WfJRIlERS 1II1NfitJIIRIJ 251 No. 28 :--:-_:~,: X·S23 14 September 1973

As Woodcock-Fraser Pre~are Sellout- Foran International Industry. Wide Auto Strike! SEPTE11BER lO-As negotiations be­ seven days a week for more than ;:;IX tween the UA Wand the Big Three months to meet Chrysler's production approach the September 14 deadline, schedules. the Woodcock bureaucracy is making The smoldering resentment of auto Rail strikers storm Parliament Building in Ottawa. its class -collaborationist s t I' ate g y workers erupted in a series of wildcat clear for all to see. Fearing a wave strikes and sitdowns in the Detroit of strike militancy that could threat­ area, the most important of which oc­ en their pOSition, union officials pre­ curred in three Chrysler plants in late pared for the talks with the companies July and August. These actions threat­ Government Breaks by pursuing a conscious policy of ened to interrupt the carefully planned demoralizing the ranks. T his has preparations of the Woodcock bureauc­ ranged from permitting isolated strikes racy, Vv'hile it was temporarily able to at Norwood and Lordstown to drag dampen militancy through a mass mo­ Canadian Rail Strike on into oblivion in order to destroy bilization of union officials against the the morale of the workers, to tol­ action at the Mack Ave. plant, the Twice in recent Elemory the r'nverfn.:~>::·n~ ~-, ... !..s d(r:er:i d~1-E(~~~, t_Jbre~tk ~ \:l; ;'l~-,-~/ ~L.Ull .)1 ~:,-~i,tllU...tl lL~ij:lrl!.-:"S L.. l.....:.~). ')1 rt....:~l l'~~.:k- ,;.r:.d-··filc ;:;ilH)nort \;:3.S major strikes. In I~66 the Ottawa in several plants across the country made clear to alL A nti-Strike Law government ordered striking rail em­ (Fremont, CaliL GM; Mahwah, .\'.cT. ployees back to wor~ and met little Ford) am! most recently the open TOROl\ 10, :':2ptlCr!1ller 4-C:l n:1 d a's The UAW Bureaucracy: 1'esistalwe from the unions. Only last strikebreaking by UAW officials at ten-day-old nationwide rail strike was Agents of the Bosses summel the Ottawa government in­ Chrysler'::; Mack Aveo Stamping Plant. effectively broken by the Llberal Tru·· ,erv2ned to break the strike of Cana­ Essentially the same purpose is to be deau government last weekend, d(:sl)ite The c hoi c e of Chrysler as the dian dock vwrkers. The pattern of state served by such gimmicks as 3.nnouncing several thousand wo,--L,rs' surging i;}to "target company" only a few days intervention was so clearly established this year's target, Chrysler, sever~l the Parliament building in Ottawa to after the IVlack Ave. incident was not that when negotiations broke down in days earlier than usual so as to pro­ protest the stnkebreaking bill. The surprising. Selecting GM would have July the Toyonto G lobe and Mail could vide extra time to publiCIze to the ranks leadership of all but one of the strik­ clearly revealed the immense gap be­ speculate in an editorial (July 26) that in the bourgeois press evidence of ing unions promptly accepted the gov­ tween the bureaucracy's min i 111 a 1 perhaps the "strike weapon was a their "hard bargaining," ,crnmental edict, although Parliament­ preparations to mobilize the rank and fiction n for Canadian rail \vorkers, Despite this ambitious campaign it i:1:,> Isei ter'1lS were no hetter than file anci its pretensions tu the role CauiSht between a militant fClnk and has proven extremely difficult to build of hard-headed, "practical" ne:!;otia­ LH..J.3(" l't-j e('tt~ d b~; thE: uj~ions \vet.:k~ file and a solid government company a C:lse tur lalJor peace. ThIS has bCt:r; tors. Secretary-Treasurer Emil Mazt-y cifllcf l~l~:k·l' t~!~. l)rt:'ssure (JI l"u.rl- front, the rail\\'ay union lead2l"s called a boom ~;E;,ll' for the auto "stllllateel that the C c\ \\ would han' (IL .\ _t.' ~'l1J~ii:.I)n, tr:·-· },'),"v·f·rLnl~ ::t i~ !(jr r:~Jt,nin:~ strlK0S b:.~ ;:2J~()~r:tphi(:3.1 \\'ith IJ'rcllits uni,,'el Jt re'c()rd s rike fund of unly ~50 11111110E u+-;:-ri:l~ tll(' ~,;,L~~< i~' l<~ 11':='_lrt_',~il' .,rE::-_i.;::-:. TLc.2.5t" st;--:l>_...: ~1(i,j ~~.:t: ~~t;-,:t'_l \"-,::,:,:::7.C ,l~, .-:\"2' (-,-,1':;,=-,_t ~:: -'l't: !r:'):'.t:~, l!l (:ptenlber 1,';. The C:-d~iY ,stl';'~\.t" Ll +!.:::" !" \.::.: - ~ l : I~ r""- l'~ ~- • I ~, :1 '-.. ,,: !!ll:-- :::-' .. 11 ;,.::1 S' 7e .~~: ~-Ll ~~5~ ~ fit-' '.~,i~illl G':\1 ).. ~-:: 1/ .~ .') .1 .... .:.. 11 ~.:. ~,~ ~:l' :}~il~.':1. -':v'Ld ;-.i.,' ·t~~l .• l::;i,.~,-- ,,'- '., ,)1 ,-. ,,' ~ nt~ ... i; .} '--: ~- : -=- ':: -r>- s, :. .- !t -:-t ~ 19 "1-::: '~(;; : '.-I ~> . - ~j .~< ::.j I ': 1- d- ~_'~, --,sit :L tc ~jl~n. r 'J:' d~l'-" c;:\.] ,: ~--: :-:1;~1 '... )i tIl' xililj~~' :::.') •. ","Sc u! ~;ll:: rJ..ll .:-;t"lkt~. :.J. '.'~u. t'd': ; -i)~ 21 t' ~ _ \. '- ~"", ',)l r,~,~ l)UT :::it~lhJ::.s, r t" l.' i~' r·~t -l~) ~-- f.:-'J.~·:l !}?..: ...'1 ~ ':'-1' - ~ ~ .... x '.- J.. }<':, .' ~s ~ 1 \... ~' ...... '!. _~(,i.Jll ~t.-Jdll".::,illlJ tG ",l~:t;l a l~li.l 'jr!l~~ r'.I.i.:.."~~·" (v::lge conlr'~Ji) r: 1.::..~'; lor the 11l'Jst ria :·t r~:..il \vorkers sin-:.­ tIle fIrst: qUd.rtel' ,)1 197J, --:.1' 5061 _'dld lt~L-,t ~tL'ug;glt;. r~,~.'r bt" L.r.r u1I. mE:l'ed as they watched government $817 million, respt:ctively, C;,rysler, 011 the other ilanel, offered and industry hold -back shipments of History of the Strike Meanwhile, auto workers have faced several advantages to the union leaders. grain in an attempt to precipitate increased speed-up, loss of jobs and Its recent financial successes, its an immediate food crisis in the event erosion of real wages. GM Assembly Negotiations began December 31 smallness and apparent vulnerability, of a national strike. Division workers in 1973 produced of last year with the termination of make it a more credible target in the The militancy boiled over first in the 250,000 more units than in the first the contract between the eight unions eyes of the rank and file. Moreover, un­ western provinces where workers re­ nine months of 1972, but with 20,000 representing the 56,000 non-operating like Ford and GM, Chrysler's Canadian fused to go back when the rotating fewer workers! At Chrysler's Forge railway workers (non-ops) and Cana­ division bargains simultaneously with strike in their area was over. The plant, scene of a recent wildcat strike, da's two railway giants, Canadian 'its American and Canadian workers. western provinces are a center of union members told WV reporters that Thus a joint settlement in Chrysler Pacific and Canadian National (a "crown union unrest and Canadian nationalism, 60 percent of the factory had worked continued on page 11 corporation" fully subsidized by the It is also in the western provinces of government), and nine smaller railway Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British companies, The unions, pointing to the Columbia that the New Democratic sharp rise in the Canadian cost of Party (NDP), a farmer-labor party with Split Momentum Mounts in USec ...... 2 li ving and the falling wages of rail­ close ties to the unions, controls the way workers relative to other transport provincial governments. The NDP pro­ Leninist Tendency to Fuse with SL ...... 4 workers, demanded a 10.8% increase vincial prime ministers of course have each year for the next two years. a vested political interest in maintain­ The Stalin School of Falsification Revisited: In July, the companies accepted the ing the economy in good order in "their proposal of a government board of con­ provinces," And on a federal level the Part 6 - The Th ird Ch inese Revolu tion ..... 5 cillation which limited pay ll1creases to NDP has embraced Trudeau's minority a total of only 17.8 percent over Liberal Party government since the Trotskyist Work in the Trade Unions: two years. The unions refused to accept federal elections gave the NDP the the government/ company 0 f fer and "balance of power" between the Liberal Stalinism and Social-Patriotism ...... 6 began a series of rotating strikes that and Conservative parties. From the led to the late-August nat ion wid e early stages of the struggle the NDP Labor Department Upholds Dempsey walkout. parliamentary leaders shamelessly an­ F rom the outset negotiations took nounced t hat they would sup po r t in CWA Election Rerun ...... 12 place in an atmosphere permeated by the threat of government intervention. continued on page 10 SWP NATIONAL CONVENTION Split Momentum Mounts in USee Pressures for a split in the so­ of the once-TrotSkyist SWP, as akalei­ gades from Trotskyism, written by the called "United Secretariat" have be­ doscope of special interest groups S WP itself, expliCitly endorsed guer­ come practically irrestible. Symp­ paraded past the microphones. Fem­ rilla warfare: tomatic of the ten s e situation in inists accused the IT of being male "Along the road of a revolution begin­ this rotten bloc that poses as the Trot­ chauvinistj nationalists accus~d it of ning with simple democratic demands skyist International was the recent racism. Homosexuals wanted a tran­ and ending in the rupture of capitalist National Convention of the Socialist sitional program for gay liberation property relations, guerrilla warfare Workers Party, held last month in and a declaration that gay love is just conducted by 1 and 1 e s s peasant and Oberlin, Ohio. During the convention as "good" as the heterosexual variety. semi-proletarian forces, under a lead­ ership that becomes committed to car­ Livio Maitan, a leader of the European Next to the international question, gay rying the revolution through to a con­ majority of the United Secretariat, liberation and anthropology were the clusion, can play a decisive role in objected to the SWP's decision to main topiCS of internal debate. un d e r min i n g and precipitating the close internal debate on subjects still downfall of a colonial and semi-colonial under discussion for the upcoming USec The "Discussion" in the USec power. This is one of the main lessons world con g res s. An SWP majority to be drawn from experience since the leader ret 0 r ted ominously: "this is Behind the shadow-boxing and man­ Second World War. It must be con­ the convention of the Socialist Workers euvering is the current factional strug­ sciously incorporated into the strategy of building revolutionary Marxist par­ Party. There is no higher body!" To gle which has blown apart several nat­ ties in colonial countries." which Maitan replied: "We have beaten ional sections (so far: Australia, Can­ -"For Early Reunification of the you before [i.e., when Pablo, together ada, MexiCO, Spain) and will imminently World Trotskyist Movement, " with Mandel, Maitan and Frank, ex­ split the United Secretariat as well. The March 1963 pelled the SWP in 1953] and we will Jack Barnes MILITANT ostensible issue is guerrilla warfare Yet for some reason, the SWP's beat you again!" or, to be more precise, putting guer­ Joe Hansen suddenly discovered in positions on the world movement; close rilla warfare into practice. But in real­ 1969 that guerrilla warfare is not a Shadow-Boxing and internal debate on these subjects; and ity we are witnessing the conflict ofthe Leninist strategy. Ten years ago he vote to commit the full resources of profoundly reformist SWP, which longs sang a different tune when the Hansen­ Vei led Threats the party to the international faction to achieve bourgeois respectability as Dobbs leadership threw the Revolution­ fight. So the poor IT now has to pay the social-democratic party in the U.S., ary Tendency out of the S WP for saying The SWP convention occurs in the pledges to support activities of a fac­ versus the centrist European leader­ preCisely that! Here is what the RT context of a raging international fac­ tion it opposes without being able even ship of Mandel-~aitan-Frank which is (predecessor of the Spartacist League) tion fight in which each side is acpusing to raise its objections within the SWP! currently tailing radical guerrillaist wrote at the time: the other of deviations which it has (The subject may be academic, how­ youth, having earlier tagged along be­ "Experience since the Second World itself practiced for years, while lining ever, since the hard tone of Barnes' hind the Stalinist bUreaucracies for an War has demonstrated that peasant­ up with bloc partners holding diamet­ report suggests that expulsion of the IT entire de~ade. based guerrilla warfare under petit­ rically opposed policies on key issues. is possible at any time.) As far as Castroism and guerrilla bourgeois leadership can in itself lead (Thus the SWP majority is on a binge Speaking for the U.S. minority was war are concerned, it was common to nothing more than an anti-working­ of Trotskyist "orthodoxy" and accuses class bureaucratic regime •.•• Colonial Livio Maitan, a leader of the interna­ agreement on these subjects which pro­ revolution can have an unequivocally the French section of capitulating be­ tional majority, who began on a mild vided one of the key bases for the fore the popular-front Union of the progressive revolutionary significance tone cautioning against the formation of formation of the United Secretariat in only under such leaderShip of the Left in the March 1973 elections, which an international faction; graduated to the early 1960's. The founding docu­ revolutionary proletariat. For Trot­ is quite true. The "Lenini~t-Trotskyist accounts of SWP factional atrocities in ment of this opportunist bloc of rene- skyists to incorporate into their strat- Faction"-SWP and friends-neglects England and Mexico; and ended by im­ V"I ~:-." 11 lSthJu e1971 Pna7':p to mention, however, that its own anti­ plying reprisals against the pro-S oNP war and women's liberation work has minority in the British section if the been carried on through c I ass i c a I IT is expelled, and warning the SWP popular-front organizations, NPAC and that the Europeans had beaten them WONAAC, since 1965.) once and would do it again. During the With this kind of rampant ma­ reports it became clear that a fight Red neuvering, it is not surprising that the is brewing in the YSA, the SWP's de convention discussion was highly po­ facto youth group. The SWP leaderShip lemical yet also evasive and devious. wants to stop party minorityites from The SWP leadership, to cite one exam­ discussing their views in the youth; ple, made a great display of democracy Maitan objects because the YSA is a (in contrast to its 1971 convention) by fraternal supporter of the USec, and g i v in g the minority Internationalist the Internationalist Tendency eve n Tendency equal reporting time with the threw in some good words about the majority. However, at the same time need for Leninist youth-party rela­ it managed to restrict the IT to only tions-a subject raised more than a three delegates-half the number the decade ago by the Spartacist tendency. tendency's Size, 88 out of 1,200 party The other high point of the conven­ members, should have given it-and tion was the debate on the political elected no minorityites to the National report. The majority presentation gave Committee. an idea of what the S WP means by "Leninist party-building" by listing an The discussion on Latin America inventory of the office furniture, print­ centered on the relative merits of ing equipment and bUSiness machines in the respective Argentine allies of the the national offices and expounding on two sides in the USec dispute. It the good purposes to which the mam­ was conclusively shown that the SWP's moth expansion fund would be put (air group (the PST) is a reformist, elec­ conditioning and buying the party's toralist, social-democratic party par headq'.larters building). The IT re­ excellence, while the European ma­ sponded with a hard-hitting speech by jority's (former) affiliate (the PRT) Hedda Garza which came off sounding is a Castroist-Maoist-Kim II -Sung­ quite orthodox, and borrowed heavily ist guerrilla outfit having nothing to from Spartacist politics, concentrating do with Trotskyism. In consequence, solely on opposition to feminism and SWP majority leaders and IT spokes­ nationalism. Garza pOinted out that men prudently chose to concentrate on WONAAC acted largely as an electoral IN LATIN AMERICA BOTH TROTSKY attacking the mortal sins of the op­ pressure group. (The SWP's own dis­ AND CHE WERE MURDERED. TODAY posing group, hoping thereby to demon­ tinctive contribution to women's liber­ strate the superiority of their own ation, aside from its abandonment some THEIR FOLLOWERS PAY THEM side by default. time ago of the demand for free abor­ The debate on the world movement tion, has been to write the abortion HOMAGE BY TAKING UP ARMS. was couched in horror stories of un­ legislation introduced by b 0 u r g e 0 i s DETERMINED TO LffiERATE p r inc i pie d factionalism and veiled Representative Abzug.) The IT has also threats of organizational retaliation. called for restricting the full-time paid THE ENTIRE CONTINENT Jack Barnes, reporting for the SWP staff to 10 percent of party members majority, discussed a letter from ITer (an incredibly high figure), which re­ Barzman revealing the existence of a portedly would mean a big reduction Special Latin America Dossier secret faction run by the European of what is already a mini-bureaucracy BENGAL: THE EAST GETS REDDER majority. He then announced the forma­ in a party of only 1,200. (Just think tion of an i n t ern a t ion a 1 "Leninist­ what these reformist empire-builders MANCHESTER: COUNCIL OF ACTION Trotskyist Faction" by the SWP. In a could do as the bUl'eaucratic care­ curiOUS perversion of democratic cen­ takers of a few union treasuries!) All sections of the "United Secretariat- - from reformist SWP to left wing of tralism, the convention then proceeded For the remainder of the discussion centrist European majority (see British IMG's Red Mole above) - have support­ to vote for the formation of such a the most striking feature brought to ed -guerrilla road to power. - The .Spartacist tendency was expelled from SWP in factionj approve the &WP majority's mind was the incredible degeneration 1963 for holding that only the proletariat can create healthy workers states.

