I I [ I

WfJ/tltE/tS ,,1N(J(J,1,, 25¢ No. 152 8 April 1977 II

James Callaghan -AWould-Be Ramsay' MacDonald Break the Liberal/Labour Coalition in Britain! LONDON, April I---Britain came close conducting parallel negotiatIOns with to its third general election in as many the ten MP's of the United Ulster years last week when Labour Prime Unionists, the reactionary parliamen­ Minister James Callaghan was forced to tary representatives of the Protestant conclude a last-minute pact with the ascendancy in Northern Ireland. small bourgeois Liberal Party to avert Among their number are the fanatical defeat in a Conservative no-confidence Rev. Ian Paisley, and the notorious motion. The significance of this formal racist Enoch Powell. The bargaining parliamentary bloc was summed up by with the Ulster Unionists was over more Liberal leader David Steel, who com­ MP's from the province and also mented that "Socialism is the one thing doubtless on demands for more British this country will not get so long as this army units to suppress the Irish Catholic agreement lasts..." (Guardian [Lon­ minority. But apparently Callaghan don], 25 March 1977). wasn't able to negotiate a satisfactory Steel has a point. Not that anyone in deal with the Unionist MP's and seven Britain believes that the Labourgovern­ of them voted with Margaret Thatcher's ment was headed toward socialism­ Tories. I but the long-standing allegiance of the f f British working class to the Labour r Party is primarily due tti its--clairn to ,-, -'-I somehow stand for the class interests of The terms of the parliamentary the proletariat, and its vague rhetorical coalition with the Liberals were careful­ ly outlined in a joint statement issued ...A{~ commitment to some sort of "social­ Socialist Worker ism." The Labour cabinet's precarious just before the debate on the no­ Workers at British Ley!and protest Labour government's wage restraints. parliamentary position meant that it confidence motion. Essentially the was forced to conclude an agreement agreement establishes a "joint consul­ with the Liberals in order to cling to tative committee" (presided over by reason why most Tribunites 'actually Labour government in power a very power. The price was to give up the Michael Foot, prominent Labour"left") favoured the arrangement with the agreeable thought." claim to represent key working-class to review bills proposed by both Liberals-it postpones the next general The Liberals, of course, have their interests or "socialism," at least for the Liberals and Labour before they are election. Many Tribunites hold margi­ own reasons for entering a coalition duration of the bloc. presented in Parliament, and pledges nal seats and given the present pro­ with Labour at this time. In the event of Ofcourse, Labour would much prefer the cabinet ministers to regular consul­ nounced swing away from Labour an early general election and the to retain the fig leaf of socialist rhetoric tations with their Liberal counterparts. (recent opinion polls show the Tories probable Tory landslide, knowledge­ as a cover for its nakedly anti-working­ The agreement also pledges the govern­ leading Labour by 20 percent), an able bourgeois political commentators class Social Contract (wage restraint). ment to support Liberal proposals for election in the near future would are predicting that the Liberals would Callaghan's parliamentary predicament direct elections to the European Eco­ certainly mean a Tory landslide and a stand to lose up to ten of their present results from the loss of a string of nomic Community (Common Market) scramble among Tribunite ex-MP's for total of 13 seats, thereby obliterating supposedly "safe" Labour seats to the parliament, and to support a Liberal places in the dole queues [unemploy­ them as an appreciable factor in British Tories [Conservatives] in recent by­ Housing (Homeless Persons) Bill, both ment lines]. As the London Times (20 politics. Thus the Liberals are happy to elections. This in itself provides an index relatively unimportant measures. The March) noted in analysing the lack of assume the role of co-partners in the to the deep dissatisfaction of masses of joint statement specifies that "this opposition to the coalition from Labour government and postpone an election, Labour Party supporters with the arrangement between us should last "lefts": "The prospect ofa Thatcher Era, seeking in the longer run a path to Callaghan government and its plans to until the end of the present parliamen­ not to mention the loss of his own seat, permanent, direct involvement in the "save" the economy by further attacking tary session when both parties would concentrates the mind of a Tribunite cabinet. the workers' pathetic living standards. consider whether the experiment has wonderfully." Labour's pact with the Liberals has The by-elections losses combined been of sufficient benefit to the country Callaghan's deal with Steel has also been well-received by the bourgeois with the defection of two Scottish to be continued" (Guardian, 24 March). been met on the whole with the approval establishment. When the Lib-Lab deal was announced the Financial Times Labour MP's [Members of Parliament] The most revealing aspect of the of the trade-union bureaucracy. The stock index jumped 19 points! A few has changed Labour's slim majority whole squalid affair is the lack of serious general secretary of the Trades Union days before the agreement, the influen­ with which it was elected in 1974 into a opposition to the deal from within the Congress, Len Murray, was quoted in tial Sunday Times (20 March) advised minority, and has meant that for the ranks of the parliamentary Labour Socialist Press (25 March) as saying that continued on page 11 past several mon'ths the government has Party. The most that the kept "lefts" of he found the "prospect of keeping a been depending on the votes of at least the Tribunite group have done is to some of the 41 MP's who belong to the make a few objections to the deal for the minor parties in order to stave offa vote record. As part of their token "protest" some of the Tribunites issued a state­ A review of Ii of no-confidence. Until recently the government had been able to count on ment on the agreement with the Liberals the 16 votes of the Scots and Welsh which cravenly pledged to "support the Wanted!-The search for Nazis in nationalists. However, Labour's failure Government because of the possible to secure passage in parliament last danger of the most reactionary Tory America, by Howard Blum February of its Devolution Bill (provid­ government ofthis century." They made ing for federal institutions in Scotland only a perfunctory effort to cover their "I and Wales under the rubric of "home left flank by stating that, "we categori­ r rule") due to the refusal of hard-core cally reserve our right to vote against Labour "unionists"-opponents of such a deal in whole or in part" How U.S. Opened devolution-to support the govern­ (Tribune, 25 March). ment's proposal has meant that the Having reserved the "right" to oppose Doors to Nazi War nationalists are now bending all their the policy of formal cooperation with efforts to bring down the cabinet and the Liberals, the "leftists" ofthe Tribune thus precipitate an early election. group are now happy to go ahead and In its search for support in the House support it. As the bourgeois press has Criminals... 6 of Commons, the Labour Party was repeatedly pointed out, there is a good .. I I ____Letters __

arc in harmony. Six months after HT replies: Comrade HerresholTs the Lewis forces and the Green forces in 27 february 1977 identifying Lewis and Hillman as "more previous letter on this matter (referred questions of basic class ideology." So To the Editor: dangerous" than Green and Woll. to above) was written to solidarize with much for the view that Muste's article In defending your trade union line Muste abandoned secular sectarianism another correspondent who sought to was an individual aberration. (WV [No. 145]. j8 February 1977) you and returned to Christian pacifism. the justify the Socialist Workers Party We also take exception to come up with a quotation from A.J. ultimate form of abstention from all (SWP) support to United Steelworkers Herreshoffs rather selective view of the Muste. You are entitled to him if you struggle with a violent component. You out-bureaucrat candidate Ed Sadlowski Trotskyist press. The New Militant insist. but the quotation discloses that should ask yom-selves why you found in recent elections in that union. Thus utilized signed articles in a different way Muste's line towards the nascent CIO is this particular quotation from Muste what is really at issue is the attitude to than does Wurkers Vanguard But the closer to Third Period Stalinism than to impressive. take in squabbles between putatively fact that an article was signed did not, in Leninism. Muste characterizes the fight You should also become less funda­ progressive and reactionary wings ofthe general. mean that the party refused to of the industrial union bureaucrats in mentalist in vour use of the bound pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy. take political responsibility for its line, the AfL against the craft union bureau­ volumes of the Trotskyist press. Not In our original polemic (see "Should and if the New Militant had consisted crats as fake ("a mock battle"). He then everything printed in the 1935 Nell' Revolutionists 'Walk with Sadlowski'?" instead of a potpourri of articles with tells us that "the conservative forces in Militant is pure gospel. You have to WV No. 142, 28 January 1977) we counterposed political lines-some of the A.F. of L. today are the Lewis­ consider the political character and carefully distinguished between blocs which didn't "make sense" and were at Hillman forces, the more dangerous evolution of a given writer and whether with bureaucratic elements to achieve variance with "what was actually because they masquerade as progres­ what he writes makes sense. You also specific and common aims of the done"-then it would have been a sive...." Notice, I do not say Muste's have to compare what was said with working class, and electoral support to social-democratic, Menshevik press and line here is exactly a Third Period line; it what was actually done. If you read the dissident bureaucrats (and their pro­ not a Leninist press. This would have isn't-he doesn't call Lewis and Hillman old documents in this spirit you will get grams) in union elections. Herreshoff made it impossible for most party social-fascists. But ifthe Trotskyists had more out of them. Older and grayer confuses these questions and, in his final members and close supporters, let alone followed Muste's line, they would have (though not necessarily wiser) heads paragraph, throws in the question of the general non-party readership, to played no part whatever in the organiza­ than yourscan also be of use in the effort support to a union leader against derive any coherent political line from tion of the cia in the auto, rubber and to understand and preserve what can be candidates of the capitalist parties in the paper. steel industries. learned from the past. general elections. He argues, if not for In particular, there is no reason to I must ask you not to impute to me the "generalized support," then at least for a question the authority of Muste's Muste was a splendid organizer but view that the SWP had a policy of generalized "tilt" toward the "progress­ articles on the AFL convention. Follow­ should not be regarded as a reliable ing the fusion ofthe Communist League expositor of Leninist trade union "generalized support, however critical, ive" bureaucrats. of America (CLA) with the American tactics. His line in the quoted passage is of the Lewis wing of the bureaucracy." WV insisted that Trotskyists-while Workers Party (AWP) in December abstentionist. When he wrote it Muste It's true that Trotsky was for Lewis they would bloc with John L. Lewis, for was the leader of the sectarian faction in running for President of the United example, on industrial unionism or in 1934, Muste (together with Cannon) the Workers Party which wanted to States and that Cannon in 1941 referred an organizing drive-cannot give sup­ was one of the two top leaders of the keep out of the factional turmoil which to A.D. Lewis of District 50 of the port to candidates in union elections in Workers Party. Not only was Muste gripped the Socialist Party. His view of United Mine Workers as "our son of a the absence of a break with the class national secretary of the WP, but at the the struggle within the AFL which led to bitch." All this is not generalized collaborationism of the bureaucracy on time he had probably the greatest the cia and his view of the struggle support, though it is miles away from at least one key issue. We pointed to the stature in the organized labor move­ within the SP which led to the split the Muste line you cited so uncritically. sorry experience of the United Mine ment of any party member. His articles between the Militant and the Old Guard David Herreshoff Workers under "reformer" Arnold obviously carried the full authority of Miller to demonstrate the bankruptcy of the party. the SWP policy of backing aspiring To say that A. J. Muste was sectarian bureaucrats whose only program is and abstentionist is far from the mark; Columbia SYL Protest Demands cheap talk of union "democracy." indeed, the reverse is closer to the truth. But the Spartacist League (SL) He was essentially an activist who believes that the goal is to forge a plunged himself with great energy into "Keep Kissinger Off Campus" cohesive opposition to all wings of the various causes. As for the accusation of "Third Period" abstentionism, Muste pro-capitalist bureaucracy, and this can earned the enmity of the Stalinists for be done only by standing on a consistent fighting within the AFL (on a program record of class-struggle politics. The '~4tERJ ofamalgamation, industrial unionism, a working class will not recognize as its · labor party and recognition of the revolutionary leaders charlatans like the Soviet Union) at a time when the SWP which supported I. W. Abel in Communist Party (CP) was urging 1965 and Arnold Miller in 1972 and fJuP!JSJ I workers to desert the AFL. backed Sadlowski who pledged in [Fe • CP bigwig William Z. Foster pu­ advance to enforce Abel's ENA no­ blished a blistering attack on Muste's strike deal until 1980! Conference for Progressive Labor Herreshoff does more than disagree Action in 1931 entitled "Little Brothers with the SL's class-struggle trade-union of the Big Labor Fakers" and took the policies: By amalgamating critical sup­ Musteites to task for their refusal to port and various united-fronttactics he ends up, perhaps unconsciously, mis­ support the sectarian Stalinist line of forming tiny "red" unions. As long as representing the history of Trotskyist Muste was active in the workers work in the unions. His earlier letter movement, he was adamant about the argued that revolutionists should have importance ofdefending and working in supported John L. Lewis against old­ the existing unions. In an essay entitled line craft-union autocrat William Green "Trade Unions and the Revolution" at the 1935 AFL convention. We replied written in 1935, Muste asserted: "The by pointing out that the SWP's forerun­ slogan 'Deeper into the Unions' (wheth­ ner, the Workers Party (WP), blocked er they happen to be AFL or independ- with Lewis on industrial unionism but Eighty people demonstrated on the Columbia Uninrsity campus in New did not give political support to Lewis York City March 25 to protest the proposed appointment ofHenry Kissinger against Green. to the faculty. The aeljon was called by the Ad Hoc Coalition to Keep Comrade Herreshoffs answer is to Kissinger Off Campus, a united-front coalition initiated by the Spartacus deny that this was party policy, attribut­ Youth League (SYL), youth section of the Spartacist League. ing it to alleged "abstentionism" on the WfJliNEliS The prospect ofthe butcher ofVietnam draped in the gowns ofIvy League part of the author of the New Militant "respectability" provoked considerable revulsion on campus. The anti­ article on the convention, A. J. M uste. VANfitJAliIJ Kissinger rally was the largest militant action at Columbia in several years. But as we show below, first, this was the Speaking at the demonstration were Columbia professor Alexander policy of the WP leadership as a whole; Marxist Working-Class Weekly Ehrlich and representatives ofthe Ad Hoc Committee, Friends ofthe Filipino and second, M uste was far from being ofthe Spartacist League ofthe U.S. People, Friends ofSantucho, the Militant-S~idarityCaucus ofthe Natio~al an abstentionist. Maritime Union and the SYL. The committee also attracted the actIVe EDITOR: Jan Norden The Trotskyists did indeed deny that support of a number of unaffiliated students. . PRODUCTION MANAGER: Karen Allen Lewis and Hillman were qualitatively Following the rally, demonstrators marched to the University Senate CIRCULATION MANAGER: Anne Kelley meeting, which was about to discuss Kissinger's appointment. Inside the more "progressive" than Green & Co., and considered the basic class stance of EDITORIAL BOARD: Jon Brule, Charles meeting, Professor Ehrlich read a statementon behalfoftheSYL and Ad Hoc Burroughs, George Foster. Liz Gordon. James Committee which pointed out that in the case of Kissinger there was no the two wings of the labor bureaucracy Robertson, Joseph Seymour to be identical. For example, the New question ofacademic freedom. Kissinger is not an academic apologist for U.S. Published weekly, except bi-weekly in August imperialism but a symbol ofthe American war on ~ietnamand ~ ,enuine ~ar Militant of 14 December 1935, report­ and December. by the Spartacist Publishing Co., 260 West Broadway, New York. N.Y. criminal...the architect ofthe murderous 1972 Christmas bombmgcampaign ing a speech by WP leader James P. Cannon on the AFL, quoted him as 10013. Telephone: 966-6841 (Editorial), ~~H~. .. 925-5665 (Business). Address all correspond­ saying: "The difference between Lewis ence to: Box 1377, G.P.O., New York, N.Y "Kissinger must be driven away-not for his views, but for his deeds," the and Green is one of intelligence and not 10001. Domestic subscriptions: $5.00 per year statement read. Instead of the impotent libera'. tactic of relying on the Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y. university administration it called for "broad, mOitant actions to keep of radicalism." Or Arne Swabeck, writing in the 30 November 1935 New Opinions expressed in signed articles or Kissinger off campus." leNers do not necessarily express the editoriat Militant: "It would be absurd to assume viewpoint. that there is a real distinction between 2 WORKERS VANGUARD Courts out of the 181!

