Revolutionary Communist Youth

NE SLETTER IOI Number II ~~,­ ~~ March-April 1972 DEFEND ANGELA DA VIS! BERKELEY --The Revolutionary Communist its most radical and militant--e. g., the Pan­ unions--is crucial for proletarian class unity. youth (RCY) held a rally here in late January thers--this impulse has been unable to secure Divisions along racial or sexual lines render for the defense of Angela Davis. Invitations any permanent or basic changes for black peo­ the class impotent when faced with the ruling were sent to other tendencies on the left in­ ple or to protect them from attacks by the class' solidarity in its attack on the working cluding Progressive Labor, Workers League, state. The black movement has been unable people. The defense of Angela Davis is there­ Worker-Student Alliance, International Social­ to transcend reformism and nationalist illu­ fore obligatory for the left and the working­ ists (IS), Young Socialists for Jenness and sions. Only a united working class, politi­ class movement. The obligation is not condi­ Pulley, Revolutio"nary Women, Campus Friends cized and conscious of its power, can success­ tional on her "innocence" by standards of bour­ of the AFT, Campus Friends of the NLF, Stu­ fully challenge the oppression of blacks and geois justice, nor on support of the adventur­ dent Mobilization Committee (SMC), Revolu­ other minorities or repressive measures taken ist tactics of the Marin Court House incident, tionary Union, Young Socialists, Female Lib­ by the bourgeOisie against those whc:f rebel nor on agreement with the opportunist line of eration, Anti-Stalinism Study Group and against their oppression. Struggle against Davis' Communist Party (CP). Rather we must Anti-Imperialist Coalition. Only the IS, Anti­ racial oppression--particularly in the trade defend Angela Davis as an expression of class Stalinism Study Group, Revolutionary Women, §olidarity for mutual defense. -- and Female Liberation responded positively; Who Will Be Next? the other groups totally ignored this call to demonstrate class solidarity in the face of re­ Without this class solidarity no proletarian pression by the bourgeois state. The SMC organization is safe from bourgeois repres­ went so far as to arrange to scab on the rally. sion. No group can win exemption from per­ Subsequent to being notified of the Defend An­ secution by disassociating itself from the or­ gela Davis rally, it called for another rally, ganizations which first come under attack. to protest the presence of military recruiters Workers who acquiesced when reds were on the campus--an issue which it had virtually purged from their unions have been rewarded ignored previously. The plan was to march only by wage controls and anti-strike injunc­ the rally over to a "peaceful protest picket, " tions. SDS, which ever since Progressive but when this single issue evaporated (the re­ Labor (PL) assumed its leadership, has been cruiters refused to come to the campus) the indecently eager to assure the bourgeoisie SMC was left with nothing to organize and was that its members "absolutely condemn and forced to cancel its rally. have nothing to do with terrorist bombings, " The RCY stands for Davis' unconditional de­ has been banned from some campuses nonethe­ fense against persecution by the bourgeois less. Even the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), state. Davis' arrest, the Attica massacre notorious for sending condolences to the widow and the recent killings in Baton Rouge once Kennedy and dismissing political terrorists as again demonstrate the depth and ferocity of ra­ "berserk, " has lately been the object of con­ cial 0f;lJressioll in this (;OUl1.t.. ,y and the state 1s gressional "investigation." This stampede Ui­ intention to crush ruthlessly all rebellion. to the swamps of respectability is as incapable Fight Racial Oppression! of securing safety as it is disgusting. Lack of solidarity of the left frees the bour­ Black youth have shown over the past sever­ geoisie to concentrate the full force of its re- al years an increasing determination to fight racial oppression and degradation; yet even at Continued on Page 2 JEWISH DEFENSE LEAGUE: JE SAN D AMERICAN FASCISM The Boston RCY organized a demonstration states against anti-communist demagogy and sitic Stalinist bureaucracy and return it to the against a meeting at Brandeis University last terrorism, since the JDL uses the issue of working masses, as an integral part of the in­ November featuring Meir Kahane, head of the anti-Semitism in the USSR to whip up virulent ternational class struggle for socialism which Zionist-terrorist Jewish Defense League (JDL). anti=SovIet feeling. (The entire U. S. Zionist will liberate all the oppressed, The demonstration was part of our struggle for movement uses RUSSian anti-Semitism as a The JDL-Part of the "Worldwide communist consciousness within the student scapegoat, seeking to pressure the Russian gov­ movement, combatting all forms of reactionary ernment into allowing more massive emigration Radicalization of Youth" ideology. Zionism is an extreme form of nation­ of