2 WORKERS VANGUARD egy revisionism on the proletarian Moreover, last December he suddenly leadership in the revolution is a pro­ discovered that the prize jewel of the Book Review found negation of Marxism-Leninism." European majority, the Revolutionary -"Toward the Rebirth of the Fourth People's Army (ERP), led by the Rev­ International, n June 1963 olutionary Workers Party (PRT), Ar­ Just what exactly was the famous gentine section of the USec, had de­ "turn to guerrilla strategy" at tbe veloped a militarist deviation. To top USec's Ninth Congress which Hansen this off, it turns out the PRT wasn't objects to so vehemently today? The for the Fourth International but for a key section of the Latin American new Castroist-Maoist International to resolution stated simply: include every petty Stalinist dictator "Even in the case of countries where including Enver Hoxha (see "Guevarism large mobilizations and class con­ vs. Social Democracy in the USec," flicts in the cities may occur first, WVNo. 23, 22 June 1973): PoorMaitan civil war will take manifold forms of had been praising the PRT/ERP for armed struggle, in which the principled the last four years, writing that the axis for a whole period will be rural last two PRT congresses were elabor­ guerrilla warfare ...... ating and "making more precise" the Nothing new here. The real "turn at decisions of the Ninth USec Congress. the Ninth Congress" was the turning of So both sides of the USec fight are Cannon the screws which came a few para­ hopelessly compromised in the sundry graphs later in a section about imple­ deviations and deviations-upon­ menting the guerrilla strategy: deviations of the Argentine guerrilla­ versus ists. (A comical point at last Decem­ "It is the job of the various national ;i revolutionary Marxist organizations to ber's meeting of USec leaders came when Maitan listed all the deviations translate this general orientation into Pablo ~-'-..... '-J concrete formulas and guidelines .•.• of the PRT and then pointed to Moreno, • f adopting methods of work correspond­ the SWP's man in Buenos Aires, ac­ James p. Cannon ing to the necessities of a struggle cusing him dramatically, "And you are conducted under conditions of repres­ the father of them!" Moreno replied James P. Cannon, SPEECHES TO THE a chi eve men t s. These include the sion and strict clandestinity ...... immediately, "And you are the mother!" PARTY. New York: Pathfinder Press, party's internationalist de fen s e of -"Draft Resolution on Latin They were both right.) America," May 1969 1973, 431 pp., $3.95. North Korea against the U.S. in the The SWP-Ied minority accuses the Korean War and the SWP's "Open The SWP reacted with genuine hor­ majority of abandoning Leninism on The publication of James Cannon's Letter" of 1953 which led to the for­ ror at this prospect. What would its the party question, which is true enough. speeches and letters from' the 1952- mation of the International Committee Democratic Party friends like Rep. Ab­ The European majority, in turn, accus­ 1953 SWP faction fight, documents and prevented Pablo's complete de­ zug and Sen. Hartke do if they found es the SWP of opportunist tail-ending, previously available only in old SWP struction of the w 0 rid Trotskyist the SWP's allies kidnapping American whic~ is equally true. If Simply internal bulletins, is an important po­ movement. businessmen?! (Readers of the Militant exposing the sins of both sides in this litical event for. two reasons. First, At the beginning of the Cochran­ will note the speed with which the S WP den of revisionists were sufficient to these writings highlight Cannon's enor­ Clarke fight Cannon's strong sense published disavowals every time the put would-be revolutionaiies on the mous strengths as aprincipled defender of party loyalty became a travesty Argentine USec section hij acked anoth­ right track, then we could relax con­ of the Trotskyist program during trying of itself when applied on an interna­ er executive. The famous condolences tentedly as the internal bulletins pour times, such as the de m 0 r a Ii z i n g tional scale. He used the notion of to the widow Kennedy were evidently out, each with more horrendOUS reve­ McCarthy period. (They also reveal "party loyalty" to the International only the beginning of the SWP's apolo­ lations than the last. But there is a considerable weaknesses evident in his leadership of Pablo-Germain [Mandel] gies to the ruling class.) danger that some sincere militants may failure to launch in good time an to paper over and actually conceal Maitan, who doubtless has fantasies reject the rotten betrayers they know international faction fight against Pab­ from the S WP membership serious of his 20-foot high portrait hanging best only to embrace the equally rotten loist liquidationism-which also eased political differences, in particular over from the balconies of some Latin misleaders on the oppOSing side. the way for the qualitative degenera­ Pablo'S "centuries of deformed work­ American capital, went even further, tion of the SWP ten years later.) Second, ers states. " Similarly, Cannon covered declaring that, "it is necessary to un­ The Internationalist Tendency the SWP'spublication of Cannon's 1952- for Pablo's organizational abuses by derstand and to explain that at the pres­ 53 documents (along with its pamphlet not solidarizing with the French majo­ ent stage the International will be built This may be happening to some ex­ on the history of the split with Pablo, rity against its bureaucratic expulsion around Bolivia"! And as Hansen, his tent in the U.S. as the Internationalist the MUitant's reprinting of Trotsky by the International Secretariat, which hand on his wallet, relates in his latest Tendency picked up the support of articles on terrorism, etc.) at this time, he later admittea naa made him pro­ document, the guerrillaists of the about 80 SWPers many of whom are as differences over guerrilla warfare foundly uneasy at the time. subjectively more militant than the majority actually planned a finanCial t h rea ten to' blow apart the fake­ This shortCOming led directly to cynical majority that revels in the campaign to help open a guerrilla foco Trotskyist "United Sec ret a ria t," is the major weakness revealed during in Bolivia. They told the reformist, popular fronts of NPAC and WONAAC. clear preparation for a split between the struggle-Cannon's failure to carry But it is crucial that minorityites seek­ social-democratic SWP to put its mon­ supporters of the centrist European­ out an international faction fight against ing to return to Trotskyism understand ey where its mouth waS-literally. So led majority and the reformist SWP­ Pabloism. To avoid having to imple­ that the IT is already deeply compro­ in 1969 the "orthodox" Joe Hansen led minOrity. ment Pabloist pOliCies, Cannon posited mised and fundamentally unprincipled. suddenly discovered that guerrilla war Without attempting a comprehensive a federated International. (This devia­ is only a tactic, not a strategy. And The key leaders of the International­ assessment of Cannon's role as a tion came home to roost in the later now in 1973 he opines that perhaps the ist Tendency were earlier members of leader of world Trotskyism since 1928, formation of the "United Secretariat" in 1963 reunification document should the Proletarian Orientation Tendency at we should note that his writings in which differences over the 1953 split, have had something about the limits of the 1971 SWP convention. The POT this collection are a model of eval­ China and other questions were papered guerrilla warfare in it as well. Live document ascribed all the party's ills uating the central issues in a dispute. over as each national organization went and learn. to its failure to root itself in the work­ He accurately diagnosed the existence its merry way.) Cannon's federalist Mandel-Maitan-Frank also have a ing class. Despite its limitations (e.g., of a rotten bloc between Clarke's concept of internationalism was re­ few problems with their past, however. it did not challenge the SWP'spopular­ followers in New York who we r e flected in a polemiC against (of all Mandel now maintains that the 1969 front antiwar and women's work), the capitulating to Stalinism, and Cochran's things) "Cominternism"! T he early resolution overdid the rural guerrilla POT did seek to orient to the working group of trade unionists in Detroit Communist International, he wrote, war theme a little and that the main class. NOW, however, the IT has signed who, reflecting the conservatization was highly centralized because of the line is really u r ban guerrillaism. up for the U.S. franchise of Mandel­ and demoralization among older and tremendous authority of Lenin and Maitan-Frank and Co. whose stock-in­ now comfortably-ensconced veterans of· the Russian Revolution, as well as the trade is guerrillaism/terrorism in the CIO struggles, simply wanted to get financial possibility of frequent con­ Latin America and orientation to the out of revolutionary politics. For to­ sultations (since the SOviet party held WfJllltEIIS "new mass vanguard" in Europe. The IT day's workerists, who see "roots in state power). Under Stalin, this central­ itself admits this "vanguard" is "pre­ the working class" as a guarantee ism became an instrument for sup­ dominantly student" in composition. against degeneration, Cannon's speech preSSing independent thought. And today People can, of course, change their on "Trade Unionists and Revolution­ "it would be better for the center ""'''AIII)Marxist Working-Class Bi-weekly minds. But in the case of the Inter­ ists" is must reading. there to limit itself primarily to the nationalist Tendency, this evolution has For over a year, Cannon struggled role of ideological leader, and to leave of the Spartacist League been surprisingly rapid and, one must for programmatic clarity. His struggle aside organizational interference as say, rather suspicious. When the IT was waged both against the minority­ much as possible ••• " (p. 74). Later Editorial Board: leaders first came together this year to force it openly to declare its real in the same speech he rejected the idea Liz Gordon (chairman) they had the following to say about the political positions-and with the ab­ of taking orders from anyone, anywhere International Majority Tendency: Jan Norden (managing editor) stentionist, "non~factional " elements and under any circumstances and re­ Chris Knox (labor editor) ·We reject the positions of the Interna­ of the majority (such as Farrell Dobbs) ferred to the International Secretariat Karen Allen (production manager) tional majority as well .... We believe to bring them to see the real political as mere "collaborators." Cannon here Joseph Seymour that the positions of the International issues at stake. The non-political re­ fails to distinguish between Lenin's majority, which envisage a continent­ sponse of sections of the party cadre is democratic centralism and the bureau­ Circulation Manager: Anne Kelley wide strategy of armed struggle, repre­ in hindsight a danger sign, but the con­ cratic centralism of Stalin. Pablo cer­ sent an adaptation to guerrillaism .... West Coast Editor: Mark Small The International majority evidenced in servative impulse did not find program­ tainly had appetites to be a petty New England Editor: George Foster its positions a critical error in the con­ matic generalization until 1963, when dictator and tactical autonomy for Southern Editor: Joe Vetter !>ideration of Maoism as bureaucratic the SWP codified its revisionist degen­ national sections is deSirable, but to Midwest Editor: David Reynolds centrism•... There is a certain ten­ eration and "reunified" with Pabloism. reply to the devious intrigues of the dency in this direction evident in some But simply to write off the S WP as at "Pope of Paris" by rejecting a central­ Published by the Spartacist of the European sections' positions this time already hopelessly degener­ ized International is a qua lit at i v e Publishing Company, Box 1377, toward the leadership of the DRV /NLF ated, led by the" Zinovievist" Cannon, overreaction. G. p. 0., New York, N. Y. 10001. and the Seven-Point Program." (as do the Class Struggle Lea g u e, The problem was not that Cannon -"Letter to the Political Committee Spartacus-BL, the Revolutionary So­ Telephone: 925-8234. on the Formation of a Political was unaware of the issues in dispute Tendency," 19 January 1973 cialist League and other groups who internationally-his c r i tic ism s of Opinions expressed in signed are united solely in their respective Pablo's "centuries of deformed work­ articles or letters do not neces­ But by May the same people, having claims to be the first Trotskyists ers states," the "war-r e v ci I uti 0 n sarily express the editorial meanwhile sniffed a split in the air and since Trotsky or, in the case of the thesis" and the organizational atro­ viewpoint. after a few secret meetings with RSL, the first Trotskyists ever) means cities of the International leadership continued on page 9 clOSing one's eyes to a few "minor" continued on page 9 14 SEPTEMBER 1973 3 Leninist Tendency to Fuse with SL Emerging from the recent split in the bureaucracy and to win militants to its practice unknown. Thus the central pointed out that despite all the fine the International Socialists was the the politics of the Trotskyist party. On efforts of the L T during the brief and platitudes about "freedom of critiCism, Leninist Tendency, which resigned fol­ the controversial question of critical aborted factional struggle centered on unity in action," Menshevik groups such lOwing the expulsion of the Revolution­ support to oppositionists in the unions, achieving political clarification in the as the IS would only stand for so much ary Tendency (see "IS Explodes," WV the "Draft Program" limited the use of left wing by exposing the contradictions criticism from embarraSSing minori­ No. 26, 3 August). The RT (now the this tactic to situations in which' one of the Tabor-Landy RT. ties before simply expelling them. In Revolutionary Socialist League) is a side has taken a class-struggle position Tabor had called for the formation another document it suggested that the contradictory leftward-moving forma­ 'On a key question which sharply differ­ of trade-union caucuses based on the RT was "about to receive an all-too­ tion that has not yet broken with the entiates it from "simple promises of Transitional Program, but then only final demonstration of this." fundamental programmatic elements of militancy, honesty, democracy" which to declare, Repeatedly during the IS faction Shachtmanism, as indicated especially are the trademark of every fake­ ·Contrary to the approach of the Spar­ fight, the L T pOinted out that the RT was by its refusal to call for unconditional militant out of power. When the candi­ tacists and other wooden heads, the artifiCially heating-up the atmosphere military defense of the USSR against date later betrays the struggle, the method of the transitional program does in order to provoke its own expulsion. imperialism (the Russian question) and consistency of the revolutionaries will not consist of raiSing the entire pro­ The RT replied by accusing the Leninist for Leninist norms of democratic cen­ stand out clearly. gram everywhere and always, nor in the Tendency of conciliating the majority. tralism (the organizational question). In addition the tendency program 'principled' construction of communist caucuses in the unions based on the After the expUlsion ofthe RT, the LT The LT, however, represented during call e d for working-class struggle entire, or 95 percent of, the Transition­ promptly reSigned from the IS, ,not the IS faction fight a clear Trotskyist against the oppression of blacks, other al Program." wishing to legitimize in any way the pro­ pole and a sharp break with the Shacht­ ethnic minorities and women, rejecting -"On the Transitional Program,· foundly ref 0 r m i s t, anti-communist manite methodology of tailing every any form of nationalist or feminist poly­ undated [1973] Geierite 0 r g ani z a t ion. It then ap­ twist and turn of petty-bourgeois public vanguardism. It also called for uncon­ The L T replied, in its document" Party plied for membership in the RSL, opinion (anti-Sovietism in 1939-40, ditional military defense of the Sino­ and Program," that while a caucus arguing that "our program is the logical black nationalism in 1968, workerism Soviet states against imperialist attack, might center its agitation on one or extension of the direction in which you tOday). characterizing them as degenerated or several pOints of the Transitional Pro­ have moved" (letter to the RSL, 17 July). At its August Central Committee deformed workers states. gram at any given time, the caucus it­ The LT reaffirmed its earlier char­ plenum the Spartacist League voted to self must be based On a