NOVEMBER 16, 1979 50 CENTS VOLUME 43/NUMBER 44

A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY /PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF THE WORKING PEOPLE

- Ill

By Janice Lynn Middleton asserted that "the balance of opinion" protesting the shah's presence in this country. In the face of a new wave of anti-imperialist in Washington favors such intervention "if the Oil workers had also threatened to strike over a struggles by Iranian workers, peasants, and young crisis worsens." government decree that they must work forty-eight people, the Carter administration is threatening to The pretext for the U.S. threats was the No­ hours, six days per week. take military steps against the Iranian revolution. vember 4 occupation of the U.S. embassy in Tehran The basic justice of the students' and oil workers' "An American intervention force probably would by students demanding that the U.S. extradite ex­ demands has been buried in the U.S. capitalist be drawn from what Secretary of Defense Harold shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to Iran to face trial news media under an ocean of lies and hysteria Brown has designated the Rapid Deployment for his countless crimes. The students are holding a blasting the Iranian people as "mobs of religious Forces-approximately 110,000 men and women number of embassy personnel and others as hos­ fanatics." Washington is even trying to blame the drawn from all four services," wrote correspondent tages. Iranian masses for the U.S. oil industry's plans for Drew Middleton in the November 7 New York In the oilfields of Khuzestan, strikes by oil­ future gas lines and soaring prices. Times. workers are said to be responsible for an oil stop­ The ex-shah is responsible for the torture and "An airdrop to seize the embassy and Tehran's page. There have been reports that all deliveries to murder of tens of thousands of Iranians. He plun­ airport would be possible, qualified sources said." the United States may be cut off by oil workers Continued on page 3 Brutal Klan murders: ere cops ·In ol ed? By Jon Hillson smashing out apartment windows, and GREENSBORO, N.C.-With the tele­ terrorizing the Black neighborhood; vised image of the Ku Klux Klan-Nazi there now is a slow, steady patrol of massacre of antiracist demonstrators unmarked police cars. still fresh in their minds, many here "There are a lot of cops here now," are asking: Did the police deliberately one young Black told the Militant, "but let the murderous assault take place? I got no idea why. Where were they on Local cops who tailed armed Klaners Saturday'?" and Nazis from the city limits into the This is what happened on November heart of Greensboro's Black commun­ 3, according to eyewitness accounts. ity on November 3 were nowhere to be The mood of assembling anti-Klan seen when the racist scum opened fire demonstrators suddenly changed as a on some seventy-five to one hundred carload of Klan and Nazi members assembling demonstrators. drove toward the crowd, shouting, Four were killed on the spot, with a "Kill the nigger SOBs." fifth dying from wounds on November A small group of demonstrators en­ 5. One protester remains critically circled the car, shouting back. wounded. At least nine others were One racist got out of the car and hospitalized. fired a pistol in the air. The barrage of bullets lasted from "That was the signal," one eyewit­ two to four minutes, as the hit squads ness told the Militant. By this time calmly loaded and reloaded shotguns, several carloads of Klaners and Nazis pistols, rifles, and automatic weapons, had pulled up behind the point car. As firing into the fleeing crowd. many as forty racists were in the con- Thus far, twelve racists have been voy. charged with four counts of first degree The armed occupants of the cars got murder and one count of conspiracy to out, aimed, and fired into the crowd. commit murder. Four others are being "They weren't in any rush," one held on charges of conspiracy to com­ young Black Morningside resident told mit murder. All are being held without the Militant. bond. Several local media reports have Two demonstrators were arrested. carried accounts of rock-throwing at­ Nelson Johnson, a leader of the action, tacks by the anti-Klan protesters, in an was charged with inciting to riot. attempt to convey the impression that Willena Cannon, who intervened when the heavily armed racist goons were the cops grabbed Johnson, was somehow "provoked." But film clips of charged with interfering with an of­ the shooting and the moments leading ficer. up to it show nothing of the kind. The Morningside community, where "Look around here," one resident the killings took place, is marked by an told the Militant. "There's no rocks uneasy calm. Residents, the majority anywhere." One of five anti-Klan demonstrators slain in Greens­ of whom are on fixed incomes, are very As the crowd scattered, the murder­ boro when gang of racists opened fire. Cops had young or elderly. ers began to leave. On the street where armed men Police then arrived on the scene, Klan-Nazi assassins under surveillance, but left the poured lead into demonstrators, Continued on page 9 scene before murderous assault began. In Our Opinion VOLUME 43/NUMBER 44 NOVEMBER 16, 1979 CLOSING NEWS DATE-NOV. 7

1,000 days to go, three more states must ratify ruling class is on the offensive to exacerbate Jan. 13 can be for the ERA to become law. To win, the pro­ divisions within the working class as part of ERA forces must go on the offensive. January its antilabor assault. ERA turning point 13 can be the turning point. January 13 can be a battering ram against The January 13, 1980, march and rally for Whatever state we are in, we live in an this drive. It can put labor on the offensive. the Equal Rights Amendment in Richmond, unratified nation. A nationwide outpouring of It can go a long way to strengthen the Virginia, has the, potential to be the most support for the Virginia march will help the fighting alliance between the labor, women's, significant action ever for the ERA. fight in all fifteen unratified states. and civil rights movements that is needed for Called by Labor for Equal Rights Now ERA is not mere words on a page. It is a the battles ahead. (LERN), it has won broad sponsorship from fight for equal pay, equal job opportunities, This need to unite with allies in the labor both labor unions and the women's movement. and equal status under the law. movement was a major theme at the recent January 13 deserves and needs the full effort At stake is whether women will go forward national conferences of the National Organi­ and mobilization of all ERA supporters. and break down the barriers of resistance to zation for Women (NOW) and the Coalition of full equality or whether they will be stopped, Labor Union Women (CLUW). Both organiza­ Since the 100,000-strong July 9, 1978, march turned back, and the movement broken. tions have endorsed January 13. on Washington forced Congress to extend the What happens to ERA will also help deter­ ERA deadline to June 1982, the ERA drive has William Lucy, president of the Coalition of mine whether a fighting labor movement is faltered. No new states have ratified since Black Trade Unionists, will speak at January built in the next period to take on the ruling­ Indiana in January 1978. With fewer than 13. And Black trade unionists-male and class offensive against all working people. female-are taking the lead in the fight for the The growing involvement of the labor move­ ERA and women's rights. ment in the fight for women's rights is one Women are playing a big new role in the Speakers list aspect of the rising militancy of working peo­ Labor for Equal Rights Now has released a labor movement. Reflecting the fact that ple. women make up nearly 50 percent of the work partial list of speakers for the January 13, 1980, Workers are increasingly seeking to act' march and rally in Richmond. It includes: force, union women's committees and ERA through their unions-and to organize unions committees are growing. More women are Julian Carper, president, Virginia State AFL­ where they have none-to fight back against being elected to union office, including in CIO; employer and government attacks ranging predominantly male locals. Union-sponsored Eleanor Smeal, president, National Organiza­ from layoffs to high prices and the energy women's conferences have sprung up across tion for Women; ripoff, from speed-up to environmental destruc­ William Wynn, president, United Food and the country. Women unionists in turn are tion and the threat of war. Commercial Workers union, joining CLUW and NOW and thus strengthen­ Addie Wyatt, international vice-president, Uni­ These attacks are educating the entire labor ing these organizations. ted Food and Commercial Workers, and movement in the heat of battle on the need for executive vice-president, Coalition of Labor unity. More and more working people-male By coming forward in the unions to fight for Union Women; and female-are realizing what the LERN their rights and the rights of all workers, William Lucy, president, Coalition of Black education/action resolution passed at its Au­ women are pointing the way forward for the Trade Unionists, and secretary-treasurer, gust 12 conference explained: kind of progressive social role the unions can American Federation of State, County and "The entire labor movement will gain as play. Municipal Employees; women win equal rights. The employers' at­ January 13 can only deepen this process. Frank Mont, director of Civil Rights Depart­ tempts to divide workers by sex will be curbed; In the next two and a half months, all ment, United Steelworkers; women will play an increasing role in the supporters of women's rights-including both Paulette Shine, president, United Mine labor movement, adding their numbers and men and women unionists-need to go ahead Workers Local4172 (first woman president of power to roll back the employers' anti-union full force to build January 13 and the De­ a mine workers local); cember 2-9 education/action campaign leading Alice Peurala, president, Steelworkers Local 65 offensive; the greater unity in our ranks will (first woman president of a basic steel local); increase the unions' ability to win better up to it. Willard McGuire, president, National Educa­ wages, benefits, and conditions for all Given the authority this action has already tion Association; members; and the labor movement will be in a won in the labor and women's movements, Ed Coppedge, president, Steelworkers Local stronger position to organize the unorgan­ there is no limit on the scope of activities that 8888; ized." can be organized. Carol Pudliner, Virginia NOW coordinator Sexism, like racism, divides and weakens ERA is one of the biggest battles in the class Judy Galloway, special projects coordinator, the labor movement. It cripples labor's ability struggle in this country, pitting women and United Mine Workers; to fight back. Milton Brickhouse, president, Virginia CAP labor against big business and its government. Council, United Auto Workers. But these divisions of sexism and racism are The stakes are high. January 13 can make breaking down precisely at the time when the the difference in this fight.

Militant Highlights This Week The Militant Editor: STEVE CLARK Associate Editors: CINDY JAQUITH ANDY ROSE Business Manager: PETER SEIDMAN Editorial Staff: Nancy Cole, Fred Feldman, Jim Garrison, Suzanne Haig, Osborne Hart, Gus Horowitz, Shelley Kramer, Ivan Licho, Janice Lynn, August Nimtz, Harry Ring, Dick Roberts, 4 U.S. blocks Kampuchea aid Priscilla Schenk, Arnold Weissberg. 5 Nicaragua nationalizes mines Published weekly by the Militant 6 Nicaragua solidarity drive Trotsky-one hundred years (ISSN 0026-3885), 14 Charles Lane, 7 FSLN & workers democracy New York, N.Y. 10014. Telephone: On the hundredth anniversary of Leon Editorial Office, (212) 243-6392; Busi­ 23 Boston racist attacks Trotsky's birth, the world class struggle is ness Office, (212) 929-3486. 24 Carter balls out Chrysler heating up. From Nicaragua to Iran, from El Correspondence concerning sub­ 25 Union women organize Salvador to South Korea, the workers, scriptions or changes of address 26 Sales campaign progress peasants, and students of the semicolonial should be addressed to The Militant world are rising up and saying no to Business Office, 14 Charles Lane, 6 Solidarity With Nicaragua New York, N.Y. 10014. imperialism. And in the heartland of 27 campaigning For Socialism Second-class postage paid at New 28 In Brief imperialism, the United States, working York, N.Y. Subscriptions: U.S. $20.00 Whet's Going On people are increasingly willing to fight back a year, outside U.S. $25.00. By first­ 29 The Great Society against ruling-class attacks on their class mail: U.S., Canada, and Mexico: Women In Revolt democratic rights and standard of living. $50.00. Write for airmail rates to all 30 Our Revolutionary Heritage Trotsky would have welcomed these other countries. La Hers developments. His life was devoted to For subscriptions airfreighted to London and 31 Leeming About Socialism then posted to Britain and Ireland: £3.00 for ten If You Like This Paper ... speeding their arrival. Two articles in this issues, £6 00 for six months (twenty-four issues), month's 'International Socialist Review' look £11.00 for one year (forty-eight issues). Posted 11-22 International Socialist Review from London to Continental Europe: £4.50 for at this revolutionary leader's life and ideas. ten issues, £10.00 for six months, £15.00 for one Pages 11-22. year. Send checks or international money order (payable to Intercontinental Press account) to Intercontinental Press (The Militant), P.O. Box 50, London N1 2XP, England. Signed articles by contributors do not neces­ sarily represent the Militanrs views. These are expressed in editorials,

2 :::~!~P U.S. threats a~~!!!~!atiJill~!~ · and demandmg a greater say m dec1s10ns. dered the wealth of the country to maintain his Thousands of unemployed workers and high monarchy-activities in which he had the full school graduates have protested the lack of jobs. backing, encouragement, and financial assistance Land seizures have continued and spread to of the U.S. government for twenty-five years. southern districts of Azerbaijan. How angered the Iranian people must be at There have been takeovers of hotels by university statements that the U.S. rulers are harboring this students demanding they be converted into badly criminal for "humanitarian" reasons! needed dormitories. Some 30,000 high school stu­ If Carter had a shred of real concern for the lives dents took part in two days of demonstrations in of the people in the U.S. embassy, he would turn the Tehran October 29 and 30, effectively shutting royal mass murderer over for trial today. U.S. down the city's schools. They demanded an end to a military threats only serve to endanger their lives. government ban on political discussions in the The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran's de classrooms. They also called for nationalization of facto head of state, has under the tremendous mass the schools. Massive high school protests also took pressure supported the embassy seizure and is place in Tabriz. demanding that the shah be tried in Iran for his crimes. By giving voice to the well-founded anti­ Political prisoners imperialist sentiments of most Iranians, Khomeini As Khomeini plays on the deep anti-shah senti­ is trying to regain the popularity he had begun to ment of the masses, supporting and encouraging lose because of his government's repressive and their demands for extradition of the shah, it will antilabor actions. become harder and harder to justify the jailing of Khomeini's anti-imperialist stance is the reason thousands of political prisoners who have devoted for the screaming headlines in the U.S. press their lives to fighting against the shah. denouncing him as a "holy madman." The Tehran-based Committee to Defend Political The Carter administration's attitude was differ­ Prisoners has documented the existence of at least ent last August when Khomeini launched a bloody 1,500 anti-shah political prisoners. war against the Kurds, shut down more than forty Among the best known are the fourteen members newspapers, executed Kurds and Arabs who de· of the Hezb-e Karagan-e Sosialist (HKS-Socialist manded their rights and threatened to execute Workers Party) who are facing sentences of death socialists and other dissidents. At that time, the and life imprisonment for expressing their political Carter administration became more friendly to views. Khomeini and renewed arms shipments to his gov· Repression and imprisonment of anti-shah figh­ ernment. ters are clearly against the will of the Iranian Carter is worried that Khomeini may not be able masses. The case of the Iranian 14 has become a to put the lid on the new explosion of anti· rallying point for all those in Iran who are challeng­ imperialist struggles in Iran. His worries were ing repressive measures. worsened when the recent events precipitated the Supporters of the Iranian revolution around the break-up of the Khomeini-Bazargan team that has world should condemn Washington's campaign of headed the government since the popular insurrec­ lies and threats against the Iranian people (includ­ tion that toppled the shah last February. Prime ing the threats by U.S. authorities to deport Iranian Minister Mehdi Bazargan and his cabinet resigned students in this country who demonstrate their Demonstrators outside U.S. embassy In Tehran November 4, and Khomeini turned governmental support to the anti-shah protests). authority over to the "Revolutionary Council" of No U.S. intervention in Iran! figures from the Islamic hierarchy. At the same time, international pressure should land reform for the two-thirds of the population who 'Nobody's in control' continue for the release of the Iranian 14. This is are peasants; 3) full democratic rights including the the best way to press for a further retreat by the One U.S. businessman in Tehran was quoted as right of self-determination for the 60 percent of the Khomeini government in its attempted crackdown saying "Religious leaders incited the students to population who are oppressed nationalities; 4) jobs on democratic rights, and to support the struggles attack' the U.S. embassy, but now they've lost for the millions who are still unemployed; 5) higher of the Iranian masses in advancing the revolution. control of the situation to the leftists and the wages to meet soaring inflation; and 6) equality for Communists. . . . Nobody's in control here any­ women. more. Not Ayatollah Khomeini, no one." Khomeini and his "Revolutionary Council" will Repression hasn't worked be trying to contain the revolutionary process. But a Determined to preserve a capitalist state in Iran, profound mobilization of the masses has occurred the Khomeini-Bazargan government had to resort Free the socialists The Committee to Save the Iranian 14 is coordi­ and is continuing. to increasingly repressive measures to try and nating the emergency effort to secure the release The occupation of the embassy came as tens of prevent the revolution from going forward, to pre­ of the fourteen Socialist Workers Party prisoners. thousands marched through the streets November 4 vent the workers and peasants from gaining control Telegrams and petitions should be sent to on the first anniversary of the shooting of students over their lives. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Qum, Iran; Ayatol­ at Tehran University by the shah's security forces. In August, the government launched a wave of lah Ghodosi, Prosecutor General, Tehran, Iran; These actions were preceded by a November 1 repression, centered on its brutal war against the and the Majlise Hebregon (Council of Experts), march of tens of thousands on the U.S. embassy Kurdish people. Tehran, Iran. and by anti-shah protests in dozens of other cities But on October 31, Kurdish forces regained con-­ Copies should be sent to the Tehran daily and towns throughout Iran. These marches took trol of Mahabad, the historic capital and political Baamdad, Hafez Avenue, 24 Zartoshtian Alley, place despite attempts by the religious leaders to center of the Kurdish region. The Iranian govern­ Tehran, Iran, which is printing copies of all pro­ cancel them. ment is faced with increasing antiwar sentiment tests received. These mobilizations and the breakup of the gov­ among the population as well as resistance in the Copies should also be sent to Ettela'at, Khayam ernment in Iran take place in the context of the army and air force. Avenue, Tehran, Iran; Kayhan, Ferdowsi Avenue, capitalist regime's inability to solve the problems in In fact, the government was forced to state Tehran, Iran; and to the Committee to Save the Iran, its repressive actions against oppressed na­ publicly that it was entering into negotiations with Iranian 14, 200 Park Avenue South, Room 812, tionalities and militant workers, and the increasing Kurdish leaders, who were previously branded by New York, New York 10003. dissatisfaction of the masses. Khomeini as "enemies of God." Financial contributions are urgently needed to Among the most pressing needs are 1) industriali­ In addition to the dissatisfaction of Iran's oil step up the committee's efforts. zation, free from domination by imperialism; 2) workers, workers in many plants throughout the

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THE MILITANT/NOVEMBER 16, 1979 3 Hel~goes to Pol Pot's killers Carter, Red Cross UN block Kam ucheaaid By Fred Feldman Oxfam's Jim Howard insisted that the The Carter administration, the Uni­ Kampuchean government has put up ted Nations, and the International Red no obstacles to Oxfam's aid program. Cross are working hand in hand to "There are now no more barriers to t:ommit one of the most brutal crimes substantial aid going in from the peo­ of this century-the deliberate starva­ ple of goodwill," he told correspondent tion of more than 2.5 million Kampu­ Stephen Webbe. "We have demanded cheans in an effort to topple the gov­ and got permission to monitor all the ernment of Heng Samrin. supplies going in through the consor­ At the same time, massive quantities tium [of aid donors]." of arms and other supplies are being The reason Oxfam is able to supply shipped-in the name of "humanitar­ aid while the Red Cross, the United ian aid" -to the remaining forces back­ Nations, and the Carter administra­ ing ousted dictator Pol Pot and to other tion keep running into "insuperable rightist units that are allied with Pol obstacles" is simple. Oxfam is trying Pot against the Heng Samrin forces to feed the Kampuchean people, while and their Vietnamese allies. the U.S. government, UNICEF, and Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge killers the Red Cross are trying to supply were responsible for the deaths of their murderers. millions of Kampucheans before their These imperialist agencies oppose overthrow last January. feeding the people of Kampuchea be­ An unusually frank statement of the cause they view starvation as a power­ purposes of the aid program appeared ful weapon in their drive to bring down in the November 5 New York Times. the Heng Samrin government. They Bangkok correspondent Henry Kamm aim to replace it with one that the U.S. reported that these forces "are pro­ imperialists can more easily control vided with international assistance (whether that means the return of Pol channeled through Thai military au­ Pot or the installation of some other thorities, whose permission is required regime is a secondary matter to the for every supply trip. Although no Children suffering from severe malnutrition in Phnompenh. U.S. imperialists). policy has been announced, field obser­ politics with Kampuchea's starving millions. After visiting Kampuchea, Howard vations indicate a direct relationship announced that Oxfam had decided between the degree of effective opposi­ not to provide aid to the Pol Pot tion of each group to the Vietnamese While the Red Cross and UNICEF people, capitalist newspapers and poli­ forces-a shift from his earlier position occupation forces and the readiness allow the corrupt military dictatorship ticians reach new heights of hypocriti­ in favor of aiding both sides. with which food is made available." in Thailand to have full control over cal indignation at their "inhumanity."· According to Webbe, "Mr. Howard With the direct assistance of the the distribution of aid, they insist on When all else fails, the imperialist stresses that the former Cambodian U.S.-armed Thai military, the Pol Pot rigid controls over all aid given to the governments, UNICEF, and the Red ruler 'can't be allowed to survive and forces and their allies control small Kampuchean government. Cross declare that the Kampuchean go on battling away because this coun­ strips of territory along the Thai­ While the Red Cross and UNICEF government can't really distribute any try will never come to peace. Cambodia Kampuchean border. There they hold cooperate fully with the Thai govern­ aid anyway, since their ports and needs peace above everything now.' up to 300,000 civilian captives-in ment in aiding Pol Pot, they have airstrips are unusable. "He says that the great fear of the contrast to the four million Kampu­ refused thus far to use Vietnamese This claim was denied by the Pnom­ Phnom Penh government is a Viet­ cheans who live in territory controlled trucks, ports, or other facilities to pro­ penh government. And its was dis­ namese withdrawal under pressure by Heng Samrin's forces. vide food to the Kampuchean people. proven when the November 1 New 'from China or elsewhere' that would All observers at the border report UNICEF and the Red Cross have York Times reported that five bring Pol Pot sweeping back into that the aid given here is being taken insisted that the Kampuchean govern­ freighters-including three from the power. 'We see no survival under Pol by Pol Pot's troops, who are described ment endorse the massive aid program Soviet Union said to be carrying Pot,' he says gravely. as well fed-in contrast to the civilians they are carrying out for Pol Pot's food-had arrived in the port of Kom­ under their control, who are wasting forces as a precondition for aid. "'After all, we've been and looked pong Som in recent days. away from malnutrition and malaria. This was followed by the Carter inside the gas chambers, if you like, While nothing is allowed to stand in administration's phony "aid offer"­ Britain's Oxfam-virtually the only and if we ignore this, then it's on our the way of aid to Pol Pot, no pretext is actually a demand that the Pnompenh relief agency in the capitalist world heads.'" too flimsy to serve as an obstacle to government open its borders to a truck which has seriously tried to help the The United States has 400,000 tons providing aid to the Kampuchean peo­ convoy from Thailand into the sections Kampuchean people-announced No­ of surplus rice in storage-more than ple. of western Kampuchea where Pol Pot's vember 5 that one of its barges con­ enough to end the famine in Kampu­ While the Red Cross and UNICEF­ forces are concentrated. taining 2,000 tons of food had arrived chea in a matter of days. not to mention the Carter administra­ When the Heng Samrin government in the supposedly unusable port of The American people must demand tion-have no objection to aid being resisted these demands, it was declared Kompong Som. It was greeted at the that Carter stop arming and supplying monopolized by Pol Pot's soldiers, they to have "barred aid." dock by President Heng Samrin the forces of Pol Pot and his rightist insist on ironclad guarantees that not And when Pnompenh or Hanoi point himself-a commentary on the lie that allies for their bloody war against this an ounce of food given to Kampuchea out the simple fact that this aid pro­ the Pnompenh government rejects aid. long-suffering people. Instead, Carter will be eaten by soldiers opposed to Pol gram is being used to supply Pol Pot In an interview published in the must send the Kampuchean people all Pot. while denying food to the Kampuchean October 21 Christian Science Monitor, the food they need now.

Columnist exposes gov't lies on Kampuchea The following column by Jack Hill source told our reporter Lucette evidence-which we have been re­ formed the administration that only Anderson is reprinted from the Lagnado. porting for more than four years­ 5 to 10 percent of Cambodia's arable October 29 Washington Post. The Foggy Bottom bureaucrats that it was responsible for the land was being planted last spring. have been blaming legal and con­ slaughter of millions of Cambodians This was confirmed by a secret Jimmy Carter's sanctimonious ser­ gressional roadblocks for their inac­ since it seized power in 1974. CIA report in early August, which mons on human rights have become tion. But the real reason, according For reasons of global strategy, the offered the harrowing prediction a cruel mockery to millions of Cam­ to our sources, is a deep-seated anti­ United States deems it important to that as many as 3.5 million people bodians, who are dying of starvation Vietnam bias in the State Depart­ join the Chinese in support of Pol would starve to death as a result of and disease-helpless pawns being ment. Pot, and oppose the rival govern­ poor harvests next December and sacrificed in the deadly chess game Apparently it was feared that ment set up by Soviet-backed Vietna­ January. Other reports indicated of big power politics. some relief supplies might fall into mese troops. "It was more important that typhus and malaria were deci­ Despite assurances from the Car­ the hands of the Vietnamese invad­ for us to give the Soviets a diplo­ mating the population. There are ter administration that the United ers, helping them solidify their au­ matic kick than it was for us to feed virtually no children under age 5, States would give food to Cambodi­ thority in Cambodia. Rather than the people," charged one knowledge­ and for every birth there are 10 ans "irrespective of their political run the risk, our callous diplomats able source. deaths. authority,'' officials within the State chose not to implement the massive It's not as if the horrors of Cambo­ Footnote: Robert Oakley of the Department have deliberately sabot­ food program needed to prevent the dia's starving millions came as any State Department's East Asian bu­ aged this humane policy, according virtual extinction of the Cambodian surprise to our policymakers. The reau denied that his office had failed to a wide variety of sources. people. State Department has known since to implement the policy on food aid "The problem has been that people The anti-Vietnamese "tilt" in the at least March that the unhappy to Cambodia. "The Vietnamese in lower levels, specifically in the State Department was recently re­ country was facing a food shortage wouldn't let us" distribute the relief East Asian desk, have been doing flected in the shameful U.S. vote to of catastrophic proportions, accord­ supplies, he said, and the program nothing but obstructing efforts to seat the infamous Pol Pot regime in ing to sources in the department and was hampered by strict monitoring aid the Cambodians,'' one Capitol the United Nations, despite the Congress. Intelligence reports in- procedures insisted on by Congress.

