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No. 756 13 April 2001 u.s. Spy Plane Provocation

i hua Provocation by U.S. spy plane, still on Hainan military base, is part of calculated escalation by American imperialism against Chinese deformed workers state.

APRIL 10-Whatever happened increased spy flights against in the skies above China's Hai­ China and North Korea. U.S. nan Island last week-and plans for a "theater missile de­ Beijing's account is a lot more Delend China! fense" system in Asia are aimed plausible than Washington's- squarely against China's missile the U.S. spy plane provocation was no its airspace .. .ifyou lose your airman, and capacity and target North Korea as well. accident. It was part of a deliberate, cal­ you lose your aircraft, I think the Last year, the U.S. conducted more than culated escalation of U.S. military pres­ response would be very different." "Inter­ 50 joint military exercises with Japan, sure against the People's Republic of national law" notwithstanding, when the Australia, South Korea, the Philippines China, aimed at furthering the capitalists' U.S. got hold of a Soviet MIG-25 in and others, a number unequaled since goal of smashing the 1949 Chinese Revo­ 1976; it picked the plane apart and sent it the fall of the Soviet Union. The U.S. lution and reimposing the yoke of impe­ back two months later in shipping crates. recently sealed a deal with Singapore for rialist exploitation on China's working The backdrop to the spy plane provoca­ use of a deep-draft navy pier, the second masses. As proletarian internationalists in tion is a shift in U.S. policy toward such facility open to U.S. aircraft carriers the heartland of world imperialism, the "an era of direct confrontation with in South-East Asia since the close of the Spartacist League/U.S. declares its class China," as outlined in a policy review by American naval base at Subic Bay in the solidarity with the Chinese proletariat Bush defense secretary Donald Rums­ Philippines in 1992. The new pier is and the Chinese workers state, however feld. China has now been declared Enemy located at the mouth of the strategically bureaucratically deformed. We salute No.1. Reporting on the Pentagon review, important Malacca Strait, through which Wang Wei, the pilot who is presumed which has been virtually covered up in Persian Gulf oil shipments pass to Japan. dead after defending his country against the American press, the London Guar­ A domestic reflection of increased imperialist espionage and provocation. dian (24 March) wrote of "Washington's American belligerence toward China was With all the arrogance that comes decision to turn more of its guns and mis­ the racist frame-up of Los Alamos scien­ of being the self-proclaimed "world's siles towards China," now deemed to be tist Wen Ho Lee. As we wrote in "'Chi­ only superpower," U.S. imperialism "the principal threat to American global nese Spy' Hysteria Whips Up Anti-Asian thought it could dictate terms of submis­ dominance." In the last years of the Clin­ Racism" (WV No. 719, 17 September sion to China. President Bush imperi­ ton administration, the U.S. began a sig­ 1999): ously demanded the immediate return of nificant shift of its military forces to the "Even if Lee had, with purpose or not, the EP-3E plane and its crew, while the Asia-Pacific region. given military secrets to the People's Republic of China, this is no crime froin chauvinist American media smeared the Immediately before the U.S. provoca­ the srandpo-int of the international work­ downed Chinese pilot as a "cowboy" who tion over the South China Sea, a Penta­ U.S. threat to supply Aegis guided ing class .... Our unconditional military didn't know what he was doing and missile destroyers to"Taiwan targets gon team visited Taiwan to put together a defense of China and the other remain­ got what was coming. But unlike the list of weaponry for this U.S.-sponsored ing deformed workers states-Vietnam, China's missile systems. Cuba and North Korea-against imperi­ small, defenseless countries over which capitalist state, including advanced alism and internal counterrevolution nec­ America's rulers regularly ride rough­ U.S. territory off-limits to Chinese mili­ Aegis-equipped destroyers which could essarily includes defense of the right of shod, China does not fall into the cate­ tary personnel and proclaimed its inalien­ take out Chinese missile systems. Taiwan these states to amass and test nuclear gory of a "rogue state"-because it has able "right" to carry out intrusive mili­ has been a dagger aimed at the People's weapons and to obtain them by whatever nuclear weapons. tary/espionage missions right off China's Republic from the time Chiang Kai­ means necessary." When Beijing refused to simply kow­ coastline. Puncturing this imperialist shek's Nationalist forces fled there in China last month announced an tow to the diktat of "Xiao Bushi" (Little hypocrisy, Chinese ambassador Yang Jie­ 1949. increase of 18 percent in military expen­ Bush) and his power-crazed foreign pol­ chi said on the PBS-TV Lehrer News The U.S. has over 100,000 military ditures for this year, although its military icy wonks, Washington changed its tune, Hour (4 April): "If America had wit­ personnel in the Asia-Pacific region, budget is still only a fraction of the expressing "regret" for the downing of nessed such kinds of reconnaissance including 47,000 troops in Japan and Pentagon's. China has purchased from the Chinese pilot and seeking to nego­ flights up and down its coast, so close to 37,000 in South Korea. The U.S. has continued on page 10 tiate an end to the crisis. The U.S. has acquiesced to the fact that the Chinese military has been carefully examining the EP-3E, the most advanced spy plane in the Navy's arsenal. This is an intelligence bonanza for China, which it should share with the Vietnamese, North Korean and Cuban deformed workers states. Invoking "international law," Washing­ ton initially thundered that the EP-3E sit­ ting on a Hainan runway was sovereign 1 5

7 25274 81030 7 CHICAGO-Over the past. several front of him, tragically killing seven very purpose of unions. The trade-union officials. In Local 241, an anonymous months, meetings of the powerful Chi­ white youths. Hundreds of Chicago tran­ bureaucrats' embrace of this class collab­ phone call brought the cops rushing into cago Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) sit workers responded by marching on oration, which ties labor to the exploiters, a union meeting this February. An sides Locals 241 and 308 have been the largest police headquarters to demand that the goes hand in hand with their longstand­ in this bureaucratic mudslinging are and most raucous in years. Workers who charges be dropped, and they were. ing allegiance to the Democratic Party. equally committed to subordinating the have been chained to the job without a Today the ATU misleaders have hog­ The labor bureaucracy and black Demo­ labor movement to the' bosses and their contract for well over a year are demand­ tied the union to a binding arbitration cratic Party politicians have served to state. In Local 241, one bureaucrat is' ing answers from the bureaucrats who scheme that makes it "illegal" to strike. channel the anger of the working class challenging the fact that many contract have kept the membership completely in Putting the union's fate in the hands of and the ghetto into cynical electoral poli­ issues are unresolved. But his bottom line the dark about contract talks. The union arbitrators, claiming nothing can be done tics which have secured the rule of the is to send the contract back to the bargain­ tops nearly lost control of the January that violates the dictates of the capitalist Democrats in Chicago for over half a cen­ ing table or to arbitration. meeting of Local 241 bus drivers and state, the bureaucrats use the threat of tury. They have made Chicago "the city Far from being "neutral," the capitalist mechanics as workers pumped their fists, an arbitration ruling as a club to ram that works" for Boss Daley's racist Dem­ state represents the organized machinery chanting "Strike! Strike!" through whatever deal they can get from ocratic' machine, and that means no of violence and repression against the For months, Chicago Transit Authority the CTA bosses. The union tops want the strikes to upset the apple cart. working class and oppressed on behalf (CTA) bosses and the bourgeois press membership to vote up a partial contract The contradictions of race and class of those who live off the exploitation of have been running a smear campaign vil­ which leaves key contract issues to be that define capitalist America are played labor. The state has repeatedly intervened ifying transit workers as reckless drivers, "resolved" in the future. After being out in the raw in Chicago, the metropolis in the labor movement, not to uphold implying that they are responsible for the stonewalled by the bureaucrats through at the center of the industrial Midwest union democracy but to take over and cutbacks in service to black and Latino more than a year of bargaining, transit known as "Segregation City." The over­ crush the unions. It was the Justice neighborhoods. Last fall, when. a black workers rightly fear that some of the whelmingly black and Latino ATU locals Department that first installed Ron Carey motorman was literally mobbed by en­ worst givebacks in decades and provi­ have the social power to bring the city to to run the Teamsters union in 1991, then raged passengers after a faulty public sions which challenge the existence of the a grinding halt, a power which can be launched their own vendetta against him address system caused them to miss their union itself will be announced after the linked to the anger of the increasingly following the successful 1997 Teamsters stops, the transit bosses responded by try­ contract is ratified. impoverished and brutalized ghettos and strike against UPS. It was the FBI that ing to fire him. In 1985, black Chicago Binding arbitration has long been a barrios. A hard core of Chicago transit launched the deadly war on black radicals bus driver David Johnson was framed up crucial weapon in the union-busting workers played a central role in stopping in the late 1960s, leading to the assassina­ for "reckless homicide" after his bus had arsenal of the bosses, designed to stop the Klan from rallying in Gary, Indiana tion of Black Panther leaders Fred Hamp­ unavoidably hit a car that swerved in strikes from happening and to gut the on January 20 as part of the laborlblack ton and Mark Clark by a Chicago police mobilization initiated by the Partisan death squad. The same Chicago cops who Defense Committee. While the numbers break up picket lines use racist terror to that came out were diminished by threats enforce the status quo in "Segregation Revolutionary Internationalism of mass arrest by the city'sDemocratic City," from the vicious beating and and Defense of the Workers States Party administration, the Klan didn't attempted frame-up of black CTA driver The U.S. spy plane provocation has dare show, and the city backed off from Cassandra Seay in 1987 to the 1999 cold­ touched off widespread outrage in the Chi­ its arrest threats in the face of protests by blooded killings of black motorists Rob­ nese bureaucratically deformed workers labor officials nationally. We prevailed ert Russ and LaTanya Haggerty. Labor state, where many look back to Mao Zedong because we fought on the basis of mobi­ must clean its own house: Government, as a stronger guardian of national sover­ lizing the power of labor independently cops and courts out of the unions! of and in opposition to the cops, courts eignty than his successors in the Stalinist Labor/Black Power Is the Key regime. But as Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky and aU the~rties and agenci~s of. the pointed out in polemicizing against the Sta- capitalist class enemy, Here was a con­ To ward off strike sentiment, the ATU TROTSKY linist dogma of "socialism in one country," LENIN crete, albeit modest, demonstration of tops claim that the union's last strike in defense of the workers state against the class what labor can do if it doesn't play by 1979 was a "disaster" that cost the ATU enemy must be part of a program for international workers revolution. Proletarian rev­ the bosses' rules. its cost-of-living allowance (COLA), which had made Chicago transit workers olution in the imperialist centers, not least the u.s., is crucial to the defense and exten­ Government, Cops and Courts sion of the gains of the 1949 Chinese Revolution. the highest paid in the country in the Out of the Unions! '70s. The reality is that the four-day Revolutionary patriotism can only have a class character. It begins as patriotism to Would-be "opposition" cliques like walkout prevented Mayor Jane Byrne's the party organization, to the trade union, and rises to state patriotism when the prole­ Local 308's dubious "Union Watchdog" drive to eliminate COLA. ATU contracts tariat seizes power. Whenever the power is in the hands of the workers, patriotism is