prinCipled class acterization of the RT /RSL as an in­ fuse with the L T, as another step in The New York IS Zoo program, that is, the Transitional Pro­ complete break' with Shachtmanism, the process of revolutionary regroup­ gram-not bits and pieces of the pro­ listed its differences on the Russian ment. In the past two years this tactic Independently of the West Coast gram, what the workers are "ready for" question, the organizational question, has attracted to the SL a whole new group, two New York ISers began evolv­ or, as the Geierites put it, the "next the relation of party to class, the ques,­ layer of cadre from the remnants of ing toward Spartacist politics after st€P forward." The task is to build a tion of critical support in the unions the New Left, various Maoist forma­ earlier supporting and later rejecting revolutionary opposition in the unions. and raised the crucial importance of t ion san d the ex-Trotskyist SWP. varieties of left-workerism which mas­ A decisive and revealing event in the taking a pOSition on the 1968 NYC teach­ The continuing importance of regroup­ queraded as "Trotskyism" in the IS evolution of the RT was its call for ers' strike. It also frankly put forward ment in the struggle to construct a circus. One New York LTer, who was a "critical support" to the U.S. Labor its perspective of winning the RSL to proletarian vanguard is demonstrated member of the IS for seven years, Department's dar1ing, Arnold Miller, fusion with the Spa~acist League. by the recent series of left splits earlier supported New York IS leader in last year's Mine Workers' election. Landy in typical fashion rejected the from Pabloist and Shachtmanite organ­ Brian Mackenzie who in 1971 had writ­ Thus despite its Transitional Program­ LT application summarily without in­ izations, reflecting a growing desire ten some "Theses on the Transitional waving, and although th€ RT opposed di cat i n g programmatic differences among sections of these revisionist Program" proclaiming that the Transi­ the right-wing majority primarily over which would have made this course parties to return to orthodox Trotsky­ tional Program was based on objective trade-union policy, in practice both unprincipled. ism as the class struggle sharpens. neceSSity. Mackenzie himself later ad­ wings of the IS were committed totail­ Such a situation requires an effort to mUted in an internal document that the ing whatever was popular. The L T Fusion with the SL intersect the contradictory leftward­ activity of his supporters during the countered: , moving currents through sharp pro­ 1971 New York telephone strike W..• [Tabor] states that critical support It has become increaSingly clear that grammatic struggle in order to crys­ amounted to acting as a left pressure is 'only justified when the elements we the RT /RSL is an effort to respond to tallize a Bolshevik Wing. The develop­ group On the CWAbureaucracy-hardly are supporting are those who will be­ the manifest popularity of orthodox ment of the Leninist Tendency and its an application 0 f the Transitional come susceptible to being pressured by Leninism among numbers of advanced the rank and file.' Who can that possibly relationship to the RT /RSL must be Program. workers an~ radical intellectuals with­ seen in this context. As Mackenzie seemed to be moving exclude? No other criterion is given. We believe, in fact, that Tabor's de­ out, however, accepting the essence of to the right in 1972, this comrade came sire to extend critical support to the Bolshevism. While Landy-Tabor clear­ Origins of the into contact with a supposedly "orthodox MFD (Miners for Democracy] leader­ ly wish to break with Shachtman 's name Leninist Tendency Trotskyist" study group in the IS made ship ••• reveal[s] that he is still tied and adopt certain of Trotsky's theoreti­ up of the Communist Tendency (a group to the 'step-forward' concept•••• • cal positions in the abstract, they have The LT was formed out of ~ West of young workeristphilistines formerly -WParty a.'ld Program,· April 1973 not broken with the fundamentals of Coast grouping led by Doug Hayes and of the SWP) and some burnt-out cases The L T also challenged the RT to Shachtmanism on the key programmatiC Judith Shapiro. Its members were re­ (Harold Robins, Hugh Fredericks) who take a position on the Russian question questions and in practice. The RSL does cruited from the !S' "SDS levy"-the abandoned the rest-home atmosphere of beyond the simple-minded assertion not yet have a definitive position on the members drawn in after 1968 as the Harry Turner's Vanguard Newsletter that a deformed workers state theory "Russian question" or the relation of Shachtmanite organization threw its for the high school-like milieu of the "leads to Pabloism." Behind that state­ class and party, but it is certain that doors open to practically anyone save IS. Despite the ex-CT /VNLers' claims ment is the same old Shachtmanite it will not give unconditional military out-and-out Stalinists. Thus Hayes, a to be carrying out a hard, wrecking view that one must favor anything that support to Stalinist-ruled states against former member of the Spartacist tend­ entry, what actually took place was (as is a "step forward": i.e., ,if a "deformed imperialism and very likely it will ency, joined the IS in 1971 declaring one leading ISer put it) their assimila­ workers state" is a "step forward" adhere to some form of Menshevik himself an oppositionist in general tion as just "one more monster in the with regard to capitalism, then orthodox theory of the party. Its position on the agreement wit h Spartacist politics. swamp." Trotskyists must advocate the forma­ Mine Workers' election demonstrates Shapiro joined the IS in 1969 after a The ex-CT /VNLers formed a Cau­ tion of deformed workers states! that on the main issue of the split­ time as an activist in SDS. She served cus for a Transitional Program Policy In its last document while still part t r ad e-union policy-the RSL stands a term on the IS National Committee which, like the Landy-Tabor group, re­ of the IS, "On Democratic Centralism closer to IS Shachtmanism than to and was a leader in its women's liber­ fused to take on the IS majority on the and Factional Struggle," the Leninist Trotskyism. ation work. Her gradual leftward course key questions of the nature of the Tendency rejected the view expressed The Leninist Tendency, in contrast, resulted in the coaleSCing of an in­ Stalinist-ruled states and the role of the by Landy in a LT/RT debate that Lenin believes that Trotskyism is not just formal tendency in late 1972 which gen­ vanguard party, ins tea d restricting was wrong in asserting that socialist a three-syllable term, but an evolved erally adhered to TrotskYist politics. the~r polemiCS to trade-union tactics. consciousness is brought to the work­ synthesis of program and practice. It The outbreak of violent factional In this area they t e r m e d the SL ing class from the outside. To adhere is therefore fUSing with the Spartacist warfare in the IS between the hardened emphasis on struggle for the revolu­ to the traditional Leninist concept, as League, the unique embodiment of Trot­ Shachtmanites of the right-wing major­ tionary program ins ide the unions presented in What Is To Be Done?, said skyism in the United St ate s. For­ ity led by Joel Geier and a heterogene­ "sec ·arianism. " Similarly, they re­ Landy, was substitutionism eventually ward to the Rebirth of the Fourth ous left wing led by Ron Tabor and jected intervention into the women's leading to supportfor Stalinism. The LT InternatiQnal! _ former IS National Secretary Sy Landy, liberation movement, showing their op­ required the transformation of the portunist appetites by arguing that white Hayes/Shapiro group into a hard Trot­ male workers would be turned off by skyist tendency with a definite perspec­ struggle against special oppression of tive. Thus the Leninist Tendency was women. Having rejected this workerist PROGRAm FOR POWER- formed at the April 1973 IS plenum, with perversion of Trotskyism as capitula­ the goal of winning the left wing to the tion to the backward consciousness of program of revolutionary Trotskyism. the working class today, the two New Auta Warkers and the The "Draft Program of the Leninist York comrades became sympathetic to Ten.dency" concentrated on the key is­ the Leninist Tendency. sues of the vanguard party and Bolshe­ Transitional Pragram vik trade-union pOlicies. The L T took For Political Clarity, an unambiguous Trotskyist position, Speaker: calling for the rebirth of the Fourth Against Left-Shachtmanism International and rejecting all "new CHRIS KNOX , mass vanguard" theories which see the Some of the writings of the Revolu­ Labor Editor, Workers Vanguard proletarian leadership a s somehow tionary Tendency (the principal opposi­ SL Central Committee emerging from a spontaneous process. tion group), and particularly the docu­ The LT aptly characterized such spon­ ment on the Transitional Program by SUNDAY, 16 SEPTEMBER;7:30 PM taneist tall".om as "Pabloism from be- Tabor, were clearly to the L:. :Jfmail1- low." On:. >_ ·~~ni0n policies the docu­ ,:'ca;':~ IS polltic~ :i!ld an . 'It ~~t- ••IIIiIllIl ••• ~"'i~ . ~'~5~Qi' F" . ·.·~,;::.SMG; fA'.' ~ ment sll "ti:. :1eed to go beyonc .,:lpt t; break flom tli<: : ;;::1i: I.~ ~ Tr:rlity MethodIst Chu! br:ing r,:.; ::.':itants," ip. order t, ".dltl'.': .. However, t.he r:', '£, ,~'- 51 Fe:~,}jn~!-DETR(,l ~ 13; 00 Woodward present ... i '" volutlvnary alternative tv .ider 01 the RT remaint,L, .1, ,.(;ar and FijI' information: 80c: ".',

4 WORKERS V~NGUARO Reply to the Guardian

most radical land-reform line that can at all, even though all Trotskyists be taken without totally disrupting the unequivocally supported China against village. Guerrilla warfare depends on J ap~n up to the point where this struggle support from the generalpeasantpopu­ for national independence was sub­ lation, not just the poorest of the poor, merged by World War II.) In response for isolated, poorly-equipped guer­ to the CCP proposal the Kuomintang rilleros are extremely vulnerable to adopted a "Resolution for Complete betrayal. And faced with modern weap­ Eradication of the Red Menace" which ons the only weapon of the peasants is agreed to reconciliation if the Red ''1:'-.... :- overwhelming numbers, which again Army and Soviet government were abol­ . presumes unity. It is no accident that ished, all Communist propaganda ended ,'" all guerrilla movements opt for a and calls for class struggle dropped. / ~.;a_ middle- or rich-peasant policy rather The CCP accepted, although the actual L-'~:lt; .. than taking the class struggle into the integration of the Communist base , ,W, ;,/ .,,-:-.. village; and one more reason why rev­ areas into Kuomintang rule as well as ~II';.. ~ ~.:":~ \ " ...... ~~ olutionary Marxists insist that the pro­ the absorption of the Communist army ~ fIr_ -- .-- ~ letariat is the only consistently revolu­ remained solely on paper. ~- - - ~-~ tionary class, and oppose guerrillaism. With the onset of World War II -.....;''>;$K'' • .,.. ~ _.... ~ ~ _. __ Mao's class collaboration became even Period of the \.. .. ~~:~ - ... ~ .;;.../ ~ .,,.,,.- more blatant, if that is possible. He .~~ ~',k---', ~ .~,• -.. -.~.s."""""""... _ . "Anti-Japanese United Front" renamed Stalin's "bloc offour classes" ''? But Mao was not simply an astute with the slogan "new democracy," which ~-":;- ~.. ,-,' '--'~ guerrilla leader. Gradually he came to was defined as the "dictatorship of all ."', .~ , '- '\ '> • a quite clear understanding of the es­ revolutionary classes over the counter­ sence of Stalinism-capitulation to the revolutionaries and traitors. " Davidson , " bouJ;geoisie while maintaining bureau­ dishes up a sweetened version of new .,., cratic control over the workers and democracy, according to which this .. poor peasants. ThUS, when he finally intermediate stage would last only LIFE Mao's "Anti-Imperialist United Front": toasting Chiang Kai-s-hek in 1945, achieved predominance in the CP Cen­ until the end of the civil war, after tral Committee it was as the most en­ which "the. revolution would immediate­ ergetic proponent of a second "united ly and uninterruptedly pass over to front" with the Kuomintang, follOwing its second stage of socialism and the the Long March. This corresponded dictatorship of the proletariat" (Guard­ to the shift in line at the Seventh ian, 25 April 1973). Mao never said 6/ THE THIRD CHINESE Congress of the Communist Interna­ anything of the kind. Rather: tional and the popular-front period. "The progress of the Chinese revolu­ Shortly thereafter, on 1 August 1935, tion must be divided into two stages: the CCP issued an appeal to all patri­ (1) the democratic revolution; (2) the REVOLUTION socialist revolution .... As to the first otic classes to join the Communists to (Editor's Note: The recent wave of virulent anti-Trotskyism being spread by fight against Japan. In line with the stage or the first step in this colonial new popular-front policy, Mao issued and semi-colonial revolution-accord­ various Maoist groups relies on the standard Stalinist weapons of lies and dis­ ing to its social nature, it is funda­ tortion, and above all on ignorance about the true history of the communist move­ new guidelines for moderating agrarian mentally still a bourgeois-democratic ment. The present series, replying to the articles on "Trotsky's Heritage" in policy in order to win support from the revolution in which the objective re­ the New Left/Maoist Guardian, serves as an introduction to this history and a brief rich and middle peasants. The Polit­ quirement is still basically to clear summary of the principal Political issues separating Trotskyism from Stalinism.) buro statement of 25 December 1935 away the obstacles in the way of capi­ read: talist development. •.• ·The Soviet People's Republic will "The Chinese revolution can only be The core of the Guardian series on This vast wave of peasant unrest enor­ change its policy toward rich peasants; achieved in two steps: the first being "Trotsky's Heritage" is a simp 1 e mously aided the rapid northward rich peasant land, except for that por­ that of new democracy; the second, that of socialism. Moreover, the period assertion: "History has proved Mao march of the KMT armies. It also made tion of it in feudal e xp I 0 ita t ion, regardless of whether it is under self­ of the first step will be a conSiderably correct. n The Chinese revolution, ac­ the generals "uneasy," as can be easily long one and can never be accom­ cording to Davidson, is the model for imagined.. cultivation or whether tilled by hired labor, will not be confiscated. When land plished overnight. " baCkward and colonial countries. The Mao's poliCies in this period were is being equally distributed in a village, -"On New Democracy," great beacon of Mao-Tse-tung-Thought not always more militant than the CP rich peasants will have the right to January 1940 shows the way. Is this so? leadership's, however.In the fall of1924 receive the same share of land as poor In another document from this period, Let us take first the myth of Mao he was removed from the PolitbUro and middle peasants. " Mao made the point even more expliCit: the great proletarian leader who has of the party because of too-close ties Now here was a real rich-peasant "Why do we call the present stage of always struggled for the dictatorship to right-wing Kuomintang Circles. But the revolution a 'bourgeois-democratic policy. Six months later it was ampli­ revolution'? Because the target of the of the proletariat, as opposed to traitors Mao's most general pattern of "protest" fied by a Central Committee statement: like Liu Shao-chi who tried to hold him against a policy he disagreed with was revolution is not the bourgeOiSie in "Lands of all anti-Japanese soldiers general, but imperialist and feudal back. In an earlier article Davidson to simply go off to the hills and carry and those involved in anti-Japanese oppression; the program of the revolu­ wrote that in 1927 "the Comintern advo­ out the pOlicies he believed correct. enterprises must not be confiscated." tion is not to abolish private property cated a policy put into practice inde­ When a Comintern telegram on 31 This permitted even large landlords but to protect private property in pendently by Mao and ignored or op­ March 1927 ordered the Shanghai party to retain their land through the simple general; the results of this revolution posed by both Chen Tu-hsiu [head of and trade unions to hide their guns with device of enlisting a son in the Red will clear the way for the development the Chinese Communist Party at this Chiang's armies at the gates, the in­ Army. of capitalism•••• So the policy of 'land time] and Chang Kuo-tao." Nothing evitable result was a massacre of tens to the tiller' is a bourgeOis-democratic could be further from the truth. In of thousands of militants. Chen pro­ This land policy had its equivalent policy, not a proletarian and socialist the first place, Chen unfortunately at the political level as well. The one •••• tested and carried out the suicidal "Under the New Democratic system of only carried out orders from Moscow orders; Mao never protested. "Workers and Peasants Soviet Govern­ government a policy of readjusting the even when he sharply disagreed; he During 1930 Mao again came into ment" became the "Soviet People's relations between capital and labor will did not have the proletarian spirit to conflict with the party leadership, over Republic," which proclaimed: be adopted. On the one hand, the inter­ refuse to obey these orders even when land reform policy in the "peasant "It {the "people'S republic"] is willing ests of workers will be protected. An they literally sent thousands of Chinese soviet" areas. Wang Ming, then CP to have the broad petty-bourgeois class eight- to ten-hour-day system ••• and comrades to their graves. head, accused Mao of having a "rich­ unite with the masses in its territory. the rights of labor unions. On the other Second, it is to Mao's credit that peasant line" because he Simply called All petty-bourgeois revolutionary class hand, reasonable profits of state, pri­ he refused to carry out instructions for equal redistribution of land, not elements will be given the right to vote vate, and cooperative enterprises will from the Communist International dur­ and be elected in the Soviet.