ent) must be applied by the party and all its committees and members much more Oppose Teomster Expulsion thoroughly and enthusiastically than ever before." Nor is Comrade Herreshoffs assertion that on the purely political Ferdnoneel plane Muste was "the leader of the of Comoroto, sectarian faction in the Workers Party" strictly accurate. There were, in fact, DETROIT-On March 25, bureaucrats two groupings in the WP opposed to from Teamster Local 299 in Detroit entry into the Socialist Party (SP). The announced the expulsion from the genuine sectarian element was the union ofdissident members Pete Cama­ Oehler-Stamm faction, which believed rata and Al Ferdnance. Both are leading that entrism constituted in principle a members of the reformist opposition betrayal of the independence of the group Teamsters for a Democratic revolutionary party. Muste and a circle Union (TDU), which is the real reason around him at one point formed a bloc they were expelled. Both were charged with the Oehlerites on opposing entry with involvement in an unauthorized into the SP; however, the Musteites were work stoppage by car haulers last always a political distinct grouping. August at the Willow Run terminals of Complete Auto Transit (not, as we The Muste-Oehler bloc soon disin­ earlier reported, for a separate car tegrated, and it was Muste himself who haulers strike at another firm last June). put forward the resolution that called The decision was rendered by a trial the Oehlerites to order for threatened board composed of Local 299 president violations of party discipline. In his Robert Lins, secretary-treasurer Otto • History of American Trotskyism, Can­ Wendel and five hand-picked stewards non is very careful to distinguish the who sat in for absent executive board " Musteites from the sectarians. Cannon members. TDU leader Gene Fleszar characterized Muste's "ill-starred bloc asserted to a WV reporter that the with Oehler" as an example of "combi­ substitutes were intended to lend some WV Photo nations which cut across the lines of appearance of rank-and-file support for Pete Camarata (center) in TDU demonstration outside Teamster Local 299 principle." the expulsions. As well, even the hall protesting expulsion from the union. hidebound Local 299 officialdom may Herreshoff implies that Muste's have been reluctant to include Richard This is particularly clear in the case of filed charges on Lins over being ex­ abstentionist attitude toward the tur­ Fitzsimmons (son ofTeamster president the Teamsters, which once again faces cluded from the car haulers craft moil in the SP was linked to a similar Frank Fitzsimmons and widely hated the strong possibility of a massive meetings of Local 299, and, three days disinterest in the birth of the CIO. Quite vice-president of the Local), who is government invasion spurred on by later, was notified of his own "triaL" to the contrary, Muste's opposition to currently under indictment for embez­ charges ofgraft, nepotism and dictator­ entry into the Socialist Party was based zling union funds, as ajudge in a trial for ship: But previous government sorties The sham trial and drastic verdict on fear that it would circumscribe alleged "misconduct"! got the crook Dave Beck only to yield against Camarata and Ferdnance had participation in the labor upsurge then Working-elass militants must oppose the crook Jimmy Hoffa. And Hoffa was also been prepared by a frenzied red­ occurring. In his recollections Muste the efforts of Teamster bureaucrats to jailed only to be replaced by the Nixon­ baiting campaign against the TDU. The complained that "mass work remained purge the union of these critics of loving, Mafia-tied Frank Fitzsimmons. TDU recently replied to these charges neglected" and asked, "if, in the Work­ Fitzsimmons and his local lackeys. But with the claim that "Pete is a Catholic ers Party, we had stuck to mass work The go~~ll.tp~n,!j~ qQ;l.jntlr~J() .,._--:-. militants must stand equally opposed to "honest" union officials, just pliant w)i"'~""@-" itt!"'€ iii iilS _pal iSh (] fit and wooed the younger elements in the the instant response of Camarata, ones. It especially fears the strength of Rank and File Speaks, April 1977). Socialist Party by different means," Ferdnance and the TDU to these the Teamsters, the nation's largest labor Evidently, assertions of Christian activ­ " wouldn't it have been possible to win the bureaucratic attacks: running to the union, with many thousands of mem­ ism did not pacify Camarata's bureau­ best militants from the SP anyway? bosses' courts. At an April 2 rally in bers who know not to cross picket lines cratic persecutors, however. (quoted from Nat Hentoff, ed., The front of the Local 299 hall, attended by and have pretty firm ideas about how to Essays of A.J. Muste, 1967). about 80 TDU supporters, the TDU handle scabs. Increasingly broad sec­ But the Local 299 tops, like Muste was never able to overcome his distributed a statement which boasted tions of the bourgeoisie believe they had Fitzsimmons who is pu11ing their . distaste for factional and inner-party that a temporary restraining order was better step into the Teamsters before a strings, are also scared. The obviously . ii struggle (no doubt at least partly the issued in U.S. district court against the rank-and-file explosion blows the lid off peaceful demonstration on April 2, result of his Christian pacifist back­ expulsions. On April 8, TDU lawyers and releases forces that may not be so which included Teamster wives and ground), and thus could not become a planned to ask the federal court to issue easy to control. children, sent security guards scurrying fully formed revolutionary politician. a preliminary injunction for the same to lock the gates to union property and Court suits like Camarata and His reconversion to religious pacifism in purpose. In addition, TDU announced to summon the Detroit police. Nervous Ferdnance's are counterposed to such a 1936 took place very suddenly, and in all that "there will be a full jury trial to bureaucrats barricaded themselves in­ class mobilization; they only serve as left he spent under two years as a Trotskyist. assess monetary damages resulting from side the several Teamster halls along cover for government union-busting But Muste was a genuine spokesman for the wrongful conduct of the union Detroit's Trumbull Avenue. under the guise of "reform." As well, a layer of worker militants, and the officials." Camarata and Ferdnance are such court"remedies" play right into the CLA-AWP fusion, in which he played a seeking $15,000 each in damages from The hold of these labor skates is hands of the bureaucrats. The labor exceedingly brittle and can be shattered. major role, represented the first re­ Local 299's treasury. hacks are allowed to appeal to the class But that is thejob ofthe Teamster ranks, groupment after years of disintegration The TDU has apparently, if only instinct of the rank and file against not the labor-hating government! This within the communist movement. temporarily, succeeded in having the .. courts decide what constitutes "unbi­ outside government intervention to task requires the construction ofa c1ass­ This fusion along with the Workers ased and fair" internal union proceed­ discredit their opposition. Despite his struggle leadership pitted against the Party refusal to either capitulate before ings. But as the Spartacist League has obvious corruption, Jimmy Hoffa companies, their bootlickers in the the "progressive" bureaucrats (as the CP repeatedly pointed out, this policy runs maintained a wide and loyal Teamster union and the capitalist government. By ,I did in the popular-front period) or to directly against the necessity offighting following for years, in part by tapping its policy of running for protection to abandon the existing trade unions (as for the independence of the workers the membership's legitimate resistance the employers' courts and its mild­ the CP did during its earlier "Third movement from the bosses government. to the government deciding who should mannered program of minimal reforms, Period" sectarian phase) enabled the The courts, Congress and various be in and run their union. the TDU forfeits any claim to this role. Trotskyists to achieve hegemony among government agencies intervene in union Any alleged connection between the politi~ the ostensibly communist opponents of affairs not to bring "justice" to the labor The TDU's appeal to the courts has TDU and real socialist is only the Stalinists. On these points there was movement, but in order to shackle the not only been proven historically the result of a gross and IIlany-sided no question that Muste fully shared the unions closer to the capitalist state. ineffective in "democratizing" the un­ misunderstanding.• views of Cannon-in fact, it is certain ions, but can also be turned against the that without agreement on these trade­ defense of dissident members. The r union policies there never would have Teamster membership may not appre­ FORUM been an AWP-CLA fusion. And it is Limited Edition now available: ciate their much-drained treasury being " also clear how fundamentally this further bled by oppositionists' damage Marxism and the Leninist policy differs from the latter­ Workers Vanguard suits. National Question In day reformism of the degenerated ex­ in BOUND VOLUMES North America Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party Volume 1 includes: Local 299 hacks Lins and Wendel Speaker: Joseph Seymour, SL today. • WV nos. 1-34 (who both, ironically, received Camara­ Central Committee ta's support last year for appointment to Thus Herreshoff has wrongly posed a • Workers Action nos. 7-10 little-known-but," on examination, the Local presidency) have decided to Date: Sat., April 9 I • subject index luminous-period in the history of the tough it out against any oppositionists. Time: 7:30 p.m. I American Trotskyist movement, in order from/pay to: In a signed article in the 28 March issue Jane Addams Center, F Spartacist Place: l' order to derive conclusions that are Publishing Co. of the International Socialists' Workers' 3212 N. Broadway, r flatly contradictory to the practice of $15.00 Box 1377. GPO Power, Camarata describes a series of Room 201 r New York. NY 10001 ~ that earlier generation of revolutionary recent confrontations over TDU­ CHICAGO r socialists.• backed by-law changes. Camarata had \... ~ 8 APRIL 1977 3 I, ~ . , r .~. MEe Lies and Whispers

Several months ago the Marxist We will not inflict upon our readers to participate in a "cultural and political will go after a woman"-as if Fred Education Collective (MEC) began Kass's petty and petulant opus, which event being organized around the Hampton, Mark Clark, George Jack­ gearing up for an exclusion of the would take up a page and a half in wv. international oppression of women." In son, John Huggins, Bunchy Carter, etc., Spartacist League. The MEC-a kind The charges boil down to the following: our response declining this "Invitation had never existed. latter~ay of "Free University'" which that we did not accurately report the to a Betrayal" (see WV No. 136, 3 Kass accuses us of taking "cheap provi4es a sheltered environment for MEC's December 24 "Night ofSolidari­ December 1976) the SL explained: shots" at "a person who was jailed and homeless U.S. supporters of the centrist ty with Revolutionary Women"'; that we "The broadest possible defense efforts tortured for her opposition to the European majority of Ernest Mandel's insulted Laura Allende; that we distort against savage junta terror in Latin America and throughout the world Chilean junta": Laura Allende. In fact, "United" Secretariat, together with the MEC position on defense work; that have consistently been among our most WV gave Laura Allende her due, and "Marxist" academics, burnt-out radi­ we accuse the MEC of "supporting" urgent concerns. But the defense~ of this is no doubt what is so embarrassing cals and other social-dilettantes-has Nazi political prisoners; and that we class-war prisoners against right-wing to the MEC. For it was Allende and not repression can only be damaged by the been increasingly disturbed by the "violate the norms of workers democra­ any of the speakers associated with the intervention of the SL(which "disrupts" cy." Finally, the letter casually informs sectarian feminist 'event' you are planning." MEC who separated herself from the the monotony of the MEC's empty us in passing that the MEC has come up evening's rampant feminism. As we "radical'" cheerleading by raising Trot­ with a singular new fringe benefit for its The MEC objects to our"irresponsible" prediction that the event would be a reported at the time: skyist politics). The MEC accordingly "teachers": the "discretion to limit SL "... even the featured speaker, Laura initiated a whisper campaign about SL attendance to one representative per "shameless display offeminist sectarian­ Allende, sister of the late president of "lies and slanders," which we demanded class." Kass's accusations are nothing ism." But the invitation (which WV Chile and herself an official in the be put in writing. Finally five weeks ago, but the pretext by which the MEC hopes reprinted) clearly invoked: Chilean Unidad Popular (UP) govern­ the document appeared in the form ofa to excuse this and future political " ... the unitary character of ment, understood the implications and imperialism's attack on women through took pains to draw a sharp line between letter from "MEC coordinator" Stephen exclusion. its state apparatus: openly on women herself and the feminists. She began her Kass. freedom fighters as prisoners, and in remarks by pointedly greeting 'compa­ In print-where the MEC has to take "Night of Solidarity" less obvious ways on all of us, especially neras ...and companeros, because I do responsiblity for them-the charges Third World Women." see men here,' and went on to roint out that many women who partiCipated in have been reduced from "lying" and Last November IS the MEC sent the Our indictment of the "event" for Chilean left-wing politics did so because "slandering" to "glaring inaccuracies." SL Women's Commission an invitation drawing the "sex line where it is their class instincts dominated over absolutely crucial to draw the class line" their sex instincts~" was a political charge amply supported. Our criticisms of Laura Allende are That the MEC does not like it does not not "cheap shots," but are profound make it a slander. political differences directed at a leading Moreover, the "Night of Solidarity" spokesman of the suicidal popular­ completely bore out our prediction (see frontist strategy of preaching reliance Victory to Atlanta , "MEC Feminist Fete Defends Women on the "constitutionalist" officer corps, Only," WV No. 138, 24 December leaving the Chilean proletariat defense­ 1976). Annette Rubinstein asked the less before the bloody coup. Kass would Sanitation Workers audience to send Xmas cards to Puerto have us believe that her remarks that Rican political prisoner Lolita Lebr6n night (calling for more arms-now that while barely mentioning her four male the battle is over) make her some sort of Strike! comrades jailed along with her; Myra left critic of the popular front. Yet only Tanner Weiss declared that Chilean the night before, Allende-who is women prisoners were the most op­ presently a representative of Chile Striking Atlanta sanitation workers, broke through the workers' picket lines pressed because they had not only been Democnitico, the popular front in members of Local 1644 ofthe American to collect the garbage. seized by the class enemy but were now exile-addressed the International Hu­ Federation of State, County and Mu­ When black Democrat Maynard being held in "male-dominated jails." man Rights forum to call for building a nicipal Employees (AFSCME), are Jackson became mayor of Atlanta in Does the MEC deny that these "better" popular front with "better" continuing to hold out this week in the 1974, the liberals praised him to the statements were made? Clearly it can­ bourgeois forces in it. face of the vicious drive by Mayor skies and the AFSCME labor tops not. But Kass claims our account was Maynard Jackson to smash their strike. themselves worked tirelessly for his distorted because we did not also Fascism The walkout began one week ago election. The first black mayor of mention the unmemorable, uncritical Kass's letter complains of "a slander­ when the city refused to grant the Atlanta was hailed as the harbinger of speech by the MEC's Mary Boger, ous charge" which "leaves us open to union's demand for a 50 cents-an-hour the "new South" where labor organizing whose remarks were in no way a attacks by the bourgeoisie and its wage increase. In a frenzy of anti-labor would be encouraged and racial anta­ departure from the evening's feminist agents." The supposed charge is: hysteria the city council delivered an gonisms ended. But Maynard Jackson is politics. If Boger disagreed with Rubin­ ': .. your presumption that we would ultimatum to the more than 1,000 certainly no champion of black civil stein or Weiss, it would be news to the support NaZI pOllllcal pnsoners.... The striking sanitation and water works rights; he and his Democratic cronies audience which gathered that evening to implication of your spurious charge has employees, 80 percent of whom are have abandoned busing for school the effect of trying to put the MEC hear her uphold the MEC's public outside the Left. (After all, any group black. desegregation, counterposing instead propaganda bloc with the feminism that would support and defend fascists Letters were sent out to the strikers their "Atlanta Plan" which merely calls whose most egregious expressions WV should be treated like them, i.e. at­ threatening them with dismissal if they for increased black representation in the reported. tacked out of social existence by did not return to work-at the same local public school bureaucracy. whatever means the situation time it was announced that the city was However, the Spartacist League Kass indignantly protests that WV requires. )" taking applications to replace them if insisted at the time that the working should have quoted from an MEC But the SL never said that the MEC they were not back on thejob by April 2. masses must place no confidence in such pamphlet, something called "Feminism defends fascists! What we did say was: Moreover, on April 4, the mayor began capitalist politicians~ The Democratic and the State," which contains "our "Your sex-defined strategy for political [MEC] political positions." As the MEC defense would not in principle preclude a massive scab operation. Schools, Party will never fight on the side of the the defense of, for example, an Isabel shopping centers and fire stations were oppressed-this bourgeois party is meanders over the shifting sands of Peron, or a Nazi like Hermine Braun­ designated as pick-up poir1ts where dedicated to smashing strikes, reinfor­ opportunism, it leaves behind contra­ steiner Ryan who is certainly a political scabs, backed up by the Atlanta police, cing racial divisions among the workers dictory tracks, including a left face prisoner in imperialist West Germany. and everything else necessary to protect which is convenient, of course, when it Your attempt to apply the .feminist encounters the SL (though its "Femi­ concept of 'sisterhood' to defense work the workings of the capitalist system. leaves you with no way to separate the It is crucially important for the future nism and the State" with its talk of"our defense of women prisoners in the of labor organizing in the South that sisters" is hardly an example). It is continued on page 10 WOMEN AND Jackson's union-busting drive be revealing that the MEC-this "open REVOLUTION smashed and the strike won. All Atlanta forum" which cringes at the prospect of labor should go out in support of the an explicit political program, where FORUM nobody can ever be found to take Contents: No. 14 courageous AFSCME strikers. Jack­ responsibility for anything that is said, • Weather Underground Splits son's attempt to break this strike The CIA's "Human • Supreme Court Wipes Out Gains demonstrates the urgent need for the where there are no leaders but only Rights" Crusade for Women labor movement to break all ties with "coordinators" and "respected teach­ • Murderous Sterilization the capitalist parties and fight for the ers"-suddenly can come up with Imperialist Butchers Campaign in India formation of a workers party to unite political positions when it wants them. Exploit Stalinist Crimes • International Women's Day behind it all the oppressed in the But what the MEC doesn't do is Defend the Gains of the Greeting of the Paris Action struggle for a workers government. forthrightly defend the feminist invita­ October Revolution! Committee, 1916 Victory to the sanitation workers tion for the "Night of Solidarity with Speaker: Helen Cantor • Bottle or Breast? Poor Children strike! • Revolutionary Women," which just Still Die happens to be the document we polemi­ Date: Sat., 16 April 1977 • Trico Workers Win Equal Pay cized against. rtme: 7:30 p.m. • The Development of Soviet Educational Policies One can only shudder at what Place: Barnard College Room 304 • Victory to the Boston Preterm SPARTACISI. students are taught in this school for Strike! (Broadway above 116th "Marxist education." At the MEC's Street) Canada International Women's Day forum, SUBSCRIBE $2/4 issues Donation: $1 Subscription: S2/year Arthj.1r Felberbaum again reiterated'the Make checks payable/mail to: (11 issues) Sponsored by Columbia Spartacus Youth MEC's feminist defense position, claim­ League SPARTACIST PUBLISHING CO .. For more information call 925-5665 Box 1377, GPO Make payable/mail to: Spartacist Canada ing that the vicious persecution of New York, N.Y. 10001 Publishing Association, Box 6867, Station A, former Black Panther Assata Shakur Toronto, Ont~~i~,.Canada NEW YORK \.. ' ~ "shOWS; when given the choice. the state 4 WORKERS VANGUARD Chicago Motorman Scapegoated in Wake of "L" Disaster

CHICAGO~The Chicago Transit Au­ covered from the wreckage which was thority (CTA), operator of the danger­ alleged to be Martin's. However, the ous and obsolete elevated railways police had in the meantime "lost" the f which snake their way above the streets evidence for four days and then "found" of this city, is waging a relentless it in the· attache case of another campaign to scapegoat a black motor­ passenger. Although the drug plant man, Stephen Martin, for the February failed--this "evidence," in view of its 4 "L"-train collision which killed II checkered history, was not admitted in people and injured 189. Within hours of the NTSB hearings~the CTA is reluc­ the crash, which occurred in the Loop tant to drop this angle and is seeking to during evening rush hour traffic, the introduce another series of urine tests CTA claimed that "human failure" which supposedly show a trace of caused the disaster. Martin, who suf­ marijuana in his system. This would not, fered a crushed pelvis and other internal however, prove that he had been injuries in the crash, bitterly stated from smoking marijuana prior to the crash, his hospital bed, "they[the CTA] always and is in any case no evidence of blame the driver, it's never the system's operator negligence. fault" (Chicago Defender, 12 February). Martin admits that he failed to wait Recently concluded hearings before for permission to proceed from a traffic the federal National Transportation controller after receiving a flashing red Safety Board (NTSB) indicate that warning signal in his cab. However, he "motorman error" will likely be cited as says he was unaware of this regulation, , the major cause of the accident. While and there is considerable evidence that it .. I the NTSB hearings in themselves are was not well-publicized and seldom, if I.. neither disciplinary nor criminal pro­ ever, applied. It was only issued in Train wreck In downtown Chicago February 4. ceedings, their determination carries December 1976, and in testimony given significant weight. The basis for the before the Safety Board CTA general while two train cars full of trapped numbers of workers interviewed by WV attempt to get Martin is largely a charge manager George Krambles admitted commuters dangled perilously over the were so disgusted that they referred to that he ignored a safety warning device that the rule book had not been revised street from the elevated tracks, he was their local as a "company union." inside his cab which is supposedly "fail since 1962, despite an NTSB recommen­ instructed to drive a Lake Street/ Dan The bureaucracy's refusal to fight safe." This charge was settled on after dation to update it after another fatal Ryan train around the curve. Brown safety grievances makes it at least more than six .weeks of character CTA crash in January 1976. Krambles was terrified that the vibrations of his complicit in disasters like February 4. .. assassination and attempts to try him in also conceded that there were no formal passing train might "jostle the cars And its newly announced threat to .. the bourgeois press. briefing procedures for motormen when dangling from the structure" (Chicago bypass the CTA and bring safety The attacks on Martin included a new regulations were introduced. Sun- Times, 18 March). violations directly to the NTSB is a dead blatant but badly bungled drug plant. In any case, there is considerable With a notorious safety record end. "Public" agencies like the NTSB Six days after the accident the Chicago question as to how well observed this (including 32 deaths in 50 years), the will not defend the interests of the police triumphantly leaked to the press regulation is. CTA management is CTA is morbidly afraid of disclosures workers. This is proven by years of that they had "discovered" four mari­ notorious for keeping safety rules on the which reveal to the public its outrageous experience with such federal regulatory juana cigarettes in a should~r bag re- books as a hedge against accidents, safety violations. Several workers told agencies in industries like mining, while in practice expecting drivers to WV reporters that they had been maritime, chemicals, etc. What is • violate them. CTA motorman Jesse explicitly threatened with firing if they needed is militant union action on the I Martinez told the press: "If everybody discussed the safety of the CTA system. job to halt management's interminable .. SPARTACIST LEAGUE had to call in [to controllers] when they One driver, Jesse Martinez, was threat­ safety violations. I I LOCAL DIRECTORY got a flashing red, the whole line would ened with suspension after he circulated As for Martin himself, he is the ~ ANN ARBOR (313) 769-6376 be tied up all day." Another motorman a petition critical of safety procedures intended victim of a railroading job .. c/o SYL, Room 4316 stated, "You can proceed on the flashing shortly after the accident. The CTA orchestrated by CTA officials. Unlike Michigan Union, U. of Michigan red without getting permission and backed down only after Martinez New Leftists, who viewed random .. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 nothing is ever said" by supervisors. complliined to the press and an editorial sabotage and shoddy workmanship as .,r BERKELEY/ Obviously embarrassed on this score, blasting the CTA appeared in the liberal defiance of capitalism, communists do OAKLAND (415) 835-1535 -. Box 23372 the CTA refused to answer questions Chicago Sun- Times. not encourage or condone wantonly Oakland, CA 94623 about whether the rule was actually The most recent disclosure of irresponsible actions by workers. How­ I widespread company negligence was the ever, the recently concluded NTSB I· BOSTON (617) 492-3928 enforced or whether any motormen had I Box 188 ever been disciplined for violating it survey conducted by ATU Local 308 of "fact-finding" hearing has not produced I ~ M.I.T. Station (Chicago Sun- Times, II February). the $25 million "fail-safe" system de­ convincing evidence ofgross negligence I Cambridge, MA 02139 Martin vehemently denied the signed to prevent collisions. Some 20 I on Martin's part. The CTA regulation I CHICAGO (312) 427-0003 marijuana charge and explained that a motormen (out of 400) completed the he violated was neither well publicized I Box 6441, Main P.O. I blind spot in his cab prevented him from questionnaire, and a good 96 percent nor consistently enforced, and the "fail­ I Chicago, IL 60680 I seeing the other train. He said that the claimed that they had received wrong safe" system of which it is a part is CLEVELAND (216) 281-4781 emergency braking system did not stop signals from the safety system: green notoriously unreliable. The would-be Box 6765 Cleveland, OH 44101 his train properly, allowing it to slide lights when the track ahead was occu­ discovery of marijuana was a transpar­ DETROIT (313) 869-1551 into the rear of the other train. pied, hold lights when the track was ent frame-up which even the NTSB Box 663A, General P.O. A survey taken of its membership by clear, etc. An overwhelming majority of refused to admit as evidence. the motormen felt that the new system Detroit, MI 48232 Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Finally, the attempts by the CTA to of signal lights in the cab was less HOUSTON Local 308 demonstrated that a substan­ depict Martin's work record as grossly Box 26474 reliable than the old system of wayside tial number of drivers report that CTA substandard are not convincing. CTA Houston, TX 77207 signals on the track. supervisors deliberately overlook safety management regularly employs an LOS ANGELES .... (213) 662-1564 While not explicitly defending Mar­ violations and that it is not uncommon arbitrary and discriminatory system of Box 26282, Edendale Station tin, the Local 308 leadership submitted Los Angeles, CA 90026 for supervisors to tell motormen to disciplinary measures against the driv­ the results of its survey to the NTSB ignore safety regulations. Manage­ ers. Workers interviewed by WV re­ MADISON hearings to denounce the CTA. The c/o SYL, Box 3334 ment's callous disregard for safety sponded overwhelmingly that his record ATU also issued a statement complain­ Madison, WI 53704 procedures was corroborated by inter­ was no worse than average for a·driver ing that Martin was being scapegoated: NEW YORK (212) 925-2426 views conducted over the last two weeks of his seniority. Box 1377, G.P.O. by Workers Vanguard. One motorman "Blaming the motorman before investi­ New York, NY 10001 told WV of an incident in the past week gations are complete or before the man The CTA's despicable attempts to PHILADELPHIA in which he reported to a supervisor that can speak in his own defense is both "get" Martin are a smokescreen to c/o SYL, P.O. Box 13138 he was unable to engage his brakes. He unfair and misleading to the public.... obscure decades of callous disregard for Philadelphia, PA 19101 was told that his train was "normal" and The news media's rush to raise sensa­ the well-being of working people and SAN DIEGO ordered to drive it-filled with tional charges and then have trial and blacks who largely depend on urban P.O. Box 2034 conviction by publicity brings a rain of mass transit. Nor will the partial Chula Vista, CA 92012 passengers-into the congested Loop area. Another worker reported that abuse on the individual and on all revelations of CTA neglect and ineffi­ SAN FRANCISCO (415) 564-2845 transit operating employees" (quoted in ciency in the bourgeois press produce a Box 5712 once during a snow storm her wind­ San Francisco, CA 94101 shield wipers were inoperati¥e and she Chicago Defender, 15 February). qualitatively better transportation sys­ was ordered to continue using the train The union threatened toset up its own tem. Essential services like schools, TROTSKYIST LEAGUE in this condition. . 24-hour hot line to take complaints hospitals and mass transit will continue OF CANADA· The most treacherously cynical about safety equipment, claiming that to deteriorate in the cities, which are TORONTO (416) 366-4107 example of the CTA's callous disregard they were routinel5' ignored by Transit largely poor and black, as the capitalist Box 7198, Station A for the safety of both the public and Authority supervisors. However, the class seeks to bolster its profit rate by Toronto, Ontario train workers was documented at the union bureaucracy's denunciation ofthe slashing social expenditures. The provi­ VANCOUVER .. , (604) 291-8993 NTSB hearings. An ATU member, CTA is certainly hypocritical. Its own sion of high quality, free social services Box 26. Station A record of defending its membership awaits the destruction of the archaic Vancouver, B.C. Arthur W. Brown, recounted that minutes after the February collision, against management is tarnished; large capitalist system.• • APRIL 1.,., 5 I ~ How U.S. Opened • .-l' Doors to Nazi War Criminals