4 Nicaragua takes over foreign-held mines By Fred Murphy gio Ramirez, and Moises Hassan tra­ mined. At the close of World War II, MANAGUA-All foreign-owned veled to the gold mining town of Siuna Nicaragua ranked seventh in gold mines in Nicaragua were nationalized in the northeastern part of the country production internationally. Since that November 2 by order of the Junta of on November 2 to make the announce­ time there has been a big decline in the National Reconstruction. ment at a rally of gold miners. amount of the precious metal produced. The Sandinista-led government's de­ The -mine workers-who have re­ The revolutionary authorities now cree also cancelled all concessions that cently organized a union and joined suspect, however, that production lev­ had been granted to foreign concerns the Sandinista Workers Federation­ els were actually greater in recent by the Somoza dictatorship for the greeted the measure enthusiastically. years than the companies reported and exploration and further exploitation of Two provisions of the decree are espe­ that much gold was smuggled out of Nicaragua's mineral wealth. cially important to the miners: One Nicaragua in order to avoid payment provides for workers representatives in of taxes. In taking this step, an editorial in the management of the new Nicara­ the Sandinista daily Barricada ex­ guan Mining Development Corpora­ Thus the nationalization decree also plained November 3, the government tion (CODEMINA) that will adminis­ calls for indemnities for tax evasion as "is upholding our national sover­ ter the mines. The other reserves well as for damages to the environ­ eignty, the inalienable right of our Nicaragua's right to demand indemni­ ment caused by the mine owners. people to the exploitation of our natu­ ties for the "human damages" caused Once all the indemnities are de­ ral resources and the interests of thou­ by the mine owners during their more ducted, the former owners are to be sands of workers ... who for decades than fifty years of operations. compensated with bonds that will be were the object of crude exploitation by Many miners suffer from tuberculo­ redeemable in six years. the foreign owners." sis and other respiratory ailments ow­ Gold will now be a potentially impor­ Three mining concerns owned by ing to inadequate ventilation in the tant source of badly needed foreign U.S. and Canadian capitalists are mines. Falsification of X-rays by the exchange for Nicaragua's revolution­ affected by the decree. One of these, companies to avoid paying compensa­ ary government. The mines produced a the Rosario Mining Company, was a tion was a common practice. recorded value of $6.2 million in 1978- subsidiary of the huge multinational Gold is the main mineral produced before the recent jump in gold prices on Militant/Fred Murphy metals corporation, ASARCO. by Nicaragua's mines, although some the world market. Sign In union demonstration reads Junta members Daniel Ortega, Ser- silver, zinc, lead, and copper are also From Intercontinental Press/lnprecor 'Workers and peasants to power.' Right-wing Cuban threat halts Miami meeting By Andrea Baron growing openness of the Cuban com­ two members of Abdala, despite the against Cuba. MIAMI-Threats of physical vio­ munity here to the Cuban revolution. fact that witnesses can identify most Andres Gomez, Florida coordinator lence by right-wing Cubans have Incensed by the UN visit of Cuban of the twenty or more attackers. of the brigade, told reporters, "The again forced cancellation of a film President Fidel Castro, these right­ At a well-attended press conference Antonio Maceo Brigade, alongside showing here sponsored by the Anto­ wing terrorists, a minority within the November 1, representatives of the other Cuban-American groups, will nio Maceo Brigade. Cuban community, have sought to use brigade, the Committee of 75, and the continue to peacefully exercise its right The brigade is made up of young violence and fear to keep people from Socialist Workers Party denounced the to present its views on the problems Cubans abroad who support normali­ learning the truth about Cuba. right-wing terror campaign. confronting the Cuban community zation of relations between the United Over the past month a public defense The Miami office of the Socialist abroad." States and Cuba. campaign has been conducted here by Workers Party 1980 Campaign has After the film cancellation, a No­ The highly acclaimed Cuban film, a broad spectrum of civil libertarians received two anonymous bomb threats vember 3 press conference was held Memories of Underdevelopment, was and Cuban community groups. during the past several weeks. One denouncing the continuing campaign originally scheduled to be shown Sep­ Delegations representing groups occurred on October 12, the same day of terrorism and demanding police tember 29. That meeting was broken such as the American Civil Liberties as Fidel Castro's address to the UN. protection of the next film showing. up by armed members of the anti­ Union, Concerned Democrats of Dade On October 20, a caller claiming to Brian Peterson of the Florida Inter­ Castro group Abdala. They smashed County, and the Committee of 75, a be from the "American National War national University chapter of United the film projector, beat up brigade coalition of Cuban community groups Council" said a bomb would go off in Faculty of Florida announced that the activists, stole several hundred dollars, in favor of the dialogue with Cuba, ten minutes. The police were called, group would request university facili­ and fled after firing shots into the air. have gone to the offices of the state and they made a superficial check. ties and adequate security to assure The film showing was rescheduled attorney and local police officials. Fortunately, the call was only a threat. that the film showing can proceed for November 3 at the Temple Israel of They have demanded an investigation The SWP campaign is demanding a safely. Miami. However, because of threats of the September 29 assault, prosecu­ thorough investigation, pointing to the Support was also expressed by the received against the safety of the meet­ tion of all the assailants, and police October 27 bombing of the Cuban Coalition for Human Rights for Hai­ ing, Temple administrators canceled protection for the November 3 film Mission in New York as just the latest tian Refugees, Nicaragua Support the showing. showing. in a series of counterrevolutionary Committee, Women's International Right-wingers in Miami have been The police refused to provide protec­ actions encouraged by the Carter ad­ League for Peace and Freedom, and driven into a frenzy by the rapidly tion. So far they have arrested only ministration's stepped-up attacks others. Bolivian general strike protests military coup By Dick Roberts small arms to resist government troops As we go to press the Bolivian controlling the country's all-important masses are holding out strongly tin mines," according to the Washing­ against the military forces that pro­ ton Post. claimed a coup in La Paz last week. Martial law was established No­ Early November 1, Bolivian troops vember 4. The newspapers, radio, and led by Col. Alberto Natusch Busch TV are under official control. But the seized control of the presidential pa­ general strike was "100 percent effec­ lace. They ousted President Walter tive" November 4, the Washington Guevara Arze. Post declared. A general strike was immediately Bolivia is an extremely poor nation called by Bolivian workers to protest of 5.2 million people, more than half of the coup. whom are Indian peasants. The econ­ New York Times correspondent Juan omy largely depends on exporting tin. de Onis reported from La Paz that The situation threatened to become Natusch's troops shelled the headquar­ all the more unbearable in recent ters of the powerful Bolivian Workers weeks because of moves undertaken by Confederation on the third night of the Washington. In September the Senate coup. Armed Services Committee empowered On November 5 Natusch's troops the government to dump a considera­ opened fire with machine guns on ble amount of tin from its "strategic demonstrators in downtown La Paz stockpile" on the world market. killing at least nine persons, according This would result in a sharp drop in to the Washington Post. prices, crippling the Bolivian economy. Troops also opened fire on houses in "Political, congressional, and eco­ working-class neighborhoods. Union nomic circles in Bolivia reacted vio­ and political leaders have been ar­ lently to the news; they rejected and rested. condemned it with unprecedented una­ Reports indicate that the army has nimity," according to the Cuban news­ met heavy resistance from strikers in paper Granma, September 23. La Paz's working class neighborhoods. Granma warned that Washington's As well, "sketchy reports from the move might be aimed at destabilizing provinces said striking miners had the country in order to prepare the way armed themselves with dynamite and for a new military coup. THE MILITANT/NOVEMBER 16, 1979 5 Nat'l meeting aims to strengthen solidarity drive By Nancy Cole the National Network, will focus on: been in the victory over Somoza and lutionaries, Tijerino said that she ex­ Nicaraguan junta member Moises • "Defense of the Revolution, exam­ how the new government is in urgent pected opponents of the new govern­ Hassan will represent the Government ining imperialism as it relates to the need of medical supplies, food, and ment to try "to starve the revolution, to of National Reconstruction at the No­ Nicaraguan struggle, and looking at tools. stifle the revolution, rather than attack vember 16-18 national solidarity con­ the counterrevolutionary forces opera­ Tijerino, who said she may have to it directly." ference in Detroit. tive within the country; return to her country before the Detroit Casa Nicaragua, like other solidarity Also scheduled to speak is Doris • "Economic Situation and Needs of conference, explained she had come to groups across the country, plans to be Tijerino H., head of the Secretariat for Reconstruction; inform people of what is happening in represented at the Detroit conference. Foreign Relations of the Sandinista • "Nicaragua in the Central Ameri­ Nicaragua, to answer the slanders It will be the first national gathering National Liberation Front (FSLN). can Context." being made against the new govern­ since the fall of Somoza and will be a The latest issue of the newsletter of The newsletter continues, "The con­ ment, and to thank U.S. supporters for great opportunity for activists to ex­ the National Network in Solidarity ference participants will work on their solidarity. change ideas and experiences, as well with the Nicaraguan People, the con­ strengthening the mechanisms of the "We inherited the problems of illiter­ as digest some firsthand reports from ference sponsor, explains that "key­ National Network and the organizing acy and destruction. No one said the the Nicaraguan representatives. note addresses by the Nicaraguans of solidarity work throughout the coun­ revolution could solve them over For information on the conference or will focus on political analysis of the try." night," she told the meeting of sixty to obtain the National Network News­ current situation in Nicaragua." At a November 1 meeting in San supporters of Casa Nicaragua, the Bay letter, contact the national office at According to the newsletter, work­ Francisco, Tijerino explained just how Area solidarity group. 1322 Eighteenth Street NW, Washing­ shops at the conference, the second for important international solidarity had Asked about moves by counterrevo- ton, D.C. 20036. Phone: (202) 223-2328.

Albuquerque benefit wins new labor support New labor support has come for a November 17 benefit organized by the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Militant correspondents Patty Nixon and Araceli Needham report that Rex Brasell, president of the Bernalillo County AFL-CIO Central Labor Council, and Luis Montenegro, an international representative of the American Federation of Government Employees, will speak at the Nicaraguan solidarity event. The featured speaker is Roberto Vargas, an official representative of the Ministry of Culture of Nicaragua. The benefit, which will also include entertainment and a video show­ ing, will be at 7 p.m. at the University of New Mexico. A reception is to follow. For more information, call (505) 277-5029. Ann Arbor committee launches aid drive At the University of Michigan, the Ann Arbor Committee for Human Rights in Latin America began a campaign in solidarity with Nicaragua with two showings last month of the film Nicaragua: Patria Libre o Morir (Nicaragua: Free Homeland or Death). Two hundred people attended the showings, and collections netted $160. The film begins with scenes of the fall 1978 popular uprisings in Nicaragua, and goes on to describe the history of U.S. intervention in Nicaragua. Interviews with young Sandinistas are interspersed with scenes of their military training. The film is available from Tricontinen· tal Film Center, 333 Sixth Avenue, New York, New York 10014. The university's Michigan Daily ran an article by Bob Warren on October 4, titled, "The new Nicaraguan regime needs U.S. support." Warren, a member of the Ann Arbor Committee for Human Rights in Latin America, explained the needs of Nicaragua-paper to print books Nicaraguan poster appeals for U.S. aid for their literacy campaign, tools to aid in reconstruction, and so on-and urged a full-scale campaign for material aid.

Canadian rt:~eeting raises $6,000 Six hundred people attended a benefit in Edmonton, Canada, Sep­ Steelworkers and Nicaragua tember 8, which raised $6,000 for Nicaragua. The meeting, organized by At Bethlehem Steel's Sparrows impressed by the union and strike the Committee for Peace and Reconstruction in Nicaragua, heard Pastor Point plant in Baltimore, supporters guarantees in the Nicaraguan Bill of Valle-Garay, official Canadian representative of the Sandinista govern· of the Nicaraguan revolution have Rights. ment. He stressed the urgency of material aid for Nicaragua. begun circulating a petition calling "It's been pretty easy to get people "Valle-Garay singled out two groups who have given important support upon President Carter and Congress to sign. Some sign for humanitarian in Canada," reported the October 1 Socialist Voice, "the Chilean exile to send immediate material aid to reasons, some because of Nicara­ community, and the workers movement. Noting the 'complete isolation' Nicaragua. gua's pro-union stand, some because his country now faces internationally, the Nicaraguan representative Martin Koppel, a member of Uni­ of the rights guaranteed to women." . urged Edmonton union members to use the CLC's [Canadian Labor ted Steelworkers Local 2609 at the At another huge steel mill, Inland Congress] solidarity campaign to pressure the Canadian government to Point, has already collected about Steel in East Chicago, Indiana, there provide the relief needed by his people." thirty signatures, nearly half of the has also been a lot of interest in workers on his unit shift. He hasn't Nicaragua, according to Dick had time to talk to the others. Only McBride. The 18,000-member USWA New Orleans fair set for November 18 about two people he's asked have Local 1010 at Inland is up to one­ Live music, raffles, games, refreshments, and a demonstration of turned him down. third Latino. Nicaraguan folk dancing will make up the festivities at a fund-raising "Some I've talked to thought Car­ But the news blackout there on fair for Nicaragua in New Orleans November 18. Admission is one dollar ter was already sending a lot of aid," Nicaragua is glaring. "A lot of peo­ or the donation of a tool to be sent to Nicaragua. Koppel says. "People who have been ple think that Somoza was a butcher The event is sponsored by the New Orleans Nicaragua Solidarity reading the Militant know what's and it was a good thing he got Organization and the Committee for Emergency Relief Aid to Nicaragua. going on in Nicaragua. But for oth­ thrown out," says McBride. "They It begins at 1 p.m. at the Latin American Apostolate, 821 General ers who rely on the daily papers followed it when it was big in the Pershing in New Orleans. here, which haven't said anything news before he left Nicaragua. But lately about Nicaragua, I have to now there is a general attitude that Swiss group collects funds for hospital explain the situation. everything is okay there. They really A recently formed Swiss Association for Solidarity with Nicaragua has "I've been showing people the listen when you explain how bad the decided to help raise funds for the construction of a municipal hospital in Nicaraguan people need material Nicaraguan Bill of Rights to explain Esteli, Nicaragua. The hospital is expected to cost $3.6 million. The aid." what the government is, what it solidarity group also plans to collect drugs and medicines for Nicaragua. stands for. It really helps when There are a lot of young workers at ~ According to the Swiss socialist newspaper La Breche, the solidarity people see that the Nicaraguan peo­ Inland, and one thing they are im­ ple have rights we don't even have." pressed with is the youthful Sandi­ group has already set up information booths on the campaign, including Koppel's shop steward signed the nista fighters. "If young people are at a recent hospital workers picnic. petition because of the Nicaraguan running it," McBride says, "they The association is also demanding that the Swiss government send government's pro-union stance. think it's got to go right." immediate material aid to Nicaragua and that there be no imperialist Other co-workers have also been -N.C. intervention in Nicaragua. -Nancy Cole

6 By Pedro Camejo tions. For example, they opposed the and Fred Murphy reorganization of the revolutionary MANAGUA-Since the fall of the armed forces, a measure that involved Somoza dictatorship July 19 to the centralizing all arms seized during the Sandinista-led popular insurrection insurrection under the control of the and military offensive, a series of army, police, and militia. radical social measures has been taken FSLN discusses to benefit the workers and peasants, Opposed building army striking blows at the native capitalist The Bolshevik Faction's supporters class and at imperialism. The bour­ even opposed the building of a well­ geois forces, greatly weakened by the workers democracy trained, professional army. Given the revolutionary victory, have begun to ongoing threat of imperialist interven­ organize themselves and are putting tion, which will grow as the class up growing resistance. struggle deepens, such an error runs Within this framework, various How to answer ultraleft sectarians against the elementary need to defend views have arisen inside the revolu­ the revolution. tionary camp of the workers and pea­ At times, the sectarian stance of sants on how best to carry the struggle these groups even leads them into forward and defeat the counterrevolu­ political blocs with sectors of the bour­ tion. geoisie that are seeking to hold back Among those putting forward prop­ the revolution. osals, and seeking to demonstrate their A striking example of this reaction­ validity in action, have been several ary logic was the Frente Obrero's radical groups whose policies could participation in several meetings best be described as ultraleft and sec­ called by the Chamber of Commerce to tarian, a stance that also leads them to press for immediate convocation of the adopt opportunist positions. Council of State, a legislative body These organizations fall into two whose original composition was heav­ categories:-those of Maoist origin; ily weighted toward the most conserva­ and those who consider themselves tive bourgeois sectors of the anti­ Trotskyist despite the fact that their Somoza front. political positions run directly counter The FSLN-led Junta of National to those of the Fourth International, Reconstruction has recently postponed the world Trotskyist organization. convoking the Council of State to May 1980 and has announced that it will be Sectarian positions "restructured" to reflect changes subse­ The group of most significance is the quent to Somoza's fall-generally in­ Movimiento de Acci6n Popular terpreted to mean alterations that will (MAP-People's Action Movement), give predominant representation to which leads a trade-union current mass organizations of workers, pea­ known as the Frente Obrero (FO­ sants, women, and youth that took Workers Front). The MAP originated part in the insurrection and have been in a 1971-72 split from the Sandinista expanding under the FSLN's leader­ National Liberation Front (FSLN). It ship since then. held pro-Peking positions until around By supporting the call for the imme­ 1977, when it became disillusioned diate convocation of the Council of with the Chinese Stalinists' ever more Militant/Gary Bridges State in its original form, the FO openly pro-U.S. imperialist position. 'Working people, Sandlnlsta power.' Ultraleft sectarians fall to recognize dynamic helped the bourgeoisie counterpose an Today the MAP considers both the relationship between the masses and FSLN leadership. unrepresentative, capitalist-dominated Soviet Union and China to be state parliamentary body to the Sandinista capitalist societies. It holds that Cuba they cannot understand why the FSLN El Pueblo has tried to partially ca­ Defense Committees (CDS) and other has had a socialist revolution but doesn't simply proclaim socialist de­ mouflage its basically anti-FSLN mass-based organizations. The bour­ suffers gravely from the negative influ­ crees that "set up" a workers state. stance, while heavily criticizing all the geoisie's aim was to gain a means of ence of the Soviet Union. The LMR, OST, and BF go further, real or imagined errors of the Sandinis­ slowing down or blocking the revolu­ In Nicaragua, the MAP expresses its presenting the view that the Sandinis­ tas. It tends to portray the regime's tion's progress and begin placing in views mainly through the pages of the tas are consciously following a course progessive measures as concessions question the legitimacy and sover­ Managua daily El Pueblo, where it has of class collaboration and seeking to granted solely because of mass pres­ eignty of the revolutionary govern­ preponderant influence on the editorial reconsolidate bourgeois rule in Nicara­ sure. ment. staff. gua.1 Thus, the Costa Rican OST's It doesn't recognize the dynamic The sectarians fell into this trap. The other component of the ultraleft newspaper, Que Hacer, explained that relationship between the masses and The LMR has presented itself as sectarian forces includes three small the banks were nationalized to deepen the FSLN leadership, who have shown "consistent revolutionary democrats," groups that call themselves the exploitation of the workers, and the themselves capable of learning from fighting for the immediate "convoca­ Trotskyist-the Liga Marxista Revolu­ Moreno-inspired El Socialista in Co­ and responding to mass initiatives tion of a constituent assembly." This is cionaria (LMR-Revolutionary Marx­ lombia even slandered FSLN militias that go beyond the immediate plans of similar to the MAP/FO's backing for ist League); the Nicaraguan supporters in the Atlantic port of Bluefields as the FSLN as it leads the class struggle the Council of State. In the current of the Organizaci6n Socialista de los "the watchdogs of Somozaism." forward. The insurrection itself was an situation in Nicaragua, a constituent Trabajadores (OST-Socialist Workers When the revolutionary government example of this. assembly would mean a step back from Organization) of Costa Rica; and the on August 25 ordered the withdrawal the process in which the existing mass Nicaraguan supporters of the from circulation of all 500 and 1,000 A bourgeois government? organizations can move toward Colombia-based Bolshevik Faction cordoba (US $50 and $100) banknotes, The sectarians' political stance has broader organization and begin taking (BF) led by Nahuel Moreno. and declared that their equivalent led them to press the ·revolutionary on increasing characteristics of organs Moreno's Nicaraguan followers are value would be turned back at the end government for concessions as though of workers and peasants power. the remnants of the Sim6n Bolivar of six months, the MAP's El Pueblo it represented the bourgeoisie. In their Brigade, which was organized in June carried a front-page story criticizing desire to appear to the left of the Campaign against ultralefts by the Partido Socialista de los Trabaj­ the measure and creating the impres­ FSLN, these groups tend to automati­ Impatience with the ultralefts' sec­ adores (PST-Socialist Workers Party) sion that the masses were against it. cally "up the ante" on any FSLN tarian blindness toward the real pros­ of Colombia. The brigade publicly pres­ In fact, it was aimed at the capital­ proposals, without regard for the real pects and problems of the revolution, ented itself as an armed unit of the ists who were hoarding funds and at needs and interests of the peasants and irritation at their often adventur­ FSLN but in fact rejected the FSLN's Somozaists in Honduras, El Salvador, and workers and the stage of the class ist actions in the countryside and the military discipline. When the brigade's and Miami who were selling their large struggle. nationalized workplaces, led the Sandi­ non-Nicaraguan leaders refused to call banknotes for dollars to Nicaraguans. For example, the ultralefts have nistas to launch a campaign against a halt to this criminal policy, the The workers and peasants supported encouraged campesinos on exprop­ the ultralefts in mid-September. FSLN expelled them from Nicaragua the measure overwhelmingly. What­ riated land to view the Nicaraguan In speeches by FSLN leaders and (see August 31, 1979, Militant). ever uneasiness there was dissipated Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA)­ articles in Barricada, the FSLN's daily All the ultraleft sectarians reject the immediately with the announcement which administers the land exprop­ newspaper, the ultralefts were lumped stance that, given the FSLN's record that all who had turned in 3,000 cordo­ riated from the Somozaists and is together with the counterrevolutionary up to now, no a priori limits should be bas or less would have their funds planning further steps against the Somozaists. Under the slogan "Control placed on how far decisive sectors of returned within three days-a provi­ landholding capitalists-as just Somocismo-Defend the Revolution," the FSLN can go as the revolution sion that obviously could not have another landlord. the CDSs were mobilized to be vigilant unfolds. Instead, the sectarians act on been made known beforehand without This is at a time when INRA is not only against right-wing terrorism the assumption that the FSLN cannot allowing the hoarders a means of pressing forward with plans to estab­ and the exploiters' sabotage but also lead the revolution forward to the sidestepping the measure's intent. lish democratic organizations on the against the sectarian groups. establishment of a workers state. But El Pueblo's editors could not small peasant communes and workers' An editorial in the October 2 Barri­ They charge that the Sandinistas even wait to check out the facts since administration on the big state farms, cada vowed to "smash" those "who are committing serious errors in the they thought they had an opportunity while providing technical and finan­ play with the interests of our workers, pace of anticapitalist actions and thus to discredit the FSLN. Once the criti­ cial aid to small farmers. take advantage of the freedoms offered making unwarranted concessions to cisms were proven to be groundless El In general, the ultraleft sectarians by the state and of the generosity of the capitalists. Pueblo lamely explained that the play on the objective problems facing this revolution ...." masses had forcen the refund. the revolution, seeking to place the The Milicias Populares Antisomo­ Mobilization of masses blame for them on the Sandinistas cista (MILPAS-Anti-Somoza People's The sectarians tend to view the abstracted from the framework of the Militias)-the MAP's armed wing 1. The world Trotskyist movement, the process of socialist revolution as result­ Fourth International, rejects these sectar­ massive destruction left by Somoza under the dictatorship-was accused ing from administrative decisions by a ian views and defends the Nicaraguan and the failure of the imperialist coun­ by the FSLN of participating in bank determined leadership, rather than the revolution. For example, see the statement tries to provide adequate reconstruc­ robberies and harassment of Sandi­ conscious mobilization of the toiling of the United Secretariat of the Fourth tion aid. nista army and militia patrols. The masses in anticapitalist struggle by a International published in Intercontinental Their sectarian stance has also led MAP has repeatedly asserted that the revolutionary leadership. As a result, Press! lnprecor, October 22, 1979, p. 1023. these groups into opportunist posi- Continued on next page

THE MILITANT/NOVEMBER 16, 1979 7 known as fighters against the dictator­ positions that are truly leftist. And all this sands and thousands of political ca­ ship. has only one road: showing the people the dres who will come out of the working­ ... FSLN contradictions of their own revolution and class movement itself, tempered in Continued from preceding page MAP/FO responds making all means available for their parti­ struggle and educated in debate. cipation. In this way we will be, in passing, MILPAS were disarmed and dis­ As the only ultraleft sectarian group The pro-Moscow Stalinists2 in Nica­ banded after July 19. with a certain base among the masses, fighting against the counterrevolution of the right. ragua; who had always attacked the MAP /FO was the central target of the FSLN itself for being "ultraleft," will Arrests FSLN's campaign. It began to respond In explaining the source of the coun­ continue to push in the direction of On October 9, army commander to the campaign in two ways. terrevolution, Poder Sandinista stated stifling workers democracy. Their at­ Humberto Ortega announced the ar­ First, it asserted its right to exist and the following: tacks are in reality aimed at the toiling rest of several Frente Obrero activists to present its ideas. El Pueblo began to Expropriating the Somozaists meant ex­ masses and at all revolutionists­ and El Pueblo staff members on suspi· carry articles explaining the need for including the FSLN-since their objec­ cion of illegal possession of arms. In propriating the biggest sector of the hour· workers democracy (thus implicitly geoisie and thus mutilating the bourgeoisie tive is to arrest the revolution at the subsequent days, some seventy FO casting aside some of its Stalinist as a whole and weakening it as a class. But "bourgeois democratic stage." Any members were detained throughout the conceptions). For example, Pablo Ruiz the bourgeoisie has no borders-the North policy of repression within the workers country. wrote in the October 25 issue: American bourgeoisie is also part of it. If movement would play into their hands. FSLN security chiefs would say only this bourgeoisie is going to strengthen the Differences inside the workers and peo· Equating Somozaism and counterrev­ that "investigations" were under way; interests of anyone in Nicaragua it will not pies movement are the problems of the olution with those under the influence be those of the workers and peasants. If no charges were brought. working masses. The state has no business of petty-bourgeois pressures and ideas U.S. imperialism could not defend its class In the city of Granada several LMR using force and coercion to impose a "solu· could also lead to an underestimation interest in Nicaragua with arms it will now members were arrested. LMR leader tion" or decide disagreements. This can try to do so with its economic and financial of the dangers posed by the real class Fernando Barzenas was detained twice only harm the people's movement and the might. enemy-both among the capitalists course of the revolution. The working who backed Somoza, those who op­ classes have the right to listen to the No reference was made in the article posed him for whatever reason, and various alternatives that different currents to the ultraleft sectarians being part of their powerful allies centered in the present so as to choose the one they con· the counterrevolution. sider most appropriate to their interest. United States. The Poder Sandinista article drew a As the class polarization deepens, it Letters of protest against the arrest favorable response from El Pueblo's will be the bourgeoisie that spearheads of FO members began to appear in El editors who quoted it at length October the counterrevolution, as Poder Sandi­ Pueblo. A few came from CDSs or 27 and expressed hope that it would be nista pointed out. union locals in neighborhoods or work­ "translated into practice as a general, The revolutionary leadership must places where the jailed activists were everyday means of handling problems be able to distinguish between those in known. or differences with the other progres­ the radical movement who operate On October 23, some 300 highway sive forces of this country. . . " within the framework of the revolution maintenance workers held a peaceful and those who-and there will be demonstration at Managua police Readiness for dialogue some-desert to the camp of the class headquarters to press for the release of These developments were followed enemy and carry out crimes against the FO prisoners or for verification of by a series of statements by FSLN the revolution. the charges against them. leaders indicating a willingness to deal This distinction was drawn by To­ The same day, a delegation of moth­ in a fraternal way with other organiza­ mas Borge in the October 28 speech ers of the detainees carried out a brief tions on the Nicaraguan left. In an cited earlier. While expressing open­ sit-in at the Red Cross headquarters. October 28 speech, Tomas Borge reiter­ ness to a discussion with the sectar­ The second aspect of the MAP/FO's ated a readiness for a dialogue with ians, he ruled out any such dialogue Militant/Lynn Silver response to the FSLN campaign was to "the sectors identified by their dog­ with "the sellout bourgeoisie, the So­ TOMAS BORGE: 'Jail Is not the best issue a call on October 10 in the name mas." mozaists, and other traitors to this place for a dialogue.' of the FO's Central Committee for a The following day, Comandante Dan­ process." "dialogue" with the Sandinistas, with iel Ortega told thousands of univer­ the aim of "publicly clarifying ... a sity students that "today we make a Problems are real in Managua, held briefly, and released. whole series of falsehoods and misin­ fraternal call for unity" around the The problems the Nicaraguan revo­ Carlos Petroni, an Argentine supporter terpretations arising from the develop­ CDSs and other mass organizations to lution faces are real. It is sometimes of the Bolshevik Faction, was also ment of our political line and orga­ the groups that "continue speaking as necessary to make tactical concessions arrested during this period. nized activities." the vanguard of the proletariat as if to the capitalists to avert economic The FSLN's repressive moves Along with this came certain modifi­ the FSLN has not been the vanguard reverses and premature confronta­ against the ultralefts were combined cations of the MAP /FO's political of the proletarians, of the workers and tions. with efforts to explain what was wrong stance. The Frente Obrero declared peasants of this country." The sectarian groups are wrong in with their policies. One example of this October 19, for example, that And on October 31, Comandante their tendency to view such necessary was a speech by Agrarian Reform in view of the fact that there are those who Wheelock publicly acknowledged that concessions as incorrect in principle. Minister Jaime Wheelock to campesi­ want to speak out from the tribune of the the MILPAS, the MAP's former armed They are a vital necessity in Nicara­ nos at the German Pomares Agricultu­ Council of State against the revolution and wing, had not been involved in any gua. At the same time, however, these ral Commune near Le6n. Wheelock against the working class . . . we share the attacks on the army. Confusion on this organizations can sometimes reflect in said: opinion that so long as each organization score, he said, had been due to counter­ a distorted way moods of sections of has not clearly defit¥d its intentions we revolutionary Somozaists trying to the masses. There are some elements that we call will not support the demand for its installa· pass themselves off as the MILPAS. In order to effectively lead the ultraleftists. This means those persons who tion. Wheelock affirmed that the MILPAS masses, the revolutionary vanguard want to cause problems for the revolution, should openly explain its considera­ making use of deceitful and opportunist Evolution of FSLN approach was a legitimate organization that had explanations of the difficulties we face. If By the last week of October, the participated in the armed struggle tions to the workers and peasants someone comes here and says, 'That tractor public campaign against the MAP /FO against Somoza. when it believes concessions are neces­ doesn't work; let's fight INRA and make and other sectarian groups had greatly On November 2, Frente Obrero sary. them give us three tractors,' and then the diminished, although dozens of their leader Marvin Ortega expressed opti­ An important part of this process of same person says the same thing at all the members were still detained. mism to Perspectiua Mundial that all interaction between the masses and other communes, they are going to cause a members of his grO\lP still detained their vanguard is politically confront­ very big problem for INRA because we An evolution in the FSLN's thinking was also becoming evident. On several would be immediately released. He ing the ultraleft sectarians, and ex­ don't have these tractors. plaining what is wrong with their So then, those individuals say we have occasions Comandante Tomas Borge said that a dialogue between the stated his belief that there were "hon­ Frente Obrero and the FSLN on the infantile proposals. Repression cuts betrayed the revolution. . . . Those ele­ acro.ss this political clarification, and ments want to provoke unnecessary prob· est people" among the ultraleft groups tasks and perspectives of the revolu­ !ems by defining INRA as the landlord. and that the FSLN was open to having tion had already begun and was mov­ makes it more difficult to win these INRA is an institution that has been estab· political discussions with them. "We ing forward. cadres to a genuinely revolutionary lished by the new state. It is the organiza­ think that jail is not the best place for No word was available as of No­ course. tion that is going to coordinate all agricul· a dialogue," Borge said October 22. vember 3 on the situation of four LMR Furthermore, the workers and pea­ tural production in Nicaragua. That The FSLN's Secretariat of Mass members who were still being held in sants will take initiatives that go signifies that we are concerned about the Organizations on October 23 dis­ Granada, or on the Argentine, Carlos beyond the leadership's immediate situation in the countryside. Petroni. plans. This is one of the keys to all But we are also concerned by these avowed and condemned a leaflet that had been circulated among many revolutionary uprisings and victories. groups that are sowing doubts among the Such initiatives might well coincide people in the countryside by saying that CDSs. The leaflet had called on neigh­ Need for workers democracy INRA and the Sandinista Front don't solve borhood residents to denounce and The FSLN's moves toward correct­ with some position or other of the the problems. In their plan, such elements keep under surveillance all "counterre­ ing its initial errors in the handling of ultralefts. But the leadership's capa­ are coinciding with the most reactionary volutionary individuals (Somozaists, differences with the sectarian groups city to respond positively to such initia­ elements of the bourgeoisie. Despite being MILPAS, Frente Obrero, Trotskyists)." are to be welcomed. tives to drive the process forward will at opposite extremes, the two are the same A major article on "Revolution and Combating capitalist sabotage and be a key element in the victory of the when the time comes for struggle against Counterrevolution" that appeared in reconstructing the country will require revolution. revolutionaries. the first issue (dated October 18) of an ever-widening exchange of view­ From Intercontinental Press/lnprecor The fundamentally correct political Poder Sandinista, the weekly paper of points within the camp of the workers and peasants over how best to move arguments the Sandinista leadership the FSLN Secretariat of Propaganda 2. The Stalinists in Nicaragua are rela· presented against what they termed and Political Education, explained forward or solve problems. tively few and are split into three separate the ultralefts' "economism," "infantile that "we need a conception that allows The greatest possible democracy and parties, but they do exercise some influence radicalism," and "opportunism" were us to unite the efforts of all the truly the cultivation of an atmosphere en­ in the trade unions and hold some secon· weakened and obscured by charges revolutionary tendencies." It urged the couraging the free and frank expres­ dary posts in the government. Two of these that these groups were "neo­ "impatient left" to "demonstrate to the sion of ideas can only strengthen the groups call themselves the Partido Socia­ Somozaists" or "the same thing as the people the guidelines of social partici­ revolution, the commitment of the lista Nicaragiiense (PSN-Nicaraguan So· counterrevolutionaries." pation in a country with the conjunctu­ masses to it, and the fullest expression cialist Party), the name originally taken by ral and structural characteristics such and utilization of the creativity and the Stalinist movement when it was One effect of this was to further founded in 1944. The third group is known weaken the FSLN's standing in some as ours.... " untapped talents of the workers and as the Partido Comunista de Nicaragua sectors of the population where the The article continued: peasants. (PCN-Communist Party of Nicaragua). Frente Obrero or other groups already . . . it is necessary to be clear in the sense It is also one of the best ways for the The PSN headed by Alvaro Ramirez has had a certain influence, since many of that the best way to fight the counterrevolu· leadership to judge the correctness of adopted a perspective of fusing with the the militants who to some degree fol­ tion is by making the revolution and the its course and tempo and to spot new FSLN; it is the only one with governmental lowed the sectarian leaders were best way to combat ultraleftism is by taking tasks. It will be the source of thou- positions.