· be guaranteed•.•• We welcome foreign confiscating all the land of the rich investments if such are benefiCial to ing the 1926-27 Northern Expedition peasants, but simply giving them equal In the meantime, in the fall of 1936 China's economy .... " of General Chiang Kai-shek, when Mos­ shares. It would be more accurate to orders were issued to ban the use of - "On Coalition Government," cow wanted to hold down mass struggles call it a middle-peasant line, for the the name "Communist Party" at the April 1945 at all costs. On 26 October 1926 Stalin rich peasants (kulaks in Russia) gen­ sub-district level, replaCing it with that So much for Brother Davidson's "un­ had sent a telegram ordering the peas­ erally oppose violent upheavals in favor of the "Anti-Japanese National Salva­ interrupted passing over" into social­ ant movement to be restrained lest it of gradual solutions which allow them tion Association." ism. And as for the meaning of this alienate the Kuomintang generals who, greater opportunity to accumulate land Having indicated its willingness to "new democracy" in social and eco­ after all, were often landlords them­ and capital. It is the middle peasants capitulate, the CCP sent a telegram to nomic terms we only have to look at selves. Mao was given the task of who have the most to gain from a radical the KMT on 10 February 1937 proposing the land policy enforced during the carrying out this restraining order in elimination of the feudal landlord class, a united front. (In recent years the "anti-Japanese united front" which con­ the key province of Hunan by the Central and historically it has been middle Maoists have made much of "the great tained such "progressive" measures Committee of the party. He immediately peasants who have put forward such helmsman's" writings against those as the following: returned to his home province andpro­ schemes for "black distribution" of who placed sole emphasis on the united "Recognize that most of the landlords ceeded to do just the opposite, rOUSing the land. These were the leaders of front and not enough On the party. Con­ are anti-Japanese, that some of the tens of thousands of peasants to form the Russian peasant revolt of summer Sidering the terms of this "patriotic enlightened gentry also favor demo­ peasant associations and seize and re­ and autumn of 1917. united front," it was an outright be­ cratic reforms. Accordingly, the policy distribute land belonging to the gentry. Most important, however, this is tpe trayal of the masses to enter this front continued on paR·1? 8 14 SEPTEMBER 1973 5 Trotskyist Work in the Trade Unions STALINISM AND by Chris Knox SOCIAL-PATRIOTISM CONCLUSION With the onset of World War II and largely on the defense case of the Min­ wrecking its own defense committees Wendell Wilkie, in the 1944 elections, the wave of jingoism which swept away neapolis 18-the 18 Trotskyists and in order to keep Trotskyists out. Instead of warning of Lewis' real role, their trade-unionist allies of the pre­ leaders of the Minneapolis Teamsters the Militant appears not only supportive war period, the Trotskyists were forced who were railroaded to jail under the Defense Policy Criticized but genuinely uncritical during the 1943 to retreat. They adopted a "policy of Smith Act. strikes. caution" in the unions, which meant While the conduct of the Trotsky­ "[Lewis 1 despite his inconsistencies virtual inaction, especially at first, Minneapolis Defense Case ists' defense in the Minneapolis trial and failure to draw the proper conclu­ Although the Socialist Workers Party was a good defensive exposition of the sions ... has emerged again as the out­ (SWP) was driven from its main base The 18 were the first victims of ideas of SOCialism, it was ~learly de­ standing leader of the union movement, in the Minneapolis Teamsters through the Smith Act of 1940, which was the ficient in not taking an offensive thrust, towering above the Greens and Murrays a combination of government persecu­ first law since the Alien and Sedition in failing to turn the tables on the sys­ as though they were pygmies, and has tion and attack by the Teamsters bu­ Act of 1798 to make the mere advocacy tem and to put it on trial. The Spanish rewon the support of the miners and reaucracy and the Stalinists, in gen­ of views a crime, Initiated in 1941 Trotsk:'ist Grandizo Munis raised this the ranks of other unions." eral the "policy of caution" had the directly by Roosevelt (ostensibly at the criticism, among others, of the SWP -Militant, 8 May 1943 desired effect of protecting the trade­ request of Teamsters President Tobin), leaders' defense policy, Although he Though written from the outSide, and union cadre from victimization. the case was an important part of the failed to take sufficiently into account therefore unable to intervene directly, However, the "policy of caution" had drive by the bourgeoisie, working hand­ the need for defensive formulations to the articles on the 1943 miners' strikes another side to iL With the rupture of in-hand with its agents, the labor bu­ protect the party's legality, Munis by Art Preis nevertheless reveal an their alliances with the "progressive" reaucrats, to "purify" and discipline correctly complained of a lack of politi­ unwarranted infatuation with Lew i s trade unionists, the Trotskyists had not the work force for subordination to the cal offensive in Cannon's testimony. which was evoked by the SWP's over­ dropped their reliance on blocs around imperialist war. The legal persecution "It was there, replying to the political concentration on blocs with left bureau­ immediate issues in the unions. They consummated Tobin's attempts to get accusations-struggle against the war, crats, to the detriment of the struggle merely recognized that with both the rid of the Trotskyists in Minneapolis, advocacy of Violence, overthrow of the for revolutionary leadership. Stalinists and "progressives" lined up which had coincided with the lining up government by force-where it is nec­ The struggle against the no-strike for the war, Roosevelt and the no­ of the bureaucracy for the war. essary to have raised the tone and pledge reached its highest pitch in the strike pledge, there was no section of However, because of its clear and turned the tables, accuse the govern­ United Auto Workers, which had a mili­ the trade-union bureaucracy with which open contradiction with the statedprin­ ment and the bourgeoisie of a reac­ tionary conspiracy; of permanent vio­ tant rank and file and a tradi tion of dem- they could make a principled bloc, Thus ciples of bourgeois democracy, and thus lence a g a ins t the majority of the 0cratic intra-union struggle not be­ their inaction was in part a recognition with the stated goals of the war, the population, physical, economiC, moral, cause ofthe absence of bureaucracy, but that any action along the lines to which Smith Act prosecution of the Trotsky­ educative violence; of launching the because of the failure of anyone bureau­ they were accustomed in the trade ists caused a rupture within the bu­ population into a slaughter also by cratic tendency to dominate, Despite unions would be opportunist, i.e., would reaucracy and became a point of oppo­ means of violence in-order to defend their fundamental agreement on the necessarily entail' unprincipled blocs sition to the government throughout the Sixty Families." war and no-strike pledge, the counter­ and alliances. Any action not involving the labor movement. Publishing the -"A Criticism of the posed tendencies continued to squabble blocs and alliances with some section testimony of the chief defendant, James Minneapolis Trial" among themselves as part of their end­ of the trade-union bureaucracy was P. Cannon, and the closing argument of In his reply, Cannon correctly con­ less competition for office. The wing virtually inconceivable, the defense attorney, Albert Goldman, demned Munis for demanding ultra-left around Reuther tried to appear to the At first, the rupture of the earlier as pamphlets (Socialism On Trial and adventurist "calls to action" instead of left by oppOSing the excesses of the Stal­ alliances and enforced inactivity had a In Defense of Socialism), the SWP ex­ propaganda, but he failed to adequately inists such as the latter'·s proposal for healthy effect, exposing the limitations ploited the case heavily as a basic answer the charge of political passi vity a system of war-time incentive pay to of such alliances and enforcing the defense of socialist ideas and princi­ and of a weak, defensive stance. His induce speed-up, but in reality was no recognition that in trade-union work pled opposition to the imperialist war. r'eply ("Political PrinCiples and Prop­ better on the basic issue of the war. as in all other spheres of party­ Though they failed to prevent the de­ aganda Methods") overemphasized the building, only p r inc i pIe d political struction of the militant Minneapolis need to patiently explain revolutionary Auto Workers Fight the agreement assures permanence: Teamsters local under the combined politics to a backward working class, No-Strike Pledge hammer blows of Tobin and Roosevelt, lacking in political consciousness. Af­ "There is only one thing that binds men the Trotskyists' propaganda campaign ter the war, when the shackles of war The struggle reached a peak at the together in times of great stress. That around the case had a Significant im­ 1944 UAW convention. Debate around is agreement on great principles ••.. discipline were removed fro m the "All those comrades who think we have pact and aided party recruiting. working class, this error was inverted the issue raged through five days of the something, big or little, in the trade The vicious treachery of the Stalin­ in an overemphasis of the momentary convention. The highly political dele­ union movement should get out a mag­ ists was underlined and exposed to upsurge in class struggle. gates were on their toes, ready for nifying glass in the next period and look many by their refusal to defend the bureaucratic tricks. On the first day, at what we really have. You will find Trotskyists against this persecution by Lewis and the Miners:1943 they defeated by an overwhelming mar­ that what we have is our party fractions the class enemy. Despite the fact that gin a proposal to elect new officers and the circle of sympathizers around the CP was still opposed to the entry Most of the opportunities for inter­ early in the convention and insisted them. That is what you can rely on .... of the U.S. into the war at the time vention in the unions during the war that this be the last point: after posi­ The rule will be that the general run of (during the Hitler-Stalin Pact period, tions on the issues 'Were clear. The pure and simple trade unionists, the consisted in lea din g rank-and-file nonpolitical activists, the latent patri­ 1939-41), it leapt at once onto the pros,:, struggles against a monolithiC, pro­ Reuther tendency dropped to its lowest ots -they will betray uS at the most ecutor's bandwagon. war bureaucracyc The exception tothis authority during the war because of its decisive moment. What we will have in "The Communist Party has always pattern was Lewis and the UM N. Having role in saving the day for the no-strike the unions in the hour of test will be exposed, fought against and today joins broken with Roosevelt before the war pIe d g e, through proposing that the what we build in the form of firm frac­ the fight to exterminate the Trotskyite because of what he felt to be insuffi­ pledge be ret a in e d until the issue tions of convinced Bolsheviks." Fifth Column from the life of our cient favors and attention, Lewis au­ could be decided by a me m be r s hip -James P. Cannon, "The Stalinists nation. " thorized miners' strikes in 1943 which referendum. and the United Front," Socialist -Daily Worker, 16 August 1941 broke the facade of the no-strike pledge. The convention was marked by the Appeal, 19 October 1940 More than any other force on the left, This galvanized the opposition of the appearance of the Rank and File Cau­ As the war dragged on, however, it was Stalinism, through such funda­ rest of the bureaucracy, which feared cus, an oppositional grouping organized opportunities for activity mounted as mental betrayals of class principles a general outpouring of strike strug­ primarily by local leaders in Detroit. the workers chafed under the restric­ as this, which poisoned class con­ gles. Not only the rabidly patriotiC, It was based on four points: end the no­ tions imposed upon them by their lead­ sciousness and undermined the fighting pro-war CP, but other bureaucrats as strike pledge, labor leaders off the ers in the name of the imperialist ability of the proletariat. Later, during well, heaped scorn On the miners, cal­ government War Labor Board, for an conflict, Rank-and-file rebellion, in the cold-war witchhunt, when the CP ling them "fascist," independent labor party and smash the the form of unauthorized strikes, brokE; was the victim of the same Smith Act While the SWP was correct in its "Little Steel" formula (i.e., break the out in a mounting wave starting in and bureaucratic purge, the militant orientation toward united-front support freeze on wage raises), This caucus 1942. These led to mounting opposition workers were so disgusted with its to Lewis against the government and was the best grouping of its kind to to the solid, pro-war bureaucratic role that they were mobilized by anti­ the bulk of the trade-union bureaucracy, emerge during the war" A similar lo­ phalanx. For the most part, the SWP communist bureaucrats who smashed the tone of this support failed to take cal leadership oppositional grouping in went very slow on participation in these virtually every last vestige of class­ into account the fact that Lewis was a the rubber workers' union was criti­ struggles. It wasn't until 1945 that a conscious opposition in the labor move­ reformist trade unionist, completely cized by the SWP for its contradictory formal change of policy was ma.de, al­ ment. Despite its stroni?; position within pro-capitalist, who therefore had to position: while opposing the no-strike though exceptions to the rule began the CIO bureaucracy in 1941, the CP betray the eager following he was gath­ pledge and War Labor Board, it never­ earlier. was unable to prevent the CIO and ering by authorizing strikes during the theless favored the war itself (Militant, While seeking to preserve their many of its affiliates from denouncing war. He did this, performing what was 26 August 1944). precious trade-union cadre through a the Minneapolis prosecution; in 1949, perhaps his greatest service for capi­ The SWP's work around the UAW policy of inaction within the unions, however, the CP's betrayal of the Min­ talism, by heading off the rising tide RFC W3.S also a highpoint in Trotskyist the Trotskyists concentrated on public neapolis defendants was held up to it by of sentiment for a labor party. Focus­ trade-union work. Though representing propaganda and agitational campaigns opportunists in the CIO as an excuse ing opposition to Roosevelt on himself, only a partial break from trade-union aimed at the unions largely from the for not defending it against the witch­ Lewis misled and demoralized masses reformism by secondary bureaucrats, outside, through the party press. The hunt. The Trotskyists defended the CP of workers throughout the country by the RFC was qualitatively to the left campaign against the war centered in 1949, but the CP refused their help, advocating a vote for the Republican, of the bureaucracy as a whole. Its