a have seized on the rank-and-file discon­ continued to include a cost-of-living revolutionary duty. But this patriotism must be an inseparable part of revolutionary tent for their own purposes of ugly inter­ raise until 1983, when the Illinois legisla­ internationalism. Marxism has always taught the workers that even their struggle for necine feuding backed by the threat of ture passed House Bill (HB) 1805, a law higher wages and shorter hours cannot be successful unless waged as an international state intervention. It is a testament to infamous among veteran Chicago transit struggle .... how discredited the local leadership is in workers because it outlawed the COLA, The invincible conviction that the fundamental class aim, even more so than the par­ the eyes of the membership that the looted their pension fund and imposed tial objectives, cannot be realized by national means or within national boundaries, con­ "Union Watchdog," which makes appeals the part-time system. stitutes the very heart of revolutionary internationalism. If, however, the ultimate aim to racist sentiment against the local's The "friend of labor" who pushed is realizable within national boundaries through the efforts of a national proletariat, then black president, Jerry Williams, has been through this union-busting law was the backbone of internationalism has been broken. The theory of the possibility of real­ able to get a hearing. While making Chicago's first black mayor, Democrat izing socialism in one country destroys the inner connection between the patriotism of demeaning references to Williams' gram­ Harold Washington, who twisted arms the victorious proletariat and the defeatism of the proletariat of the bourgeois countries. mar, the "Watchdog" finks have turned and called in his markers to get the bill The proletariat of the advanced capitalist countries is still traveling on the road to power. union material over to the attorney gen­ passed in Springfield. It's hard to imagine How and in what manner it marches towards it depends entirely upon whether it con­ eral and advocate dragging the union a closer tie than the one labor had with the siders the task of building the socialist society a national or an international task. into the capitalist courts. "progressive" Harold Washington. But - Leon Trotsky, "Critique 9f the Draft Program of the Communist International" , The FBI has launched an "investiga­ when Washington tried to justify his anti­ (1928), reprinted in The Third International After Lenin (1970) tion" of alleged corruption by Local 308 union attacks at a Local 241 meeting in

EDITOR: Len Meyers EDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Anna Woodman PRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan Fuller CIRCULATION MANAGER: Irene Gardner EDITORIAL BOARD: Barry James (managing editor), Bruce Andre, Ray Bishop, Jon Brule, George Foster, Liz Gordon, Walter Jennings, Jane Kerrigan, James Robertson, Joseph Seymour, Alison Spencer The Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) . Workers Vanguard (ISSN 0276-0746) published biweekly, except skipping three alternate issues in June, July and August (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and with a 3-week interval in December, by the Spartacist Publishing Co., 299 Broadway, Suite 318, New York, NY 10007 .. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), (212) 732-7861 (Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. E-mail address:[email protected]. Domestic subscriptions: $10.00/22 issues. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workers Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoInt. The closing date for news in this issue is April 10. With support from transit workers and other trade unionists, January 20 anti­ No. 756 13 April 2001 Klan mobilization in Gary, Indiana backed Democratic mayor off of threat of mass arrests. 2 WORKERS VANGUARD Ha.waii: Victory to Teachers, Faculty Strikes! " . Pickets Shut Down Schools Statewide

APRIL lO-Hawaii's nearly 13,000 directly up against the capitalist state in public schoolteachers and 3,100 state Hawaii, where the schools are under university faculty members went out state control. Cayetano has a long his­ on strike on April 5, the first time in tory of vicious attacks on all the public U.S. history that an entire state's public employees unions. When the state's education system-all the way from extremely high cost of living is factored kindergartens to high schools to univer­ in, Hawaii teacher salaries are the low­ sities-has been shut down. The Hawaii est in the country. The HSTA asked for State Teachers Association (HSTA), a 22 percent raise over four years, but which represents public schoolteachers, were insultingly offered less than 14 and the University of Hawaii Profes­ percent, with no retroactive pay for sional Assembly (UHPA), the faculty the time worked without a" contract. union at the ten University of Hawaii Cayetano outraged UHPA members by (UH) campuses, both went on strike initially proposing to cut off their health within hours of each other after Demo­ benefits over the summer, then offering cratic Party governor Ben Cayetano only a 9 percent raise, plus 2· percent called off negotiations. union-busting "merit pay," over two The memberships of both unions­ years and no raises at all for the 300 who have been working without a con­ non-tenure track lecturers. Attempt­ tract for over a year-had voted over­ ing to break the public schoolteachers whelmingly to strike, "and picket lines strike, Cayetano vindictively issued an AP Elementary school teachers picket, April 6, as strike shuts down Hawaii's went up immediately at schools and executive order cutting off the HSTA's public school system. UH campuses. The HSTA picket lines health benefits; even the UH administra­ have been'especially large and militant, tion rejected as illegal his attempt to do "disciplinary action" against graduate trade unions must not only honor the with many students and parents partici­ the same to the university faculty .. assistants (GAs) who refuse to cross UHPA and HSTA picket lines, refusing pating. Moving to take advantage of the A Department of Education spokes­ picket lines. Students and all GAs: Join to make any deliveries, but unions such strike's popularity, lieutenant governor man conceded, "The schools will re­ the UHPA strikers in shutting down the as the municipal workers, Teamsters Mazie Hirono, who plans to run for main closed .... And that's not really campuses! and especially the ILWU dock workers governor next year, broke ranks with surprising, when we seethe strength of HSTA executive director Joan Husted and sugar refinery workers should carry her boss Cayetano and joined several the numbers reporting to the picket noted that "labor unions have been stop­ out real solidarity, reinforcing picket picket lines. But workers should have lines" (Honolulu Advertiser, 7 April). ping at the picket lines and unload­ lines and using their great power to help no illusions in capitalist parties, Demo­ Less than 1 percent of HSTA members ing their loads at the gate" (Honolulu make sure the schools and campuses crat or Republican; both are enemies of have crossed the lines, and so far nearly Advertiser, 6 April), while Teamsters stay shut down until all the strikers' working-class struggle. all classes have been canceled at UH, bus drivers have changed their routes to demands are met. Victory to the Hawaii The teachers and UH faculty are despite the administration's threats of avoid crossing picket lines. All Hawaii's teacher and faculty strikes!

January 1984, he was hooted off the stage with the Democrats and forge a workers by angry black bus drivers and forced to party. That entails a struggle against flee by the back door! Washington's all wings of the labor bureaucracy-a attack on ATU members was part of a fight to oust capital's labor lieutenants national campaign of racist austerity that who help maintain capitalist "order" and heavily relied on black Democratic may­ class peace. An insightful, disciplined ors to impose cutbacks while keeping the revolutionary party with a committed urban centers from exploding in protest. base of black trade unionists~mobiliz­ As black New York City mayor David ing organized labor, appealing to and Dinkins promised the racist rulers when seeking to lead the ghetto masses-could he took office, "They'll take it from me." galvanize laborlblack Chicago and the Washington's election was seen by the country. black population of Chicago as a chance Going beyond simple contract con­ to finally be able to get some of their cerns and actively championing the cause share of housing, jobs and schools of black liberation and the defense of through the Democratic Party patronage the rights of immigrants and all the machine. Today, the conditions faced by oppressed, battalions from the ATU and the increasing numbers of black and His­ other heavily minority industrial unions panic youth hired as part-time transit L.A. transit workers shout down back-to-work ploy during month-long strike have the potential to lead tens of thou­ workers are bitter testimony to the be­ last year. City rulers brought in Jesse Jackson to help end strike. sands in powerful social struggle against trayal of these aspirations. Brought in racist capitalism. By doing so, the work­ under the conditions of Washington's labor and the masses of the inner city. A York City, Transport Workers Local 100 ing class will open up the possibility of anti-union HB 1805, these workers face a key union demand representing the inter~ president Roger Toussaint attempted to creating a new power in society, a work­ future of 20-hour workweeks on starva­ est of transit workers and the masses of head off anger in the ranks over attacks ers government that will expropriate the tion wages with no seniority and minimal working people and unemployed would on the union's health benefits fund by bosses and return the wealth of this coun­ benefits. They are even prevented from be to rip out the turnstiles-for free, organizing a rally for Democratic Party try to those who produced it, under a cen­ taking a second job because they are "on quality mass transit from the Loop to the politicians, with Jackson as the central tralized plan based on the needs of the call" all the time. suburbs! featured speaker. many, not the. profits of the few. Oust the Full-time transit workers can't make The task of class-struggle militants in bureaucrats! Break with the Democrats! ends meet without working heavy over­ Break with the Democrats! the unions is to fight to win the most For a workers party that fights for a work­ time. One giveback contract after another Build a Workers Party! advanced elements to the need to break ers government! • has shifted health care costs onto union The ATU tops falsify their own union's members while cutting hundreds of jobs history in order to bolster their program of and forcing those remaining to pick up support to the black Democrats who the extra workload. The transit unions uphold Harold Washington as an icon of are already divided between rail and bus the "progress" .that can be achieved for workers as well as along craft lines. Now the working people and blacks under their the CTA bosses are wielding the club of rule. Today, Jesse Jackson is the first and Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League hiring more part-time workers against foremost of those who seek to quell the the union while eliminating seniority in anger of the working class and ghetto o $10/22 issues of Workers Vanguard 0 New 0 Renewal job picks. Against the bosses' divide­ poor by pushing the shell game that the (includes English-language Spartacist and Black History and the Class Struggle) and-rule strategy of pitting one section of Democrats are the allies of labor and international rates: $25/22 issues-Airmail $10/22 issues-Seamail the transit workforce against another, blacks. Last year, Jackson-who has . 