallen 40 percent shchev's farm policies were marked by cultural services unavailable in the follows: Increased taxation of the and sheep by over 60 percent. As erratic, get-rich-quick schemes. countryside. wealthier peasants was needed for the Trotsky commented, "The destruction Crop / geographical patterns were Peasant Youth Vote with their initial breakthrough on the industrial of people~by hunger, cold, epidemics changed overnight. Concessions to Feet front. This expanded industrialization and measures of repression~is unfortu­ peasant interests were made with one would in turn provide the means for nately less accurately tabulated than the hand and taken back with the other. The practice continues of neglecting encouraging agricultural collectiviza­ slaughter of stock, but it also mounts up Maize (corn) was to become the main the kolkhoz fields to work on the private tion, increasing farm productivity to to millions" (The Revolution Betrayed, fodder crop and was planted in northern plots (which still produce about 25 allow a larger surplus to be extracted 1936). climes where it did not grow well. And percent of marketed food and account from the mass of peasant producers. In Between 1930 and 1932, a period of then there was the extension of grain to for about a quarter of peasant money addition, expanded industrialization rapid growth in the urban population, the drought-ridden Siberian "virgin incomes). However, the main deflection would lower the cost of manufactured grain production fell from 84 to 70 lands"~a project once considered by of labor from the collective fields is not goods, further stimulating the peasants' million tons. With sharply declining the tsarist bureaucracy and rejected as toward the private plots but out of marketed surplus. Central to the left's agricultural production and a rapidly unsound. In 1958, the Machine Tractor agriculture altogether. Both the collec­ policy was the need for balanced growth growing urban popUlation to feed, Stations through which Stalin had tives and state farms are being systemat­ with complementary increases in indus­ Stalin imposed starvation rations on the controlled the kolkhozy were disbanded ically stripped of the most energetic, trial and agricultural productivity. peasants. Between 1929 and 1932, and their equipment sold to individual educated and skilled rural youth~the average annual consumption of pota­ collective farms, Believing the peasants very worker-cadre needed for a techno­ Stalin's Terrorization of the toes by the peasants had fallen 12 now had adequate capital, Khrushchev logical revolution. The collective farm is Peasantry percent, of bread 14 percent and of meat actually reduced production of farm becoming the home of the old, the more than 50 percent. This process implements. Having raised procure­ backward and the ignorant. The growing contradictions of NEP culminated in the 1932-33 famine in the ment prices, Khrushchev felt he could A necessary condition for Stalin's reached a crisis point in the winter of Ukraine when 4-5 million peasants take measures against the private plots. agricultural policy was the prohibition 1927-28 when state procurement of starved to death while Stalin exported The results were predictable. Agricul­ against urban migration by kolkhoz agricultural prod uce fell to 10.1 million grain. tural production barely kept pace with members. With the relaxation of totali­ tons compared with 10.6 million the Having brought the country close to popUlation growth and in 1963 fell tarian terror in the mid-1950's the law previous harvest. Stalin launched an mass starvation, Stalin was forced to below the 1958 level. Shortly thereafter, binding the peasants to the land became emergency confiscation campaign retreat, making concessions to peasant Khrushchev fell below his 1958 level! unenforceable. Moreover, the USSR's which he kept secret from the rest of the interests~a process that was codified in The new Brezhnev-Kosygin regime loss during World War II of 20 million party. Emergency confiscation only the Model Collective Farm Statuttl of denounced Khrushchev's subjective dead~largely youth~and the slow­ worsened the underlying situation as the 1935. The peasants were allowed a voluntarism and hare-brained schemes. down in the birth rate thereafter led to a peasants reduced their sown acreage private plot and free market for produce Their policies have been conservative, significant fall in popul~tion growth. and total output fell still further. Stalin· over and above state requisitions. consistent and a serious attempt to With the steady increase in industrial then resorted to an even greater confis­ Amounting to less than 5 percent of overcome the traditional backwardness production, the Soviet labor market has cation campaign against the kulaks and total agricultural land, with no access to of agriculture. The failure of these continued on page 1 J 2 APRIL 1976 7 UAW Local 600 Leaders Call Mass Meeting Teamsters ... (continued from page 12) movement will inevitably be used to weaken organized labor, no matter what the pretext. Despite the propaganda barrage in the big-business press against "high­ Plant Closure Threatens paid" Teamsters, the union ranks' will to fight is not dampened. When the negotiations outside Chicago failed to produce enough crumbs from the companies' table to recommend any kind of serious offer to the membership, River Rouge Complex 700 IBT officials met to order local-by­ local strike authorization votes. The response was overwhelming. In Cleve­ No Layoffs! needed to stop mass layoffs and plant solidarity. land the members of Local 407, the closures, In addition to such back-stabbing largest general freight local in the' area, No Sellouts! national chauvinism and protectionist voted heavily for a strike, as did the Occupy the Dearborn Engine schemes, the other "answer" of the I 8,000~member Local 299 in Detroit. For A Class-Struggle Plant! UA W officials is Congressionallegisla­ Detroit-area long-haul drivers in Local Leadership! tion to "deal with" plant closures. 