6 WORKERS VANGUARD program represented a break with the the masses with a "ready-made" pro­ to the backwardness of the working to fight for and' deepen the "GM strike key pOints upon which the imperialist gram, but only by working within the class gave way in the post-war period program" at the convention, Though he bourgeoisie relied in its dependence on existing caucus formations, Since the to the optimism of "Theses on the won most of his votes on the basis of the trade unions to keep the workers RFC was led primarily by pOlitically American Revolution," the political this militant strike program, his real tied to the imperialist aims of the state, independent secondary UAW leaders, resolution of the 1946 SWP convention. program was opposition to the CPo This The SWP was correct to enter and build "existing' caucus formations" could only The "Theses" ruled out a new stabili­ appealed to militants also, of course, this caucus, since pursuance of its pro­ mean a policy of entering the major zation of capitalism and saw an un­ since the CP had been completely dis­ gram was bouncfto enhance revolution­ bureaucratic power groupings, which broken development of the SWP into the credited by its thoroughly right-wing ary leadership. is exactly what the SWP did on its vanguard _party standing at the head of role during the war (which it had in­ The SWP's support, however, was return to activity after the war, De~ the revolutionary pro let a ria t. The credibly attempted to extend into the not ingratiating or uncritical as was spite the comparative impotence of the "Theses" underestimated not only the post-war period-the so-called perma­ its early support to Lewis. As the cau­ trade-union bureaucracy and different ability of capitalism to restabilize nent no-strike pledge-on the basis of cus was forming before the convention, nature of the tasks in the early thir~ itself but also the relative strength of the Soviet bureaucracy's hopes for the SWP spoke to it in the following ties, the Minneapolis experience was the trade-union bureaucracy and of post-war peaceful coexistence with its terms, seeking to maximize political cited as an example in defense of a Stalinism. Despite degeneration and capitalist allies). However, Reuther's clarity: policy that emphasized blocking with decline, the CP still had 10,000 mem­ c au c u s also attracted conservative "This group, in the process of develop­ sections of the bureaucracy and avoid­ bers at the end of the war. anti-communists such as the American ment and crystallization, is an ex­ ing the presentation of a program inde­ This revolutionary optimism was not Catholic Trade Unionists (ACTU), The tremely hopeful sign, although it still pendent of, and counterposed to, the bu­ matched in the trade unions by the Militant exposed Reuther's basic con­ contains tendencies opposed to a fully- reaucracy in the unions. open preparation of revolutionary lead­ servatism even on trade-union issues LIFE ership through "third group" caucuses, by pointing out that he had devised the however, but by an orientation first "one-at-a-time" s t rat e g y (isolating toward the more progressive bureau­ strikes against One company at a time); cratic reformists who were leading that he had endorsed the introduction strike struggles or breaking with their of the "company security" clause into previous allies, the discredited Stalin­ the Ford contract and had capitulated ists. Later, as the cold war set in, to Truman's "fact-finding" panel in the SWP broke with its allies and the GM strike against the will of the oriented more toward the Stalinists. elected negotiating body (23 March As in the late thirties, these orienta­ 1940), It also pOinted out that his writ­ tions tended to be based not On maxi­ ten program was no better than the mum political clarity but on the trade­ Stalinist-backed Thomas-Addes caucus union issues of the moment, Unlike the program" except for language andphra­ late thirties, however, the situation seology" (30 March 1946). Neverthe­ changed rapidly into a general purge less, the Trotskyists critically sup­ of reds and hardening of a conservative ported his campaign for president be­ bureaucracy, with which no blocs were cause of the fact that the militant work­ possible. Furthermore the united fronts ers were voting for him on the basis of of the post-war period tended to take the GM strike prog'ram. the form of critical support for one With Skillful demagogy, Reuther had faction over another in union elections, successfully coopted the militant wing Besides having a demoralizing effect of the union, including the earlier Rank on the ranks of the SWP's trade-union and File Caucus (which had dissolved UAW leaders in 1945: (from left) Frankensteen, Addes, Thomas, Reuther. SWP cadre, the Trotskyists' failure to pre­ into the Reuther caucus). An approach trade-union policy concentrated on blocs with bureaucrats, rather than building sent a hard, distinctive revolutionary to this militant wing which would have revolutionary pole, first backing Reuther, then Thomas-Addes. alternative in the unions in this period driven a wedge between the militants thus contributed to the formation of and Reuther was needed. In 1944, the rounded, effective program and some S WP had argued that the time was not who are still reluctant to sever com­ ripe for the independent drive of the pletely their ties with all the present RFC -despite the fact that these "un_ international leaders and power J1 knowns," only running one candidate and cliques. without any serious effort, had secured "There is a tendency which thinks that 20 percent of the vote for president at all the auto workers' problems will be ,,~ solved simply by elimination of the no­ the 1944 convention (Fourth Interna­ strike pledge. They fail to take into tional, October 1944). Yet the SWP had account the fundamental problem: that not hesitated to raise programmatic de­ the basic issues confronting the work­ mands On the RFC as it was forming,

ers today can and will be solved, in ,~» in order to make its break with the the final analysis, only by political bureaucracy complete. In 1946, how­ means." ever, despite criticisms of Reuther, in -Militant, 2 September 1944 the last analYSis the SWP supported him The article went on to advocate a labor Simply on the basis of his popularity party based on the trade unions with a and without having made any program­ "fundamental program against the fi­ matic demands whatsoever on him (such nancial parasites and monopolists." as that he break with the conservative The caucus adopted the demand for a anti-communists as a condition for sup­ labor party. It led the fight against the port), no-strike pledge at the convention and made an impressive shOWing, although Critical Support for Thomas­ it faile'd to secure a majority in a direct vote against the pledge, Addes: 1947 Despite encouraging developments Leaders of SWP and Local 544 imprisoned in 1941 Minneapolis Smith Act trial. An independent stance might have such as this, the S WP did not formalize Standing, from left: Dobbs, DeBoer, Palmquist, Hamel, Hansen, Coover, Cooper. left the SWP supporters isolated at the a general return to acti vity in the unions Sitting, from left: Geldman, Morrow, Goldman, Cannon, Dunne, Skoglund, Carlson. 1946 convention, but the establishment until 1945, when it made a belated turn of such a prinCipled pole would have to a perspective of "organizing left­ This was the perspective followed the new bureaucratic line-up and there­ helped recruit militants by the time wing forces" around opposition to the by the SWP in the post-war period, by to the eventual cold-war defeats. of the next convention in 1947. Instead, no-strike pledge, War Labox Board, In the brief but extensive post-war the SWP simply tailed the militants-or and for a labor party. In 1944, a small strike wave-the most massive strike Critical Support for thought it tailed the militants-once oppositional grouping was formed in wave in U.S. labor history-the SWP Reuther: 1946 again. In the interval between the two the SWP by Goldman and Morrowbased emphasized its enthusiasm for the in­ con v e n t ion s, Reuther consolidated on Stalinophobia and a perspective of tense economic struggles and under­ Again the UA W is the most important his position on the bas i s of anti­ reunification wit h the Shachtmanite pia y edits alternatives to the bu­ example, since in 1946 in that union communism-including sup p 0 r t for Workers Party, which had split off in reaucracy. A g a ins t the Goldman­ the SWP had perhaps its best case Truman's foreign policy-and bureau­ 1940. On its way out of the SWP, this Morrowites, the majority explicitly for a policy of blocs. After the war, cratic reformism. At the 1947 conven­ grouping was able to make factional defended a policy of avoiding criticism Reuther began a drive for domination tion, the SWP switched its support to hay out of the "policy of caution." of UA W leadership policy at the begin­ of the union with a show of militancy. the Thomas-Addes c au c u $, on the Referring to the SWP's inactivity, a ning of the 1946 GM strike in order to He led a 113-day strike against Gen­ grounds that the militants were already member of this faction asked pOintedly, maintain a common front with the bu­ eral Motors on the baSis of the three­ fed up with Reuther and an attempt had "When workers do move on a mass reaucracy against the company. For a point program: open the books to public to be made to halt the latter's drive scale, why should they follow anyone small revolutionary force of only 2,000 inspection, negotiations in public and toward one-man dictatorial rule. For who did not previously supply some (this figure represented rapid growth at wage increases without price increas­ this bloc, there wasn't even the pre­ type of leadership?" (A. Winters, "Re­ the end of the war period) to take such es. Though he made his basic support tense of a programmatic basis. Despite view of Our Trade Union Policy," In­ an attitude toward the vast trade-union of capitalism and the "right" to prOfits the shift of Reuther to the right and the ternal Bulletin Vol. VI, No.9, 1944). bureaucracy simply served to weaken clear, he was able to mobilize militant phony "left" noises of Thomas-Addes Replying to the Goldman-Morrow the for c e s which could have built sentiment with this program, strike a and the Stalinists, however, Reuther's group, the S WP majority specifically revolutionary leadership by struggling left posture at the 1946 convention complete slate was swept into office ruled out caucuses such as the RFC as a g a ins t the inevitable bureaucratic and win the presidency of the union largely because of the discredited char­ a general model, claiming that the left betrayals. from the Stalinist-backedR.J. Thomas. acter of the previous leadership. Only wing could not be built by presenting The relative peSSimism of 1941 as Reuther, however, made no effort continued on P,lgl? 10 14 SEPTEMBER 1973 7 we must be clear that this was not the bourgeois regime not Simply disinte­ Continued from page 5 pattern foreseen by Trotsky. Marxism grated, the victory of Mao's peasant has shown that in the sharp class armies would have been impossible.) polarization which occurs in every Today after the mystification of the revolutionary period, the peasantry "Cultural Revolution" has worn off THE THIRD CHINESE REVOLUTION will be divided between elements fol­ and the bureaucracy has reasserted lowing the bourgeoisie and those fol­ direct control over the Chinese govern­ lowing the proletariat; that the peas­ ment, it is much easier to understand of the Party is only to help the peasant Most important of all were the antry alone does not have the social that China, like the USSR, the Eastern in reducing feudal exploitation but not changes in the property relations which power to overthrow th~ determined European countries, Cuba, North Viet­ to liquidate feudal exploitation en­ followed the establishment of the" Peo­ resistance of the capitallst exploiters, nam, etc., is a deformed workers state. tirely .... ple's Republic of China" in October nor the united class interests necessary Yet only the orthodox Trotskyists have " ... peasants should be advised to pay 'i 949. It is important to note that not to establish socialist property forms. held this position from the very early rent and interJ'st as well as to protect un til 10 0 c t 0 b e r 1947 did Mao However, the Chinese revolution of stages of the Mao regime. The resolu­ the civil, political, land and economic even raise the slogan for the overthrow 1949 was accomplished by a predomi­ tion of the 1955 SWP Convention on the rig~ts of the landlord." of the KMT regime. It was the occupa­ nantly peasant party and army under Chinese revolution stated: -"Decision of the Central Com­ tion of the Yenan base area by Kuo­ mittee on Land Policy in the the leaderShip of a petty-bourgeois "Throughout the revolution Mao & Co. mintang troops and Mao's realization military bureaucracy. But though this Anti-Japanese Base Areas, It continued to impose arbitrary restric­ January 1942 that no compromise was possible and a was different from the Trotskyists' tions and limits upon its course. The coalition government of the "new dem­ expectations, it did not contradict the agrarian reform was carried out 'in As to this mythical and completely ocratic type" was a pipe dream, that essential Marxist program calling for stages' and was completed only when anti-Marxist concept of a joint revolu­ finally forced the CCP to strike out for the working class to establish its own the assault of American imperialism tionary dictatorship of all revolutionary state power-in violation of Stalin's class rule, supported by the peasantry, stimulated the opposition of the land­ classes, Mao had something very spe­ explicit orders. At the same time the lords during and after Korea .... The even in backward countries as the only Chinese Stalinists were able to ride cific in mind, namely a real coalition Communist Party decided to overthrow means to solve the democratic tasks into power because the Chinese working government with the fearless anti­ Chiang it took a logical corollary step, of the bourgeois revolution, class had been demoralized by the con­ imperialist patriot Chiang Kai-shek, namely announcing an agrarian reform The most fundamental reason for tinuous defeats it suffered during and under which the KMT would control a scheme similar to the "rich-peasant the success of the peasant-based Chi­ after the second Chinese revolution, majority of the government and the vast policy" Mao had followed in 1930, but nese Communists was the absence of and by the deliberate policy of the CCP, majority of the military units. This far more radical than the timid rent the proletariat struggling in its own which subordinated the cities, above arrangement was worked out, and reduction (and Red Army-enforced rent right for power, The Chinese working all, the proletariat, to the military agreed to by the CCP, at a "Political collection) of the period 1942-47. struggle in the countryside and thereby class was demoralized and decimated blocked the emergence of the workers Consultative Conference" in January by the continuous defeats suffered dur­ Furthermore, following the procla­ as an independent political force. The 1946. The government would be made ing the sec 0 n d Chinese revolution mation of the Chinese People's Repub­ CCP thus appeared in the eyes of the up of 40 persons entirely chosen by (1925-27). And tl,le CCP's subsequent lic in October 1949, the CCP set up a masses as the only organization with Chiang, half from the Kuomintang and policy was the deliberate discouraging political cadres and knowledge, backed, ·coalition regime" in which, despite half from other parties (including the of proletarian action. The second fun­ moreover, by military force. It CCP). The Nationalist armies would the presence of a few "democratic" damental point is that the result of the -"The Third Chinese Revolution and pet t y-bourgeois politicians, govern­ be restricted to 90 divisions and the 1949 military victory of the CCP was its Aftermath," October 1955 ment power was clearly in the Com­ Communist forces to 18 divisions re­ not at all a healthy workers state such What is needed is a party which munists' hands. Most important, the spectively. It was only because of the as that created by the Russian Revolu­ has the courage to tell this truth to state power was based on the unques­ hostility to any compromise with the tion of 1917, but a bureaucratically the masses, even at times when this tioned military dominance of the Red Communists on the part of certain sec­ deformed