0 $2/6 introductory issues of Workers Vanguard (includes English-language Spartacist) there needs to be one industrial union of never missed an opportunity to try to o $2/4 issues of Espartaco (en espanol) (includes Spanish-language Spartacist) all transit workers which fights for full­ douse the flames of militant social strug­ time jobs with full benefits and seniority gle-was called into Los Angeles to end Name ______a militant and powerful transit strike. rights for the entire membership. Address ______Transit workers take the heat for a Leading prayers and preaching the virtues company that is widely seen, particularly of "reconciliation" with management, Apt. # ___ Phone ( ____ ) ______by the black and minority poor, as ineffi­ Jackson tried to refurbish the image of City ______State ______Zip -----= cient and callous. But the overwhelm­ local Democratic Party politicians who 756 ingly black union membership provides a had led a strikebreaking charge against Make checks payable/man to: Spartaclst Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 living link between the social power of the transit workers. Last month in New 13 APRIL 2001 3 Young Sparlacus Taliban: Bitter Fruit of U.S. Imperialism's Anti-Soviet War We print below a forum given recently sun, they breathe 'the dust that swirls in San Francisco, Vancouver and Chi­ underneath the burqa's 30 yards of cago by comrade Kathy Ibsen, slightly opaque muslin, which will again lead, as editedfor publication. then, to a high level of tuberculosis. t's Afghanistan in 1988: 15,000 There is nothing progressive or "anti­ women serve as soldiers and Afghanistan: imperialist" about being shrouded in the I commanders in the army; there veil. Nor is it, as some liberals would are 245,000 women workers. maintain, a quain't cultural Women are 40 percent of the attribute. You wouldn't think doctors and 60 percent· of the you would have to be a commu­ teachers at the University of nist to see that wrapping a Kabul; 440,000 female students woman in a veil and secluding are enrolled in educational her in the home is a hideous institutions and 80,000 more oppression crying out to be participate in literacy programs. wiped from the face of the The All-Afghanistan Women's earth! The veil is a physical Council has 150,000 members. symbol of the submission of Western dress is'common in the women to men and the imposed cities and women enjoy some affirmation of their inferior real measure of freedom from status. The bride price and the the veil and subjugation, for veil are concrete manifestations the first time in Afghanistan's of the material oppression of history. women. In Afghanistan today, What made this possible? It women are property economi­ was the Soviet Union sending cally, socially and legally. They 100,000 troops, mainly from occupy a subordinate status Soviet Central Asia, into Af­ rooted in the oppressive institu­ ghanistan, which bordered the tion of the family. USSR, in December 1979 in As part of the total seclusion order to stem a mujahedin of women, known as purdah, insurgency against the. left­ the windows of their homes nationalist, pro-Soviet govern­ have been painted black so they ment. Our party, uniquely on can't be seen. They must wear the left, forthrightly declared, silent shoes, so they aren't "Hail Red Army in Afghani­ heard. They must speak quietly stan! Extend social gains of ~ . . . ~. and are not supposed to ,laugh. October Revolution to Afghan Women beg on streets of Kabul. Since 1996 capture of city by Taliban, women have been Women are prohibited from peoples!" This expressed our required to cover even their eyes. attending school and have been recognition that, despite its forced to leave their jobs since degeneration under a Stalinist bureau­ the Taliban issued edicts forbidding cratic caste, the Soviet Union remained a women to work outside the home. This is workers state and continued to embody a matter of life and death for the 30,000 historic gains of the October 1917 Rus­ widows in Kabul and elsewhere in the sian workers revolution, not least for country, who are the sole providers for women and the historically Islamic peo­ their families. Medical services are essen­ ples of Soviet Central Asia. Within weeks Women tially unavailable to women, since only a of the Soviet troops going in, the interna­ small number of women medical workers tional Spartacist tendency (now the Inter­ are allowed to practice and male doctors national Communist League) held dem­ are prohibited from touching women. onstrations internationally calling for This has led, and will continue to lead to defense of the USSR and victory to the countless lInnecessary deaths. Red Army. Enslaved by The teenage thugs in the Taliban's When the Soviet forces completed "Department for the Promotion of Virtue their pullout from Afghanistan in early and the Prevention of Vice" roam the 1989, paving the way for a bloody on­ streets me.ting out regular, brutal beatings slaught against Afghan workers, women -using broken-off car antennas and and leftists, we bitterly denounced this metal cables-for such offenses as baring betrayal. In an attempt to placate U.S. ··'slamic an ankle or wrist. .Depression is wide­ imperialism, the Kremlin Stalinists spread and the suicide rate among women handed over hundreds of thousands of has increased significantly. Though Afghans to b~ tortured, flayed alive, women are the main recipients of the beheaded and dismembered as "infidels" Taliban's savagery, they are not the only by the CIA-funded mullahs, tribal khans ones. In Kabul's soccer stadium, thou­ and feudal landlords. In solidarity with sands of men cheer as thieves' hands and Reaction feet are surgically amputated, as women the Afghan masses, who were waging a bitter struggle for survival in the wake of are flogged or stoned to death. The most the Soviet withdrawal, we formally pro­ city closest to the CIA's guerrilla bases adding the finishing touches to the pro­ grotesquely bizarre method of execution posed to the Afghan government, in a let­ in Pakistan. The attack was soundly gram of social reaction implemented by is used against homosexuals sentenced ter dated 7 February 1989, the following: defeated for 11 time. At our literature table the U.S.-sponsored, CIA-funded muja­ to death by the Taliban. First they are "To organize an international brigade to at the back are photos and articles from hedin cutthroats who took power in partially buried in the ground and then fight to the death" to defend "the right of our ICL correspondent in Afghanistan at 1992. Anti-Communism was the bond a brick wall is pushed over them by a women to read, freedom from the veil, the time. between U.5. imperialism and the mul­ bulldozer. freedom from the tyranny of the mullahs In 1996, after four years of the horrific lahs in Afghanistan. For three years running, drought has and the landlords, the introduction of rule of a shifting "coalition" of warring destroyed the possibility of even subsist­ medical care and the right of all to an factions of the reactionary Islamic muja­ Enslavement of Women ing off the land. More than 700,000 peo­ education." hedin, who had already brought Kabul to Today, under the Taliban's savage and ple (4 percent of the population) are des­ Though this offer was declined, at the the point of famine and devastation, the backward regime, women are not allowed perately fleeing to the cities in search of request of the government, the Partisan capital of Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, out of their homes unless escorted by a food and shelter. Even by UN figures, Defense Committee (the class-struggle a fundamentalist Islamic militia. One of male relative. They must wear a head to more than 1 million people are at risk of legal and social, defense organization the Taliban's first acts was to grab the toe covering, called the burqa. A dense, starving to death this year. The Taliban is associated with the SLlU.S.) and the former president and Soviet ally, Najib­ mesh-covered, three-inch square opening also destroying every statue in the coun­ PDC's fraternal organizations around the ullah. He was castrated and then hanged around the eyes provides the only means try, using a combination of U.S.-provided world raised over $44,000 in two months. from a lamppost in downtown Kabul for to see. In 1979, prior to the Soviet inter­ hand-held missiles and stone hammers. The money went to aid the civilian vic­ three days. The Taliban killers proceeded vention, we said that "the sun never Foremost among the treasures being tims of the all-out mujahedin offensive to wreak bloody vengeance against any shines on Afghan women." This is liter­ destroyed are two 1,000-year-old Buddha that year against lalalabad, the Afghan remaining. vestige of social progress, ally true-veiled women don't see the statues carved into the stone cliffs in 4 WORKERS VANGUARD Bamiyan, on the Silk Road from China to the Middle East. Numerous articles in the bourgeois press decry the destruction of the statues but barely mention the devas­ tation of the country and its women. Defense of the Soviet Union and Cold War II So what happened in Afghanistan that has resulted in unspeakably hellish condi­ tions for women? Why did almost every leftist and feminist group oppose the Soviet intervention which alone raised the possibility of social liberation in this wretchedly backward country? Uniquely in modern history, the rights of women were a central issue in the civil war which raged in Afghanistan from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. Some of the blood of every unveiled woman butchered by the Afghan fundamentalists is on the hands Northern Neighbors of every leftist and feminist organization Literacy classes, held as result of Soviet intervention. Members of Afghan internationally that lined up behind U.S. women's militia at rally in Kabul just before Soviet pullout in 1989 (right); imperialism's anti-Soviet dirty war in women were in forefront of battle to defend their social emancipation. Afghanistan. They did their small part to Reuters contribute to the horror which is today nomadic tribes or as impoverished farm­ ment by the utopian socialist Fourier, was composed of many different nation­ being inflicted upon Afghan women. ers in mud villages. There were a multi­ which Marx often liked to quote. That is alities, tribal and ethnic groupings and To see what sparked the Soviet inter­ tude of tribes over which no previous that the status of women in any given languages-Pushtuns, Tadzhiks, Uzbeks, vention in 1979, you have to go back to government had ever completely estab­ society reflects the general level of Turkomans, Baluchis and others. the "April revolution" in 1978 when the lished its authority. Life was scarcely dif­ human emancipation and human free­ In the 1920s, the British sought to fos­ Soviet-backed 'left-nationalist People's ferent from many centuries earlier. dom. In areas such as Central Asia, there ter Afghanistan as an anti-Soviet force in Democratic Party of Afghanistan-the While not repudiating Islam, the PDPA was a strategic relationship between the the area after the 1917 Bolshevik Revo­ PDPA-came to power. The PDPA's base regime sought to give the country a secu­ bride price and polygamy, primitive agri­ lution. As colonialists, the British had consisted overwhelmingly of the edu­ lar, progressive image. One of the more cultural production, sheep-herding, land long cultivated backward layers in the cated petty bourgeoisie, schoolteachers, popular measures was to cancel the debt and water rights. administration of their empire, backed up students and Soviet-trained army officers. that poor and landless peasants owed to Women were their fathers' means of by their army, of course. Leon Trotsky, Many of them were educated in the the powerful moneylenders. The land­ -exchange and their husbands' chattel; the in a speech to the Communist University Soviet Union, where they saw the lords and tribal khans held the power of right to control and inherit property rested of the Toilers of the East in Moscow in advances of their ethnic cousins in Soviet life and death over the mass of peasants, on men. Most variants of local law gave a April 1924, said: Central Asia. With this direct comparative controlling 42 percent of cultivable land man access to land and water rights only "Afghanistan is at present the scene of experience to show them how truly back­ and the associated irrigation systems. ifhe married; more than one wife meant truly dramatic events: the Great Britain ward their own country was, many in Though the PDPA government proposed more land and water. On the other hand, of Ramsay MacDonald is fighting there these petty-bourgeois strata began to push a sweeping land reform program, they marriage was so expensive (because of against the left national-bourgeois wing, which aims aUhe Europeanization of an for significant modernization. When the were stopped in their tracks by landlord the bride price) that many poor men never independent Afghanistan. It endeavors to PDPA came to power, the Western press economic sabotage and terror combined married at all-and others turned to place in power in that country the most raised cries· of a "Communist coup." In with a mass reactionary insurgency. abduction and rape to get a wife. unenlightened and reactionary elements, fact, this was a left-wing officers' coup, But what drove the mullahs into a - Tbere was a lot going on in the world imbued with the worst prejUdices of pan­ based mainly on the army. frenzy and to take up arms were the lim­ aru{,iri the region in 1Q78-79. The Soviet' lslamism, of the caliphate." At the time, Afghanistan was one of the ited measures· of equality for women higJ1 command watched as Iran slipped If you substitute the U.S. for Britain in most primitive, tradition-bound countries introduced by the government-reducing into near-total chaos after the U.S.