337 registered strike sentiment by a 99- The mass layoffs from the Dearborn Woodcock gives the union's backing to to-I margin. In Oakland (Local 70) and DETROIT, March 28-After numer­ Engine Plant will affect the rest of the the pitiful Mondale-Ford bill, which St. Louis (Local 600), the pro-strike ous meetings between the union leader­ sprawling, multi-plant Rouge complex, does nothing whatsoever to save or tally was over 90 percent. ship and management got nowhere, the since higher-seniority workers are al­ create jobs. The measure would simply In contrast, the head of the fraternal Ford Motor Company recently an­ lowed to "bump" into other plants. The require notification by employers of Association of Steel Haulers, William nounced that it intends to phase out the union's entire River Rouge membership their intentions to close plants and Hill, announced that his 5,000 over-the­ engine plant at the giant River Rouge of 27,000 is thus directly attacked by the promises only tokenistic retraining road owner-operators had voted Satur­ complex in Dearborn by July 9. Ap­ shutdown. Including temporary layoffs, programs for the workers. day night not to stop work. He called on proximately 1,500 workers on two as many as 5,000 workers from Local Reliance on bills such as this typifies union drivers to quit the Teamsters in engine lines are to be permanently laid 600 could be out of work by summer. the UA W bureaucracy's total depen­ the event of a walkout. The Steel off, and an additional 500 radiator and Ford's profit-hungry, cynical decision dence on the capitalist politicians of the Haulers waged violent strikebreaking fuel tank workers will lose their jobs to throw thousands of workers into the Democratic Party, Their subordination attacks on the union in 1967 and 1970, soon thereafter. The leadership of the streets permanently is nothing new, of of the workers' interests to Democratic and have filed petitions with the United Auto Workers (UA W) Local course. Since the massive, "self­ presidential aspirations will be one of National Labor Relations Board to 600, whose leaders brag of being the sufficient" Rouge complex began pro­ the UA W tops' primary excuses for decertify the IBT at 14 trucking com­ "world's largest local union," has called duction with 100,000 workers in the late opposing any militant actions against panies. On the other hand, the steel­ a mass membership meeting for April 4 1920's, Ford has shut down operations the Rouge plant closure, for keeping hauling division of Local 299 in Detroit to address the question of the shutdown. such as cement, plastics, transmissions, demands minimal in the contract voted to strike. Having failed to "persuade" axles and springs. bargaining and for avoiding a national management to change its mind at the Preparations must begin immediately contract strike in September. It is up to Employers Plead Poverty bargaining table, Local 600 president to occupy the engine plant under the the ranks to reject this class­ slogans: No layoffs! No plant closures! The freight companies, represented Mike Rinaldi and UA W International collaborationist betrayal and struggle nationally by Trucking Employers, Inc. For a shorter workweek at no loss in pay vice-president and Ford director Ken for a workers party based on the trade (TEl), have been taking a hard line since Bannon are attempting to put up a the beginning of bargaining late last facade of resistance. The threatened ~ ~ year. Demanding that the union give up engine plant closure is a "morally "I,;!t § P .. • .. past gains, the TEl at one point walked indefensible" act, they wail: "Ford work­ . ;. ~ out of negotiations. Their latest insult­ ers are sick and tired oflosing their jobs" ;. } ing "offer" was a meager 85 cents-per­ (Ford Facts, 22 March). But the mass t hour increase spread over three years, membership meeting is likely to be little representing a pitiful IO-cent increase more than a controlled protest rally, over their previous position. This is since Woodcock, Bannon, Rinaldi & despite the fact that Teamsters have lost Co. have already made it clear that they nearly $1 per hour in real wages since are dead-set opposed to the militant 1973 because of an II-cent "cap" action and class-struggle program (maximum) on their annual cost-of­ living (c-o-I) adju,>tments. Over-the­ road dnvers have ~uIlertU aadltJonai """"'I losses in their mileage~based wages due I'"SPARTACIST LEAGUE to the federal 55 mile-per-hour speed LOCAL DIRECTORY limit (a product of the oil companies' ANN AH~OR ...... (313) 995-9645 1973-74 "fuel crisis"). cia SYL. Room 4316 Michigan Union, U. of Michigan Trying to look militant, Fitzsimmons Ann Arbor, MI 48109 WV Photo' began with an early demand for $2.50 BERKELEYI Power plant at River Rouge complex in Detroit. per hour over three years, plus full c-o-l. OAKLAND ...... (415) 835-1535 Box 23372 However, by last weekend's meetings, Oakland, CA 94623 to divide the available work-the umons to fight for a workers he had moved down to a paltry $1.25, BOSTON...... (617) 492-3928 Box 188 (617) 436-1497 company, not the workers, must pay for government. with no c-o-I in the first year, a 25-cent M.I.T. Station the anarchy of capitalist production! While the UA W leadership was cap in the second and an uncapped Cambridge, MA 02139 Such a plant occupation would quickly politically class-collaborationist from escalator clause only in the third year. CHiCAGO .....' ...... (312) 427-0003 Box 6441, Main P.O. mobilize the a"t-iv{:JsYJ)port of all the beginning, it was forced to give lip Furthermore, the IBT leadership has Chicago, IL 60680 workers at Rouge, and would lay the service to a few demands in the workers' done nothing to fight unemployment, CLEVELAND ...... (216) 371-3643 Box 6765 basis for an industry-wide, North interest. Thus Walter Reuther made which is still running high despite the Cleveland, OH 44101 American strike of all auto workers for endless promises to achieve the shorter business upturn in the industry during DETROIT...... (313) 881-1632 30 hours work at 40 hours pay, workweek, and Local 600 inscribed this the first three months of 1976. Team­ Box 663A, General P.O. Detroit, MI 48232 A plant occupation and class-struggle goal on its giant banner at the 1955 sters are also suffering layoffs due to the HOUSTON program is the only way to win against UA W convention. Today, even this companies' heavy use of "casual" labor Box 26474 Houston, TX 77207 the corporate giant. But Rinaldi has pretense has been dropped, and Wood­ and the effect of trucking firm mergers, LOS ANGELES...... (213) 663-9674 another idea. Explaining that "We as cock's "short worktime" proposal is where drivers of numerous smaller Box 26282, Edendale Station Ford workers here at Local 600 have nothing but a thinly-veiled absentee­ bought-out companies are unable to Los Angeles, CA 90026 MADiSON ...... (608) 257-4212 always felt ourselves to be close to the control program for the companies. transfer their seniority protection. cia SYL, Box 3334 heart of the Ford Motor Company," Unless a class-struggle program is Despite rising traffic, employers are Madison, WI 53704 this phony pretends to have suddenly actively put forward from the ranks, the' keeping new job openings down NEW yORK...... (212) 925-2426 Box 1377, G.P.O. discovered a "new" flame in manage­ Local 600 mass membership meeting, through use of longer trailers and New York, NY 10001 ment's heart: "the business of making under the misleadership of Rinaldi and double and triple hitches. PHILADELPHIA ...... (215) 667-5695 profits in whatever way, shape or form" The bosses' shrieks that wage Box 25601 Bannon, will turn out to be a diversion Philadelphia, PA 19144 (Ford Facts, 22 March). Hopingto keep from the struggle. In the absence of a increases cause inflation are nothing but SAN DIEGO the romance alive, Rinaldi pleads with fight to build anew, class-struggle their usual cynical defense of profits. P.O. Box 2034 Chula Vista, CA 92012 the bosses for "Ford work for Ford leadership