It is common knowledge that a good footsteps. These are the people who set number of Nazi officials escaped from up CIA-funded operations like the " Germany during the last days of the Assembly of Captive Nations, waiting Third Reich and made their way to to regain power in John Foster Dulles' Spain and Latin America. There many plans to "roll back Communism." These (such as Adolf Eichmann) faded intothe are the broadcasters who beam "free background and became successful world" propaganda from the transmit­ businessmen under their new aliases. ters of Radio Free Europe. This is the Others, like Otto Skorzeny, continued advance guard of Jimmy Carter's to ply their trade of anti-communist "human rights" crusade. terrorism, advising fascist groups and military secret police agencies. Who Are the Nazi Hunters? The book describes the efforts of a A review of few individuals, stubbornly working for Wanted!- The Search for years, even decades, against bureaucrat­ ic apathy and sabotage to uncover Nazis in America fascist war criminals at large in Ameri­ by Howard Blum ca. The character of the "Nazi New York Post hunters"-isolated men, each driven by Rumanian Iron Guard marching in 1936. bitter personal experience-is revealing. Much less publicity has been given to Blum follows the dogged efforts of devotee of unsolved mysteries, bored of the first Americans to enter Dachau the fact that, for decades, the United three men-Anthony DeVito, a former with his Social Security job and relish­ concentration camp after it was taken States government has sheltered an Immigration Service agent who success­ ing his role as a tough cop-detective by the Allies, the image ofthe crematori­ unknown number of former Nazis. fully brought Mrs. Hermine Braunstein­ hunting down criminals. Kremer was a um stacked with bodies, skulls on top of Among them are numerous ex-members er Ryan, the Maidanek concentration "self-made man" who was not about to skulls, was fixed indelibly into his of the Rumanian Iron Guard, the camp guard, to trial; "Harold Gold­ let faint-hearted compatriots prevent memory. Croatian Ustashi, the Latvian Dauga­ berg" (a pseudonym), an' ex-NYC cop the avenging of the dead in the Bucha­ These men uncovered not only the vas Vanagi and other East European who stumbled across the bloody history rest pogrom. For Anthony DeVito, one existence and dark histories of Nazis clerical-fascist groups who slaughtered of Circassian fascist Tscherim Soobzo­ living in America, but a sinister web of hundreds of thousands of Jews, com­ kov in the course of an investigation for U. S. government complicity and protec­ munists and subject nationalities during the Social Security Administration; and tion of the war criminals they sought. World War II. Charles Kremer, a Jewish dentist DeVito has come to believe that the A recent book by Harold Blum, originally from Rumania who sought to Nazis have infiltrated the government Wanted.' The Search for Nazis in bring the authors of a 1941 pogrom in and have a plot to get him. Even a America (New York: Quadrangle Bucharest to justice. conservative reviewer, the New York Books, 1977), details the cases ofseveral None of the three originally had Times' Harrison Salisbury, states: of these war criminals. The title, doubts about the fairness of the"Ameri­ "Blum has brought The Odessa File to however, is somewhat misleading, for can system." The cop and the Immigra­ life.... His findings are chilling, scandal­ what the book shows is not an official tion agent felt that, after all, they were ous, and read like the latest fictional search for Nazis but the opposite: a simply doing their job. Yet both were suspense story." consistent policy, reaching to the high­ constantly blocked in their efforts. Vital But the real source ofthe obstructions est levels of government, to cover up for files disappeared, DeVito was trans­ is far deeper than lonely hunters like and protect fascist refugees from justice. ferred away from Nazi-catching activi­ DeVito comprehend, or than "responsi­ The book is also valuable for its ties, Goldberg was threatened by his ble" bourgeois journalists would care to recounting of the barbaric crimes of superiors and local New Jersey politi­ admit. There are countless circles of East European fascists. While years of cians. Kremer's over 3,000 letters to right-wing exiles in the U.S., and no Hollywood World War II movies have government authorities about Rumani­ doubt a fair number of fascist plots; but shaped American popular opinion to an fascist Valerian Trifa were ignored it has been the deliberate policy of the see the archetypal Nazi as an arrogant . for years. American government-not a secret Prussian officer in polished black boots, Despite official sabotage, they conspiracy of former SS officers--that a former German Einsatz commando persisted on their own. Goldberg was a New York Post has protected the Nazi war criminals. chief commented 011 the Balkan and Maikovskis in the Latvian 5.5. in While a few of the more pathological, south Slav fascists that "We were 1943 usually lower-echelon, butchers have actually frightened by the bloodthirsti­ been brought to trial (although Mrs. ness of these people." Ryan is the only one ever actually Of course, the German army found deported), former high-ranking Nazi the pogroms unleashed by the rabidly collaborators such as Dr. Hubertus nationalistic, mystical-terrorist native Strughold, associated with murderous fascist groups (and special non-German medical experiments on Jewish prison­ SS detachments recruited from among ers at Dachau, were brought to America local anti-Semites, anti-communists to strengthen its military-research and criminals) quite useful in consoli­ apparatus. dating its brief occupation of East Europe. After the war, these local Nazis Valerian Trifa-Iron Guard who fell back with the retreating Pogrom Instigator Wehrmacht before the advancing Red Army tried to hide themselves in the On II May 1955 Bishop Valerian mass of several hundred thousand Trifa of the American diocese of the "displaced persons." But with the onset Rumanian Orthodox Church, gave the of the "cold war" they soon resurrected opening prayer to the U.S. Senate: themselves as "refugees from Commu­ "... bless them [the senators] that they nist totalitarianism" and found a com­ may remember ... Rumania and all the fortable haven in the U.S. oppressed nations who are still longing The anti-communism and thwarted for 'a government by the people, and for nationalist ambitions of these sadistic the people'." Trifa's presence on the dais killers coincided with U.S. imperialism's was requested by none other than Vice desire to reconquer East Europe, and President Richard Milhous Nixon. ultimately the USSR, for capitalism. In 1941 Trifa was a leader of the That is why they have been protected by fascist Iron Guard and president of the conservative Republican and liberal National Union of Christian Rumanian Students. By January 20 of that year, Democratic administrations alike, just York New York Post as have the Cuban racketeers and Mrs. Ryan at the time she was Bishop Trifa in 1954 the Iron Guard had become impatient Saigon generals who followed in their concentration camp guard. with the pro-Axis military government WORKERS VANGUARD 6 i ;;;;;;

of G,'neratlon Antonescu and sought to when the Nazis were defeated he made a exterminate Jews and communists 10 precipitate a coup against him, which, deal to NY large sums to the local occupied East Europe. Soobzokov while it failed, led to a night ofwholesale station chief of the American Office of made his way to Jordan after the war, murder of Jews. Trifa's speech in Strategic Services (OSS-forerunner of where there was a substantial communi­ Bucharest that evening was the signal the CIA) in return for admission to the ty ofemigres from the Circassian region for the pogrom/ uprising to begin. U.S. Arriving as part of a trade mission, of the Caucasus; from there he proceed­ Proclamations over his name distribut­ Malaxa never left. But despite support ed to the U. S. After struggling as a ed in the streets of the· Rumanian capi­ from California Congressman Nixon, factory worker in Paterson, New Jersey, tal demanded "the replacing of all who introduced a private bill in the for two years, he returned to the Near Masonic and kike sympathizers in House of Representatives to allow East: Although posing as an antique r government. ..." Malaxa to remain permanently in the dealer, his real task was as an agent of r Only several weeks later did the news U.S., he encountered some difficulties. . the CIA, a role he filled again shortly r of this slaughter reach the outside So the Iron Guardist and the witchhun­ after the U.S. Marines' invasion of world. in a Jewish Telegraphic Agency ter worked out a clever scheme: in 1951 Lebanon in 1958. dispatch which Charles Kremer read atthe height of the Korean War Malaxa There were repeated official denials of and saved: set up a company called "Western Tube Soobzokov's connection with the U.S. "Perhaps the most horrifying single Corp.," whose offices were located at spy agency, but Goldberg discovered episode of the pogrom was the 'kosher the address of Nixon's Whittier, Califor­ during his investigation that the former hutchering' last Wednesday night of nia, law firm. By pushing a petition to Nixon in 1948, hunting Obersturmfiihrer of the Einsatzgruppen more than two hundred Jews in the home. municipal slaughterhouse.... There the have Western Tube declared a vital was paid several thousand dollars from Greenshirts forced them to undress and wartime priority, Nixon managed to the Army Civilian Payroll Section, a some going to Spain. By 1948 Artukovic led them to the chopping blocks, where obtain permanent resident status for his well-known conduit for CIA funds to thev cut their throats in a horrible had made his way to the U.S. In 1951 the protege. temporary operatives. Upon his return par'ody (If the traditional Jewish meth­ Yugoslav governme'nt requested his to the U.S., Soobzokov quickly worked ods of slaughtering fowl and extradition to face charges of war livestock.... Ustashi and Einsatzgruppen himself into New Jersey machine Demo­ crimes, but the State Department has "Some mangled bodies were disposed of cratic policy, setting himself up as the Another of the cases recounted by consistently refused to comply. FBI hy pouring them down manholes to the man who could deliver the vote of sewers usually used to carry animal Blum is that of Andrija Artukovic, officials testified as "character wit­ Paterson's Circassian community. His remains. Other naked, headless bodies founder of the secret police of the nesses" for Artukovic at his first trial .. influential friends eventually squashed I were hung on iron hooks and stamped puppet Ustashi regime in Axis-occupied while his lawyers argued he was just ~ I Carne Kosher: kosher meat." Goldberg's investigation. I Croatia (see "U.S. Harbors Ust~hi persecuted victim of International "The general staff which ordered the Boleslavs Maikovskis, today a I massacre consisted of Vice President Death Camp Butcher," WVNo. 105, 16 Communism. At his final trial in 1958 if retired carpenter living in Mineola, Horia Sima, chief of the Greenshirt April 1976, for a fuller account). the Ustashi mass murderer was declared • Long Island, joined the Einsatzgruppen Legion. Dimitry Groza, boss of the Artukovic authorized and supervised a victim of "political persecution" and Legionary Workers Corps, and Viorel in Latvia, where he participated in mass the imprisonment of the 30,000 Jews of the next year he was officially granted Trifa. leader of the frenetic Greenshirt executions of the population of entire Croatia, of whom 90 percent were asylum. The Catholic Church, Knights student movement." Jewish villages. From there he was sent murdered. During the first summer of of Columbus and various anti­ to the Baltic University in Germany in After the failure of the 1941 putsch, Nazi occupation, the Ustashi slaugh­ Communist Congressmen have all 1941. This was the school from which Trifa and other Iron Guardists fled to tered over 180,000 Serbs, gypsies, backed him. Nazi masterspy Reinhard Gehlen re­ Germany where they were kept in Communists and Jews,' Artukovic The two other fascist war criminals cruited his network of agents for the reserve by Hitler as a useful threat to reveled in the blood: "Kill all the Serbs whose histories are detailed in Blum's East European service. keep Antonescu in line. In 1945 he went and Jews without exception," he or­ book are Tscherim Soobzokov and When the end of the Third Reich was to Vienna, from there to Italy, and dered his chief of police. Boleslavs Maikovskis, both members in sight, rather than face a Russian firing finally entered the United States in 1950. When the Germans pulled out in of SS Einsatzgruppen, special "anti­ He became bishop of the American 1945, the Ustashi leaders fled with them, partisan" units set up by the Nazis to continued on page 9 Rumanian church in 1952 and a U.S. citizen in 1957. Trifa's ordination as bishop was not religious at all but an out-and-out political putsch. The fact that the incumbent prelate, Bishop Moldovan, i had been appointed by the patriarch S.F. Nazi Office Smashed in Bucharest gave Trifa his opening J to seize a position of authority in the SAN FRANCISCO, April 2­ University in 1975, where the Spartacus Rumanian exile community through a Provoked by anti-Semitic vandalism, a Youth League helped drive offthe Nazis f coup based on McCarthyite red-baiting. crowd of up to 150 residents of the under the banner "No Platform for ~ On July 4 a group of former Iron Sunset district yesterday ransacked and Fasdsts!" In 1966 an outraged crowd of • Guardists surrounded the Rumanian burned a "bookstore" recently opened trade unionists, including longshore­ Orthodox Episcopate in Michigan by American Nazis. This exemplary men,joined Jewish refugees in breaking chanting "Com-mu-nists, Com-mu­ treatment of the fascist scum