Russian Jews to Israel, so that the Israelis Youth vanguardism, a major concept of the al chauvinism which places the imperialist in­ can g~t more colonists without American Zion­ New Left, was taken over wholesale by the ex­ terests and appetites of the Israeli bourgeoisie 'ists having to abandon their comfortable lives Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party/Young and its state above all other interests and fosters here and move to Israel!) Anti-Semitism in the the myth, in attempted justification, that Jews USSR, and Great Russian chauvinism in general, Continued on Page 2 cannot be integrated into any nation other than are old prejudices kept alive by the moribund capitalist-clerical Israel. The JDL, like all Stalinist bureaucracy in order to prevent the reactionary nationalists, uses past persecution revolutionary unity of Soviet working people and of their ethnic group as an excuse for blatant intellectuals against the regime. The Bolshevik racism in this country and the oppression of revolution and the workers state it established non-Jews by the state of Israel. have liberated Russian Jews from the severe The Brandeis demonstration was also part of economic and political persecution they suffered our principled defense of the deformed workers under tsar ism. Today Jews are, by and large, well integrated into Soviet society and occupy INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISTS: good jobs in industry, science and education. Essentially free from the ghetto existence they suffered before 1917 (complete with official pogroms), Soviet Jews today are still vulnerable Middle of to personal prejudice, bureaucratic harassment and religious persecution. Unlike the JDL, which sheds crocodile tears over "the plight of the Swamp Soviet Jewry" while pandering to every backward and racist sentiment among U. S. Jews, we put fascism will 'be Page 4 forward a program for political revolution in ''White Power, " (at left) not the JDL of Meir the USSR to wrest political power from the para- Kahane (at right). Page 2 March-April 1972 JEWS AND AMERICAN FASCISM Continued from Page 1 Socialist Alliance, the principal purveyor of ing Zionism as the radical nationalism of an right-wing Black Nationalists like Leroi Jones, petty-bourgeois radicalism, and has now been oppressed people. components of a rapidly-growing American picked up by the Workers League, a foam-fleck­ The JDL is consciously modelled on leftist fascist movement. To identify fascism as ed pseudo-Trotskyist group. This theory in­ ethnic militant groups like the Black Panthers extreme ethnic nationalism is completely anti­ sists that youth as a whole are inherently revo­ and Young Lords. This is why New Left and Marxist. Fascism is a counter-revolutionary lutionary. But the rapid growth of the JDL, pseudo-Marxist ideologists of petty-bourgeois movement whose base is the bulk of the petty drawing mainly from student youth, is also radicalism cannot cope with right-wing Zionism bourgeoisie and lumpen elements reacting to the part of the current "youth radicalization. " The as a political movement. In his debate with proletariat's failure to take power in a revolu­ student youth are not inherently left-wing and Kahane at Brandeis, New Left academic Arthur tionary crisis. Ethnic politics, even in its most and do not spontaneously gravitate towards Waskow did not attack the concept of the "Jewish reactionary forms, is bound up with bourgeois socialism, but often are drawn to "right-wing community" (or any other "community") as a democracy to the extent it makes concessions movements. Volatile and relatively alienated multi-class category, but instead argued that to pressure groups (or, for that matter, allows from existing social institutions, youth seek the JDL would better defeml the interests of the them to exist). fundamental ("radical") solutions to social "Jewish community" by allying with other op­ problems. Thus, students will play an impor­ pressed minorities rather than with bourgeois tant role in all dynamiC political movements-­ reactionaries. But this is impossible as long Fascism from the Back of the Bus? whether of the left or the right--particularly in as the concept of "community" is retained, for their ern hrvonic stages. As Lenin said in the community itself is made up of both oppres­ The notion that in a racist and Christian-dom­ sor and oppressed groups. Oppressed mino­ inated nation the most reactionary form of bour­ rities and workers of all nationalities will find geois rule--fascism--will see Meir Kahane and the solution to their oppression and exploitation Leroi Jones as heads of state is typical of the only by waging a relentless struggle for their Labor Committee's fantasies. Fascism in pow­ class demands-- including demands which er strives for the total atomization of the popu­ unify the class by fighting special oppression lace and the suppression of all popular move­ along raCial, national or sexuallines-- which ments, even in fact those which actually helped must be posed sharply against any petty-bour­ fascism to power. American fascism will use geois or class traitor attempts to ally with only one form of ethnic politics: that of white reactionary elements of the "community." The Anglo-Saxon Protestantism. Drawing on Chris­ JDL is not the only example of Jewish reaction tian fundamentalism, American fascism will using the language of leftist ethnic militancy. be deeply anti-black and anti-Semitic. Thus The largely Jewish Forest Hills residents who Nixon's support for Billy Graham and George launched a protest against the low-income Wallace's drive for power based on racist and (i. e., black) housing project did so in the name populist sentiment are far more ominous por­ of "community control. " tents, within bourgeois democracy, than the The Social Basis of Jewish Reaction JDL and Leroi Jones. Fascist "youth radicalization" Germany, 1938 To be sure, the ideology of the JDL is fas­ There is a difference, as Lenin pointed out, cistic. To the extent that it feeds on magnified Left-Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder, between the chauvinism of the oppressed and fears of past persecution to justify reactionary what characterizes petty-bourgeois radicalism the chauvinism of the oppressor. But are violence against the most oppressed sections of is its extreme instability, its faddism, its American Jews an oppressed group? This is the American working class it is dangerous. ability to shift rapidly from infatuation with a complex question. Right-wing Zionism But the prospect of Jewish-based or black-based communism to infatuation with reactionary nat­ bases itself partly on the numerically insig­ fascism coming'to power in this racist country ionalism. Meir Kahane has built his organiza­ nificant small Jewish businessmen who exploit is absurd. The Labor Committee and Workers tion on the kind of (ethnic) youth militancy the black ghetto (slumlords, pawnbrokers, League are anxious to inflate the danger of the which the SWP/YSA and the Workers League merchants, etc.), and partly on those Jewish JDL and then draw false parallels between it regard as inherently the vanguard of socialist skilled workers and petty bourgeois who feel and New Left "ethnic liberation" politics in revolution. threatened by the desire of black people for g order to conceal the LC's and WL's own accom­ good neighborhoods, college education or civil R!ght-Wing Zionism and modation to backwardness among white workers, service jobs. But the JDL-- with its slogan of The contribution of ethnic politiCS to fascism Left-Wing Ethnic Militancy "Never Again, " referring to the Nazi exter­ is basically negative. It divides the working While drawing emotional appeal from Russian mination of the Jews-- also bases itself, ideo­ class and provides a major ideological obstacle anti-Semitism and identification with the state logically and emotionally, on the historic op­ to socialist internationalism. The ethnic pol­ of Israel, the JDL is basically the product of pression of the Jews and their insecurity in a itics of oppressed minorities are tragically the conflict between the Jewish petty bourgeois­ Christian society. The struggle against the self-defeating. The JDL may be a fascist group ie and the black ghetto. The JDL is an extreme JDL requires placing the desire of Jewish in terms of its ideas and aspirations, but Jews working people for protection against anti­ manifestation of the white urban ethnic back­ Semitism within a class perspective-- pre­ will be victims and not a source of American lash. It first came into prominence, signifi­ cisely what the New Left cannot do. fascism. It is this realization that mainstream cantly, by launching threats of violence against American reaction is profoundly anti-Semitic The growth of the northern black ghettoes James Forman for demanding "reparations" that limits the appeal of Kahane's brand of undercut the left-liberal tradition of American from a Brooklyn synagogue. But the JDL is Zionism. It is our task to win Jewish working Jews. While backlash in response to black more than a localized reflex to black pressure. people and youth to the understanding that their militancy and aspirations has affected all white Where Kahane differs from the Hicks, the oppression can only be ended permanently by a ethnic groups, the Jews have been particularly Marchis and the Rizzos is in his ability to proletarian revolution opening the road to the affected. The path out of the black ghetto--for build a para-military organization by present- development of a socialist society. a very small proportion of black youth--through city and state colleges and a career in the cor­ porate or government bureaucracy threatens the narrow economic base of the Jewish middle RCY REGIONAL class, which strives, to an even greater extent than the Italians, Poles or Irish, for precisely ADDRESSES that route to a professional career. DEFENDAN~ BERKELEY: See San Francisco. It is against this background that a deliberate pressive apparatus against one individual or BOSTON: RCY, p. O. Box 136, Somerville effort is being made to ally the Jewish petty one group at a time. Finding little support Mass. 02144, or call (617)321-3826 or bourgeoisie to traditional American reaction. from other leftists the persecuted victims may (617) 547 -6670. Kahane is a professional anti-communist public be tempted to seek aid from anti-working CHICAGO: RCY, c/o SL, Box 6471, Main relations man who once changed his name to P. 0., Chicago, Ill. 60680, or call (312) Michael King to found the "July 4th Movement, " class "civil libertarians." Davis' defense, 643-4394. a group seeking student support for the Vietnam controlled by the sellout artists of the CP, has LOS ANGELES: RCY, c/o SL, Box 38053, war. He donned a yamulka when he concluded succumbed to this temptation and secured the Wilcox Sta., Los Angeles, Calif. 90038, there was a future for a right-wing Zionist or­ "support" of such groups as the National Bar or call (213) 467-6855. ganization with a sharp anti-black and anti­ Association and the Natior..al Committee of Black Churchmen. These groups have no real NEW YORK: RCY, Box 454, Cooper Sta. , Soviet thrust, which could win American Jews New York, N. Y.10003, or call (212) over to general political reaction. However interest in defending militant blacks from the 925-2426 or (212) 831-3004. most American Jews realize that American re­ capitalist state and if the going gets rough they SAN DIEGO: RCY, p. O. Box 22052, action is tied to anti-Semitism, so that the JDL, will surely abandon the Davis case. Indicative University City Sta., San Diego, Calif. while currently dynamic, remains an isolated of the manner in which the CP conducts her de­ fense is the Peoples World corr..ment on a 92122. current within the traditionally liberal Jewish church service honoring Davis: "Amidst choir SAN FRANCISCO: RCY, c/o RMC, p. O. petty bourgeoisie. Box 40574, San FranCisco, Calif. 94140. selections and thoughtful prayer was a rever­ STONY BROOK: RCY, _.. O. Box 654, Jews and American Fascism ence that transcended... the place of worship, Port Jefferson Sta., N. Y. 11777. a reverence for justice." As Rosa LUxemburg The emergence of the JDL has given birth to WASHINGTON D. C. - BALTIMORE: RCY, said of Bernstein, the prototypical revisionist cries of Jewish fascism. The Labor Committee and class collaborator, we must say of the CP: c/o p. Willig, noo 22 St., I\"l\V, Washing­ ton, D. C. 20037, or call (202) 223-1455. of Lynn Marcus and its theoretical parasite, the In abandoning Marxism it returns "to the prin­ Workers League, sees in the JDL, as well as in ciple of justice, to the old war horse on which

~ RCY Newsletter Page 3

Middle of the Swamp RCY Newsletter

Number 11 March-April 1972

EDITOR: Helen Cantor Continued from Page 4 here in its classic bourgeois sense, abandoning ASSIST ANT EDITOR: Laura Sawyer the masses of South Vietnam to the "self-deter­ EDITORIAL BOARD: Joseph Seymour, mination" of their ruling class. Leninists Richard Cramer, Reuben Samuels, and Co. understand the situation far better than have always combined propaganda about the Stephanie Kamkov the IS. They consciously seek imposing wage "right of nations to self-determination" with controls on an increasingly rebellious rank and a perspective of the independent mobilization The RCY Newsletter is published by the file. of the working class for proletarian revolution. Revolutionary Communist Youth, youth The icing on this cake is IS' recent entry To the IS this represents a "retreat from the section of the Spartacist League. We seek (via a "Militant Labor Caucus") into the PCPJ, demand for immediate withdrawal" and a "de­ to build a revolutionary socialist youth which is led and dominated by the Stalinist nial of self-determination. " ! organization which can intervene in all Communist Party. Thus, the "super-democratic These "revolutionary socialists" are not social struggles armed with a working-class IS shows a capacity for simultaneous class even capable of recognizing that there is a so­ program, based on the politics of Marx, collaboration with what, by their definitions, cial revolution going on in Vietnam. See Lenin and Trotsky. are two equally reactionary ruling classes! Workers' Power (Nos. 45 and 46) where a recent two-part series on the Vie.,tnam Into the Swamp Again war made not even a single reference to ihe Perhaps the grossest opportunism committed Vietnamese revolution. From this perspective by IS under the banner of. "independent political it is impossible even to explain the fact of an sigence of U. S. imperialism leave them no action" is its recent entry into the New Ameri­ American military intervention. The failure other choice. Their program is not "dishon­ can Movement (NAM). Workers' Power No. 48 of the 1954 Geneva agreement to stem the esty" but a reflection of the algebraic nature called NAM's founding conference "a healthy revolutionary tide and its upsurge through the of the resolution to this class conflict, on one step forward for the radical movement." IS early '60's were the reasons for the American hand to capitulate to capitalism, on the other continue s its salubrious praise: "One of NAM's military intervention. The Vietnamese workers hand to go beyond its limits. healthiest aspects is its understanding of the and peasants, despite having been sold out twice The IS' methodological break with Marxism, by critical importance of democracy as a principle (1946, 1954) have struggled for more than two which "democracy" becomes a supra-class, in building the movement and in the construction decades against the Vietnamese ruling class supra-historical, final arbiter for all political of a democratic society." The article goes on whose counter-revolutionary etforts have been questions, lays the basis for both reformism to amplify what NAM means by the "critical aided by the French and now the American and anti-communism. Failing to understand importance of democracy as a principle in imperialists. It is a matter of the most ele­ class forces, the IS also fails to understand building the movement, " reporting that PL/SDS mentary revolutionary duty to defend this revo­ the qualitative difference between proletarian and the SWP were excluded from the conference. lution and to put forward a program which can democracy and bourgeois democracy, political Not reported in the IS article was the reason lead it to victory. None of this is of any con­ forms of different class rule. Reformism is for the exclusion of PL: ''Those who disagree cern to the IS. It is simply a matter of "self­ generally accompanied by real or apparent with our perspective should organize their own determination." Only social democrats steep­ proposals for more bO\lrgeois democr~~y. For political strategy rather than trying to convince ed in bourgeois anti-communism and desiring the IS this eventually becomes sufficit t. people at this conference." Nor does the to cover this fact with opportunist twists and Inevitably the Hartkes in the anti-war article report that IS abstained on the anti-com­ turns can attempt to deny the essential revolu­ movement are seen in a more favorable light munist exclusion ofPL. Nor does the article tionary character of the Vietnamese struggle. than the NLF. Max Shachtman used the same report that the keynote speaker for the confer­ Having rejected a class analysis of the logic when he gave critical support to the Bay ence was: the DemocraticPa:rty mayor of Vietnamese struggle and finding a safe refuge of Pigs invasion on the grounds that it was Davenport. in the bourgeois democratic swamp of "self­ anti-Stalinist. Presumably the only thing Coming after the clarifying June '69 split in determination, " the IS presents us with an anal­ which separates the IS from the same political SDS and the subsequent degeneration of the New ysis of the NLF which sees their actions as conclusion is that this too would be a violation Left, NAM represents an attempt by the old New motivated simply by political dishonesty and of "self-determination." The dividing line Left's right wing to reconstruct the old social not by actual class forces. The recent two- between the IS and present-day Shachtmanism democratic SDS of the early '60's complete with part series in Workers' Power compared the is thin indeed. participatory democracy, holding up the Amer­ program of the NLF to a bourgeois election The Trotskyist position on the "Communist" ican Revolution of 1776 as a model. IS' entry campaign program, i. e., full of promises. countries is that they are deformed workers' into NAM must have been like returning to a To MarXists, the NLF program is a typically states. The character of a state is ultimately second childhood. Stalinist attempt to leave the door open to a determined by its property relations (not even bourgeois coalition government. But the the IS contends that an anti-Stalinist revolution Vietnamese working people's determined decades­ will represent a transformation in property Hiding from the Vietnamese Revolution long revolutionary struggle has destroyed relations). The fundamental class and proper­ the basis for native Vietnamese capitalism and ty relations in the USSR (and other "Commun­ The IS finds it convenient to omit from its anti­ following a military victory the NLF would be ist" countries) are those established by the war literature its analysis ofthe situation in Vietnan compelled to realize in a limited and deformed October Revolution, but political power has The IS opposes the war not from a revolution­ way the revolutionary aspirations of the South been usurped by a privileged bureaucratic ary class perspective but from a bourgeois Vietnamese masses, and in the final analysis caste. What is required in these states is a democratic perspective. The actions of the to overthrow capitalism or to face physical political revolution in which the bureaucracy is American army in Vietnam are wrong because extermination at the hands of the bourgeoisie. ousted and the proletariat assumes the politi­ they are a violation of "self-determination" Upon coming to power the Stalinists of the NLF cal reins through soviet democracy. that is, the bourgeois national rights of the will establish a deformed workers' state be­ Vietnamese nation. Self-determination is used cause the class forces they lead and the intran- Reconstruct the Fourth International!

For the IS, "any movement which offers a revolutionary alternative to the PRG-NLF is Continued from Page 1 to be encouraged." How such a movement will ;ELA DAVIS! be built and upon what program, the IS has not a word to say. Everywhere, from Bangladesh the reformers of the earth have rocked for volatile of all classes. As bourgeois demo­ to Hungary, IS awaits the "revolutionary alter­ ages, for the lack of surer means of historic cracy begins to visibly crumble, the petty bour­ native" which some day in some way will transportation." This seemingly classless geoisie tends to align itself with the class that spring from below. Though they now call them­ "justice" in fact aids the bourgeoisie, as do seems most capable of supplanting chaos by its selves International Socialists there is nothing all class-"neutral" positions. The CP embel­ class dictatorship. If the proletariat is strong, internationalist about the IS except their anti­ lishes Bernstein's position only by draping his conscious and organized the petty bourgeoisie communism. The revolutionary alternative hobby horse in sacramental robes. Pandering can be won over to supporting the revolutionary in Vietnam and the other deformed workers' to bourgeois ideology, the CP again eliminates cause. If the dictatorship of the proletariat states will be proletarian parties which are itself as a revolutionary force, saving the bour­ appears unattainable, due to the weakness or sections of the Fourth International. They geoisie the trouble of doing so. incapacity of the proletarian vanguard, then the will be based on the Transitional Program of The CP's reconciliation with "respectability" petty bourgeoisie will leap into the camp of the Trotsky which explains how to both oust the does little to trick the bourgeoisie into being only force capable of restoring "law and order" bureaucrats by political revolution and defend lenient on Davis but a good deal to disorient on a capitalist basis--the fascists. "Left" pan­ the property relations against capitalist restor­ the proletariat. It might be argued that couch­ dering to petty-bourgeois forces reveals a pro­ ation and imperialism. Likewise, in the U. S. ing agitation in terms soothing to bourgeois found pessimism about the ability of the work­ such a party will be built by ousting the bureau­ sensibilities may not fool the ruling class, but ing class to achieve political conSCiousness, crats from the unions and fighting for a commun­ will at least help suck the petty bourgeoisie and therefore reveals a rejection of the strug­ ist leadel ship in the labor movement. IS, still (professionals, shopkeepers, artisans, many gle for socialism. calling on Vance Hartke to form a "labor technicians,farmers,· petty administrators, Only a policy of class solidarity--in defense party" and Victor Reuther to apply for member­ etc. ) into the defense of proletarian militants. of victimized militants as in all other matters ship, will be, along with all the other social Such an argUment implicitly assumes that the --can demonstrate to the proletariat and its democrats, swept aside by the proletariat as petty bourgeoisie is permanently wedded to its potential allies that the left has the wUl and it breaks from bourgeois ideology and embraces present world. view, but actually it is the most abi1it~' to lead them to revolutionary victory. communist consciousness. Page 4 RCY Newsletter IlIlelllflllollfll So c Ifliis Is.· Middle of the Swamp Despite IS' sometimes revolutionary rhetoric of its "truly democratic" structure: there was this, we must conclude that IS believes that and super-democratic posturing, its recent act­ no majority discipline and all members were "building support for 'progressive' capitalist ions and positions lay bare its essential anti­ free to express their views and differences in politicians" has been an "overall positive thing" communist, social-democratic nature. Thus, public. This practice--in keeping with IS' un­ and "to the SWP's credit. If! while IS rails against bureaucracy in the "Com­ seriousness--was in reality blatantly undemo­ Given the current working-class upsurge, IS munist" countries, it sucks up to the bureau cratic. As IS' leaders could present their tries to mesh "independent political action" with cracy within the trade union movement, e. g. , views much more widely--in speeches, articles, a "working-class orientation." In Lenin's the New York telephone strike (see Workers etc. --than could other IS members, IS' "demo­ attack on the Economists in What is to be Done?, Vanguard No.5) and the anti-war movement; cratic" policy boiled down to this: the leader­ he states: it condemns the Popular Front in Chile, ship could present its views·as authoritative IS "There can be no talk of an independent ideol­ Ceylon and in the program of the NLF while positions,entirely free from membership con­ ogy formulated by the working masses them­ entering every popular front that comes trol. IS' main political resolution from its selves in the process of their movement, the along in the U~. (e. g., NPAC and PCPJ); it 1970 convention describes its "new" organiza­ only choice is--either bourgeois or socialist calls for the military victory of the NLF at tional norms as follows: "Essential to our de­ ideology. There is no middle course for the same time claiming that what would issue velopment as a serious national working-class mankind has not created a 'third' ideology . out of such a victory would be no better than tendency must be the election of a national Cor.a "third camp, " Lenin might have addedl the Thieu or Diem governments minus the U. S. leadership .Q!l ~ 1m.siB. Qf ~ political perspec­ and, moreover, in a society torn by class - military presence. IS now criticizes the Peace tive and line--within this context we are for a antagonisms there can never be a non-class and Freedom Party for being based on the mid­ disciplined natiOiiailine (''TaSksand Perspec­ or above-class ideology. " dle class instead of the working class, and tives, " p. 8, IS' emphasis), but on the same But IS goes even further than the Economists. attributes the PFP's failure to this fact, but page it states: For IS ''The real meaning of Independent it was IS which was the principal architect of ''The leadership must actively intervene in Political Action (IPA) is the intervention of the the PFP. (Even the PFP marked a "left"turn local branches to convince them of the movement in its own right into the electoral for IS, which had earlier proposed a King­ wisdom and applicability of its line••.• It is arena." But if the working class is incapable Spock presidential ticket!). It is impossible only through winning the IS membership to of formulating "independent" politics then cer­ to take IS' (self) criticism of PFP as good coin the politiCS and direction of its leadership tainly there can be no "independent" politics in view of IS' current entry into, and intention L?!] that we can build an organization formulated by unstable petty-bourgeois radical to build, the New American Movement (NAM); where discipline is more than a substitute student movements. ''Non-class'' political the social patriotic and anti-communist old for political weakness. " formations like IS' Peace and Freedom Party New Left garbage that makes up NAM stands Either the membership elects the leadership do not carry out "non-class" politics. Unless far to the right of the crucially flawed but sub­ on the basis of a political line, i. e., the lead­ a political formation is based on an explicitly jectively revolutionary groups like the Panthers ership represents and carries out the politics working-class political program, it will inevit­ and Progressive Labor who were part of IS' of the membership (as is the case in democrat­ ably be bourgeois. earlier experiment in classless, Progressive ic centralist organizations), or the leadership IS' new-found "working-class orientation" Party-style politics. must "win the IS membership to the politics was embodied in a proposal which called "for Beneath the contradictions of IS is a politi­ and direction of its leadership" (in which case NPAC to endorse and actively help build an cal tendency with a history as well as a charac­ IS is not more democratic than Stalin's Comin­ independent formation of anti-war unionists, ter. The IS, formerly the Independent Social­ tern which also had to "win the membership to rank and file caucuses, and militants--to fight ist Clubs (ISC), originated in a split away from the politics and direction of the leadership. If) simultaneously for immediate unconditional the Socialist Party (SP) in 1964, following the Perhaps the IS is a deformed workers' . withdrawal from Vietnam, against all wage SP's dissolution of its youth group for refusing tendency, or is it a "bureaucratic collective"? controls, and for independent political action electoral support to Lyndon Johnson. The new against the Democratic and Republican parties group differed from the Socialist Party chiefly Building the Pop Front in 1972." How ludicrous! NPAC is a class­ in that it used formal Marxist rhetoric about The continued social-democratic functioning collaborationist popular front with a steering revolution which the SP had long abandoned. of the IS can be seen in its entry into the pop­ committee of bourgeois politiCians (Hartke) and The sterile anti-communis.m of the SP was re­ ular-front NPAC, forming the Militant Action. union bureaucrats (Reuther) who are enthusias­ placed by a more creative variety (''bureau­ Caucus (MAC), a loyal, slightly-to-the-left tic endorsers of both wage controls and the cratic collectivism"--the theory which sees opposition caucus. IS/MAC refuses to call Democratic Party! IS/MAC literature calls the Russian bureaucracy as a new type of ruling for the ouster of representatives of the bour­ for no labor participation on the class-collabora­ class) whose origins in bourgeois Cold War geoisie and presents a spurious "working-class tionist Pay Board, but breathes not one word ideology could be at least partially cloaked in orientation" for NPAC to carry out. The oppor­ of criticism of the class collaborationism of phrases about "socialism from below." In tunist IS has not been consistent in its orienta­ the leaders of the anti-war movement: NPAC. one sense the ISC represented the continuation tion to NPAC, but has flipflopped according to Quite the contrary! The entire thrust of IS/ of the old Shachtmanite Workers Party (WP) its appetites. Thus in 1970, when NPAC did MAC is to enthusia.stically call for labor parti­ to which it had theoretical ("bureaucratic col­ not have a numerous following, IS stated that cipation in NPAC. After all, how can you have lectivism If) and organizational ties. Following the SWP/YSA "mass marches objectively a real popular front without real workers to the liquidation of the Shachtmanites into the SP, serve••• to build support for the 'progressive' betray? Draper (who would later be the theoretical lead­ capitalist politicians" (IS, "Tasks and Perspec­ Throw Out the Bourgeoisie! er of the ISC) and his followers had remained tives, " p.35). However, after a rise in peace a distinct political tendency inside the SP. The march body-counts, a resolution adopted by the ISC's lack of discipline, centralized leadership As communists, the Revolutionary Commun­ IS National Committee in May 1971, states: ist youth irreconcilably opposes the popular­ or even a national organization: its rejection " ••• we must openly state that building the anti­ of Transitional Program; and its primary meth­ front character of NPAC and places no confi­ war movement has been an overall positive dence in its ability to serve any class interests od of functioning, which was to support petty - . thing, and it is to the SWP's credit." From bourgeois movements for their own sake while other than the imperialist bourgeoisie. We encouraging these movements to adopt a "work­ programmatically demand the unconditional ing-class orientation, " revealed that the ISC exclusion of all capitalist politicians as the con­ stood qualitatively to the right of the old WP. YOUTH, CLASS dition for raising any demands on NPAC. W.e It indeed played the farce to the tragedy of the denounce as an open betrayal of the working Workers Party. The IS' development since its AND PARTY class any entry into NPAC or schemes to drag split from the SP in 1964 (or its "transforma­ workers into the muck of pop frontism. tion" from the ISC into the IS in 1969) shows A real working-class movement against the that its break from social democracy has been war and wage controls and for a labor party superficial. For the unpopular anti-commun­ can only be built when the labor movement both sim of the SP, IS substitutes "bureaucratic breaks with the class enemy represented by collectivism, " which like social democracy the Democratic Party and seeks to expose class equates Stalinism with capitalist imperialism. traitors like Reuther who embody the link be­ For the SP's open class collaborationism the tween the labor movement and the capitalist IS substitutes the thinly disguised formula of parties. No IS or MAC propaganda even suggests "independent political action" which leads the crucial task: to oust the labor bureaucrats straight to participation in the class-collabora­ from the unions. IS' attitude toward the bureau­ tionist NPAC and PCPJ. For the SP's abandon­ crats is completely consistent with the social­ ment of socialist revolution the IS substitutes democratic politics of other "progressive pop­ "socialism from below" which "merely" aban­ ular movements": to be the loyal left opposition dons the Leninist vanguard party and the prole­ pressure group. tarian dictatorship, the essential instruments Basic documents of the For example, IS labeled the extremely token of socialist revolution. opposition of the bureaucrats to wage controls R evolutionary Communist youth as "defiant" and "courageous" and their failure Is the IS a Bureaucratic Collective? Offset pamphlet, 50~--order from RCY, to follow through as due to "misunderstandings." Box 454, Cooper Sta., New York, N. Y. 10003 Much to the benefit of the bourgeoisie, Meany IS' organizational form is a parody of Lenin­ ist discipline. Until recently, IS spurned demo­ Continued on Page 3 cratic centralism as "totalitarian" and boasted