for the UA W, the present However, the capitalists do have some­ SAN FRANCiSCO ...... (415) 564-2845 workers." This reactionary demand is "leaders" will have a free hand to thing to worry about. As the Midwest­ Box 5712 directed even against other U A W continue to lull the workers to sleep with centered 1970 wildcat demonstrated, San Francisco, CA 94101 members doing contracted work from bogus promises of favors from the even local Teamster strikes can quickly TROTSKYIST LEAGUE OF CANADA Ford! Another "solution" of the UA W bosses. cause plant shutdowns throughout the tops and Local 600 leadership is to -No layoffs! No plant closures! country. A militant nationwide Team­ TORON I v ...... (416) ;$06-4107 Box 222, Station B combat imports through trade quotas -Occupy the Dearborn Engine Plant! ster strike genuinely determined to Toronto, Ontario and to urge U A W members to "buy an -For a shorter workweek at no loss in defend trucking industry workers VANCOUVER ...... (604)299-5306 Box 26, Station A American-made car." These slogans pay! against the ravages of inflation and Vancouver, B.C. only pit worker against worker, when -Build a new class-struggle leadership unemployment could quickly galvanize '-- ~ what is needed is international labor for the UA W!, the entire labor movement. An IBT 8 WORKERS VANGUARD strike will have an immediate effect on unemployment, Teamsters should opposition needed in the Teamsters. er than rooting out the notorious negotiations for Teamster warehouse­ mount a militant, nationwide strike for Despite the uncritical political support gangsterism associated with the Team­ men and UPS drivers, as well as for a shorter workweek at no loss in pay and it receives in the pages of Workers' sters bureaucracy. Earlier inveStigations food industry workers whose contracts full cost-of-living protection (a sliding Power, newspaper of the social­ against Dave Beck, Jimmy Hoffa et a\., are coming up shortly. scale of wages and hours). To check the democratic International Socialists did nothing about corruption in the 1BT In addition, rubber companies fear a treacherous union bureaucracy and (I.s.). the TDC leadership has refused and were primarily intended to prevent major strike in mid-April, and the auto mobilize the membership for struggle, to raise such crucial demands as a call "union bosses" from tying up industry giants face a contract renewal in such a strike should be democratically for a shorter workweek at no loss in pay. with a national Teamsters strike. September. As a loyal servant of run through elected strike committees. Its call for an end to "casual" labor to Only the workers can clean up the capitalism, Fitzsimmons (and the rest of It must also aim at providing support to make more work for regular members unions. To work with the supporters of the IBT bureaucracy) is entrusted with other workers engaged in struggles with can only have the effect of pitting the "investigation" by the Ford administra­ the job of subordinating the workers' the capitalists, most immediately the employed union members against the tion or the Democratic Congress at the demands to the trucking companies' UPS drivers, food industry and rubber unemployed or sporadically employed same time Taft-Hartley threats are profits, so as not to "upset" the fragile workers. drivers who have not yet been able to being thrown at the Teamsters is a gross business "recovery." On Wall Street, The Fitzsimmons "leadership" stands "make the list." betrayal of the union cause. The I.S. business analysts seem to be confident squarely in the way of all these goals. On the crucial question of labor bears co-responsibility for this betrayal he will do his job, expressing the belief Already it is trying to prevent a serious solidarity, the TDC restricts its support with its hypocritical silence on the that he will "moderate" demands still strike by moving to clamp down on key of other workers to attempts to link up relationship between TDC and lawyer further. But even they admit the areas of militancy, keeping negotiations with UPSurge, an allied group of IBT Fox ever since the January steering industry is in "relatively good shape" secretive, preparing to knuckle under to members in the United Parcel Service, committee meeting. (Earlier, Workers' (New York Times, 29 March). a government injunction and selling out and other Teamsters. It has consistently Power reported that Fox was the TDC the most fundamental demands of the opposed defending the United Farm lawyer and that the group worked with For a Class-Struggle Opposition membership. As for labor solidarity, Workers as part of the TDC program, PROD, Fox's "professional drivers" in the Teamsters! Fitzsimmons' VICIOUS union-busting nor does it raise the issue of racism, organization.) raids on the United Farm Workers is despite the fact that the percentage of Redbaiting can only be defeated by The problems facing truck drivers are vivid testimony that IBT tops don't even black drivers in over-the-road opera­ openly fighting for a full transitional not the result of particularly tight-fisted know the meaning of the words. tions is notoriously low. program that goes beyond simple bosses, but reflect the over-all capitalist In the past, many Teamsters had .From its inception, Teamsters for a economic crisis. Against inflation and contract demands to pose the real looked to Jimmy Hoffa for a "militant" Decent Contract has seen its role as a answer: the struggle for a workers alternative to the conservative craft pressure group seeking to push the government. The TDC opens itself to division "barons" now in power in the bureaucracy to the left. This meant that charges of harboring "secret reds" IBT. However, Hoffa's removal from Fitzsimmons could neutralize the oppo­ because, while it attracts the support of Local Teamster the scene in a mysterious kidnapping sition of the TDC simply by appearing opportunist fake-socialists, its program Hacks "Prepare" last summer left anti-Fitzsimmons to raise his demands somewhat. This has is limited to simple trade unionism: "to forces without a recognized leadership. already happened, and in consequence force Fitz to put more on the bargaining for Strike On the other hand, in 1970 Chicago­ the TDC has made several conciliatory table," as the L.A. Teamster Grapevine area truckers union leaders sparked statements extending the benefit of the (No.6) put it. "More" for the IBT, and to While Teamster union leaders "unauthorized" strikes as far west as doubt to the sellout Teamster chief. hell with the unemployed, other work­ went through the motions of con­ California. The independent Chicago Thus, at the Local 70 strike vote meeting ers, racial minorities, defense of the sulting the membership in strike Truck Drivers Union and IBT Local in Oakland, TDC leaflets did not even labor movement against government ballots around the country last 705, bargaining for a local agreement call for a walkout. Challenged on this interference, etc.! This is the program of Saturday and Sunday, a spot check