8 2,000 march against .KKK in Dallas By Alan Epstein would have placed them right be- f !.· i¥ · DALLAS-"The days of being hind the Klan, vulnerable to attack stepped on are through. No Klan is from KKKers and cops. pushing me around!" said a young When this failed, the city tried to Black demonstrator. postpone the anti-Klan march and to The youth was part of a November water down its character. 3 demonstration of 2,000 here, called But antiracist organizers held firm to counter a Ku Klux Klan march in on their right to march, rejecting the city the same day. editorials in both daily newspapers While police in Greensboro, North to ignore the Klan. Carolina, allowed the Klan to The demonstration exceeded all murder five antiracist demonstrators expectations. The mood was one of the very same day, here the cops strength against the racist minority turned out in force to protect the in this city. KKK scum. Blacks and Chicanos initiated the Thirty-seven Klan members protest to answer the Klan and started their march, dwarfed by 600 racist abuse from city officials. The counterdemonstrators. Hundreds of Dallas school board has been rna- cops whisked the KKKers away to neuvering for twenty years to avoid an underground parking facility and desegregation. Recently the board from there they were then bused to has been on a campaign to expel another location. Spanish-speaking students whose Meanwhile, the counterdemonstra- parents are undocumented workers. Dallas anti-Klan demonstrators tion, organized by the Coalition for And a federal court has ruled that Human Dignity, swelled to 2,000. Dallas municipal voting districts The city council had tried from the deny Blacks and Chicanos equal who stood up to the racists," said a women's and gay organizations, an­ beginning to derail the mobilization representation. young Black marcher. "Now it's our tinuclear groups, and Catholic and against the racists. First, the council Many people on the march pasted turn too!" Jewish organizations. denied a permit for the anti-Klan bumper stickers on their backs read- Participants came from the The march dealt the racists a march, claiming it was illegal to ing "Santos lives." Santos Rodri- NAACP, Brown Berets, University heavy blow. And it gave all victims have two marches on the same day. guez was a twelve-year-old Chicano of Texas at Austin, North Texas of right-wing attacks here a renewed Then the city offered antiracist murdered here by the cops. State University, Socialist Workers conviction that working people in demonstrators a parade route that "In the past, it was the Spanish Party, Young Socialist Alliance, Dallas are on their side. ... were cops involved in Klan murders? Continued from front page eral weeks ago. dent told the Militant. "When the "Everybody's calling them a bunch of arresting one group of racists. Three of those murdered-Michael Klaners drove up, they were shouting, communists, but they were my broth­ Greensboro Police Chief W.E. Swing Nathan, William Sampson, and James 'Kill the niggers,' not 'Kill the com­ ers and sisters in the struggle.'' has admitted that the KKK vehicles Waller-were white. One, Cesar Cauce, mies.'" A bizarre feature of the shootout, were "under surveillance" as they en­ was Cuban, and one, Sandra Smith, The assault has left the Morningside which combined Klaners and well­ tered Greensboro. Some of those ar­ was Black. community in a state of shock. "I known Nazis, is a falling-out between rested drove from as far as Gastonia, Four were involved in union organiz­ walked around, and five feet in front of some ofthese two subhuman elements. seventy miles away. ing activity, three in textile mills and me there's someone with his skull In September, Ku Kluxers and Nazis Despite such knowledge, cops were one in a hospital. blown ·off. There's brains and guts and had joined in a United Racist Front. at least two blocks from the rally site One of the slain CWP leaders, James insides on the ground. People are But Winston-Salem Klan leader Joe when the shooting began. Swing has Waller, helped lead a strike at Cone screaming,'' one resident told the Mili­ Grady claims to have left the URF and since refused to reveal the source of the Mills Haw River plant in 1978. He was, tant. formed a new white supremacist group. information that prompted the police according to Amalgamated Clothing Outrage and anger in Greensboro's Grady fingered the Nazis as the surveillance. and Textile Workers Union spokesper­ Black community is widespread, and murderers and said there had been a Initially, police were present at the son John Kissick, victimized for his there is uniform condemnation of the hit list prepared in advance of the anti-Klan assembly site. But they with­ role in the strike. Klan-Nazi brutality. Much of the indig­ assassinations. drew before the massacre. "This was a SWAT-team-like assas­ nation is directed at the Greensboro Grady claimed that Raeford Caudle, Why? sination coup," Johnson told a No­ police. one of the arrested Klaners, told him Because, they assert, they encoun­ vember 5 news conference. "There were Rev. Leon White, chairman, of the prior to the shoot-out that he had been tered "hostility" from the demonstra­ 100 [people at the assembly], twenty­ Raleigh-based Commission for Racial informed who was on the November 3 tors! five who were in the party and about Justice, explained the sentiment at a hit list. Swing told reporters that the cops six who were leaders in the organiza­ November 5 news conference here. kept a "low profile" in response to tion. The gunmen knew who to kill "We can't understand why every demonstrator demands to keep out. before they got there." time Black people and poor people Behind-the-scenes force? At a news conference prior to the Dr. Page Hudson, North Carolina's stand up for their human rights that But behind the strange family feud event, called by the Workers Viewpoint chief medical examiner, confirmed the the police can never be found," he said. between terrorists may be a more pow­ Organization, the group sponsoring dead had been hit in the head or heart. The news conference included repre­ erful force. Johnson also told reporters that the sentatives of the American Civil Liber­ That force is the employers at the ties Union, who called for an investiga­ three Cone Mills textile plants where GREENSBORO, N.C. Nov. 7- starting point of the march had been changed after it had been publicly tion of police conduct independent of the slain CWP leaders worked. Police today admitted that two days announced on a leaflet. Only the Greensboro city officials. NAACP offi­ News reports indicate that they had before the anti-Klan rally, they pro­ Workers Viewpoint leadership and the cials have called for a federal investi­ been under employer surveillance on vided a copy of the rally permit, police, he said, knew the new starting gation of the incident. their jobs. In each case management including the precise location, to a personnel refused to comment on cor­ site. Victims red-baited man who identified himself as a How did the Klan killers know where porate spying. member of the KKK. to go? An emerging theme of the Greens­ This may be just the tip of the boro cover-up of potential police com­ iceberg. The Piedmont area in North plicity in the murders is to try to Carolina is the scene of a deepening the event, WVO leader Nelson Johnson Armed invasion minimize the horrifying crime by em­ battle between union-led organizing urged the cops "to stay out of our way" For Greensboro's Black residents, phasizing that the victims were "com­ drives and corporations that are wil­ and not to interfere. the assassination was an armed inva­ munists." ling to use any trick in the book to stop Johnson made plain that he was sion of their community. Bystanders · Rev. White effectively countered this the advance of the labor movement. making this demand because he was were hit. Several residents of the Morn­ McCarthyite effort. He condemned the The chief target of the employers is the concerned with the problem of police ingside community told the Militant witch-hunt rhetoric of the media and Teamsters, against whom a steady harassment of the demonstration. He of seeing a child bleeding from buck­ city officials. "We've got to find a way stream of red-baiting and charges of had no knowledge of the impending shot wounds in the mouth. to make sure that these brothers and inciting "violence" have been leveled. Klan attack. "I know one thing," an angry resi- sisters did not die in vain," White said. The November 3 attack also fuels the At 11:03, the morning of the march, ongoing media campaign to portray police logs confirm, Swing knew some­ the Klan as a rising organization, thing that Johnson and the demon­ whose alleged growth is aimed at strators didn't. demoralizing the fighting spirit of Eight cars carrying Klan and Nazi North Carolina workers, both Black members were swinging into the Black and white. community, soon to pick up a ninth The cold-blooded assault may have vehicle. They were on their way to done just the opposite, however. commit murder, and the cops let it One resident of the Morningside happen. community seemed to speak for many Johnson termed the murders "se­ when he told the Militant of his belief lected political executions." All five in police-Klan partnership. "If we step were leaders of the Communist out of line, the cops are here in a Workers Party. The Workers Viewpoint second," he said. "But I'll tell you this. Organization, a small, national Maoist If those Klaners get off, city hall will grouping, renamed itself the CWP sev- have hell on its hands," he said. THE MILITANT/NOVEMBER 16, 1979 9 N. Carolina workers outra ed by killings By Jon Hillson led organizing drives. GREENSBORO, N.C.-"It was an While not openly flying anti-union attack on all of us," the young white flags, the labor-hating Klan has be­ International Association of Machi­ come increasingly isolated by the or­ nists member said. ganizing battles whose victories are "It was just awful, it shouldn't have based on unity between Black and happened," said the older white white workers. woman, a member of the Teamsters In the plants and mills the most unwn. open Klan types are company men, "The cops got the Black Panther supervisors and foremen. Party, they got Malcolm X, but they One white worker, in a discussion won't get the Klan," said the thirtyish with co-workers, agreed about how bad Black worker, an lAM unionist. the Greensboro Klan assault was. As · It is Monday, November 5, the first he got up, a racist supervisor said the day back at work since Ku Klux demonstrators "got what they de­ Klanners and Nazis murdered five serve." The worker quickly nodded in anti-Klan demonstrators here. The agreement. main topic of discussion in area plants The bosses use this kind of intimida­ is the bloody attack. tion in an effort to maintain a climate Among Black workers, there is gen­ of disunity between Blacks and whites. eral condemnation of the murders and But it's a climate that's breaking down a clear perception that Greensboro's rapidly. cops participated in a set-up that al­ Klansmen take weapons from car moments before gunning down antiracist demon­ One Black unionist, a former em­ lowed the Klan-Nazi hit squad to carry strators. Only a tiny minority of white workers backs the Klan; even fewer condone ployee at the Newport News shipyard out the assassinations. its violence. in Virginia, and a supporter of the There are divisions among the white Steelworkers' organizing drive there, workers. But racist workers who back "The Klan is against everybody and inaction in Boston "makes these peo· said: "The Klan is and has been dis­ the Klan are in a distinct minority. everything progressive, not only ple [Klanners] bolder down here." rupting working people. We need to The overwhelming majority are out· Blacks," one Black lAM member said. Several Black workers talked about make sure everyone is aware of this raged at the killings. They, too, sense "They are against women, against the double standard of police protec­ terror in North Carolina." , police complicity in the brutal assault. labor. It's all of us at stake in· this." tion, noting how in Dallas, when A Socialist Workers Party member Several workers, members of the A group of Black workers at lunch Klanners were recently outnumbered said, "Workers are still confused by the Socialist Workers Party in Winston­ spent their break trying to convince a by anti-Klan protesters, the cops idea promoted by the capitalist Salem, described their discussions on conservative friend of theirs of the turned out in force on the side of the media-that the murders resulted from the job about the shootings. implications of the assault. "What if racists. some kind of 'left vs. right' gang war. "There are Klanners where I work," they [the Klan] attack our picket lines Despite the shock waves sent out by This idea is a pure fraud, designed to said Doug Cooper, an installer at if we have to strike? What side will you the murders, several Blacks emphas­ explain away what the Klan and the Bahnson Company, which is orga­ be on?" ized that things are different in the cops did. nized by the lAM. "Everybody knows South today. "But two things stand out. People One white worker at Bahnson, who it. But I didn't run across anybody who "It's better than in the 1960s," said a are shocked and angered and don't is also a farmer, supported the Klan supported the Klan action. Even those Black Teamster, a shop steward. think it should have happened. And, before the Saturday shooting. But the who felt there was blame on both sides "Then, it was just a Black thing. Now white or Black, people believe the cops massacre changed his mind. At a thought the shooting was an outrage." it's Blacks and whites getting to­ had a hand in it. Let the Klan do it, break on Monday, he joined in a dis­ One white worker put it this way. gether." and there's going to be a cover-up." cussion, arguing with a close friend "We pay taxes to keep up the police," "The Klan, its racist backers, have That's the way one temporary against the Klan. "The violence," he he said. "And they should protect eve­ less impact today," said a Black lAM worker at a local plant saw it as well. said, "is just too much." ryone." member, "because Blacks are more He was there to make some money, Another young white asked the ob­ At one break, the talk turned to the together and because whites under­ while spending his off-time on a picket vious question, "How many police are situation in Boston, "up South," where stand more. It's not like it was ten line at Halstead Metal, where the in the Klan?" white racist gangs have recently terro­ years ago." Teamsters are in the fourteenth week Even whites taken in by the Klan's rized Black students. "Look," said a What has forged this understanding of a strike. He was angered at the "white rights" sales pitch took their white worker, "they don't protect among whites is the growth of union attack, like the other workers. He distance from the murderous assault. school children there, so why should organizing drives in the open-shop, hoped the Klanners and Nazis "get life "People have a right to belong to it [the we expect it here?'' The worker, a right-to-work-for-less South. Here in imprisonment." Klan]," one such worker said, "but former member of the United Mine the Piedmont area, the bosses' para­ "If they don't," he said, "it will be an what they did was an outrage." Workers of America, said that police dise has become a center of Teamster- outrage." Pulley: 'Murderous attack on every worker' The following statement was re­ ticipating in a peaceful, legal protest. violence in the country than the coura­ Blacks is losing its appeal-shown leased November 6 by Andrew We should demand that President geous workers in the right-to-work-for­ most dramatically by labor's defeat of Pulley, Socialist Workers Party Carter open a full investigation of the less states like North Carolina-where the racist Weber suit in Louisiana. The candidate for president of the Uni­ killings and the cover-up that is now recent union organizing drives are Klan and other rightist groups, while ted States. occurring in their wake. breaking down the openshop bosses' increasing their violent attacks, are Working people in Greensboro and paradise despite goon attacks, spying, small and isolated. The November 3 assassination of around the country want to know the and intimidation from the employers. What is happening in the South five anti-Klan demonstrators in answers to these questions: Why did It is the success of these union today gives the labor movement confi­ Greensboro, North Carolina, was a the Greensboro cops leave the demon­ drives-like the victory of Steelworkers dence that we can stand up to scum murderous attack on the rights of stration just when they knew the racist in Newport News, Virginia, and like the Klan, we can isolate them, we every working person in this country. killers were on their way? Were they Teamsters at Hanes Dye and Finish­ can drive them out of existence. I urge the labor movement nation­ informed in advance of the murderers' ing Company in Winston-Salem, North Dallas anti-Klan forces demon­ wide, Black and other civil rights plans? Carolina-that the ruling class of this strated this November 3 in their march organizations, women's groups-every What about the FBI? Did it have country fears. And it is the determina­ against a handful of KKKers. Blacks decent human being-to unite to con­ agents in the Klan-Nazi hooligan tion of Black and white workers to and other opponents of racism have demn this massacre. We must stand up gang, just as it had agents in the fight together for the union that is similarly driven back the Klan in and call a halt to Ku Klux Klan and bombing of the Birmingham church in driving groups like the Klan into a Decatur, Alabama. Nazi violence and demand that the 1963 and the 1965 shooting of civil murderous frenzy. We-the labor movement and our murderous scum responsible for this rights worker Viola Liuzzo? The South of today is not the South allies-are the majority. In the wake of outrage be brought to justice. What about the owners of the textile of twenty years ago. The bosses' stra­ the Greensboro massacre we must If antiracist protesters can be mills in the area, such as Cone Mills? tegy of pitting white workers against stand up and let the world know it. gunned down in Greensboro with im­ They have admitted spying on their punity, rightist goons and company workers, including some of the victims thugs will be emboldened to step up of the November 3 attack, and have their attacks on Blacks, Latinos, picket used gun thugs to intimidate strikers. lines, and union organizing drives We must demand that all the FBI, SWP pledges solidarity across the country. state, and local police files be opened to The following telegram was anti-racist fighters, several of There should be an immediate outcry determine the full extent of the bloody sent to the Communist Workers whom were also trade unionists, is against the November 3 bloodbath­ conspiracy that has claimed the lives Party by Andrew Pulley and an attack on the entire labor move­ through telegrams, protest meetings, of five people. Matilde Zimmermann, Socialist ment. and rallies-by trade unions, Black Greensboro Mayor Jim Melvin, Workers Party candidates for We pledge to do everything in our and Latino organizations, women's backed up by the capitalist media, has president and vice-president. power to help mobilize the broadest groups, student organizations, and portrayed the KKK's murderous as­ possible protest to win the convic­ other defenders of civil rights. sault as just a "gang war" between the Sisters and Brothers, tion of the murderers; to force the city to drop the frame-up charges We must demand the arrest, prosecu­ left and the right. He has praised the We extend our fullest solidarity tion, and conviction of all those re­ role of his cops in the whole affair. against Nelson Johnson and Wil­ to you in the wake of the November lena Cannon; and to expose the sponsible for the murders. But the source of the violence on 3 murders of five of your leaders in We must demand the dropping of all role of the Greensboro police, FBI, November 3 in no way lies with those Greensboro, North Carolina. charges against the two anti-KKK who were protesting the racist, antila­ and other authorities in this mas­ survivors of the attack, who have been bor scum of the KKK. The brutal assassination of these sacre. arrested on frame-up charges for par- No one knows better the real root of

10 MONTHLY IIACIAZINE SUPPLEMENT TO THE MILITAI! NOVEMBER 1979

Trotsky, organizer of the Red Army, speaks in Moscow's Red Square in 1920 during civil war. The 11eaning of Bis Work for !odaJ As we celebrate the hundredth anniversary of Trotsky's try. birth, the world class struggle is unfolding at a rapid pace. Mass demonstrations in El Salvador threatened the U.S. History seems to be marking the occasion in an especially backed dictatorship this summer and fall and Washington fitting way. responded with a preventive coup. The struggle continues In The centenary year began with the massive revolutionary El Salvador as well as In neighboring Guatemala. upsurge in Iran. In Grenada, the popular struggle of the New Jewel Move­ Then in Nicaragua a guerrilla offensive and mass insurrec­ ment brought in a new government on March 13. tion in July over.hrew the U.S. backed Somoza dictatorship, More recently, demonstrations began again In South . and the revolution continues to march forward in that coun- Continued on next page (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW/PAGE 2)

misery of the masses of the semi-colonial world at imperialism's doorstep. The appearance of a new wave of revolu­ ... !rotskr 's Work tionists of action will not be limited to the Continued from preceding page semicolonial world. Such currents will appear Korea, answered by another preventive coup. also in the labor movements of the United Trotsky would have identified completely States, Europe, and Japan-an inevitable with the revolutionists of action who are product of the deepening crisis of world making history throughout the semi-colonial capitalism. world today. Trotsky would have welcomed such devel­ Trotsky himself was a man of action, a opments. He knew that any deepening of the central leader of the great Russian revolution class struggle would bring forward new revo­ and head of the Red Army which defeated the lutionary forces and leaderships. His stance reactionaries and imperialist armies in the_ would have been to fight shoulder to shoulder civil war that followed. with such forces, against the· class enemy And the tenacity and power of the struggles with the goal of winning them to a full taking place today would not have surprised understanding of Marxist ideas and of creat­ Trotsky. ing a mass revolutionary international made His attitude on this was made clear in the up of millions of such fighters. 1939 introduction to the Communist Mani­ Trotsky knew that the new generation of festo he wrote for publication in South Africa. revolutionaries, if they were to be successful, He endorsed Marx and Engels's exhortation: would need to base their struggles on the "The Communists everywhere support every theory of Marxism. They would have to learn revolutionary movement against the existing from the struggles of the revolutionary Marx­ social and political order of things." And he ists before them, most importantly from the added, "The movement of the colored races victorious struggle of the Russian Bolsheviks. against their imperialist oppressors is one of He saw the role of the Fourth International as the most important and powerful movements one of building mass revolutionary parties against the existing order and therefore calls which could bring the ideas and continuity of for complete, unconditional, and unlimited Marxism to a new generation, using these support on the part of the proletariat of the ideas as a guide to revolutionary action. white race." Revolutionary socialists today have the The revolutionary ideas and spirit of Trot­ opportunity to carry forward these tasks sky are alive today. They live not only in the under much more favorable conditions than ranks of the Fourth International, the world Action of Nicaraguan masses brought about over­ Trotsky faced. revolutionary organization Trotsky helped throw of hated Somoza dictatorship. And revolutionary socialists in the U.S. are found, but also among much broader layers no exception. of revolutionary fighters. The world economic crisis and the rise in Trotsky was first and foremost an interna­ know how to storm earth and heaven." international struggles are having an impact tionalist. His greatest and most heroic contri­ The revolutionary millions of Iran, Nicara­ throughout the capitalist world. In the U.S. bution to the workers movement came after gua, Indochina, El Salvador, southern Africa, e~nts are confirming Trotsky's prediction Lenin's death, with the rise of the Stalinist and Cuba-to name a few-are indeed show­ that the death agony of capitalism would of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, when he ing today that they "know how to storm earth necessity begin to deeply effect and awaken championed the revolutionary internationalist and h~aven!" Although only a small number the working class in the heartland of imperial­ positions of Lenin against Stalin. He was of these millions are part of the Fourth ism. exiled, maligned, attacked, and eventually International, significant new forces are re­ There are important new winds blowing in killed by the Stalinists as a result of this viving the revolutionary internationalist tradi­ the American trade union movement, show­ struggle. During his exile he was also at­ tion of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky. ing a greater desire to fight back against tacked and hounded by the imperialist gov­ The Sandinista National Liberation Front in attacks on the workers' standard of living and ernments, which refused him asylum. Nicaragua, the revolutionary Cuban govern­ a greater readiness to take up social issues in During the 1930s Trotsky witnessed one ment and revolutionary masses from Grenada the unions. defeat of the revolutionary movement after to Iran-all these are exhibiting attitudes of The new attitudes of internationalism and another due to Stalinist betrayals. He saw the revolutionary internationalism and all are on interest in worldwide issues seen in other rise of fascism in Germany, the murder by the front lines of the struggle against impe­ countries also affect American workers. Black Stalin of an entire generation of Bolshevik rialism. people in the U.S. identify increasingly with leaders in the Soviet Union, the defeat of the On the part of the Cubans, this internation­ the plight of the Palestinians. Caribbean and Spanish revolution and the opening salvos of alism is not new. After the victory of the Latino populations are showing sympathy for World War II. revolution in Cuba, the Cuban leadership anticapitalist movements in their home coun­ He analyzed these defeats, explaining that immediately began to inspire others in Latin tries. The U.S. Cuban community has opened the Stalinist Communist parties were sacrific­ America to follow their example. During the up a dialogue with the Cuban government. ing the needs of revolution to the desire of Vietnam war, the Cubans sought to build the And, most important, the masses of American the Soviet bureaucracy for deals with imper­ greatest possible solidarity with Vietnam, working people staunchly maintain the strong· ialism. He devoted all his strength to building offering aid and proclaiming the need to antiwar attitude and suspicion of U.S. foreign a new world revolutionary movement, with an create "two, three, many Vietnams." · policy initially brought about by the Vietnam internationalist perspective. And he had an In the past -several years, the Cubans have war. unswerving conviction that the workers moved out again in a particularly bold and Largely because of Trotsky's role in helping movement would break free of the domina­ inspiring way due to openings provided by to educate and guide the founders of the tion of the Stalinists and Social Democrats, the victory in Vietnam and the rise in the Socialist Workers Party in the U.S., a revolu­ that new revolutionary leaderships would be world class struggle. They are aiding revolu­ tionary party exists in this country preparing built. tionary efforts throughout the semicolonial to meet the challenges of the struggle ahead. At the time of the founding of the Fourth world, most importantly in Nicaragua. And at Trotsky's revolutionary ideas will be impor­ International in 1938 Trotsky predicted, "Dur­ the Non-aligned conference in Havana, and tant weapons in these struggles. And his ing the next ten years the program of the more recently at the United Nations Fidel revolutionary example will serve as an inspi­ Fourth International will become the guide of Castro championed the struggles of the ex­ ration for revolutionary fighters in the battles millions and those revolutionary millions will ploited and oppressed and laid blame for the to come. COITBITS

Trotsky's Contributions to The Meaning of Trotsky's Marxist Theory Editor: Fred Feldman Work for Today ...... 1 Editorial Board: George Breitman. By George Novack ...... 5 Catarina Garza, Cindy Jaquith, Bruce Levine, Omari Musa, George Trotsky: A Life Shaped by Trotsky's Writings: A Treasure Novack, Dick Roberts, Cathy Sed­ Confidence in the Chest of Marxist Ideas wick Working Class By Duncan WiiHams ...... 12 The lnternattonal Socialtst Review ap­ By Harry Ring ...... 3 pears in the Milttant that is published the first week of every month.

Copyright ~1979 The Militant

12 rNOVEMBER 1.979) (PAGE 3/INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW) Leon !rotskr: l Life Shaped bJ Confidence in the Working Class

By Harry Ring

For those who are determined to change the world, Leon Trotsky's life is well worth learning about. It offers a model for working-class fight­ ers. When you first think about it, the idea of Trotsky as a model for working people may seem a bit unreal. He was a man of genius whose revolutionary accomplishments were staggering. And his personal life-filled both with triumphs and the cruelest setbacks-has an epic quality. But there was a consistent pattern to Trotsky's life. A pattern that made possible his enormous accomplishments and carried him through adver­ sity. Trotsky was won to Marxism in his late teens. He became convinced that capitalism must and will be abolished. He became equally convinced that the workers of the world were the ones who would lead in accomplishing that great mission. He never wavered from that conviction. His life was imbued with revolutionary confi­ dence in the future of humanity. For him, the life of a revolutionary socialist was the key to the greatest fulfillment for an individual human being. Whatever the hardship, total devotion to the revolutionary cause was the richest kind of personal life. This is the aspect of Trotsky's personal life that is so relevant for revolutionary-minded working people. Trotsky speaking to revolutionary soldiers In Moscow In 1917

A Towering Figure His parents, by dint of unrelenting struggle, They did. Along with Marx, Engels, and Lenin, Trotsky became relatively prosperous small farmers. Their successes astonished them. There were was one of the towering revolutionary figures of The house he was born in had a straw roof and shipyard workers and others who responded our time. some of the rooms had dirt floors. It was not until quickly and became part of a clandestine group He was a gifted, prolific writer. He was also he was seventeen that a tin roof was installed. that grew into a significant organization, the one of the great orators of his time. As with many middle-class youth, his early South Russian Workers Union. At age twenty-six, he was a central leader of surroundings helped to form his radical outlook. In 1898, Trotsky was caught in a police crack­ the Russian revolution of 1905, serving as chair­ He saw the suffering and privation of the land­ down. He was jailed for two years and then person of the St. Petersburg workers council, or less peasants who came to work the harvest on banished to Siberia. soviet. his father's and neighboring farms. He saw how Prison and exile were his political university. Twelve years later, he was co-leader, with his father, although less grasping than average, He studied everything at hand, particularly Lenin of the victorious 1917 socialist revolution. exploited these workers. All of the injustices of Marxist literature. He deepened his grasp of He 'organized and led the Red Army, which country life were burned into his consciousness. Marxist theory and wrote studies applying the successfully fought off Russian counterrevolu­ Sent to the city to attend school, he proved a Marxist method to historical and sociological tionaries and foreign imperialist troops. gifted student. phenomena. When the beleaguered Soviet state began to fall He loved learning, but he was turned off by into the grip of a privileged Stalinist bureau­ most of his teachers. Turning to Workers cracy, Trotsky fought for a return to the working­ In My Life, Trotsky wryly observes that "the Meanwhile, his early experience with the class policies of Lenin and for the socialist percentage of freaks among people in general is workers stood him in good stead. democracy of the first years of the revolution. very considerable, but it is especially high among Often people who come to the workers move­ Defeated in that fight and driven into exile, he teachers." ment from middle-class backgrounds are una­ moved to build a new revolutionary socialist Although he was a star pupil, he quickly found ware how much of this society's prejudice they international, the Fourth International. himself at loggerheads with his teachers. He have absorbed about workers, seeing them as Trotsky spent nearly half of his life in prison, rebelled against the abuses they visited upon the limited intellectually and unable to comprehend in Siberian exile, and in enforced emigration. pupils. And, with his keen mind, he could not complex political ideas. During his last years in exile, he suffered the abide the obvious inconsistencies and irrationali­ Trotsky seemed free of such prejudice from the loss of all four children. ties of so many of their views. outset. He had the healthiest respect for the One daughter died of tuberculosis. A second Trotsky's entry into the illegal radical move­ workers he became involved with and he soaked committed suicide. One son vanished in a_Stalin­ ment of the time suggests there wasn't too much up all he was able to learn from them. ist concentration camp. The other, who had new about the "new left" of the 1960s. He and a His studies of Marxism generalized that appre­ become Trotsky's close political collaborator, half-dozen like-minded friends moved into a died suddenly in Paris with all evidence pointing ciation. He came to the deepest understanding commune, distributed useful books among the that the job of leading the liberation of humanity to Stalinist killers. people, fought on such issues as increased library Many of his closest personal friends and politi­ from capitalism rested with the working class. fees, and for a period established a free univer­ That it alone had the social power and capacity cal associates suffered the same bloody fate. sity of twenty students. Yet, with all these savage blows, Trotsky never, to do the job. Trotsky soon came to grips with Marxism, then From then on, Trotsky was a member and a lost his socialist perspective. a rising current in Russia. Initially he argued In 1940, he died at the hands of a Stalinist lea'Cier of the working class and in this allegiance against it, asserting it was "too complete" a he never wavered for a moment. assassin. He went to his death voicing confi­ theoretical system. Before long he was won to it. In Siberia he joined the Social Democratic dence in the socialist future. In 1896, when Trotsky was seventeen, there Siberian Union, an affiliate of the Russian Social It's an exciting experience to read his autobio­ was a big labor upsurge in Russia. This in turn Democratic Labor Party, the principal socialist graphy, My Life. Few novels can match it. gave new impetus to the student movement. organization. A Radical Youth And for those radical students who were serious about revolutionary change came the Peasants in the Siberian villages, as well as Trotsky was born into a rural middle-class realization that it was time to go beyond discus­ political exiles, were being won to socialism. But Jewish family. His name was Lev Davidovich sion and debate. the impact was limited. Bronstein. The name Trotsky was assumed dur­ Trotsky recalls his decision. Walking down the Trotsky wrote in My Life, "The revolutionary ing a political escape from Siberia. street with another member of his commune, he movement had spread far and wide, but it still said, "It's about time we started." lacked unity. Every district and every town was Harry Ring is a member of the National Commit­ "Yes, it's about time," the other youth an­ carrying on its individual struggle. Czarism had tee of the Socialist Workers Party. He is the swered. "But how?" the invaluable advantage of concerted action." author of 'How Cuba Abolished Race Discrimina­ "We must find workers," Trotsky said, "not The Siberian socialists began to focus on this tion,' published by Pathfinder Press, and a staff wait for anybody or ask anybody. Just find problem. Trotsky wrote a pamphlet on the need writer for the 'Militant.' workers, and set to it." · fov creating a centralized party to. weld the

13 (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW/PAGE 4)

destination, Trotsky escaped his jailers and final deciding factor in the inescapable world again made his way out of the country. showdown between imperialism and all the op­ A decade later, he was to return to join with pressed. Lenin in leading history's first successful social­ In My Life, he wrote of his stay here and his ist revolution. departure. "I was leaving for Europe," he said, "with the feeling of a man who has had only a Trotsky in the United States peep into the foundry in which the fate of man is During the years of exile, Trotsky continued to be forged." his socialist work, editing, writing, speaking, Meanwhile, Trotsky threw himself into forging organizing. the victorious Russian revolution. Escaping Russia, he went to Vienna, from there to Switzerland, and then to France. With A Bolshevik Leader the outbreak of World War I, he was expelled He found himself in full political agreement from France and found himself in New York. with Lenin, who was providing the leadership in Trotsky was an internationalist. He opposed taking the revolution beyond anti-czarism to­ all the imperialist powers in World War I, view­ ward the abolition of capitalism. ing the war as a bloody crime against working The Mensheviks-in the name of democratic people. This separated him definitively from the capitalism, which they presented as the outer Mensheviks, most of whom were inclined to limit of the revolution-sought to stifle the up­ defend the czarist "fatherland," and drew him surge, even resorting to repression against the closer to Lenin. workers. Their policies would have led to a In New York, he plunged into revolutionary bloody counterrevolution (a recent example of a work. There was a big Russian emigre commun­ similar course was that of the Allende govern­ ity and a daily paper, Novy Mir (New World). ment in Chile). When the workers and peasants Trotsky wrote for the paper, served as editor, triumphed in October, the Mensheviks fought on and, with his reputation as an orator, was much the side of the monarchists, landlords, capital­ in demand for speaking. ists, and foreign armies to try to crush the He was here but two months. The revolution revolution. Events had confirmed that Lenin's fight in struggles into a cohesive whole. 1903 had stemmed from a profound recognition It was at that time that he read Lenin's now on his part that opposition to building the kind of classic pamphlet, What Is to Be Done. It was granite-hard party needed to lead a victorious devoted to precisely this theme. socialist revolution led to rejecting the perspec­ tive of making such a revolution. Debate Over the Party Trotsky recognized that in 1917, joined the Lenin explained why socialists had to build a Bolsheviks, and remained one from then on. strong centralized party; why they needed a In My Life, Trotsky summed up concisely widely circulated national newspaper rather where he had gone wrong on Bolshevism vs. than numerous local ones; why it would be a Menshevism. disaster for socialists to limit themselves to "At the time of the London Congress in 1903, economic issues in the unions and why they revolution was still largely a theoretical abstrac­ could and must win workers to their socialist tion to me. Independently I still could not see program. Lenin's centralism as the logical conclusion of a Trotsky read that and decided he was wasting clear revolutionary concept." his time in Siberia. He made a dramatic escape. Like 1905, the revolution that began in Feb­ He made his way to Europe in 1902 and, on ruary 1917 was initially anti-czarist. The work­ Lenin's initiative, went to London to join the ers again emerged as a central force and a staff of Iskra (Spark), the publication circulated network of soviets developed that constituted a by Russian socialists from abroad. dual power to the capitalist government led by When Trotsky, then twenty-three, began work­ Kerensky. ing on Iskra with Lenin and other leaders of the Russian party a split was develQping in the organization. The split took place at the under­ Fighting for Socialism ground party's second convention, held in Lon­ In the soviets, the Bolsheviks, under Lenin and don in 1903. Trotsky, fought for the workers to take power Lenin argued that in the conditions of Russian into their own hands. There were ebbs and flows illegality, the party had to have a highly central­ in the struggle, but by October 1917, the Bolshe­ ized, full-time leadership staff, what he called viks had won a majority in the Soviets. "professional" revolutionaries. Membership, he Trotsky was again selected as chairman and in argued, had to be strictly on the basis of commit­ early October the Kerensky government, which ment to the program and willingness to work no longer had the support of the workers and actively as members of and under the direction of peasants, was dispersed. The Soviets became the established party units. Trotsky arrives at Petrograd station In May 19171n first workers and peasants government. Others saw this as needlessly stringent and midst of Russian revolution. That, of course, was only the beginning of the favored a more modest basis for membership. new stage of the revolution. The workers' power The party congress split into two factions. The Continued on page /SR/10 Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, and the Mensheviks, broke out in Russia and Trotsky took the first led by Martov. (That strange-sounding word, boat home. "bolshevik," simply means "majority," and Brief though it was, his stay in the United "menshevik," "minority.") States had an important effect on his thinking. Initially Trotsky sided with the Mensheviks. Soon after, he separated from them, taking an While totally immersed in his activities, independent stand in favor of reuniting the two Trotsky also made time to utilize a New York factions. library to study the economic history of the United States. He said he was "astounded" to see He remained independent of the Bolsheviks and the extent of the growth of U.S. exports during Mensheviks until the revolution of 1917, when he the war. became completely persuaded of the validity of He left New York with the hope that he might Lenin's fight for the kind of party capable "of some day return. This was, of course, an unfilled leading a workers revolution. hope. Even after his murder by Stalin, the U.S. Two years after the 1903 split, a revolution government refused to permit his body to be broke out in Russia. Sparked by a vast upsurge of brought from Mexico for a funeral here. workers struggles, that revolution set out to Trotsky's fascination with the U.S. stemmed topple the czar. The still young Russian working from his realization that it had become the class played a key role throughout, with the imperialist superpower whose further course of formation of delegated workers councils-the development would play a decisive part in world soviets-being the crowning accomplishment. politics. In 1926, he elaborated his view of the Returning from exile, Trotsky quickly became changed relationship of imperialist forces in his a central figure. He was elected to the executive pamphlet, Europe and America, in which he committee of the powerful St. Petersburg soviet predicted how the European imperialist nations and then elected its chairperson. would be reduced to the role of junior partner of The revolution itself did not have the strength American imperialism. to carry through to victory. After several months, He saw that the power of American imperial­ the czarist troops succeeded in crushing the ism derived from the unrivaled power of its soviets. Reaction and political persecution set in. productive machine and its huge industrial work­ Fifty-five members of the St. Petersburg Soviet ing class. were tried for treason. A highlight of the trial was Trotsky's speech from the stand, defending And while he saw the rising power of U.S. the revolution and the Soviet. capital, he saw too the enormous and ultimately Trotsky's 'My Life,' published by Pathfinder Press, He was again banished to Siberia. decisive potential of the American working class. vividly presents Trotsky's experiences and Ideas Before he even arrived at his final Siberian It would, he repeatedly explained, prove to be the up to 1929, the year It was completed.

14 (NOVEMBER 1979) (PAGE 5/INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW) Leon !rotskJ'S Contributionsto arxismo By George Novack

This is the year of Leon Trotsky's hundreth anniversary. He was born on November 7, 1879. This date coincided with that of the October insurrection which brought the Bolsheviks to power and which he led as president of the Petrograd Soviet. Trotsky stated in his autobio­ graphy that he first noticed this odd coincidence only three years after 1917. Trotsky was one of the most many-sided per­ sonalities of the twentieth century. He was no less a man of innovative thought than of revolu­ tionary action. While he was organizing and commanding the Red Army, which fought for three years on twenty-one fronts, he wrote a series of incisive polemics against the critics and foes of the young Soviet Republic. He drafted an account of the events of the Russian revolution while negotiating with the Germans at Brest Litovsk as the first Commissar of Foreign M­ fairs. After writing the finest literary criticism any Marxist has produced, he went on to become head of all Soviet scientific institutions. From the time he joined a circle of young opponents of czarism in South Russia in 1898 to his murder by an agent of Stalin in Mexico in 1940, Trotsky's life was marked by stirring and dramatic incidents, with sudden ascents to the heights of power followed by precipitous drops into exile, persecution, and, finally, assassina­ tion. Trotsky was arrested at an early age for his activities against the czar. He was deported to Siberia, and later escaped to Western Europe to work with Lenin and Plekhanov. He returned to Russia in 1905, the year of the first, though abortive, Russian revolution. He became the moving spirit of the St. Petersburg Council of Workers Delegates, the first soviet in history. Again arrested, convicted, and exiled by the czar's government, he escaped to Western Eu­ rope. He came back to Russia from the United States eleven years later, after the czar's overthrow. In July 1917 he was arrested by the Kerensky government and elected president of the Petro­ grad Soviet after his release. He prepared and led Lenin and Trotsky at the Second World Congress of the Communist International in 1920. Trotsky wrote the October insurrection and served as Commis­ key resolutions of the first four congresses of the Comintern and the manifestoes Issued by the first five sar of War from 1918 to 1925. He was the author congresses. of all the manifestoes of the first five congresses the man of action, leader of a revolution, master gave the theory its first systematic exposition in of the Communist International and many of the of insurrection, war leader, cofounder with Lenin 1905-06 as a result of his analysis of Russia's documents of the first four. of the Third International, and later founder t>f peculiar social structure and his insight into the He took up the struggle in opposition to the the Fourth International. My theme is not Trot­ dynamics of the 1905 revolution. Stalin faction within the CP leadership that was sky the doer but Trotsky the thinker, the analyst begun by Lenin before his death. This caused of history and society, the Marxist politician and Trotsky's deportation first to Siberia and then to theoretician. Permanent Revolution Turkey in 1929. During his third exile he moved This theory flowed from a recognition of two It to France, Norway, and finally Mexico. He was is difficult to do justice to this subject. historical facts. The transition from precapitalist Trotsky was the most prolific writer of the accused of infamous crimes in the Moscow Trial to capitalist conditions had proceeded with ex­ Marxist movement. His pen was continuously frame-ups and sentenced to death in absentia. treme uneveness in different countries and conti­ active for over four decades. Thirteen volumes of Stalin's murderous edict was carried out while nents and this disparity of economic and social his collected works were published in the Soviet Trotsky was working on his last book, an accusa­ development entailed epoch-making political con­ Union up to his ouster from the leadership in tory biography of Stalin. sequences. It would direct the twentieth century 1926. A complete collection of his writings would These are but a few of the turning points in his revolutions along a fundamentally different path total four or five times that number of volumes. career. You can read fuller accounts in his than the revolutions of the preceding epoch. autobiography, My Life, and in the trilogy by He commented on almost every significant politi­ Isaac Deutscher. cal event and question during his adult years. From the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries the first-born countries of capitalism in However, I propose to speak not about Trotsky, So I must be very selective. I will focus on five aspects of his thought which seem to me most Western Europe and North America, such as the George Novack is a Marxist philosopher, a valuable, pertinent, and enduring. These are his Netherlands, England, France, and the United leader of the Socialist Workers Party, and a celebrated theory of the permanent revolution; States had, as a result of their advanced eco­ member of the editorial board of the 'Interna­ the law of uneven and combined development; nomic and social development, gone through colossal revolutionary upheavals that refa­ tional Socialist Review.' his conception of the nature of Stalinism; his Novack met Trotsky while helping organize views on the Black struggle in the United States; shioned their social systems along capitalist the Commission of Inquiry into the Charges and, last but not least, the evolution of his lines and more or less organized their political Against Leon Trotsky, headed by the philosopher position on the revolutionary party. Even so, I structures in accord with bourgeois democratic specifications. and educator John Dewey. The commission am leaving out such irreplaceable contributions proved that the charges laid against Trotsky in as his analysis of fascism. The nations of East Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin the Moscow Trials were a frame-up. The phrase "the permanent revolution" is America, and the Middle East were hardly drawn Novack has written many books explaining, better known than . its content is understood. into this renovation. They had yet to win the defending, and applying the Marxist outlook of Although both the term and its meaning can be national independence and unity, the moderniza­ dialectical and historical materialism. These found in some of Marx's writings, and was tion of their institutions, the large-scale reform of include 'Understanding History,' 'Polemics in anticipated before him by the Babeuvists of 1795 agrarian relations, and the democratic parlia­ Marxist Philosophy,' and 'Democracy and Revo­ during the decline of the French revolution, it is mentary regimes won in the West. lution.' All are published by Pathfinder Press. rightly and inseparably linked with Trotsky. He There was an organic connection between this

15 (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW/PAGE 6) (NOVEMJ

Trotsky understood that semlcolonles would be able to achieve development, abolish poverty, and end Imperialist domination only through socialist revolutions. Abovt> after the collapse of U.S.-domlnated regime on April 30, 1975.

underdevelopment of the nations _historically ment of national autonomy and unity, agrarian accomplishments would promote the most rapid retarded in economic and social respects and the reform, secularization (separation of church from growth of the economy and lead to lifting the more favorable conditions among the major state), the elimination of precapitalist relations standards of consumption and culture, the over­ capitalist powers. That fatal link was the rise of of production, the creation of a democratic state coming of inequalities, the liberation of women, the colonial system which formed a cornerstone capped by industrialization. These tasks had enlargement of democracy on all levels, the of commercial and industrial capitalism and was been undertaken and solved with varying de­ gradual elimination of the differences between buttressed by imperialism. Foreign capital grees of success under the leadership of radical mental and manual labor and between the city reaped advantages from the primitiveness of and liberal elements of the bourgeoisie of the and countryside, the uprooting of alienation in czarist Russia, while the colonies were not so West during their heyday when commercial and social life, and the removal of the gap between much underdeveloped as superexploited. The industrial capitalism flourished. the rich and the poor nations, about which much very global expansion of capitalist enterprises However, the forms of bourgeois life and labor is said but so little done nowadays. that spurred the bourgeois democratic move­ had been stifled and stunted in the backward These desired objectives could be attained in ments that came to power in the West inhibited and colonized areas while remaining yoked to­ only one way: by extending the world revolution and prevented the growth and success of demo­ gether with precapitalist survivals and even through the establishment of workers power in cratic movements in the colonial world. revivals, like chattel slavery. Because of their the most advanced countries where the most mangled and meager development and fear of highly developed productive forces and the seats Dynamics of Underdevelopment the upsurge of the workers and poor peasants on of imperialist power were located. Consequently, at the beginning of the twen­ their own behalf, the local bourgeoisies within tieth century, the bulk of humanity living in the these countries had no capacity for shouldering Combined Revolution backward and semicolonial countries were beset the gigantic tasks of revolution and leading the Second, the fight for bourgeois-democratic by two crucial questions: "How did we fall under popular masses in all-out struggle against impe­ rights and the struggle for workers power, one the subjugation of imperialism and how can we rialism for a thorough renovation of the old belonging to the dawn and the other to the get out of it?" Trotsky's major theoretical discov­ regimes along democratic lines. sunset of capitalist society, had to be carried out eries dealt with these questions. The law of by an alliance of the workers and peasants in uneven and combined development explains the Decisive Role of Workers mortal combat against the power and property of reasons for the first condition and the theory of Trotsky arrived at his highly original conclu­ the unholy alliance of the native bourgeoisie, the permanent revolution is the key to the mode of its sions through a concrete analysis of semifeudal, precapitalist exploiters, and the foreign imperial­ elimination. semicapitalist Russia and the dynamics· of- the ists. class forces disclosed during the defeated 1905 The two components could not be separated in The bourgeois-democratic struggles against revolution. On the basis of these events he set time or space; the one grew over into the other as outdated forms of feudal, clerical, slave-holding, forth the following propositions: the revolution deepened. The historical opposites and monarchical sovereignty and their precapi­ The liberal bourgeoisie had become impotent were integrated in dialectical dependence. This talist property relations had already been carried and politically bankrupt; when the chips were conception of the revolutionary process and its to conclusion in the plutocratic countries. But it down it would go over to counterrevolution. The socialist strategy for czarist Russia-projected by had been postponed to the point of almost intoler­ peasantry and anti-czarist intelligentsia could Trotsky in 1906 and indicated as early as his able urgency in the greater part of the planet. play significant but only auxiliary roles in the writings of 1904-was put to the test in 1917. It This posed the problem: how were these peoples revolutionary process. The sole available candi­ was adopted in principle by Lenin upon his to catch up with the more privileged and wealthy date for revolutionary leadership that could carry return from exile in April and guided the Bol­ Western metropolises whose ruling classes ex­ the struggle for democratic demands through to sheviks' policy leading to their victory in Oc­ ploited and dominated them? the end was the proletariat, a new class that was tober. Many mistakenly believed that the countries the special product of the industrial revolution. The experience in China in the mid-1920s, which had yet to be modernized would follow in Thus the unique alignment of social forces where Stalin's policy of supporting the leader­ the footsteps of their Western forerunners and go produced by the whole preceding evolution of ship of the national bourgeoisie as the natural forward to liberal democracy under capitalist world capitalism had prepared the conditions, leader of the democratic revolution ended in rule. This still prevails as the propaganda line in Trotsky deduced, for an interpenetration of suc­ disaster, convinced Trotsky that it was not official, reformist, and academic circles. cessive historical stages in twentieth century limited to Russia but was valid for all the However the backward and semicolonial na­ Russia. This correlation had two major aspects. economically backward countries. tions could not duplicate the process of revolution First, because the anticapitalist working class The validity of its essential ideas has been experienced by their predecessors precisely be­ was the paramount political force guiding the positively vindicated since World War II by the cause they had been forced into a different upheaval, the democratic tasks appropriate to a course and outcome of the Yugoslav, Chinese, pattern of evolution. Neither in their economic belated antifeudal revolution inevitably became Cuban, and Vietnamese revolutions. It is being nor their political development could they repro­ intertwined with the tasks of the socialist revolu­ tested anew in Iran and Nicaragua today. duce with some delay and minor variations the tion. This conception has found confirmation in the models provided by the imperialist exploiters. 'These included the conquest of power by the negative by the inability of those colonial peoples The theory of permanent revolution clarified proletariat at the head of the insurgent masses; that have not combined their struggle for na­ the reasons for this anomaly. The roles of the the abolition of capitalist private property; gua­ tional sovereignty with a victorious onslaught social classes were to be vastly different in the ranteeing of self-determination to oppressed na­ against capitalist property and power to achieve declining senior stage of capitalism than they tionalities; the collectivization of agricultural either a stable and durable democratic regime or had been in its progressive junior ones. production; the creation of a planned economy an escape from the yoke of imperialism. Witness The main tasks of the democratic revolution in and the state monopoly of foreign trade crowned the Iranian revolutionary upsurges of 1906 and the bourgeois era were as follows: the achieve- by the institutions of socialist democracy. These 1945-53. And witness the continent of Latin

16 'R 1979) (PAGE 7/INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW)

•t, Nicaraguan revolutionary army drills; center, Iran masses pour Into Tehran streets for May Day march; right, VIetnamese liberation fighters move Into Saigon

America from Mexico to Argentina and Chile. balanced, and symmetrical but characterized by of the total process. The disproportionate devel­ In addition to illuminating the road to power extreme irregularities of all kinds at every step opment among the diverse sections of society and and liberation from imperialism, the theory of along the way. One of the most dramatic instan­ the various factors of social life has a very permanent revolution involves two further ces of this disparity took place when the aborigi­ important consequence. The contact and coexist­ theses. One asserts that while the revolutionary nal inhabitants of North America were brought ence of features belonging to earlier stages of forces can be victorious in a single backward face to face with the white invaders from Europe. development with those at a later level of devel­ country without waiting for any others, as hap­ At this juncture, two completely separated opment provide the possibility for the merger of pened in Russia-in 1917-18 and Cuba in 1959-60, routes of social evolution, the products of some elements belonging to both in a combined forma­ the revolutionary process cannot be confined thirty thousand years of independent growth in tion. These hybrids deviate from the normal type within the borders of a single country. It cannot the New World and the Old, encountered and and exhibit pronounced peculiarities because of realize its basic aims nor can its full program be came to grips with each other. People living in their highly contradictory character. consummated in a socialist order unless workers the preclass tribal conditions of the Stone Age The periods of transition from one socioeco­ power has taken hold in the most highly indus­ collided with newcomers equipped with all the . nomic order to a higher one have been especially trialized sections of the globe. This revolutionary acquisitions of class society from private prop­ marked by this intermeshing of the old and the internationalist position and perspective is erty to firearms. We know the bloody genocidal new. This held true for the passage from precapi­ squarely counterposed to the Stalinist national­ result. talist societies to the capitalist world system and bureaucratic utopian dogma of building social­ Gross differences in development are also to be even more for the present period of changeover ism in a single country. found, not only between peoples living on differ­ from predominant capitalist to postcapitalist The theory further stresses that the suppres­ ent levels of progress, but also within specific relations. Capitalism did not develop in a void sion of capitalism does not all at once and social and national structures and their class but arose, expanded and came to global mastery equally eradicate all the relations and customs of components. in incessant and inseparable interaction with the past but only overthrows those economic, The American workers, for example, have one precapitalist modes of production ranging all the political, and legal institutions at the root of of the highest living standards in the world and way from tribalism to feudalism. Despite the capitalist domination. After the conquest of yet, as a class, are at the lowest stage of political disparities in their economic and cultural levels, power, the worker-peasant revolution is obliged consciousness and organization. They are today capitalism welded together in a single system to tackle and remove inherited obsolescences as the only working class in a major industrial progressive institutions and ideas with primitive fast as conditions permit. There's the rub. Expe­ country that has yet to create a mass political and cruder ones. This amalgamation of features rience has shown that this is easier indicated organization independent of the capitalist par­ appropriate ·to very different kinds of historical than accomplished, above all in the poor and ties, whether of the Laborite, Social Democratic, development has generated very peculiar pheno­ backward workers states encircled by imperial­ Stalinist, or revolutionary types. mena and produced some surprising turns and ism where the anticapitalist revolutions up to Moreover, it remains in subordination to the twists in history. , now have taken place. capitalist rulers while only ninety miles from I referred to a few of these American experiences Florida the much weaker Cuban working class in the collection of essays Understanding His­ * * * has gotten rid of that incubus within their own tory. In the Carolinas at the time of colonial borders. settlement, a capitalist shareholding enterprise In discussing the principal tenets of the per­ Throughout its evolution capitalism by its very acting under a royal grant tried to establish manent revolution, I have already touched upon nature has given rise to all sorts of economic unalloyed feudal relations, at a time when feudal­ the second of Trotsky's contributions to Marxist inequalities: uneveness of development between ism had been largely surpassed in England; the thought: the law of uneven and combined devel­ industry and agriculture; between the first indus­ scheme didn't work. Later in that same area opment. This juxtaposition is not accidental, trialized countries and the colonial and semico­ there was a bourgeoisified chattel slavery in because the theory of permanent revolution is a lonial dependencies; between different branches which communistic Creek Indians who held particular expression of this more general law. of industry; and between different and even slaves sold their products on a capitalist market, The one is limited to the conditions and problems adjacent regions of the same country (contrast thereby combining three distinct stages of evolu­ of the period of transition from the capitalist Appalachia with the Midwest and California). tion. We've seen a twentieth century president system to socialism, whereas the other has a far I have already pointed out that the accumula­ who calls upon a medieval god to bless Washing­ broader application to the entire span of humani­ tion of the irregularities produced by the unequal ton's war in Indochina and the napalming of ty's evolution. development of capitalist civilization up to the women and children, thereby combining medi­ Indeed, Trotsky consciously formulated the twentieth century set the stage for the new tum eval superstition with imperialist brutality. wider law of uneven and combined development in world history whereby the bourgeois forces after elaborating the more restricted conception became antirevolutionary while their antithesis, This law provides the key to deciphering the and as a generalization of it. The successive the working class, has had to take over the complexities and anomalies of the contemporary stages of Trotsky's intellectual enlightenment on progressive functions they previously performed. revolutions which under unfavorable conditions this score can be studied in two of his works: The underlying cause of the different rates of have had to tackle the democratic tasks left over Results and Prospects, written in 1906, and the growth in history and among the various ele­ from the deficient bourgeois era with the socialist first chapter of his masterful History of the 'lnents of social life is the faster or slower growth tasks necessitated by modem technique and Russian Revolution, written in the early 1930s. of the productive forces. The resultant differences culture. Thus, in order to win national indepen­ in economic power impart varying rates and dence from Yankee imperialism, Cuba had to Uneven Development extents of growth to different peoples, different break with capitalism and start .on the road The starting point of the law is the empirical branches of society, different classes, different toward socialism. This overloading of historical observation that the course of history and social social institutions and fields of culture. tasks saddled upon the postcapitalist count':':ies life through the ages has not been harmonious, But unevenness is only the primordial aspect should be kept in mind in assessing the charac-

17 (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW/PAGE 8)

teristics of their progress-and regress. years of the Soviet republic was crushed and postcapitalist character; its nationalized produc­ And the concept of combined development replaced by a totalitarian dictatorship crowned tion, planned economy, and monopoly of foreign allows us to foresee the possibility of the Ameri­ by Stalin's one-man rule. trade. These were the precious products of the can workers overcoming their political and ideo­ This relapse was the outgrowth of two major 1917 socialist overturn. logical backwardness in the coming years with factors, one internal, the other international: Resting on top of this economic foundation was stunning rapidity, forging a mass party to re­ First, the failure of the revolution to be extended a political superstructure that was thoroughly present their interests, and bringing forward a into the more industrialized countries such as totalitarian and resurrected many of the most powerful revolutionary Marxi~t vanguard in the Germany and the prolonged isolation of the first repulsive features of class rule. People are so course of a tempestuous mass radicalization­ anticapitalist state and its tight encirclement by puzzled by this enigma and do not know what it perhaps even surpassing some more politically an imperialist environment. Second, the meager is or how to estimate it because the Soviet Union advanced working classes of the industrialized productivity of Soviet industry and agriculture­ today abounds in such contradictions on all West in the pace of their development. along with the shattering blows of World War I levels. and the Civil War-engend€red terrible poverty, In this workers state the workers themselves * * * misery, and sharp social inequalities that facili­ have no direct political voice in the major deci­ tated the rise and consolidation of a new privi­ sions. Freedom of expression and movement are Roots of Stalinism leged caste. The socially ruling class of workers severely restricted. The best works of its greatest The third outstanding contribution of Trotsky was degraded into an oppressed class-although living novelist, Solzhenitsyn, cannot be pub­ to living Marxism was his explanation of the still the ruling class since the surviving postcapi­ lished. In transportation, huge jets speed over the political degeneration of the Soviet Union, the talist property forms were in the workers' historic trackless wilderness where peasant carts creak rise of the bureaucratic caste to supremacy, and interest. along in well-worn :t"Uts, as they have for centur­ the causes, characteristics, and cure for Stalin­ ies, while Soviet astronauts circle around the ism. There are many theories in circulation Abolition of Workers Democracy planet. Tremendous scientific, technical, indus­ about the horrible phenomenon that fastened Under capitalist conditions a flourishing demo­ trial, and cultural advances go along with politi­ itself after Lenin's death upon the Soviet Union, cracy had largely been established only in the cal retrogression and reaction. the first workers state in history. more wealthy nations and, even where the poorer The most common misconception states that and less fortunate countries had set up demo­ Defense of Workers State Stalinism is the natural offspring and inevitable cratic institutions, as in the colonial and semico­ The regime's official claim that it represented continuation of Leninism, Marxism, and social­ lonial world, these have not been very sturdy or socialism was spurious, Trotsky said. For all its ism. Others define the Soviet Union as state stable. successes, the Soviet Union was still far from capitalism or bureaucratic collectivism, domi­ A similar rule applies to the Soviet Union and socialism. It was a society in transition from nated by a new class of exploiters. On the other other countries based on postcapitalist economic capitalism to socialism with an unbalanced, hand, the uncritical followers of the Kremlin relations. The poorer and more backward they inharmonious structure which was torn by tense believed Stalin when he claimed that the Soviet are, the stronger are the tendencies toward contradictions and, above all, by the irreconcila­ regime was already socialist and Khrushchev bureaucratism and inequalities and the more ble antagonism between the bureaucratic caste and Brezhnev when they said it was going likely are the materially, politically, and cultu­ that had usurped power and the working masses. beyond that toward communism. rally privileged elements and antidemocratic Nonetheless, this workers state-for all its forces in the workers state to become masters of deformities-must be defended as a conquest of Trotsky presented an altogether different anal­ the situation at the expense of the rights and the working class against the efforts of the ysis and appraisal of the Stalinized Soviet powers of the toiling masses. In China high imperialists to destroy it. The property forms Union. He defined it as a degenerated workers party officials are called "those who eat meat" by that have been established represent the only state. He explained that the proletariat had come those who never see it. way forward for the Soviet working people, and it to power first in backward Russia rather than in Here an analogy may be helpful. A child is these and not the dictatorial regime that the more advanced countries of Western Europe, stricken by rickets because of defective nutrition accounts for the antagonism of the capitalist as Marx anticipated, because of the conjunction may grow up stunted, with curvature of the powers. of a peasant uprising against czarism and land­ spine, bowlegs, and a bulky head, if he or she What perspective flowed from this diagnosis? lordism with a proletarian revolution against lacks the vital dietary ingredients that produce To clear the way for the further march toward capitalism. This combined mass upsurge was normal stature, well-proportioned organs, and socialism, the Soviet workers would have to responsible for the extraordinary scope of its agreeable features. Analogous rules of growth combat and clear out the bureaucratic oligarchy. achievements, for the great leap forward that apply to social organizations and their political This could only be done by way of a higher type changed the direction of modern history. regimes. of political revolution, Trotsky predicted. The However, at the next stage of the unfolding of Trotsky explained that the young Soviet repub­ objective of the antibureaucratic revolution the Russian revolution after Lenin's death in lic became a victim of ugly malformations be­ would be to transfer control of the economy and 1924, the inherited economic and cultural back­ cause the society and state were deprived of the state to the direct producers so they could go wardness that had previously supplied the conditions and elements needed for normal devel­ forward and create the socialist democracy out­ charge that propelled the Russian people far opment during the most formative years. The lined in State and Revolution by Lenin and ahead of the rest of the world took its revenge. It Stalinist regime that resulted was the most self­ promised in the Marxist program. became the basis and starting point of a bureau­ contradictory combined formation in modern Many developments since Stalin died have cratic reaction culminating in a political counter­ history. At its base were the most advanced testified to the irrepressible growth of opposition revolution. The workers democracy of the first forms of property and social conquests of a to the monolithic grip of the Kremlin within its own domain, its satellites, and the Communist parties elsewhere. It suffices to mention the attempt to establish "socialism with a human face" in Czechoslovakia, which was crushed in 1968 by the Soviet invasion; the more successful offensive of the Polish workers that toppled Gomulka and persists up to today; the continuing resistance of oppositional intellectuals and op­ pressed national minorities, and the heresies timidly uttered by the Eurocommunists. Such events tend to substantiate Trotsky's contention that the parasitic bureaucracy is not an organic part and inevitable product of a postcapitalist society but rather a gross malig­ nant tumor bred by the international isolation and persistent poverty and inequalities of the first workers state. It was a transitory pheno­ menon that big new revolutionary advances would serve to undermine, oppose, and eventu­ ally overcome, especially if the workers came to power in one or more of the advanced industrial countries. As an internationalist, Trotsky analyzed events and developments in many countries. His views on Black nationalism and self-deter­ mination for Afro-Americans was a prophetic contribution to clarifying one of the key ques­ tions of American politics.

Black Struggle He pointed out that Afro-Americans consti­ tuted a distinctive oppressed national minority. As such they have the right to self-determina­ tion. They will become more and more discon­ tented with the unremedied abuses they suffer under monopoly capitalism. Black workers could become radicalized before the majority of white workers, move to the forefront of the anticapital­ Trotsky foresaw that Black people would be among the most determined fi against and exp1oltation. He defended their right to self-determination. Above, Atlanta demonstration protests police ist forces, and fight harder for a new society than the more privileged sections of the working class. brutality.

18 (NOVEMBER 1979) (PAGE 9/INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW)

"The Russians," he said, "were the Negroes of sion of Trotsky's thought that others have dis­ tion and in fact became their foremost exponent Europe." counted but that he himself considered the most · after the latter's death in 1924. The Black liberation struggle called for uncom­ important during his last exile. This was the There is widespread misunderstanding about promising support from all socialists. They were evolution of his views on the character and role the real meaning and content of democratic equally obliged to combat the deep-seated racist of the revolutionary vanguard party of the work­ centralism which sums up the Leninist theory of prejudices capitalism untiringly inculcates in the ing class. His ideas on this matter underwent a party life. white population. · significant change. They fall into two distinc­ The principal source of confusion is the coun­ Building upon these propositions, Trotsky's tively different periods, the first prior to 1917, the terfeit of Leninist ideas and distortion of their followers in the SWP have come to the following second from 1917 on. The turning point came practices that Stalinism has introduced into the conclusions. with the revolutionary events of that critical workers movement. The Stalinist pattern of the 1. Black people have shared less than anyone year. monolithic party fused with the state, autocrati­ except the Native Americans, Chicanos, and cally manipulated from above by an uncontrolled Puerto Ricans in the advantages and rights of Lenin and Trotsky Join Forces and irremovable officialdom, is the very antithe­ American civilization while their labors have After escaping from Siberia in 1901, Trotsky sis of the genuine Leninist system of organiza­ contributed mightily to the country's wealth and went to London at Lenin's invitation and became tion. As against bureaucratic centralism, under progress. Increasing resentment against part of the team of Marxist propagandists democratic centralism the leadership and appa­ centuries-old injustice has fueled the mass pro­ around the periodical Iskra, the Spark. When the ratus are both responsible to and controlled by test movements since 1955-56. split in the Russian Social Democracy between the party ranks and subject to their informed and 2. The Black millions have a twofold socioeco­ the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks took place some­ democratic decisions, as they are in the Socialist nomic status. They are the principal oppressed what later, he aligned himself with the Menshev­ Workers Party. nationality striving for liberation. They are no iks but was soon alienated from them. From 1904 In opposition to the supercentralism of the longer a dispersed rural and agrarian work force until 1917 he occupied an intermediate and Stalinist model on the one hand and the spon­ but a predominantly urban and proletarian one. independent position between the two contending taneists and anarchists who reject any central­ They are concentrated in the major industrial factions, unsuccessfully undertaking at times to ism in principle, Trotsky stressed the need for a centers from coast to coast, packed into ghettos, reconcile and unify -them. workers party that was democratic in its inner laboring in heavy industry and the service He opposed Lenin's revolutionary and original functioning and centralized in action. trades, held down at the bottom of the economic conception of a centralized proletarian combat In th!'l foundation document of the Fourth and social pyramid. party, as so many New Lefts and anti-Leninists International entitled "The Death Agony of 3. Their strivings for equality and emancipa­ do today. "At that time," he later wrote, "I did Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth tion have thereby acquired a dual character. not fully realize what an intense and imperious · International"-popularly called the Transi­ They represent at one and the same time a centralism the revolutionary party would need to tional Program-Trotsky stated that the world national-democratic struggle for self-determina­ lead millions of people in a war against the old political situation is characterized by a historical tion, for control of their own destiny as a people, order." crisis of the leadership of the proletariat because and a working-class movement heading in an He decisively and definitively changed his of the degeneration of the Second and Third anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist direction, mind on this score after the February overthrow Internationals and the defaults of lesser radical whether or not its participants and leaders of czarism. In July he led his Petrograd organiza­ formations. This crisis of humanity can be re­ understand or recognize the fact at any given tion into fusion with the Bolsheviks at a time solved only through the creation of a new revolu­ point. The coming Black upheavals in the United when the latter were under heavy persecution tionary vanguard. States will of necessity have both a nationalist and Lenin and Zinoviev were in hiding. The task of the Fourth International, he wrote and proletarian nature. This is an extremely The triumph of the October insurrection can be tersely, is "the abolition of capitalism's domina­ powerful combination of factors favoring the traced to two circumstances. In the April theses tion. Its aim-Socialism. Its method-the prole­ socialist solution to oppression and exploitation. that rearmed and reoriented his party Lenin tarian revolution. Without inner democracy-no 4. Those who fail to grasp this combined adopted the strategic conclusions of Trotsky's revolutionary education. Without discipline-no character of the Black liberation movement and theory of permanent revolution-that the prole­ revolutionary action. The inner structure of the its dynamics can easily go astray in theory and tariat was obliged to take power then and there Fourth International is based on the principle of in practice. They can adhere to opposing forms of in order to realize both the democratic and democratic centralism: full freedom in discus­ one-sidedness. There are socialists who underesti• socialist aims of the mass movement. Around the sion, complete unity in action." mate its racial component, viewing it simply and same time Trotsky was won over to Lenin's plan solely as one aspect of the class struggle between of party organization. Lenin became Trotskyist, New Revolutionary International the bosses and the wage workers. On the other as Kamenev charged at the time, while Trotsky Trotsky devoted the last years of his life to side stand petty-bourgeois nationalists who became Leninist. forming and educating the cadres of such a party regard their movement as primarily cultural and These conjoint developments on the personal on an international scale. He considered this social in which the proletarian basis and connec­ and ideological levels were essential precondi­ "the most important work of my life-more tions do not count for much nor will an anticapi­ tions for the successful seizure of power in impprtant than 1917, more important than the talist momentum shape its destiny. October. After the October insurrection, Lenin period of the Civil War or anyother." That was Both errors can be avoided by correctly apply­ stated about Trotsky, after he had rejected any not an aberrant judgment on his part. Like other ing the law of uneven and combined development idea of organizational compromise with the eminent Marxists, he understood that theory is and Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution to Mensheviks, "From that time on there has been sterile without its immersion in practice, its the basic problems and prospects of Black op­ no better Bolshevik." testing in the day-to-day class struggles, its pression. These broader generalizations are not connection with the building of national parties empty abstractions; they are directly relevant to The Revolutionary Party and a world organization of socialist revolution­ understanding the most crucial current issues. Also, from then on Trotsky never wavered in aries. He was a man of deeds, not an armchair In conclusion, I want to examine a fifth expres- his adherence to Lenin's principles of organiza- Continued on page /SR/11

19 (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW/PAGE 10)

power due to the absence of strong revolutionary the tens of thousands. Within the Communist ... !rotskJ 's Life parties like the Bolsheviks. International, all of the leaders capable of inde­ Continued from page ISR/4 In January 1924, the revolution suffered a pendent, revolutionary thought were forced out. had to be defended against enormous obstacles. heavy blow with the death of its central leader, Only blind apologists for Stalinism survived. Russia was the most underdeveloped country Lenin. Meanwhile, in the midst of the scarcity, a Trotsky fought initially to get the Soviet Com­ on the European continent. Although well orga­ privilege-seeking bureaucracy began to develop. munist Party, and the International, back on nized and highly conscious, the industrial work­ course. To rid them of the Stalinist bureaucrats Trotsky, along with Lenin, fought it from the ers comprised only a small sector of the popula­ and return to the working-class program and outset. tion. Throttled by czarism, agriculture was democratic practices of Lenin. stunted and the peasantry was weak, isolated, With the death of Lenin, Trotsky continued the With the continuing degeneration of the Inter­ and at a far lower level of consciousness than the battle against the developing bureaucracy, per­ national and the deepening repression in the workers. sonified by its central figure, Stalin. Soviet Union, this proved impossible. The forces of capitalist counterrevolution orga­ Here too, Trotsky proceeded on the basis of his The criminal policies of Stalinism brought a nized to smash the Soviet power. central guiding concept-the workers were the series of big defeats for the world workers move­ U.S. and European imperialism imposed a key to the advance of the revolution. The steadily ment. In China a workers and peasants revolu­ blockade and sent troops into Russia to help increasing curbs on workers democracy could tion was crushed because of Stalin's insistence overthrow the new government. The country was only weaken the revolution, which needed the that the Communist Party support Chiang Kai­ still formally at war with Germany. Survival of broadest participation to cope with its heavy shek. A historic catastrophe came in Germany in the revolution seemed almost impossible.' problems. 1933. There, despite the existence of a highly But it was a time of revolutionary ebb with Trotsky, who had organized the military insur­ organized working class and mass-based Com­ the situation strongly favoring the politically rection that established the October power, was munist and Socialist parties, Hitler was able to conservative bureaucrats. chosen by Lenin to be Commissar of War. come to power without firing a shot. In that post he organized a Red Army to fight The Stalinist machine prevailed and, again, And later in the 1930s, Trotsky burned with the counterrevolution. Trotsky was driven into exile-this time from the outrage as Stalinism destroyed opportunities for For his command post, he organized a military leadership of a revolution he had helped bring to the workers to take power in France and Spain. train that became a world legend. He lived in victory. It was in the aftermath of the German defeat that train for two and a half years. Shuttling Again, his revolutionary will proved indomita­ that Trotsky concluded that the Third Interna­ from one front to the next, he coordinated the ble. tional could no longer be salvaged as a revolu­ battles, coped with the desperate shortages of tionary instrument. materiel, gave political leadership, and boosted Like a class-conscious worker who succeeds in In exile, hounded by the imperialists and the morale of the beleaguered revolutionary establishing a union in an open shop and then Stalinists alike, Trotsky began the work of build­ troops. finds it taken over by bureaucrats, Trotsky ing a new world party of socialist revolution, the fought to eliminate the bureaucracy's power and Fourth International. Despite the odds, victory was achieved. By return the union to the hands of the workers who It was the most difficult task he had under­ 1922, the counterrevolution was driven back. The built it. Trotsky thought the workers state, like taken. Soviet power had been saved. the union, had to be defended and preserved, The infamous Moscow frame-up trials were In the face of the Civil War, the Bolshevik despite its bureaucratic misleadership. staged. Leading figures of the October revolution Party and the Soviets remained forums for wide­ Trotsky opposed the rise of the Stalinist bu­ were forced to confess abominable crimes that ranging political debate among those who sup­ reaucracy because this weakened the Soviet they could not possibly have committed. ported the revolution against its foes. The top workers state and strengthened imperialism, Trotsky was branded the central leader of a leaders of the Bolshevik Party discussed each endangering the conquests of the Russian revolu­ counterrevolutionary conspiracy that worked in turn of events freely and frankly. While Lenin tion. The practices and policies of Stalin crippled league variously with Hitler or other imperialist and Trotsky were most often in agreement, they the international workers movement and obstruc­ powers to restore capitalism in the Soviet Union. had episodic differences of opinion like other ted the fight to get rid of capitalism and build a Trotsky, in exile, made his voice heard, explod­ Bolshevik leaders. better world. ing these frame-up charges. The small cadres of Later the Stalinists used these occasional the movement for a Fourth International suc­ tactical differences to build up the myth that Continuing the Struggle ceeded in establishing a broad international Lenin and Trotsky were bitterly opposed to each The challenge was twofold. In addition to Commission of Inquiry into the Moscow Trials. other. They used this to shore up Stalin's claim destroying Soviet democracy, the Stalinists suc­ Headed by the world respected philosopher and that any disagreement with the Kremlin's top ceeded in bureaucratizing the Communist, or educator John Dewey, the commission probed the officials is proof of counterrevolutionary plotting. Third, International, founded under the leader­ charges against Trotsky and pronounced to the ship and inspiration of Russian Bolsheviks. world that they were a frameup. It was a solid From a world party of socialist revolution, the blow against Stalinism. Rise of Stalinism international was reduced to the servile role of a Yet the difficulties were great in building the After the war, the difficultie~ faced by the pawn of the Kremlin in what soon became the new movement. But slowly Trotsky won adhe­ revolution were far from over. The nation's central axis of its political program. This was the rents to the revolutionary cause. economy was in literal chaos. Famine was wide­ efforts-still being pressed by the Kremlin spread. Demoralization began to set in among today-to achieve a status-quo deal with imper­ American Revolutionists the peasants, exhaustion among many of the ialism at the expense of the world revolutionary Here in the United States, a small but effective workers. Great numbers of the most conscious struggle. The bureaucrats feared that revolutions group of adherents to Trotskyism emerged. The revolutionary workers had been killed during the in other countries would inspire the Soviet work­ principal leader was James P. Cannon, a veteran civil war. ers and end up costing the privileged bureau­ of the workers movement and a longtime leader The revolutionary spirit of the first years after crats their jobs. of the Communist Party. October began to ebb, especially when the work­ In the Soviet Union, those who stood by their Among those who were expelled along with ing class in other countries was unable to take revolutionary views were jailed and executed by Cannon from the Communist Party for their views were a group of outstanding working-class leaders in Minneapolis-V.R. Dunne, Carl Skog­ lund, and others. Soon to join their ranks were rank-and-file Teamsters including Farrell Dobbs. The Minneapolis Trotskyists went on in the mid-thirties to lead a powerful Teamster-based struggle that made Minneapolis a stronghold of unionism and laid the basis for the Teamsters to become one of the strongest unions in the country. During this period, Trotsky had gained politi­ cal asylum in Mexico. The American Trotskyists had the benefit of collaborating with him in the work of building the Fourth International as well as the benefit of his advice and experience in building what was to become the Socialist Work­ ers Party. Cannon, Dunne, Dobbs, and other party leaders traveled to Mexico many times for rich political discussions with Trotsky. In addition to the international issues con­ fronting- the new movement, they discussed the fast-moving political developments in the United States from both an immediate and long-range perspective. Convinced as he was of the crucial world role of the American working class, Trotsky paid the closest attention to political developments here. He brought to these discussions the rich expe­ rience of the Russian revolutionary struggle.

On Unions and Black Rights The fight for union democracy and Independence from the capitalist state would be key Issues for militant One decisive feature of the victory of the workers, Trotsky argued. Above, miners protest Carter administration strikebreaking efforts during 1977- Russian revolution had been the unswerving 78 miners' strike. support by the Bolsheviks to the many oppressed

20 (NOVEMBER 1979) (PAGE 11/lNTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW)

nationalities ground down under the boot of czarism. Trotsky brought that experience to bear in discussing the significance of the Black libera­ tion struggle in this country. His powerful analy­ sis of the revolutionary potential of that move­ ment is contained in the pamphlet, Leon Trotsky on Black Nationalism and Self Determination. During the last period before his assassination he had begun another work which is highly relevant for union members today. Published under the title Trade Unions in the Epoch of Imperialist Decay, it pointed out that as the problems of the capitalists become more acute, they were increasingly utilizing the gov­ ernment to hamstring and curb the power of the unions. Without a perspective of working-class struggle to establish a workers government, the union bureaucrats were increasingly looking toward the capitalist governments to help them preserve their privileged positions. These pro­ cesses have advanced quite far since Trotsky's death. Trotsky saw the need to fight to keep the unions independent of the capitalist government and to make them democratic bodies capable of defending the interests of all their members against the employers. This could only be ac­ complished, he predicted, along the road of transforming the unions into revolutionary in­ struments of class struggle. Trotsky regarded building the Fourth International as the most important task he had ever undertaken. It was founded September 3, 1938. Here he reads the October 22, 1938, Issue of 'Socialist Appeal' (the name Perhaps the most important contribution Trot­ of the Socialist Workers Party newspaper at that time) reporting the results of the founding congress. sky made to the development of the American Trotskyist movement was to deepen its under­ standing of and commitment to the need for win new forces to the building of a party capable Trotsky continued: building a world party-and how to go about of leading the struggle to success. "Thus I cannot speak of the 'indispensability' doing so. In assembling the cadres of the Fourth Inter­ of my work, even about the period from 1917 to In every way he could, Trotsky taught that the national, Trotsky insisted on programmatic clar­ 1921. But now my work is 'indispensable' in the building of the International, the world party, ity. But he also stressed that it was essential to full sense of the word.... The vicissitudes of my was central. reach out to all revolutionary fighters, wherever personal fate have confronted me with this On the eve of the 1938 founding congress of the they might be, and to work to win them to the problem and armed me with important expe­ Fourth International, he collaborated with the Fourth International and its program. rience in dealing with it. There is now no one leaders of the SWP in drafting a programmatic except me to carry out the mission of arming a document, best known today as "the transitional The Fourth International new generation with the revolutionary me­ program." Many revolutionaries, he predicted, would be thod .... " The program addresses the central question of drawn to the banner of the Fourth International In offering this estimate of his special role and our epoch-developing a working-class political in the course of action before they had fully responsibility, Trotsky emphasized that "there is strategy and building a mass revolutionary absorbed all the fundamentals of Marxism. It no arrogance in this claim at all." party. It begins from the objective needs of the would be the height of folly, he counseled, to tum What he meant, simply, is that every revolu­ working class, such as preserving its living away from revolutionary fighters who were not tionary has responsibilities. Be those responsibil­ standards against inflation and unemployment, yet in total programmatic agreement. ities lesser or greater, the duty of a revolutionary defending its organizations and its democratic He demonstrated his conviction on this score is to recognize and shoulder them. But this is no rights from capitalist encroachments and fascist by his ceaseless, incredibly patient efforts to onerous burden. violence, and forging alliances with other op­ draw a broad range of diverse forces into the In his introduction to My Life, Trotsky put it pressed sectors. Fourth International. this way: "To understand the causal sequence of At the same time the transitional program Throughout, he saw this-building of the new events and to find somewhere in the sequence explains how to approach workers and other workers' international-as his paramount task. one's own place-that is the first duty of a oppressed people as they are, in their mass In his Diary in Exile he reflected on the wiping revolutionary. And, at the same time, it is the organizations like the unions, on their present out by Stalin of the whole generation of Bolshe­ greatest personal satisfaction possible for a man level of consciousness. Socialist workers propose viks and offered this carefully measured esti­ who does not limit his tasks to the present day." reasonable solutions to the problems of working mate: In celebrating the Trotsky centennial, revolu­ people-which the capitalists unfailingly resist "For the sake of clarity I would put it this way. tionary socialists can say that in terms of his and obstruct in the name of profit. Had I not been present in 1917 in Petersburg, the capacities and contributions Trotsky may have In the course of mass action to attain these October Revolution would still have taken loomed larger than any of us. But he was one of goals, mass consciousness advances toward an place-on the condition that Lenin was present· us. understanding of the need to abolish capitalism. and in command. . . . The same could by and In the midst of struggle, socialist workers can large be said of the Civil War.... "

power Stalin's word was law in official world their alleged Trotskyist ideas, actually for their ... Trotslrr 's Contributions communism; his speeches were printed in tens of opposition to official oppression. The Trotskyist Continued from page /SR/9 millions of copies and regarded as holy writ. Petr Uhl has just been given a five-year sentence theorist. He wrote and thought at all times with Trotsky, the hounded exile, had difficulty in there. the aim of changing society, not simply com­ making his voice heard and in circulating his The newly formed section of the Fourth Inter­ menting on the passing show, lamenting or views beyond a limited circle. His writings were national in Iran has emerged as a banner-bearer applauding what others are doing. tabooed to members of the Stalinist movement of the socialist program against the Khomeini­ The members of the Socialist Workers Party who were fed distorted and poisoned versions of Bazargan bourgeois-clerical regime, which is and Young Socialist Alliance have been trained his ideas. attempting to roll back the rights conquered by in this tradition and seek to carry it forward by the Iranian masses in the battle to topple the constructing a sturdy Marxist party in the heart­ Trotsky Outlives Stalin shah. land of world imperialism-and not without a History has its ironic turnabouts. Today in the Although Stalin's henchman struck down Trot­ growin!l measure of success. Soviet Union, Stalin has been exposed and sky in Mexico four decades ago, he did not and disgraced as a criminal tyrant by his closest could not kill his ideas-and Stalin's imitators * * * associates. His works are no longer printed in will be even less effective. Trotskyism and Stalinism, like their personal huge quantities-in fact they are rather hard to It is not possible, I believe, to be a politically exemplars and namesakes, represent two irrecon­ come by-and his omnipresent portrait has come literate person or understand the essentials of cilable forces, programs, and methods of opera­ down off the walls of every government office. It world politics today without an acquaintance tion. The Kremlin dictator and his successors is dubious whether his centenary will be given with the ideas of this genius of scientific social­ express the interests and narrow national out­ notice by Moscow. ism who left us such a rich heritage. look of the bureaucratic stratum that came to Trotsky's books, on the other hand, are being I hope this summary exposition of his achieve­ monopolize power and accumulate privileges in reprinted in many languages, not least in the ments will induce you to study more of his the first experiment in postcapitalist organiza­ United States. Dozens of works about him appear voluminous works and, what is still more impor­ tion. The followers of his arch-opponent repres­ in print year by year. His ideas are securing a tant, to follow his example by participating in ent the interests of the world working class in its wider hearing and broader following on all conti­ the movement for a socialist American as part of efforts to overthrow capitalism and institute a nents. the SWP and YSA. socialist democracy. · A while ago the Husak government in Czechos­ During his quarter-century tenure of total lovakia put nineteen young people on trial for

2.1 (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW/PAGE 12) !rotsQ's Writings: !reasure Chest of xist Ideas Since 1969, Pathfinder Press and Monad Press of the material already published in the twelve progress are two additional volumes of the Chal­ have published more than thirty books by Leon volume Writings of Leon Trotsky (1929-40) series lenge of the Left Opposition series, which covers Trotsky. was made available by Harvard from the Open the years 1923 to 1928, and two volumes of This publishing program will take a big step Section of Trotsky's papers. Trotsky's war correspondence on the Balkan forward in January 1980. That is when the It is quite likely that the material in the Closed Wars and World War I. Closed Section of the Trotsky Archives at Har­ Section will be extremely valuable to the revolu­ It's appropriate here to point out that, even vard is opened to the public. tionary movement today. Like the articles, docu­ without . the books yet to come, the Trotsky The papers at Harvard contain several thou­ ments, interviews, and letters in the Writings publishing effort of Pathfinder Press and Monad sand letters from Trotsky to groups and co­ series and other books published by Pathfinder Press in the last decade has been historic. The thinkers around the world, as well as personal and Monad in the last ten years, these letters are volumes published since 1969 were translated, papers, documents, correspondence by Trotsky's all from Trotsky's last exile, 1929-40. edited, and annotated with greater speed than secretaries and letters sent to Trotsky. His work from this period reflects the ideas of the English-language editions of the Collected When Trotsky sold the papers to Harvard, he revolutionary Marxism in their most developed Works of Marx and Engels and of Lenin, despite stipulated that these materials be kept in a form. the fact that the project was carried out without Closed Section that would not be opened until Also, the letters in the Closed Section will the immense material resources available to 1980. This proviso was to protect his correspond­ probably deal extensively with the practical Soviet publishing. ents from possible persecution by capitalist re­ political and organizational problems of building gimes or by the Stalinists. revolutionary parties and a revolutionary These books constitute one of the most impor­ With the permission of the Harvard authori­ international-still the most important tasks tant tools in the hands of revolutionaries build­ ties, Monad Press will be sending a team of facing humanity. ing parties that can overthrow capitalism and researchers to look over Trotsky's work, with a Of course, future publishing will not be limited replace it with a socialist world order. view to publishing some of it in the future. Much to material from the Closed Section. Already in -Duncan Williams

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22 Boston Black groups hit racist violence By Jeanette Tracy in Klan hoods-sped through the conference countered the charge of issue. These latest attacks conve­ BOSTON-Prompted by the contin- Black community shouting racial Black violence. niently coincided with the opening of ued racist attacks against Black people epithets. And a city bus carrying Black It read in part: "We in the Black school and the municipal elections. here, a coalition of ten Black organiza- passengers through South Boston was community understand the fact that Antibusing leaders made bids for tions held a protest news conference stoned, sending seven Blacks to the we have been the victims, with attacks both school committee and city coun­ November 1. hospital. on us in the streets, on school buses, cil. The participants urged Black resi- Although no new attacks were re- and now shot down on a high school "Pixie" Palladino and Louise Day dents to "protect our homes, families, ported in the schools, a Black South football field." The latter was in refer- Hicks, leaders of ROAR (Restore Our and basic human rights." Boston High student informed the ence to Darryl Williams, the Black Alienated Rights), have tried political Among the groups and individuals Militant that the atmosphere remains high school athlete gunned down by a comebacks. Palladino pledged to fight attending the conference were the Bos- tense. sniper on September 28. busing in the courts and out, while ton NAACP, the Massachusetts Black The city's major media, four TV The statement continued: "As al- Hicks blames busing for the racist Caucus, the National Black Students stations and two daily newspapers, ways, we have shown a level of re- violence. Association, State Sen. William Ow- continue to suppress information con- straint in the past to try to work out a The news conference of Black lead­ ens, and the World Community of Is- cerning racist assaults on Blacks. peaceful solution, but to no avail as the Scant coverage of the major news ers represents one of the first orga­ lam attacks increase in an atmosphere of · conference called by Black leaders is nized responses by the Black commun­ This response by Black leaders came one example of the media's bias. open hostility." ity against the recent wave of racist on the heels of the latest incident of This bias is also reflected in the The events of the past weeks have violence. racist violence. Just the day before, a manufactured stories of "Black vio- demonstrated that the racist violence The racists in Boston have pledged mob of 125 whites armed with rocks lence" against whites. Their purpose is is part of an organized assault on to drive Black students out of the attacked an off-duty Black police of- to shift blame off the racist bigots by Black rights. The central issue is schools-one way or the other. It has fleer in Hyde Park, a predominantly implying that Blacks are equally re- school desegregation, which was im- been the courage and determination of white neighborhood with a long his- sponsible for violence. plemented in 1974-76. Black students and their parents that tory of racist incidents. The church leadership has joined Despite stalling tactics in the courts has prevented the racists from succeed­ Hurling rocks and shouting, "We're this effort. Protestant and Catholic and racist mob violence in the streets, ing. going to kill us a nigger," the racists leaders are urging people to sign a antibusing forces suffered a defeat A public response by the Black com­ pursued their victim until he fired two covenant denouncing "every form of with desegregation. But attacks munity, the labor movement, and their warning shots from his service re- violence in every neighborhood"- against Blacks and Puerto Ricans allies is needed to reaffirm the right of volver. promoting the idea of Blacks being have continued. Blacks to attend any school and walk Earlier in the week, a group of equally to blame. The racists are hoping to roll back the streets without fear or intimida­ whites on motorcycles-some dressed The statement issued at the news desegregation, or at least reraise the tion.

for halting it. It declared, however, But this is not the message of the now. The Kemeny panel's blistering that "if the country wished, for larger report at all. Most open-minded readers criticisms will provide ammunition for ... panel reasons, to confront the risks that are will conclude that nuclear power is a the growing number of people deter­ Continued from back page inherently associated with nuclear deadly danger and must shut down mined to stop nuclear power. facts when asked, twelve hours after power, fundamental changes are neces­ the accident began, if any of the fuel in sary if those risks are to be kept within the reactor had melted. tolerable limits." The official's reply, which the task This is admission that the nuclear force called "a classic example of fudg­ industry and the federal government say '!no nukes' ing," declared there was no "signifi­ have not kept the risks within "tolera­ cant core damage," passing over the ble limits." real damage that had occurred. This admission was coupled with a warning to the industry: "unless por­ Carter's response tions of the industry and its regulatory President Carter's response to the agencies undergo fundamental report was cautious. "We'll have to be changes, they will over time totally very careful and very methodical in destroy public confidence." our recommendations to the public," he The panel drew back from thf' con­ said. Carter had been hoping for a clusion its evidence warranted: that document that could provide a cover nuclear power isn't safe, can't be made for pushing ahead with nuclear power. safe, and should be shut down at once. Despite his efforts at stacking the A majority would not even agree to a commission, the deep sentiment halt in granting new construction per­ against nuclear power in the country mits, a move that would not have made itself felt in the report. affected the 92 nuclear power plants Last May 6, for instance, more than now in various stages of construction. 100,000 people demonstrated against Because it fails to draw the logical I A\IV-IntArrnnl j nuclear power in Washington, D.C. conclusions, the report is being trum­ More than 100,000 people demonstrated against nuclear power In the West And on September 23 some 200,000 peted by the nuclear industry as sup­ German capital of Bonn October 14. The action was the first national antinuclear people rallied against nukes in New porting further nuclear construction. protest In Germany. Earlier actions have targeted Individual plants. The York City. Dozens of other protests For example, in a full-page ad in the demonstration called for an end to Germany's nuclear program and an have involved tens of thousands. November 2 New York Times, the Immediate closing of all nuclear power plants. Protesters came from all over The report's sharp criticism of nu­ Edison Electric Institute, an industry Western Europe, and speakers came from Australia and the United States. dear power reflects this growing oppo­ group, declared, "The electric compan­ Among the speakers was Jakob Moneta, founder of a trade-union group against sition. ies agree with the Kemeny Commis­ nuclear power, which collected endorsements of some 180 trade-union officials The panel refused to call either for sion's message on nuclear power: pro­ for the march In the Hamburg area alone. plunging ahead with nuclear power or ceed, but proceed with caution." Pulley: report proves need for nuclear shutdown The following statement was clear Regulatory Commission-that The government and the nuclear them to close all the plants. We must issued November 5 by Andrew the emergency cooling systems of industry have tried to confuse us by win tens of millions of people to the Pulley, Socialist Workers Party virtually every nuclear plant in the throwing technical language at us. idea of stopping nuclear power. The candidate for president. country may not work. This finding But nuclear power is primarily a movement must make a special ef­ was promptly reversed by the NRC, political problem, not a technical fort to reach and involve the ranks after it held a closed meeting of one. of the labor movement. There is only one reasonable con­ industry and government nuclear clusion to draw from the report of The cover-ups are political, aimed As part of this campaign to edu­ "experts." at keeping the truth from us. The cate and win labor to our side in this the President's Commission on the This flip-flop is alarming to the Accident at Three Mile Island: every government and industry carry out fight, I urge everyone to join in public, and rightly so. I see no rea­ secret studies, telling us only what building the April 26, 1980, antinu­ nuclear power plant should be shut son to take the NRC's word that the down at once. they want us to know about nuclear clear march on Washington, D.C. cooling systems work. power's deadly dangers. This protest has been called by a Despite its six-month study, and The NRC assured us that an acci­ broad coalition of antinuclear dozens of recommendations to make Even when forced to admit there dent like Three Mile Island couldn't groups, and has already been en­ nuclear power safer, the commission are problems with nuclear power, happen. That was a lie. dorsed by the 100,000 member Re­ was forced to admit that there is no they insist we have no alternative. It assured us that the radiation gion 2 of the United Food and Com­ way to guarantee that a terrible This too is a lie. The country has that was released during the Three mercial Workers union. accident won't happen again. Mile Island accident-and which vast coal reserves that can be used Nuclear power means cancer, ge­ continues to be released-wouldn't to supply all the electricity now This march comes at a time of netic damage, and the ever-present hurt anyone. That is a lie. generated by nuclear power. Coal is increasing opposition to nuclear danger of catastrophe. There are no The NRC, echoing the nuclear far safer and cleaner than nuclear power among trade unionists and all benefits for working people in it. We industry, continues to insist that power. working people. This concern can assume the risks and the nuclear low-level radiation is harmless. That The government and the industry make it possible to win broad union industry reaps the profits. is a lie. aren't going to shut down nuclear support for the march. Coming right on the heels of the And now they tell us that the power plants voluntarily. We must I urge unionists around the coun­ Kemeny Commission report was a emergency cooling systems will make the antinuclear movement into try to begin involving their unions frightening revelation from the Nu- work. a truly massive movement to force and their co-workers.

THE MILITANT/NOVEMBER 16, 1979 23 Auto workers strike ag!Jiinst forced overtime By John Studer CHICAGO-Chanting, "Mandatory overtime, hell no!" striking auto workers demonstrated outside Interna­ tional Harvester's corporate headquar­ ters in Chicago's Loop November 6. The action was called by Local 6 of the United Auto Workers at the Inter­ national Harvester plant in Melrose Park, Illinois. Nearly 250 unionists participated. The 3,200 members of Local 6 walked off the job November 1 along with 32,000 other Harvester workers in eight states. The central issue is the company's attempt to impose compulsory over­ time on Harvester workers. In preparation for the demonstration here, Bob Tinker, president of Local 6, sent a letter to all local members. "We are calling this demonstration to serve notice on the company that we do not intend to buckle in to IH's demands," Tinker wrote. "Especially, their de­ mand for forced overtime. A large turnout with members from various locals could be an important visible show of our determination to fight for a good contract." UAW Region 4 organized transporta­ tion to the rally. And representatives from UAW locals 72, 1643, 1307, 1361, 719, 558, and the Local 6 retirees Chicago, Nov. 4-Unlonlsts from seven UAW locals demonstrated at International Harvester headquarters. Militant participated to show support. Strikers carried signs demanding "No mandatory overtime, hire the un­ No further negotiations are planned cultural implements industry. They won provisions against forced over­ employed" and "No takeaways." before Thanksgiving. employ 110,000 of the 150,000 workers time. Following the November 1 noon More than 40,000 workers at eight in the industry. Contracts at the In addition to demanding compul­ strike deadline for Harvester workers Caterpillar plants in six states have smaller companies have now also ex­ sory overtime, Harvester is trying to in Melrose Park, hundreds of strikers also been on strike since October 29. pired. eliminate holiday pay, unless em­ filled the union headquarters directly ployees work the day before and the These strikes are happening while across from the plant. The picket cap­ Caterpillar strikers in Peoria, Illi­ day after. This provision has not been the industry is making record profits. tain used a bullhorn to gather strikers nois, walked out October 1. UAW Local part of the Harvester contract since The demand for forced overtime is to shut down the gates. 974 there decided to go on strike with­ World War II. intended to add even more to those The mood was sober because eve­ out authorization from the union inter­ "Local takeaways demanded by the profits because it is cheaper to pay ryone anticipates a long strike. As J. national, and so its 23,000 members company would return conditions to overtime than to hire more workers. Lilly, chair of the Local 6 women's did not receive strike benefits. When the 1950s," Guido says. committee, put it, Every Union Voice the strike became nationwide October Rudi Guido, a representative on the As local president Tinker put it, "Our [Local 6's newspaper] for the last few 29, it was sanctioned by the UAW. negotiating subcommittee for skilled fight is for more jobs, not more over- months has warned of a strike and told The walkouts by Harvester and Ca­ trades at Harvester, reported that the time." us to save our money." terpillar workers come on the heels of company refuses to discuss any eco­ With the possibility of a long battle But, the Black woman with her a three-week strike by the 31,000 UAW nomic questions until their takeaway in store, solidarity activities and sup­ added, "how can you save your money members at John Deere Company. demands are met. Harvester is the only port to the striking farm implement with inflation, the high cost of food, Deere, Caterpillar, and Harvester are agricultural implements company workers is needed. Their fight is an and increasing cost of energy?" known as the "Big Three" of the agri- where in past contracts the UAW has important one for all working people. Carter proposes $1.5 billion Chrysler bail-out The Carter administration proposed here October 31 to discuss and vote on In his address to the gathering here, November 1 that Congress grant the this grim proposal. UAW President Douglas Fraser ailing Chrysler Corporation $1.5 bil­ An introductory note to the official seemed to gloat over the beating his lion in loan guarantees. contract summary explained, "There is ranks have taken recently. "Many will That means that the auto corpora­ no way your bargaining committee be surprised that it is not a lot worse," tion can borrow from the banks, with would allow any devi::ttion from the he said of the contract. "The members the federal treasury covering up to $1.5 pattern if we were not convinced that would have taken a lot less .... They billion in case of default. The guaran­ Chrysler was 'on the brink' and that know the company is in trouble ... tee, of course, is for the banks­ concessions are necessary to save the and yes, they're scared, scared of los­ Chrysler workers are promised nothing jobs of Chrysler workers." ing their jobs." but the unemployment line if the com­ Tens of thousands of Chrysler The day after the council meeting, pany goes under. workers, however, are already on indef­ 1,600 committee-people and stewards Nonetheless, the United Auto inite layoff. Four thousand have been from UAW locals in the United States Workers Washington Report hailed the laid off since 1973 at the Dodge Main and Canada arrived to hear the same $1.5 billion bailout as a "major break­ plant in Hamtramck, Michigan, alone. summaries of the contract. through" in the effort to "save the jobs There was precious little mention of In his speech to that gathering, of thousands of Chrysler workers." the plight of any of these workers at Fraser added a new twist, spending The Carter plan requires Chrysler to the meeting here. five minutes lambasting the Japanese come up with another $1.5 billion in No visible opposition to the proposed for canceling a $400 million credit line matching funds from other sources. UAW Local 31 in Kansas City, Mis­ contract was evident. Only one dele­ to Chrysler. He went further and de­ Part of this will come from the $403 souri, reports on the UAW Chrysler ·gate, wearing a "Save Dodge Main" T­ manded that the Japanese either stop million that the newly negotiated Council that approved the proposed shirt, stood up during the discussion selling so many cars in the United UAW contract conceded. UAW Presi­ contract October 31. period and asked, "What am I going to States or start building plants here. dent Douglas Fraser reportedly said tell my people? I can't go back and say, He added, "If they don't we'll set up the union is "willing to listen" to * * * 'Now we have a contract-everything informational picket lines at every god proposals about handing over its pen­ By Bruce Lesnick is rosy.'" damn Japanese car dealer in the coun­ sion and strike funds as well. KANSAS CITY, Mo.-For the first Another delegate protested the agree­ try." And there's certainly plenty of anti­ time in forty-two years, United Auto ment's elimination of all paid personal But such diversions are not going to union clatter for Fraser to listen to. Workers negotiators presented a con­ holidays (PPHs) in the first year. The help Chrysler workers any more than The New York Times editorialized tract that would put Chrysler workers PPHs were originally touted as a way is Fraser's new seat on the board of November 4 that the UAW "has been behind their Ford and General Motors to give auto workers more time off and directors-a treacherous move that will unwilling to accept more than a token counterparts in wages and benefits. to create more jobs. only draw the union officialdom into sacrifice." The Times concluded, "Be­ "How," the delegate asked, "is this taking responsibility for f~uther com­ fore coming to Chrysler's rescue, Con­ By delaying wage and pension going to create jobs for the people?" pany attacks on the rights and wages gress has an obligation to ask more gains, forfeiting days off, and putting But aside from a few grumblings, the of Chrysler workers. from those with the most to lose." off improvements in health care and overwhelming majority of delegates All the UAW praise in the world for Those with the most to lose­ insurance coverage, the union esti­ voted to ratify the agreement. There the schemes of Carter and Chrysler is Chrysler's 130,000 workers-are mates that Chrysler .will save $403 was less opposition here than among not going to strengthen the hand of the granted little opportunity to comment million over the life of the three-year delegates to the GM and Ford councils union. It will only weaken it. The time on the high-finance schemes that hold agreement. earlier this fall. It is evidence that the for an independent stand in defense of their future livelihoods in jeopardy. Two hundred and fifty-six delegates Chrysler/government blackmail IS Chrysler workers-instead of Chrysler Below, Bruce Lesnick, a member of to the UAW's Chrysler Council met having a significant impact. profits-is now.

24 ployee, told the Militant, "She's en­ titled to the same treatment of any Steel local man-not· to have to be cross­ examined." So far the strike is holding solid. No calls ERA other unions have crossed the picket lines, although some independent log­ haulers are crossing. speakout The IW A has set up two-day infor­ By Maggie McCraw mational pickets at other Simpson CHICAGO-On Sunday, December plants in Washington, Oregon, and 2, United Steelworkers of America California. Workers at all of these Local 65 will host a program in sup­ plants refused to cross these picket port of the Equal Rights Amendment. lines. Local 65 represents 7,500 workers at U.S. Steel's South Works. Last spring it elected Alice Peurala as president, the first woman elected to that position USWA in a major basic steel local. The speakout is part of the national week of educational activities that Militant women Militant reporters talk with pickets of the International Woodworkers of America grew out of the August 12 Labor for outside Simpson Plywood Company. Union is on strike against discriminatory firing Equal Rights Now (LERN) conference of woman worker. meet in Richmond, Virginia. By Sheila Ostrow Five women from Local 65 attended DETROIT-Speaking to 100 union the LERN conference. After hearing Dudley is a co-coordinator of UTU and active force in the unions" and women here October 13, Marsha Za­ their report, and discussing the crucial Local 31's Anti-Discrimination Com­ "their issues are all our issues, and kowski of the United Steelworkers of importance of ratification in Illinois as mittee. She explained that when she should be put to the forefront of the America civil rights department urged well, the local enthusiastically agreed and another woman became the first union where they belong.'' the building of a coalition of labor, to sponsor the December 2 event. It female firepersons here, it was a strug­ women's, and civil rights organiza­ will be one of many local actions gle simply to establish their right to tions to win the Equal Rights Amend­ throughout the country that week perform the same jobs as their male co­ ment. She pointed to the Labor for building up to the January 13 march workers. Equal Rights Now (LERN) conference, on Richmond for the ERA, called by But women rail workers quickly won Union hits which called for a January 13 march the LERN conference. a reputation in the union as tough for the ERA in Richmond, Virginia, as A very broad program representing fighters for all workers on the job. an example of how to move the ERA Illinois labor, civil rights, and women's "For instance," Dudley said, "there company struggle forward. organizations has been assembled for was a bridge where brakemen had to • Zakowski was addressing a confer­ the December 2 event. The speakers get off a lot, but it had no guard rails. ence sponsored by the USW A District included Robert Gibson, president, Illi­ It was the women who raised this at sex1sm 29 Women's Council and the Union nois State AFL-CIO; James Balanoff, the union meeting." By Phil Norris Minorities/Women Leadership Train­ USWA District 31 director; Mary-Jean She also told a story about a commu­ and Irene Abbott ing Project at Wayne State University. Collins, president, Chicago NOW; Mu­ ter line in the Bay Area where the crew SHELTON, Wash.-Fourteen­ The conference met to discuss resolv­ riel (Mannie) Tuteur, president, Chi­ "ties over" for eight hours' rest. hundred members of the International ing the problems women steelworkers cago Coalition of Labor Union Women The company had provided only an Woodworkers of America Local 3-38 face on the job, including discrimina­ and director, Amalgamated Clothing old dirty shack for them to sleep in, here have been on strike against Simp­ tion, sexual harassment, and proba­ and Textile Workers Daycare Program; right in the roundhouse area where the son Plywood since October 8. The issue tionary layoffs. Charles Hayes, international vice­ engines are serviced. is a contract violation involving the Nearly half the conference partici­ president, United Food and Commer­ "The air compressors are going on firing of Toni Gilbertson, a woman, pants were members of the USWA. cial Workers, and president of Chicago and off and diesel fumes fill the air. last June 21. There were also members of the United Coalition of Black Trade Unionists; The hum of the engines is bad Gilbertson had filed discrimination Auto Workers, teachers, and public and Alice Peurala. enough," Dudley explained. charges against Simpson to protest employees. Most participants were Also, John McGinness, Illinois legis­ The crew on the run had tried for sexual harassment during the inter­ Black. lative director, United Transportation years to get the company to give them view she had when applying for her Zakowski, one of the panelists at the Union, and vice-president, Illinois a better place to stay or to clean up the job. The Human Rights Commission conference, stressed the relationship state AFL-CIO; Lydia Sanchez­ shack. Two women workers finally got was still investigating the case when between women's rights and the Bracamonte, United Farm Workers; it shut down. she was hired. uniOns. James Wright, assistant director, Re­ Local 31 has made a real effort to Gilbertson first worked as a laborer She explained that the same groups gion 4, United Auto Workers; Clara involve women in the union, Dudley on graveyard shift and bid on a swing opposed to the ERA are opposed to Day, trustee, Teamsters Local 743; and said. Male co-workers have encouraged shift job. By the company's own ad­ unions. Twelve of the fifteen states others. women to get on union committees. mission, she was watched more closely that haven't ratified the ERA also Activists from the District 31 They joined in urging the Interna­ than other new hires because of her have right-to-work laws. Women's Caucus who live in northern tional to stop addressing letters with discrimination suit. Only 6.5 million of the 42 million Indiana are organizing a bus to the "Dear Sirs" or "Brothers." The local Her graveyard supervisor testified women that work are in unions, she December 2 program in Chicago. sent a protest letter to the Interna­ that he was satisfied with her work. said. Unorganized women lack the The Local 65 Women's Committee tional when sexist cartoons appeared The swing shift supervisor said that benefits and relative job security has been very active in publicizing the in union newsletters. her work was inadequate. She was unions have won. speakout. In addition to distributing It was the acting Local 31 president fired before completing her twenty Describing the recent Coalition of ERA pamphlets and flyers for the who proposed establishing "a women's days to qualify on swing shift. The Labor Union Women convention, Za­ meeting, the committee has printed an committee to deal with issues that are union filed a grievance arguing that kowski urged women to join CLUW. "ERA yes" button and is reaching out specific to women." the "company failed to transfer her to "CLUW's goals are steelworkers to as many ERA supporters as possi­ To bring home the fact that such a available work she had proven she goals," she said. ble. committee could benefit all members­ could perform," as required in the con­ In addition Zakowski stressed the Patricia Grogan, who is coordinating male and female-Dudley suggested tract. problem of sexual harassment on the the ERA event for the Women's Com­ calling it the Anti-Discrimination According to union president Jim job-which she called a union issue mittee, said, "This speakout is just the Committee. The name was unanim­ Lowery, throughout the grievance and a contract issue. "It is outright sex beginning. We hope to build a strong ously accepted. procedure the company kept bringing discrimination," when women are the coalition here modeled on the LERN Similarly, a Human Rights Commit­ up Gilbertson's discrimination suit. butt of jokes or victims of sexual coer­ coalition in Virginia. We are planning tee has been set up in UTU LocallOO, The union decided to do some investi­ cion and undesirable work, she said. to continue to organize until we get the which used to be merged with Local31. gating on its own, and put out a fact Zakowski outlined other women's ERA passed in Illinois." Previously, LocallOO had protested the sheet on the case for ali its members. rights activities of the USW A, includ­ International's decision to hold its Some fifty other women are in Local 3- ing the economic boycott of unratified convention in Florida, an unratified 38, and many have charged sexual ERA states and the recent affirmative­ ERA state. harassment by Simpson. action victory over Brian Weber. Women in The local also got the Occupational The union fact sheet begins: "'What Other speakers at the conference Safety and Health Administration to would you be willing to do to get a job included Charles Younglove, USWA force the company to install bathrooms at Simpson?' This is one of the many District 29 director; Maxine Simpson, for women in the Oakland yard. questions which women have reported president of the District 29 women's rail union So it was not surprising that when were asked by Simpson Plywood man­ council; Jonathan Comer, a technician • Rainy Creighton, a hostler, proposed agement when they applied for jobs. in the USWA civil rights department; LocallOO set up a committee to defend Several women have reported to the and Harry Lester, education coordina­ organ1ze women on the job, she received over­ IWA local that in their interviews they tor, District 29. By Terry Kay whelming support in the union. were variously asked to take off their In addition to hearing panelists, the OAKLAND, Calif.-"We have to The local legislative representative blouses, asked if they wore a bra, conference also held workshops on combat the attitude that supervisory suggested forming a regional commit­ asked if they would have sex with the civil rights, affirmative action, and the personnel have that women are 'cute.' tee, or at least contacting all women supervisor, and had to endure com­ Equal Employment Opportunities When a foreman tells me, 'Baby, I rail workers in the area. ments by the supervisor about their Commission, collective bargaining for want you to move an engine' . . . I With union support a meeting of breasts." women, sexual harassment, and politi­ don't move! We want to be treated like women on tne railroad was called, and The members of the union see this cal strategy. The largest workshop was anyone else." out of that, Local 100 established a case not just as a contract violation, on sexual harassment. These words by fireperson Cheron Human Rights Committee at its Sep­ but as harassment that must be Women steelworkers w_ere encour­ Dudley capture the sentiment that led tember 10 meeting. stopped. aged to join the District 29 women's to two United Transportation Union During the discussion at the meet­ "Well, I think the union is absolutely council. locals in the Bay Area establishing ing, some questions were raised about right on it because there has been a lot The next meeting, on "Labor's Case committees to defend the rights of women working on the railroad. of harassment," said John Lund, who for the ERA," will be held Tuesday, women workers. Both locals represent Brother unionists responded by ex­ has worked for Simpson for eighteen November 13, at the USWA District 29 workers on the Southern Pacific. plaining that "women are a positive year. Bob Younger, a ten-year em- office.

THE MILITANT/NOVEMBER 16, 1979 25 Subscriptions: key to sales catch-up By Peter Seidman tiua Mundial will be making one-day Sales scoreboard;; Socialists from throughout the South trips to nearby campuses and housing are helping the Piedmont Socialist projects over the weekend. Workers Party branch and Young So­ In addition to such special campus City Militant PM Totals cialist Alliance chapter with extensive teams, and door-to-door sales, many Goal Sold Goal Sold Goal Sold Percent % Ind. sales of this issue of the Militant in the areas report that they're calling up Greensboro area of North Carolina. readers whose subscriptions recently Ann Arbor 15 20 0 2 15 22 146.6 0.0 expired. Socialists remind them that Los Angeles 240 286 60 96 300 382 127.3 29.1 The Militant is sparing no effort to Dallas 70 78 15 27 85 105 123.5 9.5 get out the truth about the massacre of it's time to renew-and offer to come San Diego 90 112 20 23 110 135 122.7 27.4 anti-Klan protesters. out and talk about the paper while Salt Lake City 110 116 5 20 115 136 118.2 10.3 The whole labor movement has a big collecting the new subscriptions. St. Louis 100 114 0 0 100 114 114.0 51.8 stake in defeating such Klan violence. Cities lucky enough to have Andrew Seattle 140 145 5 16 145 161 111.0 21.1 But the capitalist news media are Pulley or Matilde Zimmermann on tour Newark 125 107 25 59 150 166 110.6 13.3 covering up and distorting the facts report that building meetings for the Kansas City 110 120 7 7 117 127 108.5 17.3 about this murderous assault. SWP presidential and vice-presidential Milwaukee 115 126 10 9 125 135 108.0 21.5 This underscores the importance of a candidates provides a good focus for Tacoma 125 134 0 1 125 135 108.0 9.6 big push during the final weeks of our stepped-up sub sales. Atlanta 125 125 0 5 125 130 104.0 4.6 Philadelphia 170 157 30 50 200 207 103.5 13.5 fall circulation campaign. Finally, some cities, like Toledo, Gary 90 94 10 9 100 103 103.0 26.2 where socialists report that petitioning Another city where sales of the Mili­ Detroit 200 211 10 2 210 213 101.4 34.7 tant are playing a big role in getting drives set them far behind schedule in Albuquerque 105 102 20 24 125 126 100.8 7.1 out the truth about racist violence is the circulation drive, say they plan to Birmingham 150 150 0 0 150 150 100.0 28.0 Boston. Although reporting too late to extend their sub efforts past the No­ Morgantown 80 80 0 0 80 80 100.0 10.0 get on this week's scoreboard, social­ vember 20 deadline. San Antonio 50 51 15 14 65 65 100.0 21.5 ists there sold 302 copies of our issue While Toledo socialists won't be able headlined "Boston Blacks under racist to come through in full and on time, we Washington, D.C. 115 75 35 72 150 147 98.0 7.5 seige." hope their spirit will inspire all our New Orleans 100 96 5 6 105 102 97.1 40.2 This brought the week's total to supporters to come as close as they can Portland 90 86 0 1 90 87 96.6 4.6 to our subscription goals for this fall. Chicago 275 256 50 53 325 309 95.0 30.7 5,313. Reported industrial sales of 20.9 Iron Range 75 68 0 0 75 68 90.6 22.1 percent set a new record for the fall Denver 105 97 20 13 125 110 88.0 11.8 circulation drive. Louisville 100 84 0 0 100 84 84.0 31.0 Despite this progress, with only Phoenix 100 83 40 22 140 105 75.0 14.3 three weeks remaining, the drive as a Twin Cities 225 161 0 7 225 168 74.6 5.4 whole is about 16 percent behind where New York City 445 246 105 134 550 380 69.0 15.0 it should be. Only fourteen cities report Pittsburgh 200 138 0 1 200 137 68.5 27.0 being on or near schedule. Toledo 60 41 3 0 63 41 65.0 41.5 Lagging subscription sales are the Miami 50 55 50 9 100 64 64.0 7.8 big problem. We're about 48 percent Oakland/Berkeley 165 118 50 17 215 135 62.7 19.3 Albany 100 65 61.9 18.5 behind in this category. Single-copy 61 5 4 105 Tidewater 130 80 0 0 130 80' 61.5 73.8 sales trail by 9 percent. Indianapolis 125 75 0 0 125 75 60.0 17.3 So the national subscription target Baltimore 125 74 0 0 125 74 59.2 33.8 week now underway will be crucial­ Cleveland 100 55 0 0 100 55 55.0 especially for the seventeen or so cities Cincinnati 75 33 0 0 75 33 44.0 18.2 that, with strenuous efforts, might be TOTALS 5630 4308 725 703 6355 5011 78.8 20.9 able to catch up or come very close to making their goals. "Figures not available. The New York City and Newark Not reporting: Boston, Houston, Piedmont, San Francisco, San Jose. '% Ind.' equals percent of total sold at plantgates and to co-workers on the job. branches of the SWP are setting a good Covers sales of issue forty-two of the Militant and the second week of sales of issue twenty of example in this category. Perspectiva Mundial. Two teams of socialists will be spending three days each selling sub­ Striking woodworker In Shelton, Wash­ scriptions on campuses in the Ithaca Ington, checks out 'Militant.' Union has and Stoneybrook areas. Scores of other been on strike since October 8 over supporters of the Militant and Perspec- discriminatory firing of woman worker. S.F. school board's ongoing war on education By Nat Weinstein tional standards. It leads to students, parents, and doomed to further cutbacks and eventual elimina­ SAN FRANCISCO-The recent strike by the San teachers in each department, each school, and each tion as an educational aid for children whose first Francisco Federation of Teachers highlights the school district pleading for their own programs and language is not English. escalation of the attack on public education and the needs at the expense of the others-undermining The logic of the erosion of public education leads need for a unified working-class response. the capacity for all victims of the cutbacks to to its dismemberment. The growing capitalist­ The teachers were forced out on strike in an effort organize an effective and united response. inspired, sponsored, and financed campaign for to catch up with inflation and to resist the mass A winning strategy for teachers must recognize massive public financial support to private firing of 1,200 out of the 4,000 teachers in the San that it is the students and their parents-the work­ schools-the so-called "voucher" plans-would so Francisco Unified School District. ing class of San Francisco-who are the main reduce standards in public schools as to drive out protagonists in this struggle to defend public educa­ all but the poorest children. This would afford no The settlement accepted after six weeks included tion. solution even to those workers who could scrape up wage increases of 7.5 percent this November and 8 Teachers could best win support by explaining to the money for private schooling. The private percent next November-at a time when prices are other working people that the objective of the schools would be stratified in quality in accord with rising at faster than 13 percent a year. Some 715 of capitalist rulers in forcing the strike was to deal the parents' ability to pay above the fixed voucher the laid-off teachers are to be rehired, including 50 such a blow to the teachers union as to demoralize it subsidy provided by the state. as permanent substitutes and 120 as part-timers. and remove it as an effective force standing in the From the outset the teachers' cause was weakened The future of education for working-class chil­ way of their plan to de~troy public education as we by a strategy that subordinated the mobilization of dren, already bleak, looms ever more dismal. What have known it. teachers and their allies to a fatal reliance on can be done to begin to turn the tide? The firing of 1,200 teachers was a blow dealt to imagined friends in the opposing camp. the educational needs of our children-a matter of Teachers are in a strategic position to rally Prior to the strike, teachers union officials had immediate concern to all working people. It acceler­ working people to fight back. They could take steps joined the "Save Our Schools" (SOS) coalition, a ates the trend toward larger classes. Already this toward this end by calling a conference of all body created by their direct antagonists-the ad­ trend has resulted in a physical dismantling of the interested parties to consider a program of action in ministrators, the board of education, and the lead­ public schools. Five schools were shut down re­ this crisis. ing business and corporation heads in San Fran­ cently under the guise of a "school redesign plan," First and for~most would be to appeal to the cisco. making a total of thirty that have been abandoned central bodies and locals of the San Francisco labor Support to the SOS program required swallowing in the wake of Proposition 13 cutbacks. movement to help organize such a conference. hook, line, and sinker the Proposition 13 myth that The whittling down of the human and physical The invitation to participate should be extended the only alternatives are increased taxes on work­ components of the public school system does may­ to all organizations representing the natural allies ing people or cuts in social programs serving hem to the meager progressive reforms won by of workinKpeople: the women's, Black, and Latino working people. working people. organizations. An effective fight for education requires cutting Remedial classes, designed to rescue children The end of the San Francisco teachers' strike has through the myth with the simple demand: Tax the systematically left behind and otherwise doomed to in no way resolved the underlying issues of the fate rich, not working people! functional illiteracy by the degenerating school of public education. Embarking on a strategy such Intentions notwithstanding, supporting the SOS system, will be choked off just as the need to expand as outlined above can minimize the effects of the program commits teachers to a losing strategy that them grows. setbacks already suffered and lay the basis for inexorably leads to acceptance of cuts in educa- Similarly, bilingual education programs are eventual victory.

26 Jail anti-Cuban terrorists! PROTEST ANTI-CUBA diplomatic relations, and an "There is no question in branches of government and party candidates would be BOMBING: .The October 27 end to the cowardly crimes the minds of the Nicaraguan the army." workers, while the Demo­ bombing of the Cuban Mis­ of the terrorists." people that a tremendous In Camden, New Jersey, crats and Republicans run sion to the United Nations revolutionary transforma­ seventy people turned out to lawyers and businessmen. was denounced as a "cow­ ON TOUR WITH HAL­ tion has taken place. A vic­ hear · Halstead and others "But what would this ardly act of terrorism" by STEAD . . . : SWP leader tory has been won. And this discuss Nicaragua. The Cen­ mean for Black people?" one Andrew Pulley and Matilde Fred Halstead, who recently process is continuing to­ tral American Association student asked. Zimmermann, Socialist returned from Nicaragua, is day." of Southern New Jersey or­ "The majority of Black Workers Party candidates on tour for the 1980 Socialist The meeting, held at the ganized and sponsored the people in this country are for president and vice­ Workers election campaign. International House on the event. workers," Sedwick said in president. He recently showed slides University of Iowa campus, Halstead's slides of the response. "We can play a big In a letter to New York from Nicaragua and spoke attracted both students and Sandinista army in Mana­ role in politics. Just look at Mayor Edward Koch, re­ to a meeting organized by members of the Teamsters, gua brought cheers from the how Blacks today are win­ leased to the press October the Iowa City Socialist public employee, and rail audience, made up over­ ning public opinion to sup­ 31, Pulley and Zimmermann Group, a new group of so­ unions. Some had traveled whelmingly of Nicaraguans port the Palestinians. For noted that "Omega 7, the cialist campaign supporters from Cedar Falls, Iowa, to and Puerto Ricans. years the U.S. government group that took credit for the in Iowa. hear Halstead. At the end of the evening has lied to us about the bombing, and other counter­ "While I was in Nicara­ In response to a question, one of the Nicaraguan or­ struggle of the Palestinian revolutionary groups have gua," Halstead said, "I Halstead described the ganizers of the meeting people." committed numerous crimes spoke with many people. "enormous participation of urged everyone to pick up a Sedwick pointed to the big with virtually complete im­ Workers, students, young women" in the Nicaraguan copy of Perspectiva Mun­ role of Black shipyard punity." Sandinista soldiers, farmers, revolution. Today, he said, dial, the Spanish-language workers in the recent victory The socialists called for and people on the streets of "there are women in posi­ socialist magazine. Nineteen of Steelworkers Local 8888 "an immediate crackdown Managua. tions of responsibility in all copies were sold. in Newport News, Virginia. on these terrorists, whose "We have helped build these crimes are a direct attack . . . AND WITH SED­ unions. We will help to build not only on a diplomatic WICK: Five people signed a new labor party whose mission, but also on the up to work with the Young base will be these same rights, liberties, and lives of Socialist Alliance after hear­ unwns. the residents of this city. ing Cathy Sedwick at a "Just as we have fought "We demand that you ar­ meeting in Washington, racism through the civil rest these terrorists. D.C. Sedwick is YSA na­ rights movement and the "The identity of the crimi­ tional chairperson and co­ union movement, we will nals is known to the govern­ chair of the Socialist help shape a labor party ment. Congressional investi­ Workers Presidential Cam­ that will fight against ra­ gations have established paign Committee. cism in all its forms." that the CIA organized, The students from Car­ While in Washington, Sed­ armed, trained, and fi­ dozo High School and How­ wick also spoke about Nica­ nanced these groups to ard University, most of ragua on the Pacifica radio begin with. them Black, showed particu­ station, at a forum spon­ "Omega 7 and the other lar interest in the idea of a sored by the socialist cam­ violent anti-Cuba groups do labor party. paign, and at a panel discus­ not speak for the majority of When one student asked sion sponsored by the the American people. The how a labor party would be student government at the majority favors an end to different from the Demo­ University of the District of the economic blockade of MilitanVRita Lee cratic Party, another stu­ Columbia. Cuba, the reestablishment of Cathy Sedwick speaking In Seattle last month dent explained that labor -L. Paltrineri

Help SWP say: ~Nationalize energy industry' By Suzanne Haig since the 1975 jobs march in Washington, D.C. And end the secrecy and lies! If you want to see the energy industry national­ the participation in the October 17 actions was far • Nationalize the energy industry! Put it under ized and the oil price ripoff ended, then the Socialist broader. the management of an elected board that operates Workers Party 1980 campaign is the campaign for What should send chills down the spines of the in full public view. Put energy production­ you. owners of Big Oil and their government is the especially health and safety standards-under con­ Socialist nominees Andrew Pulley and Matilde message these workers were sending them loud and trol of the workers in the industry. Zimmermann are the only presidential ticket call­ clear. • Build a labor party based on the unions so that ing for taking Big Oil out of the hands of the When West Virginia Gov. John D. Rockefeller IV,· working people have a political organization of private profiteers and placing this vital industry whose family owns much of the energy industry, their own to fight for these and other measures in under public ownership. was addressing demonstrators in Charleston, West the interests of the exploited and oppressed. Sentiment in favor of this socialist proposal has Virginia, they chanted, "Nationalize Standard To get these ideas into the hands of workers in increased dramatically in recent months. Workers' Oil-and Exxon too!" the plants, mills, mines, railroad yards, and offices, anger has been fueled by last spring's gas lines, by That was the message-nationalize the energy it takes money. The new energy brochure cost us the oil companies' record-breaking profit increases, industry. $1,250-a pittance for Exxon or Mobil, but a lot for and by the obvious subservience of the Democratic Placards announced it: "We must publicly own a campaign that depends on the contributions of and Republican politicians to these capitalist oil, gas and electric power," "Do Unto Big Oil What working people. giants. They Do Unto Us-Rip Them Off-Nationalize Big Our $80,000 election fund is crucial for assuring The growing desire for a radical solution to the Oil." Boston electrical workers carried a banner: the widest possible circulation of the socialist ideas energy crisis was evidenced by the union-sponsored "Public Ownership of the Energy Industry." that are winning a better hearing than ever before protests held October 17 in more than 100 cities to Speakers received the loudest cheers and applause in the working class. If you want to help the SWP "Stop Big Oil." It was the first national political when they called for it-as many union leaders did. campaign continue to get out the truth about the demonstration organized by the labor movement Working people see only economic hardship and energy ripoff, please clip the coupon below. disaster ahead so long as energy remains in private r---__ _.. ______..._, hands. The Democratic and Republic politicians have no answers. Enclosed is my contribution of $ I pledge $15 $25 $50 ___ I At an October 11 energy protest in Lynn, Massa­ $100 to the Socialist Workers chusetts, one General Electric worker asked state I Campaign by December 15. legislator Thomas McGee, "How come the govern­ I ment can control my wages, but they can't control Name I the price of oil?" Address ------Said McGee, "I'd like to know the answer to that City ______State __ I Zip ______$43,325.83 myself." Phone I Lies, evasions, excuses, and pleas of ignorance. Union/School!Org. I That's all working people can expeCt from the Make checks payable to: bought-and-paid-for politicians of big business. And Socialist Workers 1980 Presidential Campaign I that's why the socialist answer to the energy ripoff Committee, 14 Charles Lane, New York, N.Y. I 10014. is getting a better and better response. I The Socialist Workers Party Campaign Commit­ A copy of our report is filed with the Federal Election 1 tee has printed 40,000 copies of a brochure that Commission and is available for purchase from the Federal Election Commission, Washington, D.C. I includes Andrew Pulley's message to the October 17 A federal court ruling allows us not to disclose the names rallies. It gives facts and figures about the contrived of contributors in order to protect their First Amendment I seo,ooo for ·eo energy crisis and explains the socialist solution: rights. 1 • Open the books of the energy corporations- ~------~ THE MILITANT/NOVEMBER 16, 1979 27 In Brief BLACK VICTIM FLEES 'She had been convicted by fied the cop shot her after her 234 copies of the Militant, plus They were among a group NEW JERSEY PRISON an all-white jury on the un­ hands were up. Three medical thirty of the Young Socialist. attacked by D.C. cops and then Joanne Chesimard (Assata substantiated word of another experts testified that her Meanwhile, from Phoenix, arrested during demonstra­ Shakur) escaped a New Jersey state trooper. wounds supported her descrip­ Rob Roper writes that some tions called by the RCP at the prison November 2, with the The incident had occurred tion of what had happened. 2,500 people turned out for a time of the Washington visit of aid of three visitors. when the cops stopped a car in At the time of her conviction, "No Nukes Jazz Festival" Oc­ Chinese vice-premier Deng She was serving a life sent­ which Shakur was a pas­ Richard Ariza, then Socialist tober 28. Sponsored by the Xiaoping. The RCP is an ultra­ ence for the 1973 death of a senger. Shakur, who was Workers candidate for gover­ Mobilization for Survival, it Maoist grouping bitterly hos­ state trooper. wounded in the incident, testi- nor of New Jersey, assailed the was a fundraiser for coming tile to the present Chinese re­ outcome as an example of "ra­ activity, including a November gime. cist injustice" in the state. 10 rally at the state capitol If the federal prosecution of Woman unionist on abortion demanding a halt to construc­ the RCP demonstrators is suc­ CHICAGO-A coalition of promoting the Bakkes and BIG MICH. RALLY tion of the Palo Verdes Nuclear cessful, it will constitute a new organizations held an abor­ the Webers. SAYS: NO NUKES! Generating Station, west of curb on freedom of dissent for tion rights rally in down­ They are the same forces "No nukes" was the demand Phoenix. everyone in this country. town Chicago October 27. A that are lying and mislead­ as a throng estimated as high The weekend before the jazz principal speaker was Alice ing many women into be­ as 6,000 marched on Michi­ event, 175 people met at Ariz­ GOV'T ENDS SEARCH FOR Peurala, president of United lieving that passage of the gan's capitol in Lansing, re­ ona State University in an WEATHER UNDERGROUND Steelworkers Local 65. She Equal Rights Amendment ports Militant correspondent educational and planning con­ The FBI has disclosed it is is the first woman president would mean the sharing of John Keillor. ference sponsored by the Cam­ no longer actively seeking six of a basic steel union local. public toilets. They should . There were antinuclear pus Mobilization for Survival leaders of the Weather Under­ The following are excerpts know· that in some areas of groups from around the state and the Associated Students of ground charged with aggra­ from her speech. the South Works plant of and from neighboring Canada. ASU. vated assault and inciting mob U.S. Steel, where I work, A rally on the capitol steps action. The charges stemmed * * * they have toilets that have heard representatives of the RCP MEMBERS FACE from a 1969 demonstration in on the door, "Men or United Auto Workers, the D.C. FELONY TRIAL Chicago. The Weather Under­ It is no accident that the Women." American Indian Movement, A November 19 date has ground, a small group of radi­ same forces that deny Where were the "right to community groups and the been set in the Washington, cals, originated in Students for women their freedom of lifers" when working women clergy. D.C. trial of Robert Avakian, a Democratic Society. choice would deny workers were pressured into steriliza­ A representative of the Big chairperson of the Revolution­ The FBI tapped phones, stole their right to choose a union, tions to keep their jobs be­ Rock 14 described the destruc­ ary Communist Party, and six­ mail, and broke into homes with their "right to work" cause workplace hazards tion of South Dakota Indian teen others associated with during their search for the laws. were known to damage the land by uranium mining. him. fugitives. Former Acting FBI And would deny workers a fetus, cause birth defects, The gathering also heard the They face multiple felony Director L. Patrick Gray and safe, healthy workplace, free and cause miscarriages. . . . popular feminist singer, Holly assault charges stemming from two of his top aides have been of hazards that cause occu­ When the Supreme Court Near. a January 19 demonstration charged with civil rights viola­ pational diseases and ruled that denying sick be­ Socialist ideas got a good and, if convicted, could receive tions, but have yet to come to death .... nefits to pregnant women reception. There were sales of long prison sentences. trial. They attack the Civil was not discrimination, the Rights Act of 1964 ... by women's movement and the labor movement mobilized and went into action. And Baltimore socialist urges safety action succeeded just this past BALTIMORE-As Norton said, "is letting on that the Steelworkers Local 2609 April in amending the Civil Sandler sees it, the recently spill was a minor one, no­ charged that the company Rights Act to provide insu­ disclosed leak of the toxic thing to worry about. But "knew what was in these rance benefits to pregnant chemical PCB at Bethlehem any leak of PCB can be transformers and they have women .... Steel's Sparrows Point com­ deadly." never warned the people We have learned, through plex is one reason why work­ The cancer-linked chemi­ working near them about many struggles, that we ers should have control over cal leaked from a trans­ the danger.... " must unite. matters affecting health and former at the plant's tin Sandler said the union The labor, women's, and safety. mill. According to an electri­ should "exercise its right to civil rights movements must The thirteen fatal indus­ cian there, "From forty-five shut down an unsafe opera­ unite for us to win. We are trial accidents at Sparrows to fifty-five other trans­ tion." not going back to the days Point so far this year are formers are leaking." He also cited a number of when the boss reigned king another compelling reason. Because of this, the Uni­ other recent serious PCB in the mines and mills. We Sandler, a Sparrows Point ted Steelworkers union has leaks in the area and noted are not going back to the production worker, is the called on the company to that neither incumbent days of back alley abortions Socialist Workers candidate examine some 750 trans­ Mayor William Schaefer nor and certain death for thou­ for mayor of Baltimore. formers for possible leaks. Republican nominee Sam ALICE PEURALA sands of women. "The company," Sandler Dave Wilson, president of Culotta addressed the issue. What's Going On

CALIFORNIA LOUISIANA dinner 6-8:30 p.m.; rally 8:30 p.m. El 'SALT OF THE EARTH,' a film. Sat., West Virginia. Speakers: Janet Carlson, Tapatio, corner 23rd and Summit. Ausp: Nov. 17, 7 p.m. Donation: $1.50. Ausp: West Virginians for Safe Energy; United LOS ANGELES NEW ORLEANS SWP Campaign. For more information Militant Forum and Young Socialist Al­ Mine Workers member will discuss coal RALLY AGAINST SAN ONOFRE NU­ FUND-RAISING FAIR IN SOLIDARITY call (816) 753-0404. liance. For more information call (206) alternative to nuclear power; Rich Haven, CLEAR POWER PLANT. Speakers: Dr. WITH NICARAGUA. Live music, games, 723-5330. Pittsburgh Friends of the Earth; Carl Barry Commoner, Tom Hayden, others. refreshments, and a demonstration of THE MONETARY CRISIS OF 1979- Chamberlain, W. Va. rep. on Longest Sat., Nov. 10, noon to 3 p.m. Doheny Nicaraguan folk dancing. Sun., Nov. 18, 1 WHAT'S BEHIND THE NEW ATTACK ON Walk Committee; and Tom Moriarty, Beach State Park. Ausp: Alliance for p.m. Latin American Apostolate, 821 Gen­ OUR STANDARD OF LIVING. Speaker: WEST VIRGINIA UMWA Local 1949. Sun., Nov. 18, 7 p.m. Survival. For more information call (213) eral Pershing. Donation: $1 or donation Gary Sage, Socialist Workers Party. Sun., MORGANTOWN 957 University Ave. Donation: $1. Ausp: 738-1041. of a tool. Ausp: New Orleans Nicaragua Nov. 18, 7:30p.m. 4715 Troost. Donation: LABOR'S ALTERNATIVE TO NU­ Militant Labor Forum. For more informa­ Solidarity Organization and Committee $1.50 Ausp: Militant Forum. For more CLEAR POWER. Antinuclear week in tion call (304) 296-0055. RALLY AGAINST U.C. WEAPONS for Emergency Relief Aid to Nicaragua. information call (816) 753-0404. LAB. Picket of U.C. Regents meeting. Thurs., Nov. 15, noon. L.A. Convention Center. Ausp: Alliance for Survival. For more information call (213) 738-1041. MASSACHUSETTS OREGON· BOSTON PORTLAND LOS ANGELES ANTINUCLEAR CONCERT. Featuring SOCIALISM AND INDIVIDUAL FREE­ RADICAL PSYCHOLOGY. Speaker: DeCartro, Bannister and Friends. Sat., DOM. Speaker: Mark Schneider, Socialist Vern Cope, instructor of psychology, LABOR AND POLITICAL ACTION Nov. 17, noon. Long Beach Unitarian Workers Party. Sun., Nov. 18, 7:30 p.m. Portland Community College. Sun., Nov. Church, Atherton St. at Bellflower Blvd. 510 Commonwealth, 4th fl., Kenmore Sq. 11, 7:30 p.m. 711 N.W. Everett St. Dona­ IN THE 1980s Adm: $2.50. Ausp: Alliance for Survival. Donation: $1.50. Ausp: Militant Forum. tion: $1. Ausp: Militant Forum. For more For more information call (213) 439-7279. For more information call (617) 262-4621. information call (503) 222-7225. A panel of trade unionists will discuss the feasibility of forming an independent labor political party. Speakers: Pete MICHIGAN VIRGINIA Beltran, president of United Auto Workers Local 645 at the FLORIDA General Motors plant, Van Nuys; David D. Crippen, executive MIAMI DETROIT NEWPORT NEWS CUBA TODAY: AN EYEWITNESS RE­ SOCIALIST WORKERS CAMPAIGN HOW TO STOP KU KLUX K.LAN AT­ director, Social Services Union Local 535 and member of PORT. Speaker: Rich Ariza, recently re­ RALLY AND BANQUET. Speakers: An­ TACKS. Speakers: Omari Musa, member, international executive board of Service Employees Interna­ turned from Cuba, editorial board, Per­ drew Pulley, SWP candidate for presi­ Local 822 Teamsters, Socialist Workers tional Union; Woody Fleming, political action coordinator, spectiva Mundia/. Fri., Nov. 9, 8 p.m. 8171 dent; SWP candidates for U.S. Congress Party; others. Sun., Nov. 18, 3 p.m. 111 NE. 2nd Ave. Donation: $1.50. Ausp: Mac Warren, Bill Arth, and Martha Dow­ 28th St. Donation: $1.50. Ausp: Militant SEIU Joint Council 8; Elinor Glenn, president, SEIU Joint Militant Forum. For more information call ling. Sun., Nov. 18. Reception and Forum. For more information call (804) Council 8; Raoul Teilet, president, California Federation of (305) 756-8358. buffet 6 p.m., rally 7:30 p.m. 6404 Wood­ 380-0133. ward Ave. Donation: $4, $2 rally only. Teachers; John T. Williams, former official, Teamsters Local Ausp: SWP Campaign Committee. For 208; and Bernie Sapiro, president, Southern California Print­ more information call (313) 875-5322. ing Specialties and Paper Products Union, District Council 2. GEORGIA WASHINGTON ATLANTA Friday, November 16 7:30 p.m. RISE OF KLAN VIOLENCE IN THE MISSOURI SEATTLE SOUTH. Speakers: Rev. Fred Taylor, LABOR AND THE ERA. Rita Lee, So­ United Teacher/Los Angeles Auditorium Southern Christian Leadership Confer­ KANSAS CITY cialist Workers Party and International 2511 West Third Street ence; Mary Martin, Young Socialist Al­ SOCIALIST WORKERS CAMPAIGN Association of Machinists District 751. Sponsor: Social Services Union Local 535 liance; others. Sun., Nov. 18, 7 p.m. 509 RALLY. Speakers: Hector Marroquin, Sun., Nov. 11, 7 p.m. 4868 Rainier Ave. So. Peachtree St. Donation: $1.50. Ausp: member of SWP seeking political asylum Donation: $1.50. Ausp: Militant Forum For more Information call (213) 385-9321. Militant Labor Forum. For more informa­ in U.S.; Martha Pettit, SWP candidate for and Young Socialist Alliance. For more tion call (404) 872-7229. U.S. Senate. Sat., Nov. 10, reception and information call (206) 723-5330. Compiled by Harry Ring The Great Society Harry Ring Mexico crash: DC-1 0 not faulty? The October 31 crash of a In the first sixteen days DC-10 in Mexico City, tak­ after they were back in the Learned well-Those two FBI agents struction. His workers plant corn around ing a reported seventy-two air, seven DC-10s were accused of pocketing money allegedly the foundation; with each foot of growth lives, underlines again the forced to make unscheduled paid to informers had their story down they add one more layer of cinderblock; high toll of air transport for landings for a variety of pat. According to FBI wiretaps, they and by harvesttime the building is nearly profit. safety problems. assertedly agreed to insist that the in­ completed." Before the flames of the Since 1973, there have formers "would not want their identities doomed plane were even ex­ revealed" and, besides, "promises were tinguished, the "experts" been more than sixty re­ ported incidents ih which made to them that their identities would No dogmatism-The son of New were in print assuring that never be ... revealed." Which is exactly York's former mayor, Abe Beame, took a the cause of the crash was flight control equipment on what Attorney General Bell said in defy­ job as consultant to Republican members "human error," not any de­ DC-10s failed. fect in the plane. The root of the problem is ing a court order to turn informer files of the state legislature ($280 a day). Asked They have reason to be the ruthless drive for ever over.to the Socialist Workers Party. how he reconciled this with his previous sensitive. Since May 25, more profits. Democratic affiliation, he responded, "I when 273 persons died in the As far as the airlines are The high cost of living-What with can't see any philosophical differences Chicago DC-10 crash, there concerned, the goal is to inflation and a life expectancy higher between the Republicans and Democrats has been a series of prob­ build the planes bigger and than initially anticipated, social security on the state level." lems. cheaper, overcrowd the air is becoming a problem. Says a member of After Chicago, all DC-10s lanes and airports, make an the President's Commission on Pension were grounded for thirty­ extra buck and to hell with Policy, "With inflation going the way it is, Congressmembers dispensable- eight days for changes that the danger. maybe we can't afford to live that long." The FBI passed on intimate details of the assertedly made the jumbo The "friendly skies," they life of Rep. Daniel Rostenkowski to the jets "safe" again. call it. Polish government. It was done through a For small farmers?-The New York Chicago Polish-American who the Poles Times offered an alleged example of how reportedly believed was helping them keep the Catholic Church copes with restric­ tabs on Chicago's Polish community. The tions on building new churches in Poland. man was actually an FBI informer and "Bishop Ignacy Tokarczuk . . . is known the agency fed him material to enhance for ingenious methods of clandestine con- his credibility with the Poles.

Women in Revolt Suzanne Haig

CONN. STUDENTS already 43 percent behind the Communist Party & ERA FIGHT BUDGET CUTS national average in expendi­ Could you please tell me why at one about what dangers needed to be over­ More than 2,000 students tures for state colleges. Stu­ time the Communist Party was against come. It required unifying working-class marched on the Connecticut dents are determined this shall the Equal Rights Amendment? women of other strata and greater unity state capitol in Hartford Oc­ not continue, and are on the This question appeared in the "Ask An between women and their male allies. It tober 25 to protest cuts in edu­ offensive to win a 43 percent cational funding, reports Mili­ hike in the budget. Expert" column in the October 18 Daily required concrete struggle against racism tant correspondent Peter World, newspaper of the Communist within the women's movement itself." Krala. The cuts would close UNIROYAL TO SETTLE Party. It was answered by Alva Buxen­ In fact, the fight for the ERA over the many departments and jeo­ IN JOB BIAS FIGHT baum, chair of the CP Women's Section. years has been a motor force in creating pardize the acreditation of oth­ Uniroyal, Inc. agreed to set­ Buxenbaum wrote that "The Commu­ the conditions of struggle and class soli­ ers. tle a job discrimination claim nist Party originally held back its support darity so needed to combat both race and Such cuts have been going by paying $5.2 million to 750 for ratification of the Equal Rights sex discrimination. The ERA has been a on since the early 1970s. This women workers. The company Amendment because the assessment of class issue from the start. Working particular one is the result of acted after being faced with a our party at that time was that the objec­ women-especially Blacks and Latinas­ the state legislature granting cutoff of federal contracts tive conditio-ns and the relationship of suffer the most from inequality. That Gov. Ella Grasso power to cut under a statute barring dis­ forces was such that the dangers of mis­ inequality, and the racist and sexist atti­ any state agency budget up to crimination. use were much greater than the chance tude fostered by the employers and their 5 percent. Initially she decreed The Labor Department fi­ that ERA would be used, as was.intended government, divide and weaken working a 4.3 percent cut for the state nally acted in the case after by its supporters, to benefit women." people as a whole. colleges but retreated to 2.5 521 women workers filed a Today, Buxenbaum explained, "The This fact was underscored when anti­ percent in the face of widescale lawsuit charging discrimina­ active forces for ratification of ERA now ERA forces began rearing their heads. student protests. tion in hiring, promotions, include every trade union, the Black com­ They turned out to be the enemies of labor With mounting inflation, the layoffs, and recalls at the com­ munity, the Chicano, the Puerto Rican, and Blacks as well: union-busting right-to­ present budget can only mean pany's Mishawaka, Indiana and the Native American communities. work forces, antibusing bigots, and outfits further slashes. Connecticut is plant. The struggle to ratify the ERA presently like the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birch incorporates demands and unites forces Society. Behind these reactionary groups that are moving toward a more conscious stood big business and their politicians. STOP THE DEPORTATION OF anti-monopoly, pro-labor stand and it Members of the Communist Party be­ ELIAS AYOUB! incorporates forces that are consistently came increasingly uncomfortable being in anti-racist. Clearly the ratification of ERA the same camp with these forces and Demonstrate on the eve of his hearing demands new priorities and active sup­ urged a change in their party's position. Board of Immigration Appeals port." Today, there is an immediate opportu­ Ann Arbor: Tues., Nov. 13, 12 noon Federal Building, Liberty This is a welcome statement from the nity for the CP to apply Buxenbaum's call and 5th Ave. For more information call (313) 668-8675. Communist Party. Long after the AFL­ for "active support" to the ERA. CIO had come out for the ERA, and long A march and rally have been called for Cincinnati: Tues., Nov. 13, 4:30p.m. INS Building, post office after unions and civil rights forces had the ERA in Richmond, Virginia, on Jan­ at Government Square. For more information call (513) 561- begun active support for the amendment, uary 13. It has already received broad 1638. the CP remained dead opposed to it, going union backing. so far as to call for defeat of the proposed The October 13 People's World, West Columbus: Tues., Nov. 13, 4:30p.m. Capitol Building, High St. state ERA in the 1975 New York State Coast newspaper of the CP, reported side. For more information call (614) 297-0460. referendum. favorably on the march in a front-page The Stalinists offered various excuses article on the recent national conference Huntington, West VIrginia: Tues., Nov. 13, 4 p.m., Old Post for their anti-women's rights stand: the of the National Organization for Women. Office Building, 8th Street and 5th Ave. For more information ERA would abolish needed protective The article stressed NOW's endorsement call (304) 525-3441. legislation; it contradicted the fight for of January 13 and the backing of Addie affirmative action; it wasn't in the inte­ Wyatt, vice-president of the Coalition of Detroit: Wed., Nov. 14, 12:00 noon. INS building, 333 Mt. rests of working-class women. Labor Union Women. Elliot. For more information call (313) 843-8059. In the "Ask An Expert" column, Buxen­ Clearly with less than 1,000 days left to baum offers the following explanation: ratify the ERA before the 1982 deadline, New York City: Tues., Nov. 13, 4:30 p.m., INS Building, 26 " ... our tactics at that time were to we must all unite to bring the union, Federal Plaza. For more information call (212) 624-5935. withhold support for the ERA while act­ women's, and civil rights movement ively working to achieve the conditions of together in a massive show of force on Washington, D.C.: Wed., Nov. 14, 12:00 noon. INS Building, struggle that would bring working-class January 12. The Communist Party can 425 I Street. For more information call (202) 466-3348. women and men into the forefront. This strengthen this effort and the ongoing required clarity within the movement alliance needed to win the ERA.

THE MILITANT/NOVEMBER 16, 1979 29 Our Revolutionary Heritage Letters Coughlin: fascist demagogue Father Charles E. Coughlin, known Only one month before he launched the Crackdown on medicats as 'the radio priest,' died in Michi- . National Union of Social Justice he said I'm an auto worker in San gan on October 27. In the late 1930s to Paul Weber of Hearst's International Jose. Recently I pulled a his National Union for Social Justice News Service: "I am devoted to capital­ muscle in my back at work to was the most influential of the fascist ism." the extent that I was walking movements in the United States. Among his sixteen points for Social at an unnatural angle and Coughlin's group declined when Justice he calls for the preservation of having trouble taking a deep World War II began, and his superiors private property. breath without feeling pain. in the Catholic Church hierarchy Devotion to capitalism and preservation When I went to the hospital, were finally forced to bar him from of private property-this is the holy Bible a doctor told me to take time politics in 1942. of fascism. off. He gave me a two-day Below we reprint excerpts from the But he has been even more frank than excuse but failed to put a 5-31 pamphlet 'Father Coughlin: Fascist this. In a signed article in the February diagnosis on it. "Everyone will share In windfalls Demagogue,' written in 1939 by So­ 13, 1939, issue of Social Justice he de­ I didn't notice this at the . . . The oil companies get half, time but my foreman did when the government gets half, and we cialist Workers Party leader Joseph clared: get to pay both halves.". Hansen. The following selections dis­ "I am beginning to understand why I I returned to work. He told me cuss Coughlin's rise to prominence have been dubbed a 'Nazi' or a 'fascist' by I'd have to return to the and his antilabor record. the Jewish publications in America; for hospital and get a diagnosis or be "subject to disciplinary practically all the sixteen principles of scraping up fifty cents for the In the summer of 1926 an obscure social justice action." I'm still on probation are being put into practice in bus, but getting hold of $10 for Catholic priest began broadcasting over Italy and Germany." so I know what that means in the radio in Detroit. my case. their car. Like all true fascists he is bitterly op­ Similarly, no mention is For three years he spoke steadily with­ posed to the great majority taking power I couldn't see the first doctor out gaining any following beyond a local when I returned to the hospital made of TV. If the networks and favors the rule of a small minority­ were to cut down programming one. the capitalists. but a second doctor told me he Then the 1929 crash ushered in the couldn't give me a diagnosis from twenty hours a day to five worst depression United States capitalism Father Coughlin is opposed to strikes because I didn't have any hours, then he would have a had yet experienced. (exactly the way Hitler and Mussolini are "evidence" that I was hurt. point. The fact is there is less Something different did occur then. The opposed to strikes!): He went on to tell me that reading today than before. For "The National Union for Social Justice obscure priest launched a series of violent the company was "cracking most people their knowledge of attacks against "communism." His name contends that strikes and lockouts are down" on doctors at the books is from limited use of zoomed into the national spotlight. absolutely unnecessary." hospital for giving excuses worthless schoolbooks and the Big business tycoons count him an Since the formation of the C.I.O. Cough­ without evidence. He said the mass pulp paperbacks. intimate. Many Congressmen consider lin has assailed it venomously and inces­ company had threatened to Perhaps Breitman could give santly. him the greatest political force outside the take doctors to· court over other examples. But I think White House. Fascists the world over hail When Governor A.B. Chandler of Ken­ payment of hospital bills and that comparing the two periods him as among the chief of their dark tucky ordered President Roosevelt's Na­ that it "costs a lot of money" would not lead to what he number. tional Guard down to Harlan County with whenever a worker missed suspects. The labor movement has denounced orders to shoot to kill if necessary to break work. Dave Saperstan the [miners] strike, Coughlin whitewashed him repeatedly. By this time I figured out San Francisco, California the coal operators who have been notor­ This is the Reverend Charles E. Cough­ that he meant it cost the ious throughout the nation for half a lin. company a lot of money if I century as one of the most tyrannical, missed work, not that it cost The magazine and radio speeches, cop­ bloody, and violent sections of the boss Prison business ies of which Father Coughlin mails out me money in lost wages. class. I had heard that the Our recidivist rate of men free by the hundreds of thousands, are The Memorial Day massacre, in which returning to prisons, as designed to appeal to those who have been union was giving in on Republic Steel Corporation shot down absenteeism in the new recently reported, is about 65 crushed by the depression-the millions of unarmed workers in the back is blamed percent. Has anyone really unemployed, youth who see only a blank contract but I don't think my by Father Coughlin on the workers. He fellow workers have any idea reflected on why this great future, farmers facing ruin, those who see characterizes the massacre as a "bloody percentage, other than to say no more hope in Roosevelt's New Deal. as to what we've lost to the riot" and asserts that it will be easy for company. From now on a the repeaters commit all the "I am for a just annual living wage," he Republic Steel Corporation to "prove to crimes? However, recidivism is declares. "I am for labor's right to orga­ worker won't be able to miss any jury that it cost them" the $7,500,000 work unless he has something a design promoted and nize. I am for the cost of living being for which they are suing the workers they motivated by the status quo to maintained on an even keel; and I a:r;n for that will show up in an X-ray attacked. (Editorial in Social Justice, June or loses massive quantities of maintain the biggest business preferring the sanctity of human rights to 5, 1939.) in the world: The Prison the sanctity of property with govern­ blood. The editorial continues with a vicious It's clear that the company Business. ment's chief concern for the poor." attack on the C.I.O. To Father Coughlin What creates repeaters, Why should a program so commonplace is going after the older workers any militant worker is a "red," a "social­ in order to replace them with chronologically speaking, is as that create such excitement and ist," a conspirator in the ring of "interna­ the bitterness ingrained in the clamor, and out of an obscure priest create younger ones so they can speed tional Jewry." up the line. This is also going prisoners by the absurd, a national political figure with apparently His civil liberties record is no better unequal, overlong, and harsh unlimited funds at his disposal? to force workers to work when than his labor record. they are hurt because they sentences meted out by the Because that is not his real program. · In the March 13, 1939 issue of Social courts. A few years ago it was very difficult to won't be able to "prove" they Justice, for example, he opposes anti­ are hurt. In particular the Kentucky prove that Father Coughlin was con­ lynching legislation. courts, which usually sentence sciously plotting to build a fascist move­ R.M. In the December 19, 1938, issue, he San Jose, California the white-collar offender to ment in the United States. But now he has attacks the La Follette Civil Liberties probation for stealing millions come out more in the open. He has had Committee, which exposed the million of dollars and the indigents to time to make slips in his public and dollar labor spy racket and the wide­ '30s vs. '70s ten years for cashing a stolen private utterances. It is only necessary to spread use by powerful corporations of I want to comment on the "A check worth a few dollars. Our read his speeches and his magazine Social thugs, machine guns, poison gas, intimi­ Readers Notes" column by ·prisons are monuments of Justice with a little care to discover Fa­ dation, terror, and violence against their George Breitman in the failure. ther Coughlin's REAL program. workers. Militant of October 5. The Kentucky prison system In five of the last six does not believe in paragraphs of the column, rehabilitating the prisoner, and Breitman brings up three the result is that each inmate's examples of how the assault of caseworker is punitive­ the '70s "has been more brutal oriented, as is the entire prison and debilitating than what staff. They devote their time to happened in" the 1930s"! keeping the prisoner from THE MILITANT is the voice of He lists public hospitals with making parole, trying to sever the Socialist Workers Party. · a decrease in opportunity and his family and friendship ties, quality of service, mass transit discouraging the prisoner from IF YOU AGREE with what with large waiting times for corresponding with anyone by you've read, you should join buses, and public libraries with rejecting or destroying his us in fighting for a world hours cut drastically. mail, discouraging his visitors He fails to mention that from visiting and any other without war, racism, or there were many fewer adverse actions that can be exploitation7 a socialist hospitals in the '30s; today thought of on the spur of the world. almost everybody is covered by moment. some form of inadequate The turnover of the few protection; and in the '30s paroled is so great under such many people were hindered by oppressive conditions that over great distances to travel and 50 percent return to prison as even meeting the minimum parole violators. Repeaters are costs of checkups. made, not born, by the Breitman gives no account of excessive sentences meted out the vast overpowering use of by the Kentucky courts, by automobiles today! Today you prison mistreatment, and most don't read about someone of all by the arbitrary, unequal,

30 Learning About. Socialism

and unjust Kentucky parole Fighting fascism in the U.S. board. The cold-blooded and brutal murder of five antiracist The Fight Against Fascism in the USA. Apparently the Kentucky protesters by Ku Klux Klan and Nazi gunmen on November The latter also includes examples of successful mobiliza­ prison system can't be 3 in Greensboro, North Carolina, was an attack on the rights tions against the German-American Bund in 1939 in New rehabilitated, but a move is on of every working person. The slayings had all the earmarks York and against Gerald L.K. Smith's Christian Crusade in across the country to reduce of collaboration between the cops and the racist killers. Los Angeles and Minneapolis after World War II. the unequal sentences now This collusion is no new phenomenon. In a discussion What is American Fascism? takes up three examples of meted out and to abolish the held in 1975 on how to respond to fascist and racist attacks, fascist formations in the United States: Father Coughlin's parole boards. Hopefully, the Farrell Dobbs commented: "Social Justice" movement during the depression years; Kentucky parole board will be "Our situation is one where there are on the lawbooks a Mayor Frank Hague's organizing during the same period in the next one to expire. somewhat extensive body of formal democratic rights won A prisoner Jersey City, New Jersey; and Sen. Joseph McCarthy's Kentucky by the masses in the history of the class struggle in the U.S. witch-hunt in the early 1950s. The approach of the ruling class is to begin to move toward These examples challenge the common stereotype of Joe Hill a deterioration of those rights. fascists in this country as mere frothing maniacs. Whatever "Their tactic is to protect the rights of the fascists while at The Cleveland Plain Dealer their personal peculiarities, Hague, Coughlin, and of October 7 reported a move the same time using fascist forces to try to keep others from McCarthy were deadly serious political operators who by both the Cleveland exercising those rights. One of the forces used to implement exercised a strong attraction on discontented sections of the Federation of Labor (AFL-CIO) this is that most malevolent of all the repressive instru­ middle class and others in a deepening social crisis. ments of capitalist rule, the police forces. . . . and Region 2 of the United While these booklets make no pretense of providing a Auto Workers to petition the "The line of the police is to defend the exercise of the tactical handbook for the struggle against racist and fascist state of Utah to grant a pardon formal democratic rights of the fascists, on the one hand, attacks, some basic strategic concepts for building a power­ to martyred IWW organizer and not to 'see' the violations of the democratic rights of the and labor songwriter Joe Hill. fascists' victims." ful response to fascist attacks come through. This year marks the hundredth The discussion with Dobbs quoted above is reprinted in As Dobbs states: anniversary of Hill's birth. an Education for Socialists booklet entitled Counter­ "The line-up in the preliminary stage is one of the ruling Top officials of the Cleveland mobilization: A Strategy to Fight Racist and Fascist At- class attempting to mobilize initial fascist forces. The Federation of Labor were tacks. ' conscious revolutionary vanguard has the task of mobiliz­ quoted as saying that they In this booklet, Dobbs brings to bear four decades of ing the forces that are going to prevent the fasicsts from expected delegates to that body experience as a class-conscious trade unionist (who played a imposing their dictatorship in the crunch. That crunch to approve a resolution urging leading role in the 1934 Teamsters' strikes that made comes later when we're at a higher, more intensive stage of the state of Utah to clear Joe's Minneapolis a union town) and as a revolutionary socialist struggle, when the capitalist crisis has become far deeper name. Mel Witt, president of (four times the presidential candidate of the Socialist than today." the Cleveland AFL-CIO, said Workers Party). With that in mind, Dobbs states: "You try to muster the the federation will ask Counter-mobilization is one of three booklets on this broadest forces possbile. No matter what you do in any members to write letters in subject compiled and edited by the National Education area, you draw on everybody you can .... support of a pardon for Hill to Department of the Socialist Workers Party in 1976. The "The building of the broadest possible united front be­ Scott Mathson, governor of others are The Fight Against Fascism in the USA and What comes an effective mechanism for educating the masses Utah. is American Fascism? about the fascist danger. It creates the potential for drawing Bill Casstevens, director of While fascist groups such as the Klan and the Nazis in ever-greater masses to confront the fascists. The more UAW Region 2, said he will ask actively and consistently you apply this, the more difficult it the UAW International remain small and very far from being contenders for power, Executive Board to pass a as the Nazis became in Germany, crimes like the Greens­ is for the police forces to attack the antifascists and violate resolution urging immediate boro killings show the importance of studying the experien­ their democratic right to demonstrate against the fascists." action on the pardon. ces of the workers movement in fighting such outfits. Counter-mobilization ($. 75), The Fight Against Fascism But perhaps the most exciting This is given added importance by the intensification of in the USA ($1.35), and What is American Fascism? ($1.25) announcement came from Ben class conflict in this country-a result of the economic crisis can be obtained from Pathfinder Press, 410 West Street, Shouse, chairman of the and the employers' drive to make workers pay for it. As the New York, New York 10014, or from any of the bookstores United Labor Agency, a labor SWP resolution, "Prospects for Socialism in America," listed below. -Fred Feldman education group founded by the stated in 1975: AFL-CIO, UA W, and "This will inevitably lead to a sharpening of the Ameri­ Teamsters in Cleveland. can class struggle in all its forms and to deepening class Education for Socialists Tapes Shouse said he plans to call a polarization. While the tempo of this polarization cannot be meeting of his group to plan a predicted, its general features are clear. Millions of workers Four talks on Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by George Joe Hill festival in Cleveland will search for the road to independent political action and Novack. The question of whether the ideas of socialism can for later this year. will more and more turn to class-struggle methods. On the be achieved has been debated since the concept was first Whether the pardon campaign other hand, rightist demagogues and fascist movements presented. These talks, based on the pamphlet by Engels of is successful or not, the plans pretending to offer 'radical' solutions to the capitalist crises the same title, take up the origins of the socialist movement, for it go just one step further will come forward as candidates for power." the motive forces and course of its development, and what its toward proving the words of The three booklets bring together forty years of experience outcome must be. Three tapes (four talks), $15.00. the 1938 ballad by Alfred Hays in the revolutionary socialist movement in dealing with and EartRobinson that "The Making of Marxism" by George Novack. An introduc­ fascist attacks and threats. On example was the way immortalized one of labor's Teamsters Local 544 in Minneapolis defeated the Silver tion to the origins, background, and development of Marxism. most famous martyrs: 90 minutes, $7.00. I dreamed I saw Shirts, a fascist outfit that threatened to break the union, by Joe Hill last night, mobilizing the whole labor movement in its defense. This is Order from Pathfinder Press, 410 West St., New York, N.Y. Alive as you and me described in rich detail both in Countermobilization and in 10014. Include $.75 for postage and handling. Says I "but Joe, you're ten years dead." "I never died," says he. Dean Cohen If You Like This Paper, Look Us Up Cleveland, Ohio Where to find the Socialist Workers Party, Young Socialist Alliance, and socialist books and pamphlets

ALABAMA: Birmingham: SWP, YSA, 1609 5th Ave. MASSACHUSETTS: Amherst: YSA, c/o M. Casey, 5030. Oberlin: YSA, c/o Gale Connor, OCMR Box Correction N. Tel: (205) 328-9403. Send mail to P.O. Box 42 McClellan. Zip: 01002. Tel: (413) 537-6537. 679. Zip: 44074. Tel: (216) 775-5382. Toledo: My story on the October 17 3382-A. Zip: 35205. Boston: SWP, YSA, 510 Commonwealth Ave., 4th SWP, YSA, 2120 Dorr St. Zip: 43607. Tel: (419) meetings of Steelworkers Local ARIZONA: Phoenix: SWP, YSA, 1243 E. McDowell. Floor. Zip: 02215. Tel: (617) 262-4621. 536-0383. 8888 inadvertently transposed Zip: 85006. Tel: (602) 255-0450. MICHIGAN: Ann Arbor: YSA, Room 4120, Michigan OREGON: Portland: SWP, YSA, 711 NW Everett. CALIFORNIA: Berkeley: SWP, YSA, 3264 Adeline Union, U. of M. Zip: 48109. Detroit: SWP, YSA, Zip: 97209. Tel: (503) 222-7225. statements made at the two St. Zip: 94703. Tel: (415) 653-7156. Los Angeles, 6404 Woodward Ave. Zip: 48202. Tel: (313) 875- PENNSYLVANIA: Edinboro: YSA, Edinboro State shift meetings. SWP, YSA, 2211 N. Broadway. Zip: 90031. Tel: 5322. College. Zip: 16444. Philadelphia: SWP, YSA, The statement quoted from (213) 225-3126. Oakland: SWP, YSA, 1467 Fruit­ MINNESOTA: Mesabi Iron Range: SWP, YSA, P.O. 5811 N. Broad St. Zip: 19141. Tel: (215) 927-4747 District 35 Director Bruce vale Ave. Zip: 94601. Tel: (415) 261-1210. San Box 1287, Virginia, Minn. Zip: 55792. Tel: (218) or 927-4748. Plttaburgh: SWP, YSA, 1210 E. Diego: SWP, YSA, 1053 15th St. Zip: 92101. Tel: 749-6327. Twin Cities: SWP, YSA, 373 University Carson St. Zip: 15203. Tel: (412) 488-7000. State Thrasher was made at the (714) 234-4630. San Francisco: SWP, YSA, 3284 Ave., St. Paul. Zip: 55103. Tel: (612) 222-8929. College: YSA, c/o Jack Craypo, 606 S. Allen Si. second-shift meeting. The 23rd St. Zip: 94110. Tel: (415) 824-1992. San Jose: MISSOURI: Kansas City: SWP, YSA, 4715A Troost. Zip: 16801. Tel: (814) 234-6655. SWP, YSA, 733 E. Hedding. Zip: 95112. Tel: (408) Zip: 64110. Tel: (816) 753-0404. St. Louis: SWP, statement from Local 8888 TEXAS: Austin: YSA, c/o Mike Rose, 7409 Berkman 295-8342. YSA, 6223 Delmar Blvd. Zip: 63130. Tel: (314) Dr. Zip: 78752. Dallas: SWP, YSA, 5442 Grand. President Ed Coppedge was COLORADO: Denver: SWP, YSA, 126 W. 12th Ave. 725-1570. E. Zip: 75223. Tel: (214) 826-4711. Houaton: SWP, made at the first-shift meeting. Zip: 80204. Tel: (303) 534-8954. NEW JERSEY: Newark: SWP, YSA, 11-A Central YSA, 806 Elgin St. #1. Zip: 77006. Tel: (713) 524- FLORIDA: Miami: SWP, YSA, 8171 NE 2nd Ave. Zip: Ave. Zip: 07102. Tel: (201) 643-3341. Jon Hillson 8761. San Antonio: SWP, YSA, 112 Fredericks­ 33138. Tel: (305) 756-8358. NEW MEXICO: Albuquerque: SWP, 1417 Central burg Rd. Zip: 78207. Tel: (512) 735-3141. Newport News, Virginia GEORGIA: Atlanta: SWP, YSA, 509 Peachtree St. Ave. NE. Zip: 87106. Tel: (505) 842-0954. NE. Zip: 30308. Tel: (404) 872-7229. NEW YORK: Capital District (Albany): SWP, YSA, UTAH: Salt Lake City: SWP, YSA, 677 S. 7th East, ILLINOIS: Champaign-Urbana: YSA, 284 lllini 103 Central Ave. Zip: 12206. Tel: (518) 463-0072. 2nd Floor. Zip: 84102. Tel: (801) 355-1124. Union, Urbana. Zip: 61801. Chicago: SWP, YSA, New York, Brooklyn: SWP, 841 Classon Ave. Zip: VIRGINIA: Tidewater Area (Newport Newa): SWP, The letters column is an 434 S. Wabash, Room 700. Zip: 60605. Tel: (312) 11238. Tel: (212) 783-2135. New York, Lower YSA, 111 28th St. Zip: 23607. Tel: (804) 38o-0133. open forum for all view­ 939-0737. Manhattan: SWP, YSA, 108 E. 16th St. 2nd Floor. WASHINGTON, D.C.: SWP, YSA, 3106 Mt. Pleasant INDIANA: Bloomington: YSA, c/o Student Activities Zip: 10003. Tel: (212) 260-6400. New York, Upper St. NW. Zip: 20010. Tel: (202) 797-7699. points on subjects of gen­ Desk, Indiana University. Zip: 47401. Indianapolis: Manhattan: SWP·, YSA, 564 W. 181 St., 2nd Floor. WASHINGTON: Olympia: YSA, c/o Lynne Welton, eral interest to our readers. SWP, YSA, 4850 N. College. Zip:46205. Tel: (317) Send mail to P.O. Box 438, Washington Bridge 1304 Madrona Beach Rd. Zip: 98502. Tel: (206) Please keep your letters 283-6147. Gary: SWP, YSA, 3883 Broadway. Zip: Sta. Zip: 10033. Tel: (212) 928-1676. New York: 866-7332. Seattle: SWP, YSA, 4868 Rainier Ave., 46409. Tel: (219) 884-9509. City-wide SWP, YSA, 108 E. 16th St. 2nd Floor. S. Zip: 98118. Tel: (206) 723-5330. Tacoma: SWP, brief. Where necessary they KENTUCKY: Louisville: SWP, YSA, 131 W. Main, Zip: 10003. Tel: (212) 533-2902. YSA, 1306 S. K St. Zip: 98405. Tel: (206) 627-0432. will be abridged. Please in­ P.O. Box 3593. Zip: 40201. Tel: (502) 587-8418. NORTH CAROLINA: Piedmont: SWP, YSA, P.O. WEST VIRGINIA: Morgantown: SWP, YSA, 957 S. dicate if you prefer that LOUISIANA: New Orleans: SWP, YSA, 3319 S. Box 2486, Winston-Salem. Zip: 27102. University Ave. Zip: 26505. Tel: (304) 296-0055. Carrollton Ave. Zip: 70118. Tel: (504) 486-8048. OHIO: Cincinnati: SWP, YSA, 970 E. McMillan. Zip: WISCONSIN: Madison: YSA, P.O. Box 929. Zip: your initials be used rather MARYLAND: Baltimore: SWP, YSA, 2913 Green­ 45206. Tel: (513) 751-2636. Cleveland: SWP, YSA, 53701. Milwaukee: SWP, YSA, 3901 N. 27th St. than your full name. mount Ave. Zip: 21218. Tel: (301) 235-0013. 13002 Kinsman Rd. Zip: 44120. Tel: (216) 991- Zip: 53216. Tel: (414) 445-2076.

THE MILITANT/NOVEMBER 16, 1979 31' THE MILITANT Three Mile Island Qanel admits: 'No rantee' against

By Arnoldmore Weissberg nuclear disastersbe constructed will be located near The report of the President's Com- large population centers. mission on the Accident at Three Mile The panel also hit the management Island is a stinging indictment of of Three Mile Island, citing "signifi- nuclear power. EverY phase of the U.S. cant deficiencies." nuclear power program came- in for • None of these problems were sup- sharp criticism. posed to have been possible. The Nu- The commission proposed dozens of clear Regulatory Commission is sup- ways to make nuclear power safer, but posed to oversee nuclear safety. But in had to admit, "We do not claim that the panel's words, "evidence suggests our proposed recommendations are that the N.R.C. has sometimes erred on sufficient to assure the safety of nu- the side of the industry's convenience clear power." Furthermore, the panel rather than carrying out its primary said, there is no "guarantee that there mission of assuring safety." will be no serious future nuclear acci- This cautious statement is a gross dents." understatement in light of the evidence This is a flat-out admission that presented by the report itself. Catering nuclear power is not safe and cannot to the industry is exactly what every be made safe. government agency in the nuclear field "Our investigation has revealed has always done. problems with the 'system' that manu- In one respect, the commission's factures, operates, and regulates nu- report continued the long cover-up of clear power plants," the report de- the dangers of low levels of radiation. clared. Radiation released during the Three This "system" is known as cap- Mile Island accident, the report said, italism-a system that created nu- "will have a negligible effect on the

clear power because it would be profita- •1•.'_..___ ·_ • physical health of individuals." ble and drives ahead with it today, c; This is what Metropolitan Edison despite all the deadly dangers; because and the government have said all corporations such as General Electric Militant/Arnold Weissberg along, but it ignores the evidence pres- and Westinghouse have $150 billion Above, cooling towers loom over Goldsboro. Presidential commission said accident ented by objective scientists. Accord- invested in it. like Three Mile Island was 'practically Inevitable.' ing to Dr. Ernest Sternglass of the The panel hit what it called the University of Pittsburgh, as many as ''conviction" that "nuclear power 2,500 people could die of cancer. plants are sufficiently safe." This con- quate training given to Three Mile to the utility, to suppliers of equipment, In a separate report, the Task Force viction, of course, was held and pro- Island control room technicians, call- and to the Federal commission that on the Public's Right to Information, moted by the nuclear industry, not by ing it "greatly deficient," with "insuf- regulates nuclear power," the report which worked under the presidential the tens of thousands of people who ficient emphasis [on] safety." said. panel, said both industry and govern· demonstrated against nuclear plants. This is an implicit condemnation of The report said that new nuclear ment representatives had deliberately "The commission is convinced that the entire nuclear industry. The utili- power plants should be built only in misled the public about the severity of this attitude must be changed to one ties that run the plants and the corpo- "locations remote from concentrations the Three Mile Island accident. that says nuclear power is by its very rations that build them are responsible of population." Both Metropolitan Edison and the nature potentially dangerous," the re- for operator training. The training But what about now? Dozens of NRC were accused of a "conscious port declared. received by the Three Mile Island operating reactors are presently lo- decision ... to impart only available The commission, headed by Dart- operators is the norm in the industry. cated right next to heavily populated evidence and to avoid discussing its mouth College President , John Ke- The Kemeny commission said the areas, for example' Con Edison's In- implications." meny, detailed various areas of nuclear industry explanation of the accident- dian Point plants, near New York City. For example, the task force noted, an safety it found particularly weak. "operator error"-missed the point. And some nuclear power plants pres- NRC official deliberately obscured the The report condemned the inade- "These shortcomings are attributable ently under construction or proposed to Continued on page 23 1,000 at rally: 'End the blockade of Cuba!' NEW YORK-A thousand people member of the Committee of 75. The Cuban Studies and sponsored by a U.S. participants in a dialogue on a meeting ·here November 3 demanded committee is a group of prominent wide grouping of academic figures and range of political and social issues. an end to the U.S. blockade of Cuba Cubans in this country working to other notables. Seven hundred people from all parts and the normalization of relations promote a policy of friendship with A number of representatives of Cu- of the country attended the event, with Cuba. Cuba. ban political and cultural life partici- which marked a significant advance in pated in the conference. In several the opposition to Washington's contin­ The meeting heard demands for an The meeting also heard John Gra­ dozen workshops, they joined with uing efforts to isolate Cuba. end to the embargo by Ramon San­ ham, a State Department representa­ chez Parodi, Cuban envoy to the Uni­ tive. He said in effect that Cuba would ted States; U.S. Rep. Ronald Dellums have to end its support to liberation (D-Calif.); and Prof. Lourdes Casal, a movements in Africa and elsewhere before the United States would normal­ Our next issue will carry a full report ize relations. on the 'end the blockade' meeting The meeting was an open plenary and the national conference on session of a three-day conference on Cuba. Cuba. It was initiated by the Center for

photos by Harry From left Prof. Lourdea C•al, Ramon Sinchel Parodi, U.S. Rep. Ronald Dellums.