workers state, in which the may be unpopular, and which under­ Army. The bulk of the bourgeoisie had tors of the KMT, particularly the mili­ proletariat does not hold political pow­ stands the dynamiC of permanent rev­ fled to Taiwan. tary, that this agreement was n'ever er. Rather the state power is and has olution so that it can defend these implemented. With the help of Soviet aid, the Com­ been since 1949 in the hands of a tight gains from imperialist attack and carry Thus over a twenty-year period, munists set about building up a state Stalinist bureaucratic-military caste the struggle forward to socialism. The from the late 1920's to the late 1940's, sector of heavy industry, while ar­ composed of the upper layers of the Maoists with their reactionary dreams Mao repeatedly sought to conciliate ranging for the continuation of private CCP, the People's Liberation Army of "united fronts" with the "progressive the Chinese bourgeoisie and even, at ownership of some industrial concerns and the state bureaucracy. As demon­ bourgeoisie" and mindless enthUSing times, feudal elements while espousing under state control and supervision. strated by the repeated failure of the over the so-called "C u 1 t u r a 1 Rev­ doctrines which are classic expres­ Finally, this policy was further tight­ economic pOlicies of the Chinese re­ olution," which solved nothing, have sions of the Menshevik theory of two­ ened with the Chinese entry into the gime (notably the "Great Leap For­ proven themselves incapable of this stage revolution. That there was no Korean War, which led to a series of ward") and the inability to create task. It falls to the partisans of the Indonesia-type disaster, with the liq­ measures against domestic capitalists, democratic forms of workers' rule Fourth International, the true heirs of uidation of the party and murder of beginning in early 1952. (even in the period of the demagogic the t r ad i t ion of Marx, Lenin and hundreds of thousands of militants, was "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolu­ Trotsky. due solely to the fact that the KMT So please, Brother Davidson, will tion"), the only way that the road to [TO BE CONTINUED J government was so corrupt that Chiang you inform us where the extended dem­ socialism-the complete abolition of ~ould not afford to risk a coalition ocratic stage was? This whole evolution classes-can be opened in China is ;overnment. But the bourgeoisie was is a dramatic proof of the utterly fan­ through a political revolution to throw 5L/R[Y :lot always so weak. In the aftermath tastic utopianism which Mao's theories out this military-bureaucratic caste. :)f the Shanghai massacre Chiang had amounted to. Over and over the CCP (In addition, in the late 1940's the Jeen able to stabilize Kuomintang rule, declared its desire to set up a demo­ Chiang regime was so hopelessly cor­ PubliE OffiE!S and during the period 1927-36 he was cratic bourgeois regime, but the prop­ rupt that it virtually toppled by itself. 3.ble to systematically wipe out most erty relations that resulted were those Mukden, Peking and Canton all sur­ of the Communist base areas. of a workers state. rendered without a shot at the end of BAY AREA the civil war. Moreover, the U.S. rul­ New Democracy wedneSday} Can Peasants Establish ing' class had become so discouraged and 3:00-8:00 p.m. or Permanent Revolution? a Workers State? with the KMT government that it es­ Friday sentially withdrew its material backing This leads to a second aspect of the It has been estimated that in 1949 in the 1948-49 period. Finally, the Saturday 12:00-6:00 p.m. Chinese revolution, namely who was workers constituted no more toan five Communist army w h i c h had been 330-4Oth Street pro v e n right by history? Davidson percent of the membership of the Chi­ starved for weapons was suddenly sup­ (near Broadway) quotes Trotsky's observation that Stal­ plied with large quantities of modern nese Communist Party; it w~ by then Oakland, California in's attempt to resurrect the policy of overwhelmingly a party of peasants and Japanese arms follOwing the Russian a "revolutionary-democratic dictator­ petty-bourgeois in tell e c t u a 1 s. Yet occupation of Manchuria. It is essential Phone 653-4668 ship of the proletariat and the peas­ Trotsky held that only the working that these special circumstances be antry,· which Lenin explicitly aban­ class, under revolutionary leadership, understood. To put it another, way, had doned in April 1917 (see part I of this could set up the dictatorship of the the Chinese proletariat been struggling series), was completely inappropriate proletariat. How then do we explain under its own banners, the banners of BOSTON to China: the "third Chinese revolution"? First the Fourth International, and had the WednesdaY} 1:00-5:00 p.m. "The formula of the democratic dic­ and 7:00-9:00 p.m. tatorship has hopelessly outlived its Friday usefulness.•.. The third Chinese revo­ Spartacist Local Directory Saturday 11 :00 a.m.-3:00 lution, despite the great backwardness of China, or more correctly, because ATLANTA DETROIT, ••....•..... (313) 862-41120 639 Massachusetts Avenue of this great backwardness as compared Box 7686, Atlanta, GA 30309 Box 663A, General P.O. Room 335 with RUSSia, will not have a 'demo­ Detroit, MI 48232 BERKELEY- Cambridge, Massachusetts cratic' period, not even such a six­ LOS ANGELES ....•... (213) 467-6855 month period as the October Revolution OAKLAND •.•.••...• (415) 653-466£ Phone 492-3928 Box 852, Main P.O. Box 38053, vVilcox Sta. had (November 1917 to July 1918); but Los Angeles, CA 90038 it will be compelled from the very out­ Berkeley, CA 94701 set to effect the most decisive shake­ MILWAUKEE up and abolition of bourgeois property BOSTON ..•...... • (617) 492-3928 Box 5144, Harbor Sta. NEW YORK in city and village." Box 188, M.I.T. Sta. Milwaukee, WI 53204 -Third International After Lenin, 1928 Cambridge, MA 02139 NEW ORLEANS ..•.... (504) 866-8384 MOOday } Box 51634, Main P.O. through 3:00-7:30 p.m. Davidson claims that Mao's theory of BUFF ALO ••.•...... (716) 886-2711 New Orleans, LA 70151 Friday new democracy was proven correct as Box 412, Station C against this prediction by Trotsky. Buffalo, NY 14209 NEW YORK ...... (212) 925-2426 Saturday 1:00-6:00 p.m. Let's look at the facts: First, despite Box 1377, G.P.O. CHICAGO .....•...... (312) 548-2934 New York, NY 10001 260 West Broadway Mao's repeated attempts, he was never Room 522 Box 6471, Main P.O. SAN DIEGO ...... (714) 272-2286 able to achieve a coalition government Chicago, IL 60680 New York, New York with Chiang. Second, when the Commu­ Box 22052, Univ. City Sta. San Diego, CA 92122 Phone 925-5665 nists were sweeping through China at CLEVELAND ...... (216) 696-4943 the end of the civil war, the bulk of the Cleveland WV Committee SAN FRANCISCO ...... (415) 863-1459 Chinese bourgeoisie fled to Taiwan with Box 6765 Box 40574 oo~®[Ulm:r~®~&oo\1 Chiang, eliminating the crucial bour­ Cleveland,~H 44101 San Francisco, CA 94140 geois element of "new democracy." [L ~Urn: 00&VGD [ffi rn: 8 WORKERS VANGUARD standard-bearer of orthodox Trotsky­ Continued from page 3 ism, has played a prominent if often Continued from page 3 unacknowledged role in these discus­ sions. Thus when the Internationalist Tendency Wishes to attack the S WP for ... USee adaptation to petty-bourgeois .nation­ Cannon versus Pablo Mandel-Maitan-Frank, de·clare 100 alism and feminism, or when the SWP make that clear. Rather, he did not programmatical in character. The fact percent support for the European ma­ wants to attack the International Ma­ feel it necessary to wage an interna­ is that the French comrades of the jority and endorse Mandel's document jority Tendency for adaptation to guer­ tional factional struggle for a common majority saw what was happening more "In Defense of Leninism" which lays rillaism, it is from the arsenal of line in a democratic-ce;ntralist Inter­ clearly than we did. The Eighth Con­ out his defense of guerrillaism ("Dec­ Spartacist politics that they draw, al­ national. He did not react energetically gress of their party declared that 'a grave danger menaces the future and laration of Internationalist Tendency, " beit in a partial way. Marxism is a when the revisionist theories were first 27 May 1973). even the existence of the F 0 u r t h consistent world View, and it is because expressed (194g), nor even when Pablo International. . •. Revisionist concep­ Nor is that all. The IT and the In­ of their departure from Marxism that began to draw the organizational con­ tions, born of cowardice and petty­ ternational Majority Tendency have both wings are forced to adopt an clusions by expelling the Bleibtreu­ bourgeois impressionism have _ diametrically opposed lines on a key eclectic methodology and inconsistent Lambert leaderShip of the French sec­ appeared within the leadership•••• the aspect of the SWP's domestic work­ positions. On occasion the lapse into tion (1952). Only when it became clear installation of a system of personal its line on black nationalism. The IT orthodoxy is so contradictory to the rest that Pabloism meant liquidationism for r u 1 e, basing it self and its anti­ argues: of the author's positions that it seems the SWP did Cannon see the need for democratic methods on revisionism of "Behind the party leadersbip's newvo­ an accident. For example, when Mandel an international fight. This is in sharp the Trotskyist program and abandon­ cabulary, there is an adaptation in wanted to rebuke the PRT for its con t r a s t with his approach to the ment of the Marxist method. ' (La VeriM, September 18, 1952.)" practice to the petty bourgeois ideolo­ enthUSing over the Stalinists Mao, Kim Cochran-Clarke fight within the Ameri­ gies of nationalism and feminism •.•• - "A Lette r to Trotskyists Throughout and Hoxha, he wrote: can party, where he aggressively tried the World,· November 1953 Marxists have always characterized "There is no other road to the direct nationalism as a bourgeois ideology •••• to force the "fence-sitters" to take In the present collection, Cannon takes rule of workers and poor peasants than sides. Internationally he was a fence­ an equally sharp tack: "The party's uncritical endorsement of the establishment of Soviet power, of sitter almost until his own party was ·We are finished and done with Pablo Black nationalism has led to a tail­ power based On elected committees ending attitude toward different 'solu­ directly threatened, and then had little and Pablo ism forever, not orily here of workers and poor peasants. The but on ·the international field... We tions' put forward by Black nationalist fact that capitalism was overthrown in recourse left but a public open letter. leaders: Black power, Black control of China through a revolution led by Mao which wa.s soon followed· by Pablo's are at war with this new revisionism. the Black communities, and P311 AJ.­ means that from its very inception the expulsion of the SWP and its friends. "The essence of Pabloist revisionism ricanism ••.. " revolution was bureaucratically de­ When Cannon finally did break with is the overthrow of that part of Trotsky­ -"The Building of a Revolutionary formed in that country, that the work­ Pablo, he declared war, giving the lie ism which is today its most· vital Party in Capitalist America, " part-the conception of the crisis of ing class has never directly exercized to the SWP's currentfairy-tale version July 1973 power there .... mankind as the crisis of the leaderShip of the split. In a recent S\yp educational of the labor movement summed up in And here we have the European majority -"In Defence of Leninism," pamphlet, Les Evans writes that the December 1972 the question of the party" (p. 181). on the same subject: SWP "never said that this (Pabloism] As the recent SWP convention re- But, Comrade Mandel, what of your was a theoretical reviSion of Trotsky­ French comrades who claim the Viet­ veals, Hansen and company are gearing "One of the greatest political achieve­ ism or that his (Pablo's] projection ments of the SWP in the last 15 years namese have found such a road?! And up for a replay ofthe 1952-53 scenario. was totally impossible. What we argued has been the correct understanding of if the Chinese revolution was deformed This book, the comparisons of the was that this schema was not the the peculiar way in which the national from its very inception, then what of In t ern at ion a lis t Tendency wit h most likely one" ("Toward a History question-the question of the oppression the Cuban revolution? Where are the Cochran-Clarke, the discovery of a of the Fourth International, Part I," of the Black and Chicano people-poses soviet power, the committees elected secret faction ("Barzman letter"), etc., itself inside tbe United States •••• Black . p.l1). Or again: "The party ••• did not by the workers and poor peasants? But strike a familiar refrain. Would-be (and Chicano) nationalism in the United read the 'Pabloites' out of the Trot­ the position that the Cuban revolution Trotskyists in the USec who are seri­ States are objectively progressive skyist movement" (p. 16)! What the was bureaucratically deformed from ously interested in drawing a scientific forces which revolutionary Marxists SWP had to say at the time was quite its inception is the position Uniquely balance of the 1951-53 struggle against had to support, stimulate and help different: organize•••• " held by the Spartacist tendency. ·We thought the differences between Pabloi5m and discovering the lessons -"In Defence of Leninism," "There is no other road" to solve Pablo and the French section were for today would do well to make serious December 1972 the crisis of proletarian leaderShip tactical and this led us to side with study of Cannon's Speeches to the Party Not only does the IT not polemicize than by asSimilating the lessons of the Pablo•••• along with "G e n e sis of Pabloism· against Mandel's View, but by its ten­ struggle against Pabloist liquidation­ "But at bottom the differences were (Spartacist No. 21, Fall 1972)•• dency declaration IT members are ism over the past two decades. All the actually supposed to support both views old questions-the "new world reality," ten years of the USec means anything Marxist-Leninist program-that has Simultaneously! Given the other incon­ the reliance on petty-bourgeois forces it is that these questions cannot be sustained the SL in periods of adverSi­ sistencies of this rotten bloc, it would to accomplish the task only the prole­ ignored or compromised. In the United ty and is the key to leading the working not be surprising if some actually do. tariat can solve, the objectivism, the States only the Spartacist League has class to victory. "the rot'ten Q\.QCS ana. rejection of the TranSitional Program, sought to draw these lessons and inte­ repeated revisions of the revolutionary The Struggle Against Pabloism the capitulation to Stalinism-all these grate them into the revolutionary Trot­ pl'ogram that are the mainstay of Pab­ questions are raised anew in the cur­ skyist program. It is this-the deter­ loism may bring temporary success; in The Spartacist League, as the rent dispute. If the history of the past mined defense and extension of the the end they can spell only disaster .• Subscription Drive It has been nearly a year and a half since our last public subscription drive. The intervening Regional Quotas months have witnessed not only the transformation of Workers Vanguard into a bi-weekly and the stabilization of the former Rey Newsletter as the bi-monthly Young Spartacus, but the doubling Bay Area 210 of the membership of the Spartacist League/Revolutionary Communist youth as well. This trans­ Boston 140 formation has led to a marked increase in the relative political weight of the SL/RCY, enabling Buffalo 100 it to more actively and effectively intervene in the workers movement. Chicago 90 15 September At the same time, WV is both a reflection of and an agent in the transformation of the SL. Its Cleveland 100 ability to serve as an organ of active political struggle depends, however, on achieving a stable Detroit 120 base of readers who follow Workers Vanguard regularly. This is reflected primarily in the sub­ Los Angeles 90 scription base, which must keep pace with our capacity to produce and sell the paper. What we to 1 November wrote in May 1972 remains true today: "We want a press that is no mere showpiece, but is itself New York 300 an intervention with real people to shift the axis of real struggles, transforming the consciousness At Large 50 of the militants involved. Thus not only the financing of our press eXpansi{)n, but also the quality Total 1200 of the coverage itself, depends heavily upon our ability to get into the hands of more readers ... " 1973 Local organizations are responsible for organizing the drive in their areas, for meeting quotas and for ensuring full partiCipation by SL/RCY supporters.