not covered in the national Master by Spartacist League supporters, TDC aspiring union bureaucrats. The only with key IBT locals indicated that Freight Agreement, held out for 55 cents spokesman John Larson said that the difference between the TDC and Louis officials are doing nothing to per hour above the official settlement. demand for a strike "depends on what Peick is that no one has bothered to buy prepare the ranks for a real strike Eventually, Fitzsimmons and the em­ the company is offering. We'll hear off the TDC yet. struggle. ployers were forced to adjust wage about it in the meeting"! Real class-struggle militants must CHICAGO: Following a meeting settlements for the whole union upward begin with the objective, immediate of over-the-road Local 710, Team­ to meet the -Chicago figure. Smash Redbaiting, A Tool of the needs of the workers and struggle for the ster members told WV reporters This year, however, Fitzsimmons has Bosses! only program that can achieve these that neither strike authorization carefully prepared to prevent a similar Teamsters for a Decent Contract has goals: a sliding scale of wages and hours, nor the latest management offer outbreak of militancy and indepen­ domestic and international labor solid­ had been the agenda. Local been discredited in several areas because 00- dence. He elevated the 70-year-old Ray arity, opposition to all government 'members were told to stay on the of its failure to vigorously respond to Schoessling (head of the IBrs Central intervention in the unions, nationaliza­ job, and simply instructed to call red baiting. In one instance, Oakland's States Conference) to replace a younger tion of industry without compensation, the union if they saw pickets. Local 70 passed TDC contract demands man as International secretary­ workers control and an independent During the meeting an official during the absence of its Local presi­ treasurer. Louis Peick, who as head of workers party struggling for a workers goon squad appeared outside to dent, Chuck Mack. Upon his return, in a Local 705 was one of the leaders of the government. The TDC, in contrast, tear up the literature of Teamsters stewards' meeting Mack launched a 1970 wildcat, was named an Interna­ capitulates to backward elements in the for a Decent Contract. A number of violently anti-communist attack on tional vice-president. With the national union in order to build the "broadest" members who left the meeting early TDC which went virtually unopposed contract talks moved from IBT head­ possible group around the most immed­ complained that it was all "bullshit" by TDC supporters. As a result, the quarters in Washington to a Chicago iate trade-union demands. Rather than inside, and that they would refuse to Local's motion was altered to remove all suburb, Fitzsimmons has Peick sitting building a new leadership that can put work after the contract expired. mention of the TDC, and was turned tightly on the local bargaining in town. an end to Fitzsimmons! Hoffa betray­ The same intimidation of the instead into support for the IBT So the "militants" who led the struggle als, this course only seeks to rejuvenate membership took place in the leadership. for "more" six years ago are now firmly the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy. independent Chicago Truck Driv­ Failure to oppose redbaiting is a locked into the bureaucratic "team" What is needed are caucuses based on a ers Union (CTDU), where president national policy of the TDC, which has effort to prevent a powerful strike in full class-struggle program .• Ed Fenner refused to call a general 1976. itself adopted anti-communist state­ membership meeting or to open With Hoffa out of the way and ments in an attempt to appear respec­ discussion on the contract in sepa­ Chicago under Fitzsimmons' thumb, table. At the January 10 national rate division meetings. Fenner is would-be militants in the Teamsters steering committee meeting of the TDC, working closely with IBT vice­ have turned an eye toward the only a motion was passed stating the group's president Louis Peick in joint available opposition grouping, Team­ opposition to "political change by any YOUNG Chicago-area negotiations. sters for a Decent Contract (TDC). means other than by lawful, constitu­ BA Y AREA: In the San Facing a highly unpopular union tional procedUF.es;;' ,As reported in the Francisco-Oakland area, president and with Hoffa supporters Torch (15 March-14 April), newspaper SPARTACUS employers are pressing especially having nowhere else to go for the of the Revolutionary Socialist League, Current issue includes: hard to take away union conditions moment, TDC rallies in several cities the motion went unopposed by the bulk won in past contracts. In particular the mernbers, including alleged • New York City: No Cuts! No have attracted relatively large audi­ oT Closures! No Cops! they seek to end the union hiring ences. The group has also performed supporters of the I.S. • Marxism and the Jacobin hall, unique to the northern Califor­ some elemental services, such as leaking The motion was put forward by Communist Tradition nia supplement to the Master the official contract demands, which Washington attorney Arthur Fox, an • Boston University: Support Freight Agreement. IBT tops would otherwise have kept open anti-communist who opposes Busing! Stop Racist Terror! They also want to introduce secret from the membership. "socialists" in rank-and-file union • If You Liked Norman Thomas, staggered starting times. Under TDC agitation has no doubt been groups and favors government investi­ You'll Love Peter Camejo! present rules, workers must be paid responsible for some of Fitzsimmons' gation of the union. According to And more! from 8 a.m. on, even if they don't nervous gestures in the direction of Teamster members in Cleveland (TDC start work at that time. The com­ militancy, although employer intransi­ headquarters), TDC spokesmen con­ panies' proposal would mean shifts gence is primarily responsible for the firm that the motion in question was SUBSCRIBE NOW! beginning at 5 a.m. It is estimated belated official talk of "no contract, no passed. They declare it irrelevant be­ $2/11 issues that the employer demands would work." The TDC has also drawn the fire cause, "no one is going to get up and lead to the elimination of one out of of the bureaucracy in the form of goon­ harangue Teamsters about socialism, Name every five drivers currently anyway." squad attacks on leafletters, bureaucrat­ Address_ employed. ic railroading at local meetings and Teamsters for a Decent Contract Local 70 president Chuck Mack scurrilous red baiting. It is the duty of continues to work with Fox, despite the City _ __ _. said after the strike vote meeting all militant unionists to defend the TDC fact that the latter's demand for govern­ State/Zip_ that the management was serious against these attacks and protect its ment investigation has just been adopt­ about these drastic attacks on union ed by the Senate Permanent Investiga­ 103 right to exist within