­ this quote, this could have been written on earth. In 1978, only 35,000 people the traditional bride price to a nominal supported Shah was overthrown; as U.S. in 1979. were employed in manufacturing--out of sum and introducing compulsory educa­ aircraft carriers lined up in the Arabian The Russian Revolution inspired the a population of 17 to 20 million. Their tion for girls and voluntary literacy pro­ Sea; as the Soviet-allied Kabul govern­ only attempt at significant social reforms numbers were dwarfed by the Islamic grams for adult women. Even the New ment was threatened by a reactionary in Afghanistan prior to 1978. The clergy. There were a quarter of a million York Times in February 1980 admitted: Islamic jihad (holy war). Seeing the U.S. "national-bourgeois wing" referred to by mullahs, an enormous parasitic caste "It was the Kabul revolutionary Gov­ at an impasse in Iran, the Kremlin bureau­ Trotsky was led by Amir Amanullah sucking the blood from a desperately ernment's granting of new rights to crats seized the time to quell the uprising Khan, who took the throne in 1919 and poor people. There was virtually no women that pushed 'Orthodox Moslem by the Afghan. mullahs and khans, attempted to implement a broad range of industry-no railroad tracks, very few men in the Pashtoon villages of east­ deployed thousands of Soviet troops into reforms like Kemal Atatiirk did in Turkey. highways, primitive sanitation and wide­ ern Afghanistan into picking up their Afghanistan, and in the process extended The British continued to bolster the spread malnutrition. The average life guns." With social development some­ their defense perimeter by several hun­ power of the Islamic clergy and sanc­ expectancy was 40 years, infant mortality where between tribalism and feudal­ dred miles around the eastern flank of tioned the shariat courts that ruled on was at least 25 percent and half of all chil­ ism, there was no internal social base for Iran. The USSR was rightly worried questions of family, sex, inheritance and dren died before age five. The rate of illit­ the relatively minimal reforms pursued about hostile Islamic fundamentalist gov­ so on, as supports for their colonial rule. eracy was more than 90 percent for men by the PDPA, much less for proletarian ernments on their border. As we wrote They supplied arms to the rebels and and 98 percent for women. Almost all revolution. in Spartacist in the summer of 1980: infested the area with their agents and women, save members of a tiny Western­ The institution of the family takes dif­ "Afghanistan is a flash of lightning which spies. In 1929, Khan was overthrown and ized urban middle class, were imprisoned ferent forms according to the demands of illuminates the real contours of the world tribal and clerical "traditionalism" was in the veil and sold like chattel under the the social system-a point that was per­ political. landscape. It has exploded the restored to its position of power. Had the bride price system. Most people lived in haps most eloquently captured in a state- last illusions of detente to reveal the Red Army of Lenin and Trotsky been in a implacable hostility of U.S. imperialism position to go into Afghanistan in 1921, Afghanistan could have been incorpo­ Soviet tanks in Afghanistan. Uniquely on to the Soviet degenerated workers state." Lashing out against so-called "Soviet rated into Soviet Central Asia, which left, SL callect for victory of Red Army, would have brought Afghanistan rapidly which fought on side of social progress, expansionism," Democratic Party presi­ and defense of USSR. dent and born-again Christian Jimmy into the 20th century. Carter launched Cold War II against the As the leading imperialist power after Soviet Union. Like Cold War I in the World War II, the U.S., following in 1950s, this anti-Soviet war drive was Britain's footsteps, consciously manipu­ accompanied by a massive increase in lated and cynically reinforced religious military spending, in this case a five-year, fundamentalism and pre-feudal reaction trillion-dollar program. At the same time, as an organized force for counterrevolu­ millions of U.S. dollars began flowing to tion. Cold Warrior John Foster Dulles the reactionary Islamic fundamentalists wrote in 1950: "The religions of the East via the CIA." are deeply rooted and have many precious The lengthy civil war was a decisive values. Their spiritual beliefs cannot be event in the history of the region. When reconciled with Communist atheism and opponents of the Soviet intervention cried materialism. That creates a common bond crocodile tears about the so-called between us." "Afghan right to self-determination" and When the Soviet Red Army entered the "trampled rights" of the Afghan Kabul in 1979, U.S. imperialism was still nation, we pointed out that in fact there smarting from its defeat by the heroic is no Afghan nation. We didn't discover Vietnamese four years earlier. While the this. As historian Louis Dupree observed U.S. was bogged down in that losing war, in his book Afghanistan in 1980: the USSR gained nuclear parity with the "Afghanistan is an artificial country, U.S. Seeking to bury the "Vietnam syn­ created out of tribal kingdoms as a buffer drome"-the mass perception among state by the British and Russians in the working people and youth that the U.S. .' --nineteenth century." There was no com­ government and military tops were a mon language or nationality. Afghanistan continued Oil page 6 13 APRIL 2001 5 From the beginning of the war, the Afghanistan ... mujahedin reserved its worst treatment (continued from page 5) for Soviet soldiers. The U.S. government had confirmed reports that the mullahs had drugged and tortured 50 to 200 bunch of liars and baby-killers-Jimmy Soviet soldiers, imprisoning them like Carter launched a hypocritical "human animals in cages, where they lived lives rights" campaign against the Soviet of indescribable horror. Another account, Union. The U.S. iIlljosed a grain em­ by a reporter from the conservative Far bargo so the people of the USSR could Eastern Economic Review in 1984, said: suffer for "human rights" and boycotted "One [Soviet] group was killed, skinned the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics. and hung up in a butcher's shop. One cap­ Part of this anti-Soviet war drive was tive found himself the centre of attraction the biggest military buildup in human in a game of buzkashi, that rough and history, including a massive increase in tumble form of Afghan polo in which a nuclear weaponry aimed at the Soviet headless goat is usually the ball. The cap­ Union. The goal: the destruction of the tive was used instead. Alive. He was lit­ Soviet workers state itself. Afghanistan, erally torn to pieces." For those who have where American-supplied weapons were never witnessed the game of buzkashi, I'd being used to kill Red Army· soldiers, recommend the 1975 movie starring Sean was the hottest hot spot of Cold War II. Connery, The Man Who Would Be King, The U.S. government's Afghan war based on a story by Rudyard Kipling, the was totally bipartisan. In 1984, under well-known propounder of British colo­ WV Photo Republican president Ronald Reagan, the nial rule. SL contingent in April 1989 abortion rights demo in D.C., where we launched Democratic Congress tripled Reagan's international campaign to aid embattled city of Jalalabad against mujahedin proposed appropriations for the Afghan Leftist Opponents of cutthroats following Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. reactionaries. One House Democrat from Revolutionary Marxism Texas said: "There were 58,000 [Amer­ All organizations claiming to stand for nearly 100 percent literacy rate; the aver­ gains won by the Afghan masses-that can] dead in Vietnam and we owe the revolutionary Marxism were put to the age life expectancy was 70 years. 45 per­ finally forced the Soviet Union to Russians one.:' By the time the Soviets test over Afghanistan: For or against the cent of legislators and 18 percent of respond." It didn't take them long to fig­ left Afghanistan, the CIA's Afghan "free­ defense of the Soviet Union? For or judges were women (as compared to 3 ure out that their line would alienate the dom fighters" (as Reagan fondly called against imperialist-sponsored counterrev­ percent in the U.S.). There was one doc­ bourgeois liberal milieu with which these them) had received, by official estimates, olution? For or against the fight for tor for every 380 people, compared to one "respectable socialists" have sought to more than $2 billion in military hardware, women's liberation from the veil, isola­ doctor for every 20,000 in Afghanistan. ingratiate themsel ves since the Vietnam a figure reportedly matched by Saudi tion and illiteracy? For revolutionary A number of the left groups from the antiwar movement, as they and Socialist Arabia and supplemented by other U.S. Marxists, there is nothing tricky or time no longer exist, particularly the var­ Action continue to do to this day. They allies like Egypt. At the height of the U.S. ambiguous about the war. The Soviet ious Maoist groups who, along with made an about-face and called for Soviet withdrawal. Even if it meant disagreeing with Fidel Castro, these social democrats ----II Socialist WoIfcer 1.------­ couldn't resist the pressure of the U.S. Cliffites of British imperialists' anti-Soviet propaganda/mil­ itary campaign. Troops out ~ Afghanlstanl ..kist as socialists welcomed the But Taliban's success comes SWP and U.S. ISO defeat of the U.S. in Vietnam, we from popular disellCluuUml!lIl with embraced The Cliffites-the International Social­ welcome the defeat of the Russians 'hI! leadeN who oppose it-the imperialist anti­ ist Organization in the U.S. and the Brit­ fo,.ces gua,.ding KGb,,, melted in Afghanistan. It wi. give heart to Soviet crusade in ish Socialist Workers Party (who have aWGY IDst week. all those inside the USSR and in TragIcally, the Taliban bas DO Afghanistan, recently split)-both known for their Eastern Europe who want to break answer to the terrible (:risis of the "welcomed" victory anti-Communism, eagerly joined the the rule of StaUn's heirs. (:oun~er. of anti-woman does imperialist chorus calling for Soviet Islamic troops out and whitewashed the muja­ fundamentalists. 12 January 1980 May 1988 , "5 October 1996 hedin. The British Cliffites made a real (British SWP) (U.S. ISO) (British SWP) contribution to the imperialists' anti­ Soviet war drive by making common proxy war against the USSR, the muja­ army and its left-nationalist allies were China, supported the mujahedin as part cause with the right-wing Tories. In 1980, hedin were receiving up to 65,000 tons fighting a CIA-backed, anti-communist, of an anti-Soviet alliance with U.S. SWP leader Paul Foot, writing in his col­ of war materiel annually. This was to anti-democratic melange of landlords, . imperialism originally consummated in umn in the bourgeois Daily Mirror, become the biggest CIA operation in his­ moneylenders, tribal chiefs and mullahs 1972. We warned then that China-a attacked the virulently anti-communist tory! Various estimates indicate that any­ committed to mass illiteracy and the deformed workers state-would be the Conservative government of Prime Min­ where from 25 to 75 percent of the CIA's subjugation of women. The gut-level next target on the imperialists' hit list ister Margaret Thatcher from the right, military aid was skimmed off by the rebel response of every radical leftist should after the SoviefUnion. Since the destruc­ decrying the possibility that British meat leaders and Pakistani officials and sold have been fullest solidarity with the tion of the Soviet workers state through exports to the Soviet Union might be for huge profits. Soviet Red Army. Not so. capitalist counterrevolution in 1991-92, going to Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan. To give you an idea of the ferocity of Only those leftists poisoned by anti­ the U.S. imperialists aim to reconquer When the Soviet bureaucracy said they the CIA's "freedom fighters," according Communism and bourgeois nationalism and exploit China, the most populous were pulling out in 1988, the ISO wrote to Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA could deny that a social revolution such country on earth. We fight for uncondi­ in Socialist Worker (May 1988): "Just as Interventions Since World War II: "A as the transformation of Soviet Central tional military defense of China against socialists welcomed the defeat of the 'favorite tactic' of the Afghan freedom Asia after the Bolshevik Revolution, imperialist attack and internal attempts at U.S. in Vietnam, we welcome the defeat fighters was 'to torture victims [often although imposed from without and counterrevolution. of the· Russians in Afghanistan. It will Russians] by first cutting off their noses, bureaucratically deformed from the out­ Socialist Action did not yet exist; its give heart to all those inside the USSR ears, and genitals, then removing one set, would have an enormously liberating memb~rs were still in the Socialist Work­ and in Eastern Europe who want to break slice of skin after another,' producing effect for the Afghan masses. The differ­ ers Party (SWP). Initially, the SWP tried the rule of Stalin's heirs." How disgust­ 'a slow, very painful death'." Flinging ence in social progress and economic to pretend that the Russian question was ing to compare the U.S. genocidal war to acid in the faces of unveiled women and development between Soviet Central Asia not posed in Afghanistan, declaring in smash the Vietnamese social revolution flaying alive Communist schoolteachers and Afghanistan was measured not in February 1980: "So the issue is not with the USSR fighting on the side of for teaching girls to read were also decades but in centuries. For example, ,Soviet intervention, but a growing U.S. social progress! In lockstep with imperi­ "favorite tactics." neighboring Soviet Uzbekistan had a intervention-aimed at taking back the alism, the Cliffites openly called for cap­ italist counterrevolution in the USSR and East Europe. Indeed, the essence of the Cliffite tendency had always been to ally " Spartacist/SYC Regional Educationals-Saturday, April 28 with their own imperialist rulers against the Soviet Union. When the Taliban came to power in ------, .