forced the up an attempted Nazi demonstration at nists!" hurling rocks through the win­ local Nazi leader, Allen Vincent, to flee San Francisco Civic Center. dows and slashing car tires. The phone the store and seek refuge with the police. The fascist bands will ultimately be lines had been cut so the residents could The "RUdolf Hess Bookstore," the last defense of the decadent bour­ not appeal f.or aid, and the bishop finally complete with a large swastika on the geoisie, and the working class must learn how to deal with theril­ surrended the mission to Trifa and his window, was clearly a deliberate provo­ now through organized defense squads. cohorts. cation by the Nazi vermin. The store was r Some months after Trifa moved in (he located in the center ofa German Jewish Workers must have no illusions that the r had by now dubbed himself Valerian capitalist police will "protect" the labor r community of survivors of World War and had himself ordained "bishop" by movement. Nor must they be misled by II, right across from the community an anti-Communist Ukrainian exile the predictable wails of liberals and synagogue. Ironically, the landlord, f reformists who bemoan the infringe­ archbishop), Kremer was present at an Nathan Green, who unknowingly rent­ unusual meeting in New York of the ment of the Nazis' "constitutional ed the storefront to the Nazis, is a Polish ~ rights" instead ofsolidarizing with those United Rumanian Jews of America Jew who survived the Nazi death camp whose just outrage put a halt to the (URJA). Bishop Moldovan had come to at Auschwitz. Green is seeking a legal fascist provocation. (We wonder wheth­ appeal for their aid in exposing Trifa, eviction notice. Earlier in the week one er the super-legalist Socialist Workers the author of the 1941 Bucharest self-proclaimed stormtrooper, Carl pogrom. Kremer was enthusiastic, but Party, which has openly defended "free Herler, clearly admitted that the Nazis not his organization. "It doesn't concern speech" for the Nazi and Klan terrorists were deliberately trying to provoke a around the country, will carry its Jews," said one. Others feared that to reaction: "We are going to be evicted or challenge the government's admission bombed out or burned out," he boasted wretched civil libertarianism to its of Trifa to the U.S. would make Jews (San Francisco Chronicle, I April). logical conclusion by coming to the seem foreign and unpatriotic. Later defense of the Nazi storefront!). Kremer went to the B'nai B'rith Anti­ Only hours after a small crowd In the absence of a labor-based Defamation League. 'They told him: ransacked the store on Friday evening, defense squad, it is possip(e that the "Don't rock the boat. America has been the nearby synagogue was vandalized outrage of the Jewish refugees may be good to the Jews. Leave well enough with bottles or rocks thrown through manipulated by the ultra right-wing

alone." the stained glass windows. Soon after UPI Zionist terrorist Jewish Defense League Kremer was infuriated and vowed to that the Nazi store was burned, and (JDL). The day after the ransacking, at pursue Trifa. He was elected president when firemen arrived a large crowd of S.F. Nazi bookstore after trashing. least one sign appeared near the book­ of the URJA and began sending out local residents tried to restrain them. store bearing the JDL slogan, "Never letters on its letterhead. But it was no As usual, bourgeois justice tilts in working-class justice that these charges again." use: Trifa was anti-Communist, and this favor of the fascists. While police be dropped. The left has had numerous run-ins was good enough for the Immigration protected Nazi leader Allen Vincent, The Nazis have recently increased with these anti-communist reactiona­ Service. Trifa subsequently made him­ they arrested Morris Weiss, a concen­ their exploratory probes into the ~n ries. However, we defend those who self of use to the government by aiding' tration camp survivor, and his son Francisco Bay Area, traditionally a resist fascist attack, while warning that in witchhunting "reds" among Detroit Allan. The elder Weiss was booked for center of working-class and left-wing the Zionists' own goal to assemble all auto workers in the 1950's. But above all aggravated assault and resisting arrest, strength. The fact that these cowards Jews in Israel neatly dovetails with the he was protected because a close friend requiring $2,750 bail-apparently be­ have felt emboldened enough to make fascists' desires to drive them out of the and former Iron Guardist, industrialist cause he allegedly kicked the fascist such attempts is a sign of the heavy country. The only protection against a Nicolae Malaxa, was in tight with leader and shouted "dirty Nazi bas­ blows dealt to the labor movement in revival of serious anti-Semitism lies in Nixon. tard"! The younger Weiss was charged the recent period. Fortunately though, winning the unions to class-struggle Malaxa had supplied the Iron Guard with malicious mischief, requiring $300 the Nazis have been driven back each policies and ultimately in carrying out a with arms and money in Rumania, but bail. Clearly it is in the interest of time-such as at San Francisco State working-class revolution.• 8 APRIL 1977 7 .,r There was considerable sentiment on Mandel attended a UAW Local 1364 the demands themselves-which largely the picket lines to broaden the strike to strike meeting on Thursday. read the centered around the leadership-make Fremont ... obtain a local contract and to clear awav motion and declared his union's solidar­ (continued from page 12) it obvious who was responsible for the the mountain of accumulated grie\:­ ity with the strike. he received thunder­ course of the strike. International to negotiate an end to the ances. However, the membership was ous applause. The witchhunting policy failed. When strike. not reluctant to fight for even the limited The International had already broken three vans of bureaucrats drove up to Only four pickets were assigned to demands of the Local bureaucracy­ one strike that week, by Local 1226 at an two WV salesmen on the picket lines each plant gate! Management was freely wanton insulting of union officials was Indianapolis Chrysler plant (see article and threatened them, pickets and other allowed in and out of the plant and new clearly seen as an attack on the entire in this issue). While Doug Fraser faces workers on the scene came to their hires were encouraged to report for membership. Had the foreman been no serious opposition as Woodcock's defense. telling the bureaucrats these work (i.e., to scab). At the same time removed and the shop committee chosen successor. the rapid-fire be­ sellers supported the strike and had a pickets were instructed not to try to stop brought back with all disciplines lifted. heading of UAW shop committees right to sell their papers. (Several years Teamsters from entering or leaving the it would have been viewed as a reversal throughout the country would not be a ago, in response to Maoist thuggery, plant grounds. According to one picket of the past period ofdefeats. paving the favorable inauguration for his adminis­ Local 1364 passed a motion upholding interviewed by WV, when a Teamster way for the union to go on the offensive. tration. Given the volatility of the UA W the right of all labor and socialist driving a truck loaded with frames However. this required a decisive membership. any shop chairman---no organizations to freely distribute their refused to cross the lines, Local 1364 show of strength by the Local against matter how servile to Solidarity literature outside the plant and union bureaucrats came out and unsuccessful­ the company and the strikebreaking House-could find himself in the meetings.) ly urged him to make the delivery! International. But Mays adamantly position of Local 1226's Larry Shick or Time and again, Fremont UAW As if these leaky picket lines weren't kept the lid on. refusing to set up mass Local 1364's Earlie Mays. Fraser does members made it clear to WVthat they enough, Mays also refused to call out picket lines or appeal to other union not want to needlessly alienate local had no intention of letting their "lead­ the GM parts warehouse workers, also locals. It is clear that there was senti­ officials. however, and doubtless this ers" muzzle them or tell them what they members of Local 1364. ment in favor of the strikers within the factor was among those cushioning the could or could not read. Even some To fend off criticism of its no-win Bay Area labor movement. When the extent of the defeat at Fremont. hardened right-wing bureaucratic sup­ strategy: the Fremont UA W bureaucra­ Spartacist League; Spartacus Youth Attempts to bludgeon Local 1364 porters mobilized by the Local leader­ cy, with Mays and vice president Ed League threw up a small picket at a could easily backfire, provoking a ship to keep WV salesmen out of the Malone in the lead, unleashed a vicious Chevrolet dealership in nearby San massive turnout by enraged Fremont union hall parking lot told us they redbaiting attack against its opponents Leandro in order to show support for workers at the UAW convention sche­ were mystified by the union's policies. in the Local. Dovetailing with this the strike and bring it to the attention of duled in Los Angeles in six weeks. "Why are they [the Local 1364 leaders] slander campaign was an attempt to the labor movement. union machinists Fraser and Woodcock would find this doing this? I don't understand this physically seal off the membership. refused to cross the line. By Monday especially embarrassing given the sche­ hostility," said one of these workers, Mays and his cronies tried to drive off those same machinists, along with 1,700 duled appearance at the convention of puzzled at having to guard his union and intimidate members of socialist other machinists in the Bay Area, were imperialist chief Jimmy Carter. from people who clearly supported the organizations trying to sell their papers on strike to obtain their own contract. But instead of standing up to the strike. to the strikers. Striking UAW members The ILWU Local 6 executive board International, the Local 1364 leadership It is indeed ironic that Mays & Co.­ were also instructed not to talk to any passed a motion to "stand in solidarity devoted its energies to redbaiting, who in their redbaiting invoked the reporters or newspaper salesmen. with the UAW Local 1364 strike" and hoping no doubt to lay the ground work totalitarian horrors of Stalin's Russia At a time when sentiment was asked the strikers if their union could for blaming a defeat on a "fifth column" and Mao's China-act exactly like the building in other sections of the Bay aid the strike in any way. When ILWU within the union, or on "outsiders." bureaucrats who run the deformed Area labor movement to support the Local 6 executive board member Bob However, the character ofthe strike and workers states...and for precisely the strike, Mays launched his drive against same reasons. Like Hua and Brezhnev. "outsiders"! However, Mays' bungling Mays and his pals tried to quash all of the strike made it progressively ever criticisms of their sellout policies and clearer that his witchhunting was simply bureaucratically suppress dissent. What designed to squelch criticism of his CMUAW Leaflet: both the Stalinist and trade-union weak-kneed policies. Only a day after bureaucrats fear above all else is that the the Local 1364 president reportedly workers will learn the truth about their denounced the company/International betrayals and throw them out. And the return-to-work ultimatum before a Let's Win this Strikel Fremont strike indeed gave Local 1364 mass meeting, he buckled under. members a chance to see their "leader­ Under the terms of the agreement We are not on a wildcat-This is a legitimate official strike called by our ship" in action under fire. It failed announced by Mays, the firings of the elected local union leadership in response to extreme provocation by the miserably. shop committee and other strike activ­ company. GM has made its position clear; they would rather Ere the entire ists are to be lifted. Nevertheless, the shop committee in an attempt to break Local 1364 than remove oneforeman. A Test company will "note" the firings in its Our strike is solid; it's the International that has branded it a wildcat. They This strike was also a test for the records. Further, Mays is to receive a are stabbing us in the back by refusing to sanction it. It is expected that they various oppositions to the incumbent 3Q-day disciplinary layoff (DLO) on his intend to read us the riot act at today's union meeting. The International has leadership. Among those who miserably record; the rest of the shop committee been using the no-strike Paragraph 117 to break a series of local strikes. At failed this test are the various Maoist­ had l4-day DLO's recorded. This means Indianapolis as well as Fremont, they have abandoned locals because they say supported groupings. Auto Workers Mays can now be fired for any infrac­ company assaults on union reps are not a strikable grievance. United to Fight (AWUF), which is tion of company rules, with the rest of No matter what our criticisms of Mays and the shop committee (and we politically supported by the Revolution­ the shop committee just two steps away have plenty of them), they are the strike leadership. In attacking the shop ary Communist Party (RCP), spent from a firing! committee, GM is attacking all 5,OOO-plus members of the local. Ifthis strike most of the strike trying to crawl back In selling this capitulation to the is defeated by GM with the International's help, we will pay the price for it into the good graces of the Mays workers, Mays also assured the assem­ back in the plant with intensified harassment and a weakened union. This leadership, which it helped get into bled workers that he had the l.nterna­ strike and the incidents leading up to it show the need to get rid ofParagraph office in 1973. tional's "word" that it had GM's "word" 117 which is being used to undercut our just struggle. After Mays' initial blast of redbaiting that GM would order its foremen to To protect ourselves, we must do everything possible to expand the basis of on Monday, AWUF timidly held back stop assaulting (!) UAW officials on the this strike. Instead of wasting time red-baiting at union meetings, we should from speaking in the strike meetings. plant floor. The International also be discussing ways to make this a winning strike. Instead, it spent its time collecting "promised" to help get a local contract • SEAL OFFTHE PLANT! To make this strike hurt the company, nothing signatures for a petition, presumably to for Fremont UAW, which given the must move through the gates. To date, carriers full of trucks and cars have be delivered to Mays, listing its strike miserable national contract should been allowed to pass through the picket lines-this must stop. Not demands and calling for mass picketing. make GMAD quite happy. management, not new hires, NOBODY should be allowed through. The Parts What bankruptcy! Instead offighting to Meanwhile, the Oakland Tribune of2 . plant should be brought out to join us. Not the present skeleton picket lines, get the membership together in favor of April quoted a General Motors but solid mass picket lines involving the whole local are needed to stop traffic solid strike action at the many mass spokesman as saying the issues that of trains, trucks and people. meetings which took place during the provoked the strike "aren't negotiable." • EXTEND THE STRIKE! This morning Ford Milpitas is scheduled for a strike, all these