ZT. NameAddress State ____~ Zip! __~_ ",- City. ---~=inaICo .. ·.~~ke payable/mail to: Spartodst Publishing Co., P.O. Box 1377, GPO, New York, N.Y. 1C":'01 ,., ,... L_.i ~_;1closed is $3 for :? .,:85 ': WORKERS V AtK-L ' ~~tJ~j1J.Jelr C.':):~ !-.~, ~ ,~'iJf~t:UU~ ,if ~. ~~\~/t TA(IS~.'·· '-.. Ilciosed is $1 for .'. '':; lIORKERS VAN. 14 SEPTEMBER 1973 9 refused seven weeks before. This was had been passed with a meagre four­ class both economically and politically . Continued from page 1 not an offer that the union bureaucracy cent increase, this same Richard Smith In such situations as the Canadian could sell to the angry membership, faced news cameras and whined that rail strike it is necessary for the and the ranks exploded with militant there were only two chOices: "to defy workers to have a clear idea of the protests across Canada. or to comply, and we have decided role of the bourgeois state be/ore ... Rllil Strike that to comply is the course of wisdom. " the intervention of the state apparatus. Rank-and-File Militancy This well-known "course of wisdom" Yet the various Canadian "socialist" legislation to break the strike. has been rejected, at least for the time The most important demonstration groups were most noticeable for their While the NDP piously voted against being, by British Columbia members took place on Thursday, August 30, abstention from political struggle. For the final bill, it did so only for show of the largest non-op uniOn., the Cana­ when about 2,000 rail workers and example, in Toronto, at the height and was as involved as the other parties dian Brotherhood of Railway Transport sup p 0 r t e r s gathered at Parliament of worker militancy on Wednesday, in the parliamentary haggling over the and General Workers (CBRT). The Building in Ottawa. About 200 workers August 29, a demonstration of about precise terms of the scab law, finally government appears to be tald,ng a forced their way through police lines 2,500 marched from city hall to the voting for a Conservative Party wait-and-see approach, confident that into the Hall of Honor in the center railway yards. No left organization did --~amendment. In their desire for bour­ the isolated West Coast CBRT can't block of Parliament Building pummel­ so much as pass out a leaflet! At geois respectability, the NDP leaders hold out. ling a Royal Canadian Mounted Police­ that time it was critical to point out refused to oppose strikebreaking leg­ While the workers stormed Par­ man, smashing windOWS and chanting, and argue for the prinCiple of the islation on principle, This was noticed liament and labor bureaucrats were "We want Trudeau," and "Hell No, We independence 0 f the working-class by Transport Minister Marchand who making defiant nOises, Labor Minister Won't Go. " Many of these workers movement from the capitalist state. pointed out: "If the NDP had really John Munro strolled by and told the were French Canadian. Into this tense Instead, trade-union militancy pure and taken a socialist attitude they would Toronto Star that he "held afundamen­ situation rushed David Lewis, leader simple won the day, wagging behind have been opposed to any kind of tal conviction that the strikers will of the NDP, armed with bullhorn and it the uncritical tail of the Canadian settlement legislated by this House, obey the legislation and return to work. n prudential advice: "Act the way railway Left. regardless of public opinion" (Militant, And why should he not hold such a workers have always acted." It was In a period when the ruling class 14 September). At leastthe bourgeoisie "fundamental conviction"? In the ab­ reported that Lewis was able to lead depends more and more openly on the knows what a socialist policy is even sence of a class-struggle leadership about half the workers out of the bourgeois state apparatus to break though NDP and union leaders can't in the unions, the struggle could not building. When he returned to face the strikes, set wages and g e n era 11 y seem to figure it out! transcend the limits of militant ref­ remaining workers with more from the limit the independent activity of the The non-ops in the western prov­ ormism which in this case means same menu of reformist betrayal, he working class, it is particularly crucial inces were joined by the more strate­ cap i t u 1 at ion to the d e t e r min e d was shouted down with militant chants. for revolutionists to counterpose the gically located Ontario unions and the company / government opposition. Meanwhile, the union bureaucrats Marxist analysis of the state as an wildcat was generalized into a nation­ In Toronto the "opposition" to the maneuvered to contain the anger and instrument of class rule. Sometimes wide strike by A1}gust 24. In response, bureaucracy is a loosely organized di vert attention from the strikebreaking the action of the capitalist state is the Liberal government put on the mask group called the Rank and File Com­ legislation to questions of wages only. transparently clear as it was in the of "public interest," wept for those mittee which tends toward syndicalism So Richard Smith, chief negotiator for Canadian rail strike or as it was in inevitable honeymooners stranded on and trade-union reformism. This group the unions, faced with the workers the U.S. during the postal workers' Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland put out a leaflet titled "Stay Out! For in the Parliament Building, said in strike in 1969. Sometimes it is less by the struck ferry service and called Our Original Demands" that in no way a statement carefully worded to gain direct when, for instance, an out­ Parliament into emergency session. distinguishes it programmatically from the confidence of the militants: bureaucrat uses the courts or U.S. The Trudeau government introduced the union bureaucracy. Its tone is "We reject the legislation as it stands Labor Department to "reform" a union. a back-to-work bill only one week after simply militant determination: "This Only the Spartacist League has correct­ the strike began. This bill not only and we will not comply with its direc­ tive to us to order our members back time we can't let the government break ly opposed on prinCiple all forms of provided for breaking the strike of to work. To do so would betray the our strike and push us further into state intervention in the unions. the non-ops, but rendered invalid the 56,000 workers whose interest we were poverty." What is needed to win is not Railway Unions Break the Strike strike vote being conducted by shop­ elected to protect. We will not send Simply more mUitancy or higher wage Ban-For a General Strike Against craft unions. It set wages for all three them back to work for the meagre demands, but rather a class-struggle the Scab Law! Down with the Class­ branches of the rail workers' unions­ wage increases proposed in the bill." opposition to the labor bureaucracy, one Collaborationist NDP and Union ope rat i n g employees, non-ops and - The Toronto Star, 31 August which raises a program representing Bureaucrats-Towar d a Wo rke r s shopcraft-at levels the unions had But just two days later, after the bill the obj ecti ve needs of the entire working Government! •

featism was organized into a tendency The main cause of Cochranite liquida­ forge a cadre, within the unions as. Continued from page 7 by Cochran, on the basis of liquidation tionism lay in the pressures of the cold well as without, armed with a program of virtually all public party activity in war and witchhunt, which had, of course, to break the unions from their role favor of a "propaganda" orientation been completely beyond the control of as instruments for tying the workers which would have left the Cochranites, the SWP. However, Cannon's own docu­ to capitalism and imperialism. Such a Stlllinism lint! many of whom were officers in the ments defending the par t y against program must go beyond immediate UAW, free to make their peace with trade-unionist combinationism and liq­ issues and address all the key political Socilll·Plltriotism the Reutherite bureaucracy. uidationism make clear that the party's questions faCing the working class and The Cochranites made an unprinci­ position in the trade unions had been provide answers which point to a revo­ after this debacle did the SWP put pled combination with forces in New insufficiently distinct from "struggles lutionary policy and leadership. together an independent caucus, If such York around Bartell, Clarke and others for office and place," just as it had While the Trotskyists advanced the a course had been unrealistic before, who considered themselves the Ameri­ been insufficiently distinct from blocs struggle for revolutionary leadership after the 1947 convention it was more can representatives of the Pablo lead­ with progressive Rooseveltians before dramatically with the right united front hopeless than ever, By that time, how­ ership of the Fourth International, Ob­ World War II. at the right time, as in Minneapolis ever, there was no other choice, jectifying the post-war creation of de­ in 1934, they more often tended to The SWP's course in other unions formed workers states in Eastern Eur­ In the course of pursuing a trade­ undermine their own party building with was similar, In the National Maritime ope and Yugoslavia into an inevitable, union policy based almost exclusively an exclusive policy of blocs, some of Union, for instance, the SWP supported world-historic trend, the Pablo lead­ on making blocs on the immediate which had little or no basis for ex­ Curran when he broke from his former ership proposed, in essence, that Sta­ trade-union issues, the SWP had grad­ istence from the standpOint of revolu­ Stalinist allies on the basis of democra­ linist and reformist leaderships could ually adapted to trade unionism and tionary politics. By presuming that it cy and militancy, even though he was be forced to the left by the pressure of become less discriminating in whom it was necessary for a small force to already lining up for Truman's for­ their mass base into creating more such blocked with and why. Unlike the Sta­ prove itself in action against the class eign policy and letting the Stalinists states in a situation in which the immi­ linists and Shachtmanit~s, the Trotsky­ enemy before it could present itself get to the left of him on militancy. nence of World War III made the cre­ ists maintained their class principles independently to the workers as an al­ Later, the SWP had to support the ation of independent Trotskyist parties by refusing to make unprincipled alli­ ternative leadership, the Trotskyists' Stalinists against his vicious, bureau­ impossible: the Trotskyist task, there­ ances or by breaking them as soon as united fronts tended to increaSingly cratic expulsions. fore, was to liqUidate into the Stalinist they became untenable. (Thus the SWP take the form of promoting someone and social-democratic parties. It was Switched sides in" the UAW in 1947 else's leadership, Cold War and Cochran-Clarke this essentially liquidationist perspec­ while the Workers Party of Shachtman The Spartacist League sees as the tive which brought Cochran and Clarke pursued Reuther et. al. into the arms chief lesson from this experience not In 1953 the SWP was racked by a together into a temporary amalgam in of the State Department.) In the final the need to reject united fronts, occa­ faction fight and split which in part the SWP. analYSiS, the SWP remained a princi­ sional blocs or the tactic of critical reflected the penetration into the party While defending the twists and turns pled party of revolutionary socialism support in the trade unions, but the of the kind of trade-union "pol)tics" it of the SWP trade-union policy, Cannon by struggling against the fruits of its need to subordinate these tactics to the had been pursuing in the unions, What nevertheless indicated that these twists trade~union work internally and accept­ task of building a revolutionary politi­ had looked like a hopeful situation in and turns might have had something to ing the split of 20 percent of its mem~ cal alternative to the bureaucracy with­ the immediate post-war period had do with the degeneration of the cadre bership in 1953 rather than making fur­ in the unions, A bloc or tactic of elec­ turned rapidly into its opposite. The into material for Cochranite liquida­ ther concessions to trade unionism. toral support which fails to enhance betrayals and self-defeating policies tionist opportunism: revolutionary leadership through un­ of the Stalinists had combined with dermining the bureaucracy as such can reformist trade-unionist illusions to "Factional struggles in the trade unions Spartacist League: Learn and only build illusions in reformism. The allow not only the consolidation of a in the United States, in the primitive, Go Forward central conclusion is that there is no monOlithic, conservative trade-union prepolitical stage of their development, have been power struggles, struggles substitute for the hard road of struggle bureaucracy, but the successful purge for office and place, for the personal The policy of making united fronts to inj ect a pOlitical class perspective of reds from the unions and the nur­ aggrandizement of one set of fakers in the trade-union movement around of proletarian internationalism into turirig of right-wing anti-communism and the denigration and discreditment the immediate issues is not in itself what is normally a narrow, nationalist within the working class, which made of the other side .... incorrect. What the SWP did wrong and parochial arena of struggle. Espe­ the international cold-war drive of "Cochran's conception of 'power poli­ was to see this as its exclusive policy Cially in the initial phases of struggle U,S. imperialism virtually unopposed tics' in the party; his methods of con­ for all periods, except those in which when the revolutionary forces are weak, at home,' ducting a factional fight-come from no blocs could be made without gross it is necessary to make an independent The purge and pressure of the cold this school of the labor fakers, not from ours." violations of prinCiple, in which case pole as politically distinct as pOSSible, war caused a section of the SWP trade­ - "Some Facts About Party His­ the answer was to do nothing. In any so that the ba,sis for future gTo'Wih is union cadre to become disillusioned and tory and. the Reasons for its period of normal trade-union activity, clear. To this end, the SL calls for give up on the perspective of building Falsification," internal blocs can be made around immediate the building of caucuses based on the a vanguard party in the U.S. This de- Bulletin, October 1953 issues. The task of revolutionists is to revolutionary transitional program. _

10 WORKERS VANGUARD ~L

committees to handle racial griev­ case, lead to a successful single ac­ Continued from page 1 ances-which are merely devices that tion (though it usually fails at this allow the union bureaucrats to slough also) but cannot provide a long-run off their own responsibility for inaction alternative leadership in the unions. on issues of racial discrimination-we This requires winning mass support For an International, call for union control of hiring and for a class-struggle program. The training-workers to be advanced from recent wildcats in Detroit, for instance, production to skilled jobs on a non­ while they are legitimate expressions Industry- Wide Auto Strike! discriminatory basis. of the pent-up anger of the ranks and must be defended against the bosses would obviate the possibility that the sha ring, joint union-m an age men t Voluntary Overtime and UA W leaders, did little to weaken health and safety committees and sim­ greater militancy of Canadian workers and Jobs for A II the stranglehold of the Woodcock would make a sellout in the U.S. ilar committees to handle racial griev­ machine. negotiations more difficult. ances. Conspicuously absent are de­ The similar reformist manner in These outbursts of militancy must be Despite its pretensions to "inter­ mands that would really hit at the com­ which Woodcock raises the important organized and directed in order to nationalism," the nationalist Woodcock panies' power, by contractually limiting bargaining demand of voluntary over­ challenge the UA W bureaucracy, which bureaucracy has no intention of showing speed-up, providing more jobs, or chal­ time is characteristic. While voluntary is itself the main roadblock to win­ real international strike solidarity. The lenging the government wage "guide­ overtime per se would provide some ning the crucial demands of auto work­ UA W, for instance, has made no mention lines" (i.e., disguised controls). relief to the killing pace of the plants, ers. The task is both political and of or given any aid to electricians While the official demands are im­ the bureaucrats mean it as a substitute organizational. Victory in the contract at Chrysler's Ryton plant in Coventry, porta.I;1t~ they are neither fully realiza­ for a program of a shorter work week negotiations requires open negotia­ England, who were on strike for three ble nor even effective unless they are at no loss in pay, which would not only tions! For an international, industry­ weeks recently in an attempt to break linked to the latter demands. Only an achieve this but would be a giant step wide strike! Line speed and job de­ the government-imposed wage limita­ apologist for capitalism could possibly in unifying the working class by striking scriptions fixed by contract! Sliding tions which union leaderships have re­ view overtime as "voluntary" when a blow at unemployment. Thus in order scale of wages and haurs! No layoffs fused to fight. workers' wages are being eroded by to guarantee that voluntary overtime or victimizations- rehire the fired The bulk of Chrysler's plants is massive inflation! Similarly, the exper­ would not interfere with the companies' militants! Break the government wage in the Detroit area. While Chrysler, iences of the maritime, mine workers production schedules, Woodcock of­ controls! the smallest of the Big Three, employs and railroad w 0 r k e r s unions have fered to provide a pool of reserve labor But the union tops have indicated in only 127,000 hourly employees in the clearly demonstrated the hopelessness from among UAW retirees, or possibly every possible way-their "harmony U.S. and Canada, some 68,000 of these of trying to achieve a decent pension from among workers at plants where clause," their sabotage of the Lords­ are in Detroit. These plants tend to be without maintaining employment levels there is little opportunity for overtime! town-Norwood strike"s, their accept­ among the oldest in the auto industry, through a struggle for jobs lost by Without increasing jobs, this would ance (and even encouragement) of com­ and conditions are notoi:iously bad. automation, speed-up and run a way save the company huge amounts on pany firings of militants, their strike­ This was to a large extent responsible shops. And in the absence of any limits overhead for health and other benefits, breaking at Mack Ave. and now their for the outbreak of militancy in the to speed-up, talk of decent work condi­ and in fact would cost them little more completely passive negotiations (nego­ past few weeks. The bureaucracy, in tions is a farce. than do existing overtime procedures. tiations held in secret, no hard de­ order to undercut any possibility of The real thrust of Woodcock's pro­ In addition, the UAW bureaucrats mands against the company, no chal­ sympathy strikes from restive Chrys­ gram is Simply to avoid a showdown have offered to guarantee in the