------12noon------. 1996, the ISO wrote: "But Taliban's suc­ cess comes from popular disenchantment Eyewitness Reporter from Quebec Anti-FTAA Protests Eyewitness Report Defend the Gains of the. Cuban Revolution! with the leaders who oppose it-the Beware the Fraud of "Human Rights" Imperialism! Castro Bur~aucracy Undermines Gains of Cuban Revolution­ forces guarding Kabul melted away last From Seattle to Quebec: Anti-Globalization Protests Push For Proletarian Political Revolution! week. Tragically, the Taliban has no Illusions in Rapacious U.S. Imperialism For Socialist Revolution Throughout the Americas! answer to the terrible crisis of the coun­ try either." Would you say that Hitler had r----- East Coast-6 p.m. West Coast-3:30 p.m. -----. "no answer" for the crisis in Germany For a Workers Party That Fights for a Workers Government! either, except for the destruction of all For Socialist Revolution in the Bastion of World Imperialism! workers organizations and the extermina­ tion.of the Jews? Today the Cliffites insist Finish the Civil War! For Black Liberation Through Socialist Revolution! that Islamic fundamentalism plays a pro­ For Women's Liberation Through Socialist Revolution! gressive "anti-imperialist" role around the world. The SWP proclaimed (Interna­ tional Socialism, August 1994): "Islam­ ists have now replaced socialists and the left in terms of being in the frontline against the state in many countries." 6 WORKERS VANGUARD In Britain, during the uproar over found them liberal and farsighted and Afghanistan in 1979, a grouping called open" (Washington Post, 18 February Workers Power that had split from the 1967). • Cliffites made a step to the left. They Bourgeois feminists were perfectly formally adopted the Trotskyist position aware of the social changes that were that the Soviet Union was a bureaucrati­ Rabid Cold benefiting women in Afghanistan during cally degenerated workers state-but on Warrior Ronald the ten years of the Soviet intervention. the ground, faced with a virulent anti­ Reagan toasted by When we kicked off our Jalalabad cam­ Soviet war drive, they denounced the Gorbachev, who paign on April 4, 1989 at the huge NOW­ Soviet intervention as "counterrevolu­ pursued policy of sponsored abortion rights demo in_Wash­ all-around retreat tionary." (A decade later, ever-willing to ington, D.C., NOW goons tried to shut before U.S. denounce the USSR, they condemned imperialism. down all socialist literature tables and the withdrawal of the Soviet troops as unleashed the park cops on militants, like "counterrevolutionary.") ourselves, who declined to be segregated Of all the groups that laid claim to . from the main rally in NOW's demean­ Trotskyism at the time, the Bolshevik ing penned-in "ghetto" for left groups. Faction (BF) of Nahuel Moreno had the Despite these attempts to censor commu­ most grotesque position. In addition to In 1996, at a time when the U.S. azine interview with Sima Wali, a self­ nists, we distributed more than 25,000 demanding the immediate withdrawal of had declared an anti-Islamic holy war described Afghan "human rights activist" leaflets for Jalalabad, as we marched with the Soviet troops, they called for extend­ against terrorism, the Feminist Majority and anti:communist, proclaimed (May/ our banner proclaiming "No to the Veil! ing Khomeini-brand Islamic counterrevo­ Foundation started circulating a petition June 1997): Defend Afghan Women! Support Jalala­ lution into the Soviet Union itself. In this calling for sanctions against the Taliban "When the Communists took over, bad Victims of CIA Cutthroats!" country today, remnants of the BF are to be imposed by the same U.S. imperial­ Afghan women were jailed, they were There were exceptions. One bourgeois subjected to torture, especially the wo­ ensconced in the reformist Socialist ists that armed the Islamic reactionaries men who had ties to the Afghan resis­ feminist, Mary Williams Walsh, who was Alternative. in the first place! In February at Madison tance that took root in Pakistan. This was the Wall Street Journal's principal corre­ The Bolshevik Tendency (BT), a mot­ Square Garden, a benefit performance unheard of in Afghan history .... The Af­ spondent covering Afghanistan and Paki­ ley group of embittered ex-members of aiming to call attention to violence ghan Communists basically had a laissez­ stan, managed to slip some truth into her the SL who found our Soviet defensism against women was organized by play­ faire attitude toward Afghan women. The column in January 1989. In spite of her schools were not closed, they did not too hot to handle, fled during Cold War wright Eve Ensler around readings from institute the veil, and they did introduce support of the mujahedin, she suggested II. After insisting that they agreed with her Vagina Monologues. Featuring doz­ reforms. But they focused so much on the that women's liberation was involved our line on Afghanistan, they showed ens of stars like Jane Fonda and Oprah war that they did not actively upgrade the when she said: their true colors by capitulating to the Winfrey, the show was sponsored by status of women." "The plight of Kabul's women is a poig­ anti-Soviet hysteria. Disappearing the Hearst Magazines and Liz Claiborne, WaH fled to Pakistan as soon as the Soviet nant reminder that the West's vicarious contradictory nature of the Stalinist among others, with ticket prices topped Army entered Kabul. The "Afghan resis­ victory over communist expansion here isn't without its ambiguities. In a back­ bureaucracy, a leading member of the BT out at $1,000 a seat. tance" she's referring to is the CIA­ ward country where the female peasantry declared, "Trotskyists never hail Stalinist Winfrey performed "Under the Burqa," backed mullahs. In the same interview, still toils like medieval serfs, Kabuli traitors or their state .... The slogan 'Hail which according to my daughter who saw WaH called on former Secretary of State women have managed to hold on to Red Army' is not a Trotskyist slogan." As it performed in San Francisco is a power­ Madeleine Albright to "take on the issue many 20th-century freedoms .... Instead of staying at home behind purdah walls, a matter of fact, Trotskyists did hail the ful description of the life of misery for as a woman." Our youth comrades at UC they emerge each day and work in Red Army when they intervened on the veiled women. Thousands signed peti­ Berkeley did the right thing last spring offices, hospitals and schools." side of progress-for example, in World tions for the Feminist Majority's Cam­ when they shouted down Albright as the But in 1990, when Walsh attempted to War II when the Red Army smashed Ger­ paign to Stop Gender Apartheid in "Butcher of the Balkans." Albright repre­ break the story that Dan Rather and CBS man fascism, freed Jews from concentra­ Afghanistan and wore "burqa swatches" sents the capitalist class; she is not our had broadcast fake TV footage about tion camps and took Berlin. as a symbol of remembrance for Afghan ally in the fight for women's liberation. Afghanistan, the Journal refused to pub­ lish her article. Soon vicious, slanderous rumors began circulating to undermine her credibility, including that she was "sleeping with communist generals" in Afghanistan. In a rare show of journalis­ tic integrity, Walsh resigned. No Illusions in Bloody U.S. Imperialism! Besides showering the mujahedin with millions of dollars of military equip­ 1996: Taliban launch ment, the CIA's dis information machine missile near Kabul; reactionary Islamic at Langley, Virginia cranked out the fundamentalist most blatant lies about Afghanistan. Duti­ censors burn videos fully, the U.S. mass media snapped to in front of cinema. attention, churning out government­ sponsored, imperialist war propaganda. Bloodthirsty tribesmen who skinned Communist teachers alive for the "crime" of teaching little girls to read and write were passed off as "freedom fighters." Shots purportedly showing a Soviet jet In a sense Carter's "human rights" women and girls. One group speaking at But how dare these bourgeois femi­ bombing .an Afghan village turned out to propaganda campaign worked, since most the event and sharing in the funds raised nists, who regularly sponsor FBI and mil­ be of a Pakistani jet. And a shiny red "toy of the self-described left and almost all was the Revolutionary Association of the itary tables at NOW conferences, posture bomb" supposedly planted by the evil liberals supported the U.S. against the Women of Afghanistan' (RAWA) which as allies of the women of Afghanistan! Soviets to lure Afghan children to their Soviet Union. And in the case of Afghan­ toured the U.S. last summer. The CIA­ Their appointed goddess and founder of deaths was created by the same free­ istan, this meant support for U.S.-armed, supported· "Voice of America" broadcast Ms. magazine, Gloria Steinem, know­ lance photographer who had earlier pro­ CIA-supported Islamic fundamentalists. reports from their demonstrations and ingly took CIA money as director of the vided faked battle scenes that Dan Rather All these self-styled "socialists" contrib­ interviews with RAWA members in Pak­ "Independent Research Service," which aired. Ronald Reagan made numerous uted to bringing about the horror which istan and the U.S. actively recruited and paid hundreds of speeches accusing the Soviets of spraying is today being inflicted on Afghan Founded in 1977, this well-connected young Americans to attend and harass "yellow rain" over Afghanistan, Laos and women! group is fiercely anti-communist, though leftists at the communist-leaning World Cambodia, causing over ten thousand even they admit that "the present condi­ Youth Festivals in Vienna in 1959 and in deaths. Dutifully, reams of press copy Marxism VS. Feminism tions are even worse than those of the Helsinki in 1962. Steinem said of the CIA There is a wide historical gulf between Soviet occupation period." RAWA also agents with whom she collaborated: "I continued on page 8 Marxism and feminism. However, I do calls for UN intervention and hopes for want to address the differences because the return of the king who was over­ various feminist organizations and cam­ thrown in 1973. They advocate education pus women's groups now profess con­ and employment for women, while cern over the plight of Afghan women. remaining in the Islamic fold. Though The Marxist understanding of women's they don't insist on women wearing the BAY AREA CHICAGO oppression as rooted materially in burqa, they do expect women to conform Alternate Tuesdays, 7 p.m. Alternate Tuesdays, 7 p.m. class society is diametrically opposed to to an appropriately decorous form of April 17: The Bourgeois State April 17: Trotskyism vs. Stalinism: the outlook of feminism, which is funda­ dress. University of California, Berkeley The Revolution Betrayed 179 Dwinelle Hall mentally a variant of bourgeois ideol­ Though Feminist Majority propaganda Univ. of Chicago, Cobb Hall, Room 106 Information and readings: (510) 839-0851 Information and readings: (312) 563-0441 ogy, positing the main social division lists the gains for women in Afghani­ as one of sex and not class. Feminists stan prior to the rule of the Taliban, there see women's oppression as a set of bad isn't one word about how this came BOSTON NEW YORK CITY ideas and policies stemming from male about-which was through the extension Alternate Mondays, 7 p.m. Alternate Tuesdays, 7:30 p.m. supremacy, not as something integral to of social reforms by the Soviet-backed April 16: State and Revolution­ April 17: We Are the Party of the class-divided society. Most feminists government. In fact, some feminists The Vanguard Party and the Russian Revolution supported U.S. imperialism against the grossly claim that communism was actu­ Fight for Communism Columbia University , Soviet Union no matter what the conse­ ally responsible for women's oppression Harvard University, Loker Commons Hamilton Hall, Room 609 quences were for Afghan women. in Afghanistan. For example, a Ms. mag- Information and readings: (617) 666-9453 Information and readings: (212) 267-1025 13 APRIL 2001 7 characterization that is still used today. We honored the Soviet veterans of the the final