the Teamsters. Make payable/mail to: conditions and jobs. Yet Mack tion Sub-Committee in a move Spartacus Youth Publishing Co insisted he had no intention of Nevertheless, the program of obviously aimed at laming and discred­ Box 825, Canal Street p,O, defying the expected government Teamsters for a Decent Contract is iting the IBT during the crucial contract New York, New York 10013 anti-strike injunctions. thoroughly reformist. In no sense can period. Such investigations will ham­ TDC represent the kind of class-struggle string the membership's militancy rath- 2 APRIL 1976 9 legislation calling for a payroll tax on employees. a 5-cent increase in gasoline Transit ... taxes. and the installation of tolls ovcr Anti-Communist Sabre-Rattling at (continued from page 12) the now-free bridges crossing the East was approved by the EFCB. The and Harlem rivers. Cutbacks in transit Manhattan Center September NYC teachers contract~ service and/ or another fare hike are which didn't even include a wage other possibilities. No cuthacks.' No increase~has yet to be approved by the transit or toll hikes.' No new city wage. EFCB. Guinan and the Local 100 tax.' leadership have, significantly, never The banks and bondholders have ruled out the possiblity of a deferred profited for years at the expense of the Plyushch Caught in wage increase, nor have they even city's working people. The subways indicated how much money they are were once owned by the banks. who asking for. No deals with the Financial deliberatedly drove them into bankrupt­ Control Board~No wage deferral.' cy. sold them for a Whopping profit to The state law also permits a monetary the city and then lent the city the money Henry Jackson's settlement in the form of cost-of-living to pay for them! Simply the interest on (c-o-I) adjustments. But c-o-I without a the transit debt provides many tens of wage increase will not make up for the millions of dollars annually to the erosion of wages by inflation under the financiers. This robbery must be ended. last contract. The TWU's own chief Cancel the city debt, expropriate the Anti-Soviet Web counsel, John O'Donnell, has argued banks and provide essential social during the present negotiations that services free of charge.' while the c-o-I clause netted union Transit workers still bitterly recall the members 22 cents an hour under the last contract sellout perpetrated in 1972. contract, inflation had forced the cost of Guinan and Local 100 president Ellis living up by $1.16 an hour in the same Van Riper are not about to lead a period! militant transit strike in 1976. either. Obviously, the existing c-o-I clause is Today they are encouraging illusions woefully inadequate. The current for­ that the T A may come through with a mula provides for an increase of I cent decent contract without a strike. T 0- for every 0.4 percent rise in prices; this morrow it is not unlikely that they will

WV Photo Senator Henry Jackson (left) and Leonid Plyushch at podium during meeting.

Over 4,000 people, many of them stressed his lack of information on a Ukrainian emigres. filled Manhattan number of important issues. He also has Center to capacity March 27 for a rally been reported to be "sharply critical" of sponsored by the Committee for the Ukrainian groups in the U.S. with ties to Defense of Soviet Political Prisoners. the American government. But whether The meeting was addressed by a broad consciously or unconsciously. with spectrum of anti-communists. including whatever criticisms or hesitations, he is WV salesmen outside transit workers meeting last Sunday. WV Photo ex-Soviet dissident Pavel Litvinov. now lending his authority as a professed grandson of Stalin's foreign minister; a socialist to the attempt of the rabidly means that anyone earning over $2.50 announce approval for another sellout former Lithuanian seaman. Simas anti-communist American social de­ an hour falls behind! Transit workers contract, order the TWU back to work Kudirka, who jumped ship off Massa­ mocrats to ingratiate themselves with need a sliding scale of wages (equal and conduct a phony mail ballot~all chusetts several years ago; Michael the capitalist candidate of their choice: increase in pay for every increase in without calling a single union meeting Harrington of the Democratic Socialist the "senator from Boeing," Henry prices, with no cap)! To win this they where the contract terms can be dis­ Organizing Committee (DSOC); Inez Jackson. (Jackson recently was the will have to smash the EFCB and its cussed and debated. To ensure a Weissman of the Long Island Commit­ featured speaker at an NYC meeting of anti-labor "guidelines." militantly conducted strike in the tee for Soviet Jewry; Congressman Ed the Social Democrats USA; among the Guinan and his cronies assert that the interests of the membership, strike Koch and Senator Henry Jackson. The sponsors of another Plyushch meeting TWlJ has not given anything away. This committees must be elected in the principal attraction. however, was the this week are DSOC, the Socialist Party is false. In the past 12 months alone the garages and barns, and a centralized keynote speaker. Leonid Plyushch, a USA and Americans for Democratic T A claims to have realized so-called strike leadership created on this basis! Ukrainian dissident who was recently Action.) "productivity" savings of $80 million. . At the rally. Local 100 secretary­ freed from a Soviet psychiatric hospital Plyushch understands that the Rus­ These savings have come from speed­ treasurer Cronin and other TWU after nearly three years' incarceration. sian bureaucracy's current anti-Zionist up, cutting corners on maintenance and officials asserted that "ripping off the lJ nlike many Soviet dissidents who campaign serves as a cover for anti­ safety, and eliminating jobs. Over the poor has been a way of life since Nixon." translate hatred of the Stalinist burea uc­ Semitism. Yet he then turns a deaf ear to last two years the payroll has been This is a feeble attempt to distract racy into outspoken anti-Communism. the manner in which agitation against trimmed by over 2,000 employees. The attention from the TWU's collaboration Plvushch claims to be a "neo-Marxist." repression in the USSR can be similarly T A wO'Jld like to layoff even more full­ with the equally anti-labor Democratic But his appearance on· Saturday utilized by imperialist apologists as an time cmployees and replace them with Party. Today it is Democratic mayor night-following a number of anti-communist weapon against the part-timers who would receive reduced Beame and Democratic governor Carey speeches by "cold war" ideologues and Soviet Union. Not only was Plyushch pay and benefits. Already, laid-off who are enforcing the city wage freeze. professional reactionaries who several more than willing to share a podium transit cops have been hired into jobs, cutbacks in schools and social services. times unfavorably compared the Soviet with such notorious war-mongers as displacing the normal civil service hiring and layoffs of city workers. Both