con­ lenge to government wage controls, ler workers, might well prefer to let with the companies (and the bourgeois tract that voluntary overtime would inadequate strike fund, selection of the them go out on an "official" strike in state that backs them up) on the issues not be a weapon to pressure the com­ smillest of the Big Three as target order to drain off their combativeness. that are vital to their drive for profits panies into compliance with other de­ company)-that they have no intention This is particularly so in light of the and their rivalry with competing na­ mands. Such "concerted action" would of fighting for the members' interests. fact that the UAW's stated objectives tional bourgeoisies. Thus the Detroit be treated like a wildcat, subject to To counter this no-win policy, a broad in these negotiations center on "human­ News (3 September) reported: "He company diSCipline! "Bannon [UAW vice united-front rank-and-file strike com­ izing work conditions," downgrading the [Woodcock] said that the union is not president for Ford] said that the UA W mittee with a militant strike policy equally key issues of jobs and wages. seeking a wage and fringe package that would assure Ford that the right of could, if it became a mass organiza­ Of course, this decision was conditioned will be unsettling to the nation's eco­ refusal to work overtime would not tion truly representative of the ranks, by the apparent ability of the UAW nomic objectives." For Woodcock to become a weapon to be used by workers open the road to victory. leaders to insure that Chrysler workers launch a fight against the wage controls to settle other grievances. Concerted But to be successful, oPP9sition to would not be "too militant" and really would require an all-out mobilization action violates the UA W constitution, the labor bureaucracy must be organ­ disrupt the cozy talks of UA W and com­ of the rank and file. It would discredit he said, and contract language could ized on a permanent, political basis, pany leaders before the formal negotia­ his line that the state is "neutral" be­ be written to prevent it" (Detroit to challenge these labor fakers down tion period ended. A Wall Street Jaurnal tween capital and labor, and that it is Free Press, 10 August). the line on their fundamental policy article of 23 August commented, "How­ the bureaucracy's experience and ex­ The UAW officials have tried to of propping up the capitalist system. ever, the fears about control at Chrys­ pertise in dealing with company and justify the "practicality" of the volun­ A class-struggle opposition in the ler apparently evaporated after Douglas government officials, rather than the tary overtime demand by pointing to the unions must stand for the historic Fraser, UA W vice president in charge united strength of a militant working example of American Motors, whose interests of the working class, even of the Chrysler department of the union, class, which is responsible for the gains contract with the UAW, due to expire where that involves taking unpopular mobilized a successful counterattack of labor. In order to "justify" this capi­ in 1974, includes a voluntary overtime stands at times. Any opposition group, on the radical agitators." tulation to the American capitalists, provision. In fact, however, in many s u c h as the rapidly disintegrating This reference to Fraser'S policing Woodcock appeals to the age-Old ex­ instances voluntary overtime meant a United National Caucus (supported by action at Mack Ave. underscores the cuses of "national interest" and "mutual setback for AMC workers. This is the the International SoCialists, the Com­ bureaucracy's real role as guarantor interdependence" summarized in the case with members of UAW Local 72 munist Party and Progressive Labor) of labor peace and enemy of all mili­ "Harmony CIa use" adopted at the which represents 9,000 workers at the which fails to go beyond the economism tants in the unions. While wildcat ac­ UAW's bargaining convention last Kenosha, Wisconsin plant, where vol­ of simple trade-union militancy will tions like the one at Mack are often March: untary overtime was a concession to the inevitably give rise to outright strike­ adventurist-poorly planned and easy to -••• The UA W ••• pro po s e s that the company after the 1969 strike. Pre­ breakers such as Miller of the Mine isolate and crush-they are indications management and the union acknowledge viously the company had been required Workers. Instead the Spartacist League of the inability of the present union of­ in writing that their relationship is one to check with the union before sched­ calls for the- organization of class­ ficials to provide any real leadership of mutual respect and responsibility; uling overtime when there were laid­ struggle caucuses on a program in­ to the working class. Even when forced that the growth and success of the c 1 u din g opposition to imperialism: company are of direct interest to the off workers. Such a procedure is far by mass pressure to conduct an "offi­ more effective than voluntary overtime, Labor strikes against tJ..e Indochina cial" strike, these so-called leaders do workers and their union, and the growth and success of the union are of direct because, when combined with suffi­ war! Against protectionism-for inter­ everything in their power to sabotage ciently high overtime rates, it gives national strike solidarity! Likewise and limit the effectiveness of such an interest to the company; that each par­ ty, therefore, pledges respect, under­ the workers a powerful lever to penalize it must fight for the independence of action. The costliness of a poorly pre­ standing and cooperation with the other the com pan y for not hiring more the working class by opposition to pared strike that mobilizes only a small and covenants that it will not, in any workers. government interference in the labor section of the workers in an industry way, impede the growth or success of movement: Labor off government wage­ will be used by these "labor statesmen" the other.- The Crisis of Leadership control boards! Keep t'he bosses I caurts as one more reason for their policies What Woodcock aspires to is to be a aut of the labor movement! It is neces­ of "labor peace" and "harmonious rela­ managing partner of American capital­ The auto negotiations pose with spe­ sary to provide a political alternative tions" with the companies. In fact the ism, a role similar to that played by cial urgency the question of proletarian to the fake "friendS of labor" who real "costliness" is their rotten lead­ the German Social Democracy, with its leadership. The trade-union bureauc­ regularly vote for wage-freeze and ership, which is the main obstacle to a emphasis on a "codetermination," in racy continues to isolate and crush strikebreaking laws: Dump the labor successful strikeo which trade-union officials sit on com­ the spontaneous militancy of the work­ bureaucrats, for a workers party based The policy of selecting a single com­ pany administrative boardS. Thus UAW ers. And as the Nixon government on the trad e unions to fight for a workers pany as target was initiated by Reuther propaganda throughout the negotiations is completely discredited by mounting government! _ after World War II, supposedly so as to has emphasized the "inhumanity of big scandals which expose the conspiracies put pressure on the struck company business" and called on the unions and of the bosses' state, this bureaucracy ,. Rey Forum to settle quickly in order to avoid los­ companies to form joint committees actually plays a vital role in main­ in€; prOfits to competing firms. Of to work out problems mutually. In ac­ taining the credibility andnormalfunc­ course, when threatened by labor, these tuality, such committees, while in­ tioning of the s y s t e m through its Racial Oppression firms do not compete, but on the con­ creasing the prestige of the bureauc­ determination to maintain labor peace trary cooperate with each other-finan­ racy, accomplish little for workers, at all costs, continued acceptance of and the cially, jOlitically, and otherwise. instead subordinating the independence go v ern men t wage "guidelines" and of the worlsing class to the interests participation on government wag e­ Woodcock Asks for of capital. To Woodcock's proposal of freezing agencies. Class Struggle "Moderate" Demands joint union-company health and safety While it may be fragile and hated, committees, Leninists counterpose the the bureaucracy will not crumble of SPEAKER: The central thrust of the official need for workers control. We demand its own weight-it must be replaced Reuben Samuels UA W demands has been toward "human­ s t ric t contractual specifications of by revolutionary leadership. But the National Chairman RCY izing the work place" and increaSing working conditions and line speed and spontaneous, shop-floor mil i ta n c y SL Central Committee fringe benefits. Key demands that have call for the formation of factory com­ revelled in by most left groups does been highlighted are voluntary over­ mittees of workers to ensure that not attack the political roots of the BUFFALO time, a full "thirty-and-out" pension these are enforced. Sharp class strug­ trade-union bureaucracy and 0 n I y at any age, prepaid dental care, and gle rather than cozy deals with bosses serves to regenerate it through the Thursday SUNY an improved cost-of-l,iving formula. is required in order to eliminate the careers of individual "militants." Cal­ 20 September Norton Union There has also been a host of less­ barbaric working conditions in the culated adventurism such as pushed by 7:30 p.m. Room 337 emphasized demands such as profit- plants. Rather than joint union-company PL/WAM can, in the most favorable 14 SEPTEMBER 1973 11 W'IIIlEIiS "/1'"11111)

winning a few more cents an hour (al­ though under "leaders" like Beirne, Bureaucrats Battle for Government Supp-ort Carnivale and Dempsey that is hard enough to achieve). At the present time government intervention is one of the greatest threats to the union movement, a prime example being the so-called Labor Department Upholds Dempsey "Affirmative Action" programs. With the single exception of the Militant Action Caucus in CWA Local 9415, Oakland, California, all the op­ in CWA Election Rerun pOSition groups in the communications union have capitulated in one form or NEW YORK-Ed Dempsey emerged as Yet all during the strike period, the into CWA, the key issue lor the New another to state intervention. In con­ momentary victor in the ongoing bu­ political lessons were not drawn, as the York locals. trast to supporting government-backed reaucratic war for control of CWA Lo­ ostenSibly radical groups in the union preferential hiring plans, which also divide the class by making white male cal 1101 here when the union announced watered down their politics to attract Upcoming Contract Period on August 30 his victory over Ricky numbers, chaSing their appetites for workers pay the price for upgrading Carniva1e in a Lab 0 r Department­ "getting a slice of the action" through minority and women workers who have sponsored election rerun. Dempsey unprincipled blocs. For example, the suffered discrimination from the com­ wrapped up his campaign for local pres­ United Action Caucus (which is support­ Phone workers are now entering the panies, MAC calls for hiring on afirst­ ident by taking Carnivale to court, ed by the International SOCialists) re­ 1974 pre-contract period. When the come first-served baSis through a union charging him with defrauding the un­ fused to raise the issue of an indepen­ contract expires in April the struggle hiring hall, strikes against layoffs and ion's 1971 strike fund of S113,000. dent political party for labor, in order could be key not only for C WA but for forced transfers and 30 hours' work for Responsibility for defeat of the not to alienate such "popular" stewards the entire labor movement. Under in­ 40 hours' pay-a demand which would tense pressure, marked by growing bitterly fought, seven-month 1971 as Shaefer and Dempsey 0 Reflecting its open up thousands of new jobs for the strike (when Carrli vale was local presi­ s t rat e g y of pressuring lesser-evil economic hardship, the unions are thin­ unemployed. dent) is still a volatile issue,and local-level bureaucrats t a struggle ly controlled at the top by a bureau­ T his class-struggle approach to Dempsey's suit was interpreted as a against the Beirne machine, the UAC cratic layer which has already suc­ fighting racial and sexual discrimina­ move to further discredit Carnivale concentrated solely on tactical issues ceeded this year in forcing rotten no­ tion would unite workers, instead of only days before the voting deadline was such as out-of-state picketing. strike contracts down the throats of di viding them on racial and sexual reached. Dempsey originally defeated rubber workers, steel workers and lines and bringing in the capitalist gov­ Carnivale for president last fall, but Following the 1971 defeat Dempsey truckers. The gap between the mili­ ernment. :MAC also opposes on princi­ Carnivale c hall eng e d the election, began his bid for office, and almost all tancy of the rank and file and the ple government intervention in the la­ charging his opponent and the newly the so-called radical groups immedi­ abj ect class collaboration of the iso­ bor movement and taking the unions to constituted executive board with vio­ ately jumped onto the Dempsey band­ lated union leadership was seen in the court, and raises political demands lating the local's by-laws by dissolving wagono The UAC came out for Dempsey, l' e c e n t Detroit Chrysler wildcats, such as labor strikes against the Indo­ the election committee before it could basing its support on his call for a where the bureaucrats were forced to china war; labor off the productivity rule on charges of election big-city alliance to dump Beirne and play the role of open strikebreakers. board; dump the bureaucrats-for a la­ irregularitiE.s. reform the CWA, for his stated sup~ After the auto contract in September, bor party based on the trade unions; But whatever the resolution of the port for organizing operators into C WA, phone will be .the next big negotiation and for a workers government. Dempsey-Carni vale turf fight had been, Local 1101 would have been saddled with IVV PHOTO a leadership that could only take it down to further defeats. In taking one another to court Carni vale and Dempsey reveal a fundamental similarity in program. Instead of fighting for the independence and strength of the workers movement, they bind the union to control by the bourgeois government, whose only in­ terest in intervening is to further weak­ en the CWA. This tendency to rely on the bosses' courts, political parties and the U,S, government as the "neutral arbiter" or "friend of labor" is the common thread of class collaboration with which the present leadership of the trade unions binds the American working class to its class enemy and renders it powerless to fight. The degree to which these politiCS describe the top­ leyel workhg", d C \\ A wa s vi, i'~ily il,- l':strated a, thE: .lll:Ju:d C:Ullvc,t,l',', in Demonstration of ~I1J.Illi, thl~ 3·.11~,:. C3.rnl"::"i.1C"',::-, (~'r J: teiephone wotkers tl3.ls ch~,l;':r:c,': :1"..il:!st the L"~'L )SC', during 1971 New dt:l(ga~iGI~ l'_'.::jt -~;:~~~r: the c~)n~~'f::tl' !:: -:.l~~­ York wildcat strike. bUd a Labol' Dep~:rtment cieClsi, '11 Fl consider Dempsey presidE:nt until the re-election returns cam e in, even though this decision clearly violated his call for a delegates assembly and and could be the focus of a new labor One of MAC's recent activities was procedures outlined in the Local 1101 his supposed "openness for including breakthrough. a successful campaign at theCWAcon­ by-laws! International President Joe the ranks in 1101 life." The UAC had The outcome of the upcoming con­ vention against the "19-2C" amendment Beirne cut off any attempts by delegates some difficulty in asserting that Demp­ tract fight will pivot on the question of which would have given the union powers on the convention floor to investigate sey actually stood for any of these leadership in CWA. The New York phone to kick out insurgents and militants on the New York situation saying that the minimal positions and admitted at the locals came out of the 1971 strike and such vaguely-worded charges as "pub­ job of the convention was not to take time that he had no program to reform into the present period having suffered lishing untruthso" Sides, interfering in that domain be­ the International nor interest in fight­ a great defeat which is still not under­ In contrast to MAC's prinCipled longing to the federal government. "The ing racial or sexual discrimination. stood. The once very militant ranks are struggle to win support from the ranks only question in front of us is not to do Even on its favorite issue, "more de­ now disoriented and divided, while the on the basis of its class-struggle pro­ that which the United States will even­ mocracy," the UAC was forced to com­ opportunist-reformist ran k -and-file gram, UAC, Final Warning, Strike Back tually do," ruled Beirne ("Daily Pro­ ment, "Nobody can have too much con­ caucuses continue to prop up the Demp­ and all the other fake-militant caucuses ceedings and Reports, 35th Annual fidence from Dempsey's past that he seys and Shaefers, the slicker breed of in the CWA want to latch onto any new Convention, Co W.Ao "). will make any real effort to involve labor bureaucrats whose role is to try gimmick or fast-talking "leaders" that One of the most important lessons the rank and file in running the union to satisfy the capitalist thirst for,a "new promise to deliver instant popularity of the '71 phone strike was that the at any level." Yet support him it did era of labor peace," something badly and power. Every day 01 Demp­ government is never neutral in the because, like its f r i end s in the IS, discredited inc u m ben t bureaucrats, sey's term of office is a living proof of struggles between labor and capital. the UAC supports anything that is such as Carnivale and Beirne, can no the futility of supporting "honest" re­ Phone workers watched the government popular. longer do effectively. formers who stand for nothing but "de­ do nothing while New York Telephone Final Warning, the rank-and-file Rather than a jazzed-up version of mocracy." A national caucus to expand imported scabs across state lines, newsletter supported by the Revolution­ the same old business unionism that the work of MAC is essential if phone although the courts ruled out-of-state ary Union, also came out for Dempsey: was responsible for the current sellout company workers are to overcome picketing "illegal." Police beat up dem­ "Although he is not ideal, we should contract and the defeat of tpe 1971 New trade-union reformism. The bureauc­ onstrating phone workers and the final elect Ed Dempsey president of 110L" York strike, phone workers need a lead­ racy will not be eliminated spontan­ local settlement allowed the company to Now since his original election in ership that will really fight the com­ eously-it must be replaced by an al­ fire any workers who had been arrested 1972 Dempsey, as could have been pre­ pany, along with the rest of the capital­ ternative leadership committed to a full during the strike regardless of whether dicted, has failed to keep his major ist class and its government. Workers' pol it i c a I program of working-class they were proved guilty of the charges. election promise to organize operators problems will not be solved simply by demands. _ 12 WORKERS VANGUARD