cowards could do was to Also, WV learned that foreman Hol­ strike vote, opening up the possibility of expanding the strike. Our local can give Mays a piece of paper, telling him quim is back on the job today and is send delegations to other UAW locations in Region 6. Also, a lot of other "UAW members feel that the member­ being conspicuously paraded around unions in the Bay Area have been hit hard by the employers; they might be ship must be organized and united to go the plant. inclined to send us reinforcements in response to an official request (ILWU, all out. to fight the company"! Mays calls this a victory! No,\it is a Teamsters, etc.). While Auto Workers United to Fight defeat! The union has returned to work While winning the present demand with no reprisals would constitute a called for the International to sanction on GM's terms. Holquim remains on the limited victory, what we should really be going after is a local contract which the strike, its method for fighting for job, and this isn't negotiable. The union includes settlement of all grievances and the junking of Paragraph 117 so we such action was simultaneously legalis­ leadership has been disciplined for can deal directly with company harassment. tic and idiotic. On Monday the AWUF leading the walkout; and paragraph 117 The incident precipitating this strike is a just cause, but everybody knows presented its only motion of the entire of the national contract has been that it is part of a steady stream of abuse of workers and union reps, racial strike to the membership: that the union upheld. insult, job harassment, and killing overtime. Only a few hundred out of refuse to recognize receivership should thousands in this local even came out to vote on the local agreement. It is that The Development of the Strike the International impose it on the suppressed anger that is reflected in the solid turnout for this strike. striking Local. This accepted defeat as The Fremont defeat could have been . GM thinks they can fire our shop committee, but it is another thing to fire inevitable and was, rightly, simply averted. Although the Local leadership . the whole plant. We have the power to win this strike, and we do not need the laughed off the floor. did nothing to prepare the members for International stabbing us in the back either by a back-to-work order or Mays' redbaiting also sent supporters a strike, once the walkout was called an unacceptable compromise. This local leadership must hang tough and of the October League, the"Resistance" support for the action was enthusiastic. demand that the International sanction the strike. They must take every step group supported by the August 29th Local 1364 members had plenty to strike to extend and strengthen this strike and hold out for VICTORY! Movement, and supporters of the about. Workingwithout a local contract Workers Viewpoint Organization scur­ -The "UAW Militant," 30 March, rying for cover. But whereasthe AWUF since last September, Fremont workers published by the Committee for a Militant UAW. a class-struggle opposition have had a steady diet of overtime, caucus of Local 1364 was at Mays' feet throughout the strike, speed-up and harassment. these groupings Were at his throat. All a denounced Mays' motives for the strike, years, their defense was "ignorance"~ Hee and long-time Taiwan strongman claiming he called it to touch up his that there were no known Nazis living in Chiang Kai-shek (Daily World, 13 tarnished image as a militant; and they Nazis..• (continued from page 7) the U.S. Yet both Laipenieks and October 1970). Also affiliated to the all demanded that he be dumped. Hazners appeared on a list of 34 Nazi WACL is the World Union of National While it is likely that Mays' motives squad Gehlen surrendered to the Ameri­ criminals published on 7 January 1949 Socialists which includes German, involved more than a defense of the cans and was spared from the Nurem­ by Aujbau, the New York German­ Swedish, Chilean and Argentinian assaulted committeeman, it was impor­ berg war crimes trials. A few years later, Jewish weekly. This was before either chapters. tant to point out that the cause of the he was asked by the CIA station chiefin applied for U.S. citizenship, yet the Ex-Nazi warcriminals have played an strike was just and that once the lines Bonn to reconstitute his spy network. Immigration Service claims it never important role in these international had been drawn, the battle had to be When the head of West Germany's heard of any suspects until the mid­ terrorist conspiracies. A prime example won. By failing to do this, and by failing official intelligence agency defected to 1960's. is Otto Skorzeny, the former SS officer to make it absolutely clear that the East Germany in 1954, Gehlen's CIA­ who "rescued" Mussolini from the firings of Mays and the shop committee financed organization was simply taken The "Black International" Badoglio government in 1943 and then were an attack on the entire union which over in toto and became the Bundes­ was instrumental in suppressing the No one should delude himself that must be lifted, these supporters of nachrichtendienst, the new federal 1944 "generals' plot" against Hitler. various Maoist sects edged very close to intelligence agency. (Valerian Trifa also these fascist war criminals are nothing but a dwindling group of harmless old While supposedly "living quietly" in the position of opposing the strike and worked for Gehlen while in Vienna in Madrid since the war, he has been blocking with GM. 1945.) men, without influence and quietly whiling away their last years as "model identified as advising the French fascist Workers Viewpoint Organization Maikovskis arrived in the U.S. from shock group Paladin, the Italian Ordine citizens" who "go to church, work hard, went over the edge when one of its West Germany in 1951 and soon became Nero and in 1975 the "Portuguese supporters told WV Mays should stay vice chairman of the American Latvian Liberation Army" (ELP) which carried fired because he was a class collabora- Association and a delegate to the out an extensive bombing campaign . tor! Likewise, both the Call supporters Assembly ofCaptive Nations. Repeated against Communist Party leaders and extradi~ and Resistance failed to clearly demand requests by the USSR for his left-wing military officers (0 Seculo the rehiring of Mays and the shop tion have been turned down by the [Lisbon], 29 March 1975). Skorzeny committee, stressing that Mays should United States government. A 1966 reportedly died last year. be dumped just when General Motors investigation of Maikovskis by the Others have played key advisory roles had "dumped" him. Certainly, the Local Immigration Service was halted after to the murderous secret police agencies 1364 bureaucracy should be kicked out only four months on instructions from of Latin America. Thus in Chile, Walter of office; but this must be decided by the Washington. When DeVito became Rauff, a former SS colonel who devised membership, not General Motors! interested in the case, the files the gas trucks used to murder at least Once again it has been demonstrated disappeared. 97,000 Jews in 1941-42, in the period that Maoism, with its idealist notion Yet these are only a select few out of before Hi~ler's extermination camps that whether someone is a capitalist or hundreds of cases. Its hand forced by were completed, played an important not depends on whether they have"bad" publicity surrounding the trial of Her­ part in setting up Pinochet's murderous or "good" ideas, is unable to see the class mine Ryan, the U.S. government DINA secret police after the bloody line. Internationally, this leads the announced last year that it now has over 1973 coup (New York Times, 18 May Maoists to prostration before U.S. 85 alleged fascist war criminals "under 1975). imperialism as a consequence of the investigation," including Maikovskis, Today, while the Carter administra­ betrayals of the Chinese bureaucracy. Trifa and Artukovic. tion has launched a major international Likewise in the trade unions, those who Another of those supposedly under campaign of phony "human rights" look to Maoism are either spineless investigation is the Latvian Edgars propaganda as a means of isolating the lackeys of the "progressive" wing of the Laipenieks, a member of the Latvian Stalinist-ruled USSR and simultane­ bureaucracy, or end up denouncing the secret police during the Nazi occupa­ ously restoring the tarnished image of , trade-union misleaders as "capitalists" tion, who is accused of murdering U.S. imperialism, the United States ..", and "bosses." hundreds of Jews. Last fall the New continues to harbor scores if not While Auto Workers United to Fight, York Times (15 October) reported that hundreds of Nazi war criminals. The Call supporters, Resistance and Work­ his defense against attempts to remove profoundly anti-democratic, murderous ers Viewpoint Organization all emerged his citizenship is a longstanding rela­ fascist filth collected by the Allied from the Fremont strike widely discred­ tionship with the CIA. From 1963 to "democracies" as a part of the anti­ ited, this was not the case with the only 1968 he traveled extensively at the Soviet cold war was dramatically L other organized oppositional grouping expense of the imperialist spy agency to revealed rec~ntly at a .New Yor\<' J)ty I in the Local, the Committee for a "plant certain information about the forum for "Soviet dissidents" at whil:h Militant UAW (CMUAW). Unlike the Soviet Union." leading social democrats were howled [ other oppositions, CMUAW has always Vilis Hazners, another Latvian FloreaiLif~ down. In slightly different circum­ [ stood for a clear and principled program former Nazi collaborator and secret Bodies at Nordhausen concentra­ stances they would have been lucky to ofclass struggle. When supporters ofthe police butcher, is a former president of tion camp, Germany, in 1945. escape with their lives from the clutches Call and AWUF were backing Mays in the Committee for a Free Latvia and a of these fascist scum. 1973, CMUAW refused to go along and delegate to the Assembly of Captive and tend their flower gardens," as the It is these vicious forces of reaction pointed out that in power his Brother­ Nations. He was for years a script writer New York Times (18 October 1976) which the U.S. government has protect­ l­ I hood Caucus would be just another for Radio Liberty, a U.S.-funded anti­ claimed. We have demanded that ed, while refusing to admit tens of I gang of sellouts, no better than the communist propaganda vehicle preach­ Artukovic be extradited to Yugoslavia thousands of Jews during and after I ( Unity Team it replaced. ing the virtues of "freedom and democ­ and others of these Nazi vermin be World War II, excluding Chilean left­ During the strike, the CMUAW made racy" to the Soviet Union. placed before juries of surviving rela­ wingers tortured in junta concentration it clear that not only did it support the In detailing these cases, the New York tives of their victims. It is a matter of camps and deporting several million strike, but it was crucial that the entire Times (28 November 1976) reported elementary justice that these mass innocent foreign workers. The New union stand as one against the compa­ that "The State Department has long murderers must pay for their crimes~ York Daily News, in propagandizing in ny's firing of the shop committee. balked at seeking information on and also d vital measure of self­ favor of fascists right up until the CMUAW supporters were the only suspects from the Russians, who have protection for the workers movement. bombing of Pearl Harbor, merely said oppositionists able to effectively cut sometimes used the war-criminals issue The capitalist world is not currently openly what the liberals; would not through Mays' redbaiting and get a for propaganda..."; that "There have experiencing the degree of social crisis admit: that the imperialist bourgeoisie sympathetic hearing on the real issue also been allegations that the war­ such that the frenzy ofa desperate petty would use these anti-labor, anti­ facing the Local~how to win the strike. crimes inquiries here were deliberately bourgeoisie provides a breeding ground communist race-hate nationalist terror­ By the end of the strike, the CMUAW impeded"; and that Hazners and Laipe­ for fascism to flourish. But the networks ists as their final weapon to defend the was acknowledged by both the Mays nieks "may be beyond the reach of the ofex-Nazis and fascist terrorists are still capitalist order. Only international leadership and large numbers of strike law" because they entered the U.S. after there, ready to be activated. They are proletarian revolution will finally wipe militants to be the opposition in the 1952, and thus were not required to especially active in Italy where a fascist the Nazi, Ustashi, Iron Guard and other Local. declare that they had not persecuted any "strategy oftension" led to an attempted fascist vermin from the face of the The strike at Fremont is now over. It nationality or minority! coup d'etat by military officers in 1970 earth.• ended in a defeat for the union, but Another Times article (23 November (a plot headed by the "black prince" certainly not an irreversible one. If the 1974) reports that in the case of the Valerio Borghese and implicating the militants of the CMUAW can, in the former head of the Luftwaffe's Medical Italian air force chief of staff and the I Workers I light of the authority which they won Research Center, referred to earlier in head of military intelligence), numerous this article, "Dr. Strughold's record of .' during the strike, take to the member­ bombings of leftist meetings, the blow­ ii, ship a sober and realistic assessment of postwar activities suggests the sponsor­ ing up of an international express train Vanguard i:, the role played by the Mays leadership ship of American intelligence and by Ordine Nero (Black Order) and MARXIST WORKING-CLASS WEEKLY OF and the several fake-militant opposi­ security officials." assassinations of left-wingers. THE SPARTACIST LEAGUE strike~patiently tionists during the The obstructions, subterfuges, In Italy the connections to the ' One year subscription (48 issues): $5­ .. explaining to the most thoughtful and delaying tactics and other obstacles Mussolini era are obvious, with several Introductory offer: (16 issues): $2. Interna­ .. militant workers the way forward~the placed by American officials to hamper levels of fascist organization ranging tional rates: 48 issues-$20 airmail/$5 sea path will be open to forging a new the uncovering and prosecution of Nazi from the legal Italian Social Movement mail; 16 introductory issues-$5 airmail. Make checks payable/mail to: Spartacist leadership in Local 1364 and through­ war criminals are endless. For many to an unknown number ofsecret rightist Publishing Co.. Box 1377 GPO, New York, out the UAW, to fight against the terrorist organizations. Internationally NY 10001 companies for the real interests of the SUBSCRIBE these groups meet periodically under the -includes SPARTACIST working class.• "' auspices of the World Anti-Communist Name _ YOUNG SPARTACUS League (WACL). The WACL has Address _ ABONNEZ-VOUS monthly paper of the drawn support from "respectable" Spartacus Youth League imperialist politicians, and' its Septem­ City _ Le Bolchevik ber 1970 world conference held in $2/11 Issues publication de la Ligue Trotskyste de France Tokyo was addressed by U.S. senator State Zip _ pour toute correspondance: Make payable/mail to: Spartacus Youth Strom Thurmond and received greet­ 152 Pascal Alessandri. B.P. 336. 75011 Paris. Publishing Co.• Box 825. Canal Street P.O.• ings from American vice president Spiro France New York. New York 10013 Agnew, Korean dictator Pak Chung SUBSCRIBE NOWl

:.8 APRIL 1917 9 situation as untenable and. foisting the blame on the strikers. promised merely Indiana Chrysler "to try to salvage the damage already Lewis 171 Dupree done." Mimicking Chrysler's line that no negotiations were possible until work Strike ... resumed. Fraser urged the workers back Acquitted (continued from page 12) and assured them that negotiations on and shop committee chairman Ted the grievance against the foreman would Lewis l7X Dupree was acquitted on of wounds received in the police Ward claimed that they had tried, begin only after that. March 27 of murder charges stemming crossfire. Dupree and Hopes were unsuccessfully, to get the workers back One striker, a 23-year Chrysler from a 1972 police attack on the Nation charged at the time with assault, but two on the job. The failure of the Local worker, complained to WV that Fraser of Islam's Mosque No. 7 (now the years later the charge against the leaders to actively mobilize the member­ "didn't want to hear our side" and that Malcolm Shabazz Temple) in Harlem. mosque teacher was changed to murder. ship greatly strengthened the Interna­ members had to demand that Fraser The trial, which began in February, was Bobby 9X Hopes' trial is scheduled for tional's hand. UAW president Wood­ allow Local president Larry Shick to the second for Dupree on the same next month. cock called a Local meeting for March speak in the meeting. Shick said he charges. The first, one ofthe longest and The state's frame-up case against 29 and appointed Fraser, the union's explained the situation but, instead of most expensive trials in the state's Dupree was based mainly on the Chrysler Department head, to do the forthrightly denouncing Fraser's back­ history, ended with a hung jury last testimony ofpolice "eyewitnesses" and a hatchet job. stabbing, told the workers "you have to November. But the prosecution would paid police informer, who admitted in In 1973 he gained a certain notoriety make the decision." Fraser called for a not give up in its determination to the first trial that he received $140 from by bitterly opposing a series of pre­ straw vote; in the absence of a fighting railroad the Muslim teacher. the cops for his services and was under contract summer wildcats. He castigat­ alternative leadership, two thirds of Dupree was arrested along with indictment for using stolen credit cards. ed Chrysler for "giving in" after two those voting decided to return to work Bobby 9X Hopes on 14 April 1972, the To encourage other "witnesses," the black workers secured the firing of a while a majority (including the Local day ofthe police raid. It began when two Patrolmen's Benevolent Association racist foreman at Detroit's Jefferson leadership) abstained. cops barged into the mosque, claiming offered $25,000 to anyone providing Ave. plant by locking themselves in an Shick told WV that the role of they had received a phone call for help "evidence" leading to a conviction of electrical power cage and shutting off Solidarity House in the strike was a from a detective inside. Dozens more Dupree. the juice. Later he played a prominent "travesty." But his refusal to openly helmeted police arrived while outraged The Partisan Defense Committee and role in defending the I,OOO-man goon fight the International, to organize mass neighborhood residents gathered out­ the Spartacist League demand that the squad ofunion bureaucrats which broke picketing and to call for solidarity side. Almost immediately, as if planned charges against Bobby 9X Hopes be the Mack Avenue Stamping Plant sit-in. action from other locals gave Fraser a in advance, over 100 police in full riot dropp~d immediately. Stop the cop Also in 1973, in his capacity as head of free hand to strangle the strike. "Theydo gear, including machine guns, laid siege vendetta! For more information, write the UA W Skilled Trades Department, theirjob, we do ours," Shick said lamely. to the mosque. to the Lewis Ali Defense Fund, c/o , he helped cram a rotten agreement Following the meeting, pickets were In the melee a cop was shot; he died Malcolm Shabazz Temple No.7, 102 down the throats of Ford skilled removed and the second shift reported several days later, most likely as a result West 116 St., New York, NY 10026.• tradesmen who had voted it down. In for work. 1974 he backed the cops, judges and The pro-capitalist UA W bureaucrats local union officials who broke a wildcat in Solidarity House see their "job" as strike at the Dodge Truck plant. Here, maintaining labor peace at any cost. In truly, is a man with experience. this case, the price was a broken strike people who are not members of an Befere Fraser left Detroit, he let his and a beheaded Local. Union officials organization turning out to be counted strikebreaking intentions be known, MEC ... who seek to find safe ground between (continued from page 4) for a vote. What meeting? What vote? along with the threat to place Local 1226 WoodcockI Fraser & Co. and the hard­ SL members have attended MEC torture centers of Chile from the cases in receivership. "We will ask the workers pressed rank and file, will either be classes, public forums, special "events." to go back to their jobs at the meeting in of other women who are their class crushed, or, as is more often the case, enemies." At these gatherings, no votes are taken. Indianapolis," Fraser said. "I don't want The MEC's plaintive wail about the they will simply capitulate to the union The MEC is here engaging in the most to contemplate what we'll do after that if rights of "the rest of the audience" tops. despicable dishonesty. We nowhere said they don't end the walkout. I'm reluc­ apparently boils down to a complaint or implied that the MEC defends tant to take control. First we'll try to Either way the workers lose. The that the SL has paid too much attention fascists, much less that it "supports" convince them to do the right thing" UA W needs leaders who break with the to the MEC, has sent too many people (Indianapolis Star, 29 March 1977). pro-capitalist treachery of Solidarity them. to participate who have argued too Our objection to the civil libertarian At the massive meeting of2,000-2,500 House and the equivocation of local vigorously and effectively for our workers at the Market Square sports leaders caught in the squeeze. For a defense of "all political prisoners" is an politics. We are sorry that our interven­ arena, Fraser predictably described the class-struggle leadership in the UAW!. important part of the SL's principled tions have apparently wounded the political history. More than ten years inflated egos of MEC honchos who are ago we exposed the refusal of the SWP­ forced to defend their revisionist and supported USLA to explicitly disavow often unintelligible theories against the support offascist political prisoners; Leninist criticism. But we defy the MEC Urgent poe Fund Appeal this social-democratic evasion finds its to produce a single instance where SL full political logic in the SWP's explicit supporters have "packed" meetings, position in favor of "free speech" for shouted anybody down, threatened fascists as well as in USLA's sectarian Exiled Chilean Militant anyone, assaulted anyone, or commit­ redbaiting of the campaign to free ted any kind ofviolation ofthe practices Chilean miners' leader Mario Mufioz. of workers democracy. The MEC's silly demagogic syllogism Needs Your Aid The SL's interventions put the MEC is a blatant attempt to justify MEC into the uncomfortable position of Fernando Marcos is a 30-year-old Chilean miners union organizer exclusionism. The argument goes: the admitting that it has political now exiled in France. He was blinded in a 1972 industrial accident, but SL says the MEC defends fascists; positions-something which is always therefore the SL reads the MEC out of continued to aid the workers' struggles until the bloody Pinochet coup threatening to the paper "unity" of this the workers movement; therefore the SL heterogeneous "collective." The Kass forced him to flee the country. Previous operations to regain his must feel it would be principled to letter is nothing but an attempt to eyesight have failed due to inadequate medical attention, first from a disrupt MEC classes; therefore we must legitimize suppressing our exposure of pro-junta doctor in Chile and then in a charity ward in exile. His last exclude the SL. chance to see again involves a delicate corneal transplant operation at the MEC's prostration before feminism Kass's letter also includes a hilarious and popular frontism, our counterposi­ the world-renowned Barraquer Clinic in Barcelona. The cost: $10,000. defense ofthe MEC's sectarian failure to tion of the Marxist program to the The Partisan Defense Committee has undertaken to raise the funds endorse the campaign to free Munoz. MEC's opportunist cheerleading for necessary for this operation, one which will determine if Marcos can Says Kass, "we feel just lending our "Third World" nationalists and Stalin­ again dedicate himself with his fUllest abilities to the cause of the name does not have much impact in ists. It is the bureaucratic formalization oppressed. The PDC solicits and welcomes your financial support in supporting the case." MEC literature of the petty gripe and gossip campaign this effort. boasts that the MEC supported the by which the MEC leadership hopes to "Puerto Rican Solidarity Day, the shield its members from the principled campaign to save Hostos College, the Trotskyist politics of the Spartacist o Enclosed please find my contribution of $ to aid the campaign on Fourth of July Coalition, the Puerto League.• behalf of Fernando Marcos (Make payable to Partisan Defense Committee Rican cement workers struggle, the and earmark "Marcos Fund. ') June 5, 1976 meeting in defense of the o Enclosed please find my contribution of $ to aid the work of the Portuguese Revolution," but we are SL/SYL PUBLIC OFFICES asked to believe that it was misplaced Partisan Defense Committee. Marxist Literature modesty that caused the MEC to make Name _ its name conspicuous by its absence BAY AREA Friday and Saturday 3:00-6:00 p.m. Address _ from the long list of trade-union organizations, left-wing tendencies and 1634 Telegraph. 3rd floor (near 17th Street) City/State/Zip _ individuals concerned with democratic Oakland. California rights who endorsed the campaign Phone 835-1535 which became a symbol of the plight of CHICAGO victimized Chilean militants and refu­ Tuesday , 4:30-8:00 p,m, Partisan Defense Committee gees in Argentina. Saturday " 2:00-5:30 p,m. 6SO South Clark 2nd floor Box 633, Canal Street Station, New York, NY 10013. (212) 925-2426 "Disrupting"? Chicago, Illinois Box 6729, Main Post Office, Chicago, IL 60680 Phone 427-0003 Box 26078, Edendale Station, Los Angeles, CA 90026 Finally, we are told that the SL NEW YORK violated the "rights of the rest of the Monday-Friday .. , .. ".""., 6:30-9:00 p,m, Box 5555, San Francisco, CA 94101 audience, packed our, meetings, at­ Saturday,." 1:00-4:00 p,m, The Partisan Defense Committee is a class- struggle, anti-sectarian legal defense organization, 260 West Broadway, Room 522 which is in accordance wlln the political views of the Spartacist League, tempted to monopolize discussion peri­ Ndw York, New York ods...." What is this supposed to mean? Phone 925-5665 "Packing a meeting" irtvokes images of 10 WORKERS VANGUARD After going through a ritual denuncia­ Britain ... tion of the crimes of the Labour (uiltinued from page 1) government, the IMG concludes that "whenever the ,election takes place Red the Liberals to "Keep Labour in on Weekly will call for a vote for Labour" approval," and opined that "the conse­ (Red Weekly, 24 March). The coalition quences of a Tory victory now are, with the Liberals did not change the frankly, worrying." And the Economist 1M G's electoral loyalism to Callaghan. (26 March) "tentatively welcomed" The I-CL, writing before the bloc had Callaghan's deal with the Liberals. been finalised, advised that it would be Why is it that every important organ "hetter a thousand times that the of bourgeois opinion now favours Labour party should vacate office than maintaining in office the Callaghan that it should defJend on Liberal or ii government over an election which Ulster Tory votes" ( Workers' Action, 24 ~ would bring the Tories to power? Why March). The l-CL also advised the do British capitalists and their most Tribune group not to support the intelligent spokesmen prefer a Liberal­ government on the Tory no-confidence Labour coalition to their own tradition­ motion, but could not bring themselves al party and direct agency of bourgeois to advise a vote against the Labour rule? Party (in coalition with the Liberals)­ The British working class has power­ so they counselled abstention. Like the ful economic organizations and a lMG, the I-CL indicates that come what tradition of trade-union militancy and may it will support Labour in any solidarity. The recent long strike of election. Thus in explaining to the 3,000 Leyland toolmakers against the Tribunites the difference between not Social Contract, though broken by ii "Left" Labour cabinet members Tony Benn (left) and Michael Foot supporting the government in the no­ bureaucrat Hugh Scanlon, put a scare complained about coalition with Liberals, then backed Callaghan. confidence vote and in a general into the ruling class. They knew that a election, the I-CL states that, "To violently right-wing Tory government After the 1929 stock market crash, Healey, drawing the parallel with Mac- support the Government is not an act of would provoke massive industrial ac­ British financiers were threatening the Donald. But then it uncritically reports preference: if it were we would say, tion which could explode in a revolu­ government with the collapse of the "for the record" objections of the Labour in, Tories out!" .I tionary confrontation. entire British banking system, and Tribunites, neglecting to mention that The Workers Socialist League noted As the Financial Times (23 March) demanding drastic cuts in public ex- everyone ofthese fakers is continuing to that, "Even when the ignominious pact put it just before the Lib-Lab deal was penditure, particularly unemployment give the Callaghan leadership their full had been concluded, not a single announced: benefits. support. The political simpletons of [Labour] 'left' MP was prepared to "However sceptical one may be about MacDonald was unable to get his Tony Cliffs Socialist Workers Party come out with decisive condemnation... the success of Phase Three [ofthe Social with friends like these, workers fighting Contract], it is at least arguable that Labour government to agree to impose (formerly International Socialists) were Labour has a better chance of prevent­ such unpopular anti-:working-class only able to draw the abstractly correct the government need no enemies" ing a wage explosion than a new measures and instead led 12 (of 254) but one-sidedly syndicalist/economist (Socialist Press, 25 March). From these ii Conservative Government would Labour MP's into a reactionary coali- conclusion from the Lib-Lab deal that, essentially correct observations, the have...." tion government with the Liberals and "this week has proved it one· more WSL somehow concludes that the At the present time, only the reformist Tories. In the subsequent election the time ... we can't rely on parliament" "lefts," despite their manifest real Labour misleaders have the political Tories scored tremendous gains, the (Socialist Worker, 26 March). The appetites, "should have demanded and authority to force the working class to Liberals' vote declined sharply and Cliffite program is well summed up as, themselves set up a new leadership ..~, I accept a drastic cut in living standards. Labour only managed to retain 52 seats. based on socialist policies." Thus the , The rabidly anti-working-class Thatch­ The new cabinet, headed by MacDon­ WSL's at best naive position ("make the I er could impose an economic llusterity ald, proceeded with its attack on the lefts fight") logically leads to the same I I program like Callaghan's only through working class, including such measures capitulatory conclusion as the IMG and I widespread state repression, inciting as the vicious Means Test to push the I-CL-continuing to support the La­ , I fascistic forces such as the National mounting numbers of unemployed off bour Party (or at least a wing of it). -, Front and ultimately risking civil war. the dole. The response of -the' Hea\yl.te$ _11 'I Callaghan has been quick to discover Callaghan is no doubt hoping that the predictable. Denouncing the Lib-Lab r another advantage from being the fading memory of the 1930's, his own deal as a betrayal, these political bandits I I "hostage" of the Liberals (apart from fast talking and the unanimous support called on Labour supporters to "turn I the obvious one of remaining in office). of the loyal fake-lefts in parliament will -I out at once to the factories and housing I Already he is alibiing the bloc with Steel be sufficient to dispel the taint of estates [public housing] to build the I by explaining that: "MacDonaldism" which attaches itself Workers Revolutionary Party as the I I "... because we are a minority govern­ to this most recent coalition. However, alternative to these traitors" (News ment then we have to do certain things traditional hostility to "the traitor Line, 25 March). And what does this that wouldn't be done if we were a MacDonald" and coalitionism remains mean ,-'\.If,,r de1y'l The lead editorial ! majority.... there are times when you I want to take certain actions that you strong enough that Callaghan has been answers: the "El;ro-Malc h ...... " consist­ find difficult to take because you can't compelled to explicitly disavow the ing of J'v.J~!-, frr>!1l ('Igh! Lounrries will set I construct a majority for it." historic parallel. Callaghan, Foot & Co. off from Dortmund, \~v' German\', I ~-quoted f in Tribune, 25 March are already busy denying that their deal and will link up with no less tna. :;,',r I Unfortunately for Callaghan, the Brit­ with the Liberals is a coalition and other marches jn Britain. I Eco~omist I ish workers have just experienced two claiming that it does not represent a All this marching will culminate in I denial of the "basic principles" of the James Callaghan I years of majority Labour rule, and they London, where "a giant rally will be held , are not liable to quickly forget the Labour Party. "support of all workers in struggle for focusing on one question-the main I In one sense, of course, Callaghan is , "certain actions" (wage freezes, social higher wages." question; calling for the independent , service cuts, etc.) that Callaghan used right-for inasmuch as the fundamental The lead article of the 25 March strength of the working class to bring f "principle" of the Labour brass is class his parliamentary majority for. Militant (the paper of an ostensibly down the Lib-Lab coalition govern­ ~ collaborationism, this bloc with the I Ramsay MacDonald's Coalition Trotskyist tendency of Labour-loyal ment!" Why wonder how the German Liberals is only a variation on the same parliamentary cretins, led by Ted Grant) Healyites feel about a 500-mile hike to Government of 1931 theme which runs straight through the notes with relief that, "The attempted end up simply protesting the Labour ! history of their wretchedly reformist, -~ Recently in West Europe there has overthrow [!] ofthe Labour government Party's parliamentary manoeuvre­ been a rash ofcoalitions involving mass social-democratic party. However, the by Mrs. Thatcher and her sorry crew of such is life in Healy's "little English" social-democratic or Stalinist parties most class-conscious Labour supporters Tory 'extremists' has failed." After "International." All in all, the Euro­ and one or several bourgeois parties. will see this coalition with the Liberals railing against "the Tory Shadow March '77 will be far less politically ! The French Union of the Left; the as a formal repudiation of the Labour Cabinet in their brainless greed for potent and significant than the histori­ Italian Communist Party's attempts to Party's traditional claim to stand for the office," the Militant goes on to offer its cal event it most resembles-the I4th­ "historically compromise" itselfwith the interests of working people against the own advice to Callaghan: "Only social­ century Children's Crusade. Christian Democrats; and, the case capitalists. ist policies can save the Labour Govern­ Labour's parliamentary coalition which most closely parallels the present It is this militant layer to which ment." Thus the Grant group presents with the Liberals poses th~undamental situation in Britain, the West German revolutionaries must address themselves its own utopian-reformist strategy of contradiction between the socialist in the coming period, seeking to use coalition government since 1972 of the "winning the Labour Party to peacefully' aspirations of the British working class Callaghan's open bloc with the Liberals dominant Social Democracy with the transform capitalism into socialism" as and the parliamentary character of its as a lever to separate chunks ofLabour's Free Democrats (a small liberal bour­ the most expedient way for the pro­ party, the Labour Party, in a particular­ base from the treacherous tops. One geois party) are all examples of this -capitalist Labour tops to save their ly acute fashion. The various "TrotSky­ important tactic for revolutionaries in trend. However, the British working government (and their portfolios) from ist" groups which inhabit the British left doing this is to put forward a policy of class. has traditionally more strongly the Tories. But Callaghan is no more have all once again demonstrated their conditional non-support to Labour in opposed "coalitionism" than have its interested in "socialist policies" than incapacity to respond to the treacherous upcomingelections unless and until they continental counterparts. This is largely socialists should be in "saving" Cal­ social democrats except by sectarian repudiate coalitionism. due to the lingering stench of the laghan's vicious anti-working-class posturing as the mass alternative to the Labour Party on the one hand, or by "National Government" established in The "Far Left" Tails Labour, as . Liberal-supported Labour government! offering counterrevolutionary bureau­ 1931 by Ramsay MacDonald, the Always The response of the self-styled "Trot­ former leader of the Labour Party. skyist" "far left"-the centrists of the crats their political support onthe other. MacDonald headed the second Those groupings to the left of the International Marxist Group (IMG), The disorientation and capitulation of Labour government, which was elected Labour Party in Britain have generally the International Communist League the ostensibly revolutionary left in in 1929. This cabinet, like Callaghan's, expressed displeasure at the Lib-Lab (I-CL) and the Workers Socialist Britain underlines the urgent necessity I was a minority government and re­ coalition. The Communist Party's League (WSL)-has been to combine for the construction of an authentic quired the support of the Liberals to get Morning Star denounces Callaghan and verbal opposition to the Lib-Lab deal Trotskyist party in Britain as part ofthe· any legislation through parliament. Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis with continuing support to Labour. international Spartacist tendency.• 8 APRIL 1977 11 WfJRIlERS VIINfilJlIRIJ Strike Ends, Nothing Solved Defeat at Fremont FREMONT, California, April 4-The UAW International stabbed it in the strike fIV some 5,000 members of United back by refusing to sanction the strike. Auto "orkers (U AW) Local 1364 at the Instead, the Woodcock bureaucracy giant General Motors Assembly Divi­ denounced the walkout as a "wildcat" sion (GMAD) plant here ended in defeat and told the Local to go back to work. last Friday with none of the issues which The positions of both the UAW Interna­ provoked the four-day-Iong strike tional and GMAD were identical. Local settled. 1364 had to end its "wildcat" and return The Fremont GM workers walked to work before negotiations could out at noon on March 28. The strike was begin. called by shop chairman Earlie Mays But the strike was not a "wildcat." It after the company arrogantly refused to was called by the elected officials of meet union demands that foreman Clem Local 1364 in response to a deliberate Holquim be removed from his job. and serious company provocation. No Holquim, who has a long ,record of union can permit company goons to treating the union with utter contempt, freely harass, insult and intimidate its assaulted a committeeman filing a officials and members. The right to grievance against GM harassment of an strike is the chief weapon of the trade injured worker. Holquim also racially unions and any union which renounces insulted an alternate committeeman the right to strike over working condi­ working on the same grievance. tions is giving up its ability to defend its In retaliation against the walkout, members. WV Photo GM fired the entire shop committee, By drawing a hard line on the Picket at San Leandro Chevrolet dealer in solidarity with Fremont GM strike. haughtily announcing that the issue of foreman issue and firing the whole shop shop committee was an attack on the To begin with, Mays too called the Holquim's job was "not negotiable." To committee, GM was announcing its entire union and that all union mem- strike a "wildcat," playing into the justify these outrageous acts it labelled intent to tame the Local, one ofthe most bers, whatever their criticisms of the hands of the company and the Solidari- the strike a "wildcat," and "illegal" militant in the UAW, and to try to turn Mays leadership, should unite to over- ty House gang in Detroit, both ofwhom under the UAW/GM national the clock back to the early 1930's when turn these firings. Yet events were to wanted the strike over as quickly as contract's paragraph 117 (prohibiting there were no unions in the auto plants make it perfectly clear that Mays and possible. The Local 1364 leadership also J! strikes without International and company goon squads roamed the the Local 1364 shop committee, having adopted the suicidal policy of limiting \ authorization). shop floors, terrorizing militants at will. stumbled into a strike provoked by picketing while looking to the UAW At the same time that Local 1364 was From the outset of the strike it was man.agement: had no stomach for continued on page 8 being kicked in the face by GM, the clear that GM's firing of Mays and the wagmg a senous fight. Doug Fraser Breaks Indiana Chrysler Strike

iNDIANAPOLIS, March 30­ up its legal offensive by issuing a battery plant down tight. Acquiescence to the Yesterday Doug Fraser, who is slated to of lawsuits against the Local and its court injunction limiting picketing not succeed Leonard Woodcock as presi­ officers. The corporation sought a only allowed Teamsters to cross the dent of the United Auto Workers $200,000 damage suit plus $238,000 for token lines, but inevitably demoralized (U AW) later this year, broke the back of each continuing day of the strike as well the striking workers. Equally impor­ a twelve-day strike at Chrysler's Indian­ as $1.5 million in punitive damages. tant, mass picketing would have served apolis Electrical Plant. The longest And a week later, Chrysler fired the dramatic notice to both the company UAW "wildcat" in recent years was Local president, the vice-president, the and the International of the ranks' terminated by the heavy hand of the recording and financial secretaries, fiv~ solidarity and determination to win the International without gaining a single committeemen and 14 stewards, also strike. concession! The fate of 23 officials of suspending 44 militants "identified" on A broad-based strike committee Local 1226 who were fired during the the picket lines. Reportedly, another list should have been elected to draw large strike and of 44 Local members who of "identified" pickets was also pre­ numbers of militants into active partici­ were suspended has been left to post­ pared. pation and leadership ofthe strike. Such strike negotiations. Despite this barrage, Local 1226 a committee could have served as a The action stemmed from an incident members solidly supported the strike. rallying point, calling on other UAW March 15 when a 6 ft. 8 in. foreman Union officials estimated that no more locals to support the strike and bolster assaulted a union steward. The strike than five workers crossed the picket the picket lines. It would also have began three days later when outraged lines. At a Local meeting on March 20 provided a focus for militant opposition workers watched the foreman being only two or three workers voted to to the Local leaders' buckling under to escorted back into the plant by a return to their jobs out ofmore than 600 the International, the company and the bristling circle of armed cops. As a in attendance. More than 200 workers government. further provocation, Chrysler had other appeared at a subsequent press confer­ Such tactics would have helped to cops stationed throughout the area as ence and showed similar solidarity. counter the virtual news blackout imposed by Indianapolis' two pro­ well. One Local official told WV that it The Local 1226 membership has a - was "almost like a concentration camp." history of defending itself. They struck Republican, staunchly anti-labor news­ if ~ Workers in the windshield wiper for 17 days in January over the Local papers. Management took out full-page department began jeering and booing contract. Last September they wildcat­ ads denouncing the strike and empha­ the reappearance of the foreman, ted to keep plant cafeteria workers in the sizing that it was unauthorized by the International. A belated union ad backed up by state firepower, and soon bargaining unit. The plant manager Doug Fraser walked out. The entire second shift moans that the factory has the "worst" claimed that the strike had "the sanction followed, and the next day all 3,200 strike record in the corporation. needed to beat the cops, courts, Chrysler of human decency." This was printed plant workers were on strike. Thus the Local 1226 ranks have a andthe UAW International. By refusing only after 25 Local members picketed Pickets went up around the plant. But demonstrated capacity and willingness to take the steps that could defeat this the Star and News Building March 25 to I Chry"ler rushed to obtain a strikebreak­ to fight. What spelled defeat in their unholy alliance the Local leadership protest the delay. i.1g court order which limited pickets to recent struggle was the absence of a managed to stab itself in the back. Local 1226 officials told WVthat they i four per gate and precluded blocking leadership capable of outlining and To win the strike, mass picketing were not involved in calling the strike, traffic. On March 21 Chrysler stepped implementing the class-struggle policies should have been instituted to shut the continued on page 10 I 12 8 APRIL 1977 I l