the regime with Nazism and tsarist Jackson. but he expressly saluted this lists. (TWU leaders say they "welcome" Democrats and RepUblicans are com­ autocracy~left no doubt that despite sabre-rattling imperialist "for his parti­ the racist and anti-labor cops into the mitted to making working people pay to his professed commitment to socialism, cipation in the struggle for human rights union.) preserve capitalist profits. Break with Plyushch is already being drafted into in the Soviet Union." Plyushch went on Wage increases must not be financed the Democrats and Republicans~Oust the anti-Soviet chorus of apologists for to tell Jackson that "your authority is by speed-up, layoffs, part-timing, serv­ the bureaucrats~ Build a workers party, imperialist "democracy." very great" and appealed to him to exert ice cutbacks, and neglect of safety and based on the unions, to fight for a Following Plyushch's release by the his influence on behalf of Chilean maintenance. Transit workers must workers government.' Russian authorities and his emigration, political prisoners. demand a sliding scale of hours (a Neither the present TWU bureauc­ Workers Vanguard solidarized with Marxists support the democratic shorter workweek with no loss in pay) to racy nor any existing rank-and-file dissidents victimized by the Soviet rights of political dissidents, with the create more jobs and fight unemploy­ group in the union is capable offighting regime for the "crime" of criticizing the exception of active counterrevolutiona­ ment. No productivity deals! For 30 for a program that breaks with the class repressive bureaucracy. At the same ries, in the deformed workers states. Our hours work for 40 hours pay! collaborationism of Guinan & Co. The time we warned: goal is the restoration of workers Guinan and the TWU leaders claim to spineless Transit Workers Action Cau­ " ... now that he is out of the USSR democracy in the Soviet Union through support a free mass transportation cus (TW AC) passed out a leaflet at the Plyushch must face a concrete choice: a proletarian political revolution to oust system, but they have never mobilized TWU rally that didn't utter a peep of he will either reaffirm and systematize the privileged ruling clique and restore his socialist. anti-bureaucratic convic­ the TWU membership in militant labor criticism against either Local 100 or the tions or become a witting or unwit­ political power to the working masses. actions to oppose a single fare increase. International leadership, that did not· ting pawn of pro-imperialist anti­ Our enemy is not only the bureaucratic The danger exists that the T A will call for a strike, and that didn't even Communists anxious to use the issue of usurpers in Moscow, but also the attempt to make the rest of the city's demand "no contract, no work"! Only Soviet dissidents as a cynical justifica­ ideologues of international capita\. such tion for exploitation and oppression working popUlation pay for any con­ an opposition dedicated to an independ­ under capitalism." as Jackson (who demands that the U.S. tract gains granted transit workers. ent, militant mobilization of the mem­ -"Stop Stalinist 'Psychiatric' government intervene economically Already the TA's parent body, the bership on a class-struggle program can Torture In USSR!" WV No. against the workers states), with their Metropolitan Transportation Authori­ provide a leadership capable of winning 96. 13 February 1976 dreams of the destruction of the nation- ty, has urged the state legislature to pass victory for transit, and all, workers .• In recent interviews, Plyushch has continued on page 11 10 WORKERS VANGUARD culture .... The irrational out-migration sufficiency and its promUlgation, begin­ There is certainly good reason to of rural young people is apparently the ning in 1923, of the doctrine of "social­ assume that a political upheaval in Soviet reason why levels of technical equip­ ism in one country" which first wrote Brezhnev's Russia would call forth anti­ ment available to agriculture in the USSR and USA are drawing together off, and then began actively to sabotage. collectivist, individualistic impulses Agriculture • • • much (aster than the le\'els u(aRricullll­ the international extension of the among the peasantry. The dissolution of rallahur prodUClil'ity." [our emphasis] October Revolution. Trotsky pointed collectivized agriculture and restoration (continued from page 7) The Novosibirsk study revealed that of small holding is neither inevitable nor, become very tight and any rural youth only 7 percent of those moving to the from a revolutionary socialist stand­ who can get to a city has a job. city gave higher money wages as a point, desirable. But any attempt by a It is impossible for the bureaucracy to reason. But 30 percent said they desired revolutionary government to maintain keep trained youth on the farms. A a better quality of life, 20 percent the collectives by force-to underwrite recent survey of rural secondary school indicated they wanted more free time Stalin's actions in 1929-30-would be seniors in the Russian Republic indicat­ and 34 percent expressed dissatisfaction dangerous in the extreme. It would risk ed that less than 20 percent intended to with the conditions of labor on the driving the peasants into the camp of remain in the countryside. In Novosi­ kolkhozy. reaction, particularly where economic birsk province, Siberia, collective farms A large part of Soviet real income is dissatisfaction coincides with national lose 20 percent of their machine opera­ accounted for not by money wages but grievances, as in the Ukraine. Efforts to tors each year, according to a study by social services provided free or at maintain the collectives, and in fact to done by the Soviet sociologist T. I. nominal prices. These services naturally encourage the development of, state Zaslovskala (summarized in Problems tend to be concentrated in the cities. For farms, must be through economic of Communism, November-December example in 1973 only 23 percent offarm means rather than by coercion. The 1974). households had an indoor water supply policies of the left opposition in the Between 1958 and 1970 the rural and plumbing. The same conditions 1920's provide good guidelines. population of the Russian Republic and causing the exodus of peasants also The collectives should be transformed the Ukraine declined by 20 and 18 make it impossible to keep good into genuine cooperatives whose percent respectively. But in both Re­ teachers or doctors in the countryside. internal organization should be deter­ mined by the members, without direct publics the rural population aged 20-24 Nor is the rural out-migration dropped by 50 percent, according to Nikita Khrushchev state administrative control. Collectives motivated simply by consumerist inter­ economist Y. Karimovsky (Ekonomi­ should be given easier credit than any ests. The bureaucratic abuse of kolkhoz cheskiye Nauki, August 1973, translated emerging private farms, while the latter members is also a factor. Collective