dissolution of Stalinist rule Afghanistan ... Mikhail Gorbachev, who came to power Afghan war who justly viewed them­ under the military and economic pres­ (continued from page 7) in the USSR in 1985, took up this insidi­ selves as fighters for revolutionary inter­ sure of imperialist encirclement of the ous lie for his regime's own reasons. As nationalism. The Soviet bureaucracy's Soviet Union conformed very precisely were produced asserting that the USSR Marxists, we judge what side we take attempt to trade Afghan blood for good to his analysis. I would recommend, for was using chemical warfare-this was based on what advances the interests of will in Washington only whetted the those who haven't read it, our pamphlet later revealed to be pollen-laden bee the working class and the oppressed. In appetites of the imperialists,intent upon Stalinism-Gravedigger of the Revolu­ excrement which, of course, had caused Vietnam, the U.S. fought a genocidal the counterrevolutionary destruction of tion: How the Soviet Workers State Was no deaths! war to smash a social revolution and was the entire Soviet Union. Inside the USSR, Strangled. Like many other CIA clients, the soundly defeated on the battlefield. We this move strengthened pro-capitalist Withdrawal from Afghanistan 'was fol­ Afghan rebels were financed as well by said, "Victory to the Vietnamese Revolu­ forces. The Red Army pullout was lowed by counterrevolution in East drug trafficking. In 1995, the estimated tion-Defeat U.S. Imperialism!" The directly linked to the final collapse of the Europe: Solidarnosc-led capitalist coun­ output provided one-third to one-half of Soviet Army in Afghanistan fought on USSR itself, a historic defeat for the terrevolution in Poland in 1990, the capi­ the heroin used in the U.S. and three­ the side of social progress to stop the working class and oppressed internation­ talist reunification of Germany in 1990, quarters of that used in Western Europe. reactionary onslaught which imperiled ally. Gorbachev's foreign minister, Boris Yeltsin's 1991 pro-capitalist coun­ Profits from heroin have provided one of not only the Afghan masses but the Eduard Shevardnadze, later said: "The tercoup in Moscow. This, in turn, led to a the largest sources of income for the Tal­ total cutoff of aid to Kabul, spelling doom iban. Despite the thoroughly unsavory for the fragile Afghan economy and cen­ image of the Taliban, last October Dan tral government. In April of 1992, the Rather, up to his old tricks, ran a special Kabul government, headed by Najibullah, report for CBS called "Inside Afghani­ fell to the feudalist reactionaries. The stan," in which the Taliban "freedom warring mullah factions then subjected fighters" are depicted as heroically trying the entire populace to a reign of terror and to rebuild their country. The report white­ plunder. washes the Taliban's vicious treatment of The horrors being played out in women as necessary to "protect women" Afghanistan today are the starkest expres­ and offer them "peace and security." sion of the choice which has been posed, The Feminist Majority recently with increasing sharpness and urgency, claimed a victory when the U.S. imposed over the past century: socialism or bar­ sanctions against the Taliban. In reality, barism. Young fighters against social the ongoing sanctions by the U.S. are oppression must study and learn the les­ aimed at pressuring the Taliban to hand sons of past struggles and defeats, includ­ over Saudi fundamentalist Osama bin ing the world-historic defeat represented Laden. Four of his alleged associates are by the destruction of the remaining gains currently on trial in a federal courtroom of the October Revolution, if they are to in Manhattan, where they face the death go forward to win new victories. We of penalty or life imprisonment for an E.P. Dutton & Co. the International Communist League alleged terrorist conspiracy over the last First meeting of young women's political group in Tashkent, Central ASia, fight for new Octobers, both in the U.S. ten years, including the bombing of the following Russian Revolution of 1917. Bolshevik victory was giant step and around the world. And we here in the U.S. embassi.es in Kenya and Tanzania in toward liberation of women throughout former tsarist empire. U.S., in the belly of the beast, have a spe­ 1998, Washington responded to these cial responsibility to smash U.S. imperi­ acts by carrying out missile strikes USSR itself. That's why we said, "Hail decision to leave Afghanistan was the alism through workers revolution. against Afghanistan and devastating a the Red Army in Afghanistan." first and most difficult step. Everything We fight to forge Bolshevik parties pharmaceutical factory in Sudan. It's But the Soviet bureaucracy didn't fight else flowed from that" (Washington Post, internationally to lead the workers­ notable that the terrorism charges against . to win. From the outset of the war the 16 November 1992). standing at the head of all the op­ bin Laden only go back ten years. That's Kremlin tops always held open the pos­ The Afghanistan intervention testified pressed-to power and to a society in because his "network" was armed, sibility of withdrawal as a bargaining chip to the persistence-even after some six which capitalist oppression and enslave­ trained and financed by the CIA as part in dealing with Western imperialism. decades of Stalinist repression, lies and ment of women are relics of a barbaric of the proxy war in Afghanistan against Nonetheless, by 1984 the Soviet and sellouts-of the contradiction between past. Women will be in the front ranks of the Soviet Union. PDPA forces had practically won the war. the collectivized foundations of the Sovi­ such a revolutionary movement, under­ In an article entitled "Bin Laden The CIA's "holy warriors" were shattered et state and the parasitic bureaucracy standing that their interests cannot go for­ Comes Home to Roost," from the and demoralized. And the government's which rested on top. It was the last time ward without a working-class perspec­ MSNBC Web site in 1998, bin Laden's modest reforms, although scaled back the bureaucracy ruling the Soviet degen­ tive, and the workers movement cannot unclassified CIA biography states that he from even the moderate program first '. erated workers state undertook a progres­ go forward without taking up the fight for ran a front organization known as Maktab offered by the PDPA, were winning sup­ sive act. Although undertaken purely for women's liberation. I want to end with a al-Khidamar-the MAK-which fun­ port in the countryside. defensive geopolitical reasons, it did go quote from Trotsky in 1924 about the neled money, arms and fighters to When Gorbachev came to power in against the grai.n of the Stalinists' abject Muslim women of the Soviet East: Afghanistan. MAK was nurtured by 1985, he faced economic stagnation . pursuit of "peaceful coexistence" with "The Eastern woman, who is the most aggravated by the intensified military paralyzed in life, in her habits, and in Pakistan's state security services, the imperialism. creativity, the slave of slaves ... she, hav­ pressure from the U.S. that had acceler­ main CIA conduit for the covert war In the 1930s and heading into World ing at the demand of the new economic ated under President Ronald Reagan. against the USSR in Afghanistan. The War II, Leon Trotsky analyzed the char­ relations taken off her cloak, will at once feel herself lacking any sort of religious article quotes Republican Orrin Hatch, Gorbachev pushed a series of policy acter of the Soviet degenerated workers changes: "restructuring" (perestroika) of buttress. She will have a passionate thirst senior member of the Senate Intelligence state and put forward the program of the Soviet economy, "openness" (glas­ to gain new ideas and new consciousness Committee, saying that he would make proletarian political revolution, noting which will permit her to appreciate her the same call today knowing what bin nost) in Soviet society and "new think­ that if the working class did not throw new position in society. And there will ing" in international affairs. This "new be no better communist in the East, no Laden would do subsequently: "It was out the bureaucracy, the bureaucracy thinking" amounted to Soviet retreat on a bett@r fighter for the ideas of the Revolu­ worth it," he said. "Those were very would strangle the workers state. Though global scale: the cutoff of arms to leftist tion and for the ideas of communism, important, pivotal matters that played an it took longer than Trotsky anticipated, than the awakened woman worker.". important role in the downfall of the guerrillas in El Salvador, aid cutbacks for Soviet Union." the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and one­ U.S. imperialism is the biggest terror­ sided nuclear arms reductions by the ist in the world, from the nuclear bomb­ USSR. As part of this strategy of surren­ ing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to the der in the hopes of striking a "peace" deal murderous campaigns carried out by the with Reagan, Gorbachev's Politburo CIA's Nicaraguan contras and Cuban decided in November 1986 to abandon . Web site: www.icl-fLorg • E-mail address:[email protected] gusanos, to the 1999 U.S.fUN war of Afghanistan within two years. annihilation against the Serbian people The withdrawal was completed on 15 National Office Los Angeles Oakland which bombed that country back to the February 1989. The Washington Post Box 1377 GPO, Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta. Box 29497 Stone Age, to the terror bombing of Iraq reported, "At CIA headquarters in Lang­ New York, NY 10116 Los Angeles, CA 90029 Oakland, CA 94604 and never-ending starvation blockade ley, operations officers and analysts (212) 732-7860 (213) 380-8239 (510) 839-0851 that has led to at least 1.5 million drank champagne." The withdrawal of Boston Public Office: Public Office: deaths-to just name a few. Imperialism the Red Army was a cold-blooded Box 390840, Central Sta. Sat. 2-5 p.m. Sat. 1-5 p.m. 3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215 1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor is not a "bad policy" that can be changed betrayal of the Afghan and the Soviet Cambridge, MA 02139 through mass pressure to be more peoples. Gorbachev's treacherous pullout (617) 666-9453 New York San Francisco humane, as the liberals, feminists and of Afghanistan burnt out a whole genera­ Chicago Box 3381 , Church St. Sta. Box 77494 reformists contend. It is an organic out­ tion of youth in the Soviet Union who did Box 6441, Main PO New York, NY 10008 San Francisco, CA 94107 growth of the profit system and the their internationalist duty serving in Chicago, IL 60680 (212) 267-1025 (415) 395-9520 "highest stage of capitalism," as Lenin Afghanistan. One young Russian told our (31 2) 563-0441 Public Office: Public Office: defined it. Calling on bloody U.S. impe­ comrades in 1994 that he had fought in Tues. 6:30-8:30 p.m. Tues. 6-8 p.m. rialism, NATO or the UN to intervene for Afghanistan in 1986 when he was 18, "to and Sat. 1-5 p.m. 564 Market St., Suite 718 "human rights" is a dangerous trap that fight for internationalism," but when he 299 Broadway, Suite 318 builds illusions in this bloody imperialist returned home he was reviled and said system which enforces capitalist exploi­ that he was "called a rapist by the same tation, mass poverty and national oppres­ people who sent [him] there." Another sion the world over. Soviet veteran said in March 1988: "Our Toronto Vancouver Ever since the 1979 Soviet interven­ sacrifices were not for nothing. We have Box 7198, Station A Box 2717, Main P.O. Toronto, ON M5W 1X8 Vancouver, BC V68 3X2 tion, the Western media labeled the civil after all brought there the achievements (416) 593·4138 (604) 687-0353 war in Afghanistan "Russia's Vietnam," a of the civilized world." 8 WORKERS VANGUARD attempted to sabotage the demonstration Horowitz ... by using their leadership position in the (continued from page 12) campus group Students for Justice in Pal­ estine to block its endorsement, and then "- his own event in order to return to Israel called a meeting of that group the same to try and boost his electoral fortunes. night as the rally. Ever so craven, the We await the accusation that his lack of ISO's Socialist Worker (30 March) carries success in this endeavor was also the Heroic black a tiny article titled "Protest Racist Ad" troops in Civil War responsibility of what Horowitz calls "the played key role in which claims to solidarize with the cam­ intolerable left." smashing slavery and pus protests but dishonestly hides its role These incidents have been conscious­ defeating Southern at Berkeley by neglecting to mention the ly lumped together in a false amalgam Confederacy. We say: SYC-initiated protest there. Now the ISO by the campus conservatives and AlA Finish the Civil War! is calling an event to challenge Horowitz so they can posture as "defenders" of For Black Liberation at Columbia University in New York­ free speech. An article by Flynn in Horo­ Through Socialist quite brave since the campus paper hasn't witz's Front Page Magazine (14 March) Revolution! printed his ad and Horowitz isn't corning whines, "As evidenced by last semester's to Columbia. As for free speech, just try student-mob action to prevent Benjamin to enter a public ISO meeting with a few Netanyahu from speaking in the city of copies of Workers Vanguard in your hand, Berkeley and the shouting down of a talk and you'll see how, for these reformists, given by this writer and the subsequent VICIOUS racists, they are also outright ad. Boston University's NAACP presi­ free speech means nothing. book-burning of a booklet that I had liars. AlA/AIM libeled the Spartacist dent said of Horowitz: ''I'm trying to To its credit, the Progressive Labor authored, censorship is quite common at League, claiming we "urged ... the killing encourage the NAACP to embrace what Party (PL) came to the Berkeley protest Berkeley." of police officers." We took this sordid he has to say, but not necessarily accept and even put out a leaflet. PL also put out There is a whole gamut of right-wing outfit to court in 1987 and forced a full it. He has the audacity to say what he a leaflet in Boston titled "No Free Speech organizations and foundations who want retraction of their deadly lies. feels and, quite frankly, I appreciate it." for Racists!" But by amalgamating Horo­ to demonize the left as anti-free speech For his part, Horowitz, whose parents On the other side of the coin, Horowitz witz with Klan and Nazi race-terrorists, and drive black and minority students off were members and later fellow travelers and his right-wing cabal have had some PL confuses the whole question. The fas­ the campuses. Horowitz and his Center of the Communist Party, began his career success in portraying themselves as cists are paramilitary action gangs whose for the Study of Popular Culture, which as a New Left activist in the Berkeley the defenders of "free speech." Their purpose is racial genocide and the has an annual budget of $3 million, are Free Speech Movement and eventually way was paved by liberals and putative destruction of organized labor. This is heavily funded by ultraright-wing groups became editor of the leftist publication leftists who have appealed to campus not a question of "free speech" but of like the Olin, Scaife and Bradley founda­ Ramparts. After a brief stint around the administrations to enforce restrictive mobilizing the working class to smash tions. According to The Nation (3 July Black Panther Party in the mid '70s, as it "speech codes" and for "sensitivity train­ them as an elementary defense of itself 2000), the Bradley Foundation alone has was splitting up in vicious factionalism ing" as the means to supposedly com­ and of the oppressed. Horowitz is a racist given Horowitz more than $3.5 mil­ under the pressure of the FBI's murder­ bat racism. sexism and anti-gay big­ ideologue whose views need to be ex­ lion since 1988. Among the Bradley ous COINTELPRO campaign, he resur­ otry. The liberal left in this country has posed and defeated as part of combatting Foundation's other funding projects is the faced in December 1979 with a Nation in fact created a no-free-speech zone. bourgeois ideology. While their Boston American Civil Rights Institute led by article denouncing the heroic victory of That's what's behind "political correct­ leaflet did attempt to refute Horowitz, PL Ward Connerly, the UC regent who along the Vietnamese workers and peasants ness," that's what laws against "hate falls into the same trap as the liberals who with Horowitz spearheaded California's against U.S. imperialism as "genocide." speech" are for, and that's what the lib­ simply see it as a question of suppressing Proposition 209 in 1996, eliminating That was simply the opening shot of a eralleft has demanded for years. racist ideas rather than fighting against affirmative action. Moreover, according viciously racist and anti-communist cru­ A whole "date. rape" hysteria was pro­ the material basis of racial oppression. to Z Magazine (April 200 I), the Bradley sade. Lately, his sights have targeted moted on the campuses during the 1990s Horowitz wants to turn back the clock Foundation provided more than $1 mil- everyone from Nation coluninist Eric by feminists and other liberals in order to to more reactionary· times; the liberals Alterman to black liberal intellectual strengthen the hands of the campus cops merely want to maintain the status quo Cornel West, as well as Noam Chomsky, while demanding that the administration of racist American capitalism by trying Edward Said and liberal Be~keley profes­ impose stifling rules to regulate sexuality. to prettify it through "politically correct" sor and China expert Orville Schell. Bor­ After the brutal·1998 murder of Matthew verbiage. As Marxists, our aim is to rowing grotesque lies from D'Souza's Shepard by anti-gay bigots, the liberals change reality, not merely the perception book The End of Racism, Horowitz's intensified the call for "hate crimes" leg­ of reality. We want to mobilize students most recent book, Hating Whitey, essen­ islation, which again meant more cops behind the social power of a working tially portrays black men as rapists of and even greater powers of prosecution class united in the fight against the white women. This is a direct echo of for the courts. oppression of black people, women and the Klan incitements to racist lynchings Horowitz and his like are racist ideo­ minorities. As we explained in a letter to in the name of "defending the honor of logues whose political ideas, themsdves Berkeley's Daily Cal (3 April), "Our white women." a product of decaying capitalism, must protest against Horowitz was part of our be combatted and refuted. Reducing the effort to win youth to the cause of black Marxism vs. Liberal Idealism question of fighting oppression to a freedom." As Scott Sherman of The . Nation matter of circumscribing bad words or We fight to build a youth organiza­ (3 July 2000) put it, Horowitz has become images, the liberals are unable to take on tion to intervene on the campuses with "the right's very own Ahab." And just Horowitz politically. Instead, they lead a revolutionary program and to combat who is this guy's "great white whale"? anti-racist students to one of two paths: every manifestation of racial oppression Everyone from the "politically correct" sitting on your hands while this racist and discrimination. The battles at hand crowd to Marxists to leftists to multi­ rants, as students did at Boston Univer­ require the leadership of a multiracial culturalists to liberals to those who de­ sity, or calling on the administration and workers party that will act as a "tribune fend black rights-basically anyone to the campus papers to refuse to print of the people" in championing the cause 23 October 1999: Labor/black mobili­ the -left of William Buckley, Jesse Helms Horowitz's ad, and falling right into his of all the oppressed, fighting to achieve zation against KKK race-terrorists in and Strom Thurmond. trap. As w~ emphasized in "Are You Now black liberation through integration in a NYC. Fight for black freedom in the Anyone who has set foot-on an Ameri­ Or Have You Ever Been ... 'PC'?" (WV socialist society. It is by joining such a u.s. is central to the struggle for can campus lately knows they are hardly No. 533, 30 August 1991): struggle that radical-minded students and emancipation of labor and all the havens of Marxism or free speech. With _"The problem with this strategy is it dis­ youth can help to unify the working class oppressed. token gains of the civil rights movement arms the victims by fostering illusions in to overthrow this whole rotten system and like affirmative action abolished, tuition the supposed 'neutrality' of the racist open the door to human freedom .• lion for the writing of the notoriously fees escalating exponentially, and the university administrations and the cops. racist tract The Bell Curve, which argued imperialist triumphalism over the sup­ It gives enhanced power to those institu­ tions to act against, for instance, leftists that poverty among blacks was the result posed "death of communism," the elite who might rightly protest Colin Powell of genetic inferiority. The book was co­ campuses have been turned into over­ or [Norman] Schwarzkopf and call these funded by the Pioneer Society, a holdover whelmingly.lily-white institutions where imperialist pigs 'imperialist pigs.' What's from the white-supremacist eugenics racists and other retrogrades think they more, this strategy doesn't work." movement of the 1930s. The Bradley can act with impunity. It's a telling sign of The organizers of "silent protests" by Foundation helps fund the Berkeley Con­ the times that a racist like Horowitz feels black students at Berkeley told students Free M~ml~ Ab~:J~~~I!' servative Foundation, which invited comfortable stepping onto campuses like to stay away from the united-front protest Abolish the Racist Dealh Penall" Horowitz to speak at Berkeley, through Berkeley, which were once known for we organized. It is a telling sign of the the Leadership Institute, which receives their radical history. But this climate w,as despair to whith black youth have been funding from the union-busting Coors not simply created with the inauguration driven by the racist atmosphere on the conglomerate. of the Bush administration. Rather, it is· campuses and of the bankruptcy of the This sinister cabal includes AlA and a reflection of eight years of Democratic black liberal· misleadership that such AIM, which are tied to the Moonie­ Party rule, which was marked by increas­ things could seriously be suggested. owned Washington Times and the World ing attacks on the working class, black Beholden to bourgeois liberalism, most Anti-Communist League-now called the people and immigrants. of the left boycotted our Berkeley dem­ "World League for Freedom & Democ­ Grotesquely, the NAACP and the onstration, demonstrating that they're a racy"-an outfit that brings together ACLU, which has long made a name for bunch of paper tigers. The International fascists and rightists from all over the itself defending the "rights" of fascists to Socialist Organization (ISO) fervently world. AlA/AIM are associated with recruit to genocide under the rubric of raises the call to "fight the right," portray­ Dinesh D'Souza, founder of the right­ "free speech," have condemned the out­ ing the Democrats as an alternative to the wing Dartmouth Review, whose motto raged stude'nts who confiscated newspa­ Republicans. Yet when the right reared was "Genocide is never having to say pers at Brown and those who have called its head at Berkeley, these "fighters" were you're sorry." Not only are these groups on campus papers not to print Horowitz's nowhere to be seen. In fact, the ISO 13 APRIL 2001 9 more than 50 university' and college Defend China ... groups. This is in good part because the regime does not want to upset the trade ( continued from page 1) deals that are integral to its program of Russia four Sovremenny guided missile "market reforms." Above all, the bureauc­ destroyers, four Kilo-class submarines racy fears that any protest against the which are reputed to be as quiet as the imperialist proVocation could draw in the most modern U.S. subs, SU-21. fighters· combative and disgruntled working class. and advanced missiles. The purpose of Even when the regime allowed protests . the EP-3E spy flight was to monitor the against the bombing of the Chinese Sovremenny destroyers and subs and to embassy in Belgrade during the 1999 test Chinese air defenses. NATO war against Serbia, it reportedly In a 1987 exercise, a U.S. guided banned factory contingents from joining missile cruiser sailed right into Soviet them. The bureaucracy lives in dread of territorial waters near a top-secret naval the spectre of the 1989 Tiananmen base on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the upheaval, when the entry of the working Soviet Far East. Such "games," dubbed class into the student protests marked an "Chicken of the Sea," were intended incipient political revolution. to trigger defensive actions and commu­ On April 5, police in Beijing arrested nications to be observed and analyzed. Chinese war heroes hailed by North Koreans celebrating 1953 cease-fire in four men attempting to protest outside the In 1983, U.S. intelligence had the civil­ Korean War. PLA entry into war was crucial in defeating U.S. imperialist U.S. embassy. One of the placards they ian Korean Air Lines Flight 007 fly over onslaught against North Korea and defending Chinese Revolution. carried read: "We Don't Want U.S. Kamchatka while P-3 spy planes (the Dollars, We Want Dignity." But the Jiang forerunner of the EP-3E) monitored expUlsion of 50 Russian diplomats and carrier into a Japanese port without both­ regime does want U.S. dollars, and Soviet defenses. This imperialist provo­ the ultimatum to South Korea's Kim Dae ering to ask permission. This has all German D-marks and Japanese yen. "As cation cost the lives of more than 200 Jung to halt negotiations with