out the inherent economic irrationality in Current Digest of the Soviet Press, 13 should be subject to higher tax rates. farmers are treated like state employees of "socialism in one country": "To aim February 1974), who concluded that: at building a nationally isolated socialist Should private smallholders emerge without enjoying any of the material nonetheless, it is essential to prevent " ... the age-group structure of migration benefits. Zaslovskala's article explains: society means, in spite of all passing and the unregulated 'drainage' of young successes, to pull the productive forces their development into agrarian capital­ people from rural areas is the main "Young people feel that they are not so ists by the strict prohibition of wage much' the masters as hired laborers in backward even as compared with explanation for the insufficient high labor. level of labor productivity in agri- agricultural production; as a rule, they capitalism" (The Permanent Revolu­ have no share in managing the collec­ tion, "Introduction to the German It is important to prevent the develop­ tive, the section, or the brigade; they do Edition," 1930, emphasis in original). ment of a class of merchants/ usurers not participate in the making of operating between the peasantry and the important decisions, and therefore they One obvious question for the have no opportunity to utilize their revolutionary government would be urban market. The state must have a potential and their knowledge of the whether to continue the Stalinist policy monopoly of agricultural trade. This productive process." of attempting self-sufficiency in food can be effective only if the peasants are On the farms, material and cultural production rather than increasing im­ given the full market price for their Plyushch ... impoverishment combines with the ports. Considered solely from the commodities. Attempts to force deliver-' ies to the state at artificially low prices (continued from page 10) bureaucratic arbitrariness integral to stand point of current levels of economic every aspect of economic and social efficiency, the answer would be no. A will lead to widespread black­ alized property forms of the workers organization in the Soviet degenerated marketeering and speCUlation. The states, by military means if necessary. study by A. K. Il'ichev (translated in workers state. The monopoly of politi­ Problems of Economics, January 1975) inegalitarian effects of market-price The struggle for workers democracy in cal and economic life by the parasitic procurement can be limited by a the Soviet Union cannot be divorced compared Soviet production costs with bureaucracy deforms centralized eco­ world market prices and reached the progressive income tax on the collec­ from the elementary duty of all socialist nomic planning and blocks the worker tives, while increased prices of farm militants for unconditional military not-so-surprising conclusion that the and peasant masses from collectively USSR does not have a comparative products for the urban popUlation can defense of the degenerated and de­ undertaking the construction of a be partly offset by consumer subsidies. formed workers states against imperial­ advantage in food production, but society of material plenty for all. rather in primary metallurgy and oil and For decades the Stalinist bureaucratic ism and counterrevolution. caste has concentrated the scarce wealth Only the ouster of the Stalinist ruling gas. Global socialist planning might well On 16 January 1973 the Spartacist of Soviet society in the cities. The health caste by workers political revolution, involve the masr-ive exchange of North League addressed a letter to the leftist of the economy and loyalty of the , Committee for the Immediate Libera­ and the democratic regulation through American grain and meat products for soviets of economic life at every level, Russian steel ingots and Siberian peasants to the communist cause require tion of the Political Prisoners in the a radical reversal of that situation. Fifty Countries of Eastern Europe (led by the can remove the bureaucratic fetters on natural gas. the economy and institute coordinated years of Stalinist oppression of the French Organisation Communiste In­ Both from the standpoint of social peasantry have made the re­ ternationaliste [OCI]) in which we economic growth in the USSR. Only the policy and economic efficiency, it would obliteration of capitalism on a world establishment of the Leninist smychka a stated: be better to gradually liquidate much of crucial goal of the Soviet political scale by international proletarian revo­ "In the present circumstances, almost Soviet farming and import most food revolution .• all of the American commentaries on lution, liberating the productive forces from countries whose agriculture al­ repression and persecution of the from the stranglehold of bourgeois ready possesses a highly mechanized, dissidents in the deformed workers productive relations. can open the road states stem unequivocally from anti­ capital-intensive technology. But the communism ... , Thus, Jifi Pelikan's to socialist development in the context only nation presently capable of supply­ open letter to Angela Davis was widely of a global division of labor. It is only in ing food to the huge Soviet urban reproduced by the liberal and anti­ this context that the wanton chaos and population is Gerald Ford's (or maybe SL/SYL communist press in the U.S, with clearly colossal inefficiency of Soviet agricul­ anti-communist commentaries. Thus, Henry Jackson's?) America. It would be PUBLIC OFFICES the slogan 'Free the political prisoners' ture can be overcome. criminally negligent for a revolutionary does not separate itself sufficiently from Reforging the Smychka workers government in the USSR to Revolutionary Literature directly anti-communist campaigns make itself dependent upon food im­ such as 'Free Soviet Jewrv' or from support for Hungarian 'freedom fight­ After an anti-bureaucratic revolution ports from an imperialist USA. BAY AREA ers' such as Cardinal M indszentv. Thus. in the USSR. the soviet regime would An isolated Soviet Union would Friday } the open letter by Rev. Daniel Berrigan, inherit the problem of 50 years of unfortunately have to strive for self­ and 3:00-6:00 p.m S.J '. one of the leaders of the 'antiwar' Stalinist abuse of the peasantry. This movement, recentlv addressed to BrClh­ sufficiency in basic food production. Saturday involves not only the fundamental nev. equated fascism. the persecution of And this requires gaining the good will 1634 Telegraph (3rd tloor) imbalance between agricultural and the dissidents in the Eastern European of the peasant masses for the revolution­ (near 17th street) countries and imperialism as repressive industrial production, but also a dis­ ary regime. The strategic need of a Oakland, California and reactionarv forces. This is the trustful or even hostile attitude by the revolutionary government in the Soviet Phone' 835-1535 framework within which we see. for peasants to what they view as an urban­ example. the 'Call on Czechoslovakia: Union today requires the reforging of based "Communist" regime. initiated by the League for the Rights of the Leninist smychka, the alliance of CHICAGO Trotsky demonstrated the intimate Man and signed by the Committee and workers and peasants. by the OCL in which the signatories relationship between the Stalin clique's Tuesday 4:00-8:00 p.rTI. Whenever Stalinist regimes in commit themselves to oppose repres­ advocacy of national economic self- Saturday 2:00-6:00 p.m. sion 'whatever may be the opinion of the Eastern Europe have been in crisis, there victims of the repression'." has been a strong tendency for the 650 South Clark Second floor Plyushch, the "neo-Marxist," appar­ peasants to abandon the collective . Spartacus Youth League Pamphlet Chicago, Illinois ently refuses to grasp the principle of farms and return to smallholding. When class-struggle defense of Soviet The Fight to Implement in 1950 the internationally isolated Tito Phone 427-0003 dissidents. He is allowing himself to be Busing regime in Yugoslavia moved to secure a NEW YORK used to build a platform for anti­ popular base, it not only instituted communism and to further the presiden­ F-or Labor/Black Defense to limited workers management in the Monday } 6:30-9:00 p.m. tial aspirations of Henry Jackson. His Stop Racist Attacks and to factories, but also permitted the dissolu­ through collaboration with the partisans of Smash Fascist Threats tion of the collective farms in favor of Friday imperialist "democracy" serves only to Price: 75¢ private farming. When Gomulka fore­ Saturday 1 :00-4:00 p.m. delay the victory of the international stalled a violent upheaval in Poland in Order from/pay to: ~60 West Broadway proletarian revolution and thereby to 1956, a key policy was the restoration of Spartacus Youth Publishing Co. 100m 522 prolong the suffering of political prison­ private agriculture. The Hungarian Box 825, Canal Street Station New York, New YorJr ers from the camps of the Gulag to. the revolution of 1956 likewise witnessed New York, New York 1001::' PtJone 925-5665. torture chambers of Santiago .• the self-liquidation of the collectives. 2 APRIL 1976 11 ·'ItNEItS ".fill'ltl)

No Deferralsl For a Militant Transit Strike to Smash NYC Wage Freezel

MARCH 28-An overflow crowd of the Emergency Financial Control Board Local 100 would not give up any of its attack the wage freeze is not only a several thousand transit workers packed (EFCB). Although the law permits a past contract gains. and drew cheers betrayal of the interests of thousands of . a rally at Manhattan Center today and deferred wage increase or cost-of-living whenever they referred to the traditional workers and students (as well as millions authorized a strike if an agreement has adjustments, the T A is saying it has no union policy of "no contract, no work." of subway riders) who have been not been reached with the New York money even for that. The T A claims a However, behind this militant talk lies a victimized by the austerity program City Transit Authority (T A) when the current operating deficit of $332 million far more treacherous policy for transit forced on the city's working and poor old pact expires at midnight, March 31. and asserts that the subsidies it has been workers. International president Matt population. but is a direct threat to the The workers, members of Transit receiving from city, state and federal Guinan tipped his hand when he said: interests of transit workers themselves. Workers Union (TWU) Local 100, governments will decline in the future. "They put through a law freezing wages booed loudly whenever the names of Mayor Beame has several times reiterat­ of public employees. Maybe that was A Program for Victory NYC mayor Abraham Beame or chief ed the position of the city administra­ necessary .... I don't know." T A negotiator David Yunich were tion that it has no money for wage This off-hand remark clearly One way to get around the city wage mentioned, and were equally vigorous Increases. indicates Guinan's willingness to nego­ freeze is to bargain for a pay hike that in demonstrating their determination to Speaking time at the union rally was tiate a settlement within the confines of will be "deferred" until the future. Such walk out if no new contract is signed. monopolized by officers of Local 100 the anti-labor city pay freeze. (Last week a deferment, however, would undoubt­ • Since last summer the wages of New and the TWU International, who he tried to get the EFCB to enter the edly be indefinite. TWU members York City municipal employees have spouted a lot of tough-talking rhetoric. bargaining and indicate what an accept­ would not get any money until payment been frozen by a state law enforced by Union officials often repeated that able settlement might be.) The failure to continued on page 10

Teamster Ranks Eager for Strike

MARCH 29-Bargaining for a new na­ hikes in the industry. The Ford adminis­ tional Master Freight Agreement cover­ tration is already directly intervening in ing 435,000 over-the-road and local the talks through Labor Secretary cartage drivers in the International William Usery, and t}:le threat of an Brotherhood of Teamsters (lBT) grinds immediate 80-day Taft-Hartley back­ on toward a midnight, March 31, to-work order is being used to intimi­ deadline. Voting in local meetings date the ranks. around the country this past weekend Threats are also descending on the indicated a massive majority of the Teamsters from the Democratic Con­ Teamster ranks enthusiastically favor a gress, which announced a new "investi­ gation" into gangsterism in the union strike. Nevertheless, widely despised In April IBT president Frank Fitzsimmons late last week. This move was prompted 1971 strike continues to maneuver feverishly be­ by a multi-part television report on IBT Teamsters tween intransigent employers and dis­ corruption which NBC News just stayed out in contented ranks in a desperate attempt "happened" to run only a week before violation of to bridge the gulf with a rotten compro­ the contract deadline fell due. This back-to-work mise. While the union membership is supposedly accidental timing should order by the suffering from heavy unemployment make clear to those who call on the International. and loss of real wages due to rampant courts and government to clean up the inflation, Fitzsimmons' only concern is unions that intervention by the bosses' to negotiate a package "sweet" enough state into the affairs of the workers to secure his re-election in June. continued on page 8 The government and big corporations UPI are paying close attention to the truckers' contract talks, hoping to forestall a generalized labor offensive. An "out-of-line" settlement "could start Plant Closure Threatens a new inflationary surge," blared Busi­ ness Week (29 March), trying to blame "strike pressures welling up from rank­ and-file drivers and dissident union River Rouge Complex ...... 8 groups" for the inevitable future rate 12 2 APRIL 1976