the North. touched off renewed opposition to Amer­ the spyplane standoff has unfolded," innocent passengers, as KAL 007 was Speaking for the virulent China-bashing ican military bases in Japan, particularly observed the Financial Times, "national shot down by Soviet forces who mistook wing of the Democratic Party, New Jer­ in Okinawa with its concentration of outrage has grown, and criticism of sey Senator Robert Torricelli is now American troops, as well as demands national leaders for being 'too soft' on mooting the recall of the U.S. ambassa­ long pushed by right-wing nationalist the US has become a common refrain." dor to China as long as the EP-3E crew is forces to bolster Japan's military. There are increasing strains inside the held there. The mounting tensions between the bureaucracy itself between pro-Western Arguing that the U.S. should be trying U.S. and its imperialist rivals highlight elements and those, particularly in. the to play Russia, China and North Korea off the inherent competition for control .of military, who want to maintain a harder against each other, conservative strategist the world's markets, sources of raw mate­ line against U.S. aggression .. Edward Luttwak pointed to the recent rials and cheap labor among the imperial­ "Great Power" Chinese nationalism American provocations against all three ist powers. These tensions will only be cannot repulse the drive for imperialist in a Los AngelesTimes (28 March) col­ accentuated as the world economic reces­ subjugation, but would serve only to bind umn titled "Foreign Policy Crew Is sion deepens.' As was demonstrated in the Chinese proletariat to the bourgeoisie Smashing the Crockery." Luttwak contin­ World Wars I and II, such competition that was driven out of the country ued, "What cannot be explained in the can ultimately only be resolved through in 1949. We explained in "China on the context of a rational foreign policy is that war, in this case one that would threaten Brink: Workers Political Revolution all three things were done at once." A front-page article in the Wall Street Jour­ nal (4 April), one of the most hawkish bourgeois mouthpieces, took aim against "Beijing-bashing hard-liners" on behalf of the "pro-business camp" in the admin­ istration, noting that "China is a lucrative Xinhua market and manufacturing site." Courageous Chinese pilot Wang Wei While the former Reaganites who advise Bush Jr. may revel in memories it for a U.S. military incursion into Soviet of Reagan's crusade against the Soviet airspace. With their finger on the nuclear "evil empire," the world is not the same trigger, the leaders of U.S. imperialism as it was in the 1980s. The destruction constantly threatened the world with of the Soviet Union and East European incineration in pursuit of their war drive deformed workers states removed the aimed at the destruction of the Soviet glue that kept the major capitalist powers degenerated workers state. united under U.S. leadership. Seizing on Bush's rebuff to North Korea, the Imperialist Rivalries Increase European Union (EU) has moved to set up diplomatic 'relations with the Percy/Combat Camera Group Pacific Fleet In a front-page column in the Milano U.S. guided missile cruiser Arkansas invaded Soviet territorial waters off daily Corriere della Sera last week, .North. The chilling of Washington's rela­ Kamchatka Peninsula in 1987 Cold War provocation. Italy's former ambassador to the U.S. tions with Moscow has prompted the EU described Bush as "a young president to announce a "strategic partnership" the nuclear annihilation of humanity. or Capitalist Enslavement?" (Spartacist who rules the world, but is only truly with Putin's Russia. Washington has In the interim, the capitalist rulers use [English-language edition] No. 53, Sum­ bluntly opposed creation of a European knowledgeable about Texas." The Bush such tensions to foster national chauvin­ mer 1997): administration is a truly scary gang, so "rapid reaction" force outside of U.S.­ ism and to divert the attention of the "As an ideology emanating from capi­ packed with Christian fundamentalists dominated NATO. On the eve of German workers from growing unemployment talism's emergence from feudal society, nationalism is a false consciousness for and right-wing militarists that Secretary chancellor Gerhard SchrOder's visit, Bush and immiseration. of State Colin Powell, architect of the provocatively announced that the U.S. the Chinese proletariat. It is, however, the Recapturing China for capitalist ex­ proper ideology of the Hong Kong capi­ massacre of tens of thousands of Iraqis in was rejecting the Kyoto environmental ploitation is currently the big "prize" for talists and nascent mainland Chinese the 1991 Persian Gulf War, comes across accord favored by the Europeans, leading the competing imperialist powers. This bourgeoisie. Nationalism was a major as a "voice of moderation." Many are vet­ . to a storm of criticism from the EU. political force in the counterrevolutionary would be a historic defeat for the workers wave that swept over the former USSR erans of the Reagan administration's Growing tensions between the U.S. and and all oppressed peoples of the world, Contragate schemes and bloody terror Japan were underscored in February with and East Europe-both the nationalism and would trigger an even more furious . of the minority peoples, fostered for operations against leftist insurgents in the reckless sinking of a Japanese fishing scramble among the major capitalist decades by the U.S. State Department and Latin America. While taking aim at vessel by an American submarine near powers to carve up the spoils. It was CIA, and the chauvinism of the ruling China, they are also increasingly provoc­ Hawaii, touching off a furor in Japan caste, which helped spin off elements largely over the "right" to exploit China who looked to capitalist rule as the road ative toward North Korea, capitalist Rus­ intensified by the callous U.S. reaction. that the 1941-45 Pacific War between the Recently, the U.S. flouted a 40-year-old to great-power status .... Nationalism is sia and even their European allies. This U.S. and Japan was fought. already playing a similar role in China." was exemplified by the recent wholesale agreement by sailing a nuclear aircraft This is crystal clear in the bureaucracy's Beijing Bureaucracy offer to the bourgeoisie in Taiwan to on a Tightrope reunite on the basis of "one country, two lUiett;1I;1I [SPARTACJST~,:, While the regime of Chinese president systems." We call for revolutionary reu­ Available in Chinese! Jiang Zemin has scrambled to strike a nification, through socialist revolution in f!~--~ deal with the U.S., the arrogance of Taiwan and proletarian political revolu­ America's· ~imperialist rulers provoked tion on the mainland. Just Out! 1989-90: outrage among broad sectors of the Chi­ The Chinese population is deeply con­ nese populace. "Of course, they will scious of its history of oppression by 1($~&1($ have to apologise in full," said one Bei­ Western and Japanese imperialism, and of Revolution vs. Counterrevolution jing resident quoted in the London the long record of U.S. military belliger­ in Germany, 1989-90 (J{J~J1: Financial Times (7 April) who continued, ence against the 1949 Revolution. Ending Chinese Miners Revolt Against _.. 3._ "If we let them push us around once, it the era of imperialist subjugation exem­ "Market Reforms" will happen the whole time just like plified by the Opium Wars and the carv­ ~lIr'±.ii1JJi~< when China was weak." The article ing up of China by the colonial powers Order now! "i'ffii&:¥" noted that this was. "an almost ubiquitous took the overthrow of the corrupt compra­ $1 (24 pages) - ....• - sentiment." dor bourgeoisie by the Chinese Commu­ The Beijing regime has banned any nist Party (CCP) and People's Liberation Make checks payable/mail to: public protest on the mainland against Army in 1949, creating a bureaucratically Spartacist Publishing Co. the U.S. provocation, rejecting permis- . deformed workers state. The defense of Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 sion for demonstrations requested by this wdrkers state can' only be carried 10 WORKERS VANGUARD ment, the shocking fall in lifeexpec­ tancy-starkly illustrates lhe superiority of a planned economy over capitalist Mao's anti-Soviet chaos. This is a lesson not only for the alliance with U.S. proletariat of China but for the working imperialism, sealed class and minorities in the U.S. and other by 1972 meeting in capitalist countries, who are already fac­ Beijing with war ing massive layoffs before a recession has criminal Nixon, even taken hold, on top of years of wage helped open door cuts, givebacks and the eradication of to imperialist social benefits. penetration of China. In the United States, the AFL-CIO Chinese president Jiang Zemin at labor bureaucracy has simultaneously New York Stock presided over the destruction of hard­ Exchange, 1997. won union jobs and benefits and pro­ moted U.S. imperialism's attacks on the working class internationally. The AFL­ CIO tops are in the vanguard of anti­ Communist China-bashing. This is most forward on the basis of proletarian inter­ the deepening of "market reforms," economic growth while eradicating the virulently expressed by Teamsters presi­ nationalism-against both imperialist announced last week a campaign against extremes of rich and poor so evident in dent James Hoffa Jr., who issued an aggression and internal counterrevolu­ corruption and other forms of "com­ China today. The state monopoly of for­ April 3 statement following the landing tion-seeking to mobilize the working mercial excess." In addition, the Finan­ eign trade should be utilized to promote of the U.S. spy plane at Hainan ranting people of South Korea, Japan, the U.S. cial Times (5 April) reports, "The official imports and exports on the world market, that "Communist China continues to vio­ and the rest of the capitalist world for People's Daily newspaper carried an taking full advantage of the international late international law at each tum." Rail­ socialist revolution. opinion piece last month excoriating cap­ division of labor. We oppose the opening ing against "slave labor" in China, the What Leon Trotsky, co-leader with V. I. italism and globalisation for the we'alth of China to the World Trade Organization labor tops promote the virtues of the free Lenin of the Russian October Revolution imbalances that it promotes. Such senti­ (WTO) not because we favor Maoist eco­ market. But it won't be so easy to sell of 1917, wrote about the Soviet Union ments have rarely, if ever, received such a nomic autarky but because it would fur­ capitalist "democracy" to workers in in the "Manifesto of the Fourth Interna­ prominent airing over the past three years." ther undermine the monopoly of foreign China, many of whom have already tional on the Imperialist War and the Pro­ The Stalinist bureaucracy is not a pos­ trade and the collectivized economy. experienced the miseries of free-market letarian World Revolution" in May 1940 sessing class but a parasitic caste. Rest­ Competition between the imperialists exploitation in the "Special Economic applies with full acuteness to the Chinese ing on proletarian property forms, the for markets would provide such a revo­ Zones" and other areas of capitalist pene­ deformed workers state today: bureaucracy simultaneously acts as a lutionary regime a certain room for tration created by Beijing's "market "The Fourth International can defend the transmission belt for the pressures of maneuver. The Soviet workers state under reforms." Joining in the anti-China cam- USSR only by the methods of revolu­ tionary class struggle .... "We flatly reject the theory of socialism in one country, that brain child of igno­ rant and reactionary Stalinism. Only the world revolution can save the USSR for Left: Migrant socialism. But the world revolution car­ ries with it the inescapable blotting out workers outside of the Kremlin oligarchy." Shanghai railway station. Right: Anti­ Mao's Alliance with U.S. protesters U.S. Imperialism arrested in Beijing on April 5. Stalinist Reflecting widespread sentiment against regime fears that the current Beijing regime for conciliat­ protests could ing U.S. imperialism, one Internet post­ touch off explosion ing in China read: "We miss Chairman by disgruntled Mao" and was signed, "New Force of proletariat. Laid-Off Workers." But it was Mao who consummated the criminal alliance with the U.S. impenalIsts directed against the Soviet Union, signaled by Nixon's 1972 the capitalist world market on the Lenin and Trotsky, erected through paign is "progressive" AFL-CIO presi­ visit to Beijing while American bombs deformed workers state. But the bureauc­ the October Revolution of 1917, took dent Sweeney, who was in the forefront were raining on Vietnam. The anti-Soviet racy also has to tread warily as it pushes advantage of such rivalries to strike trade of the protectionist drive against China's alliance sealed by Mao was deepened pro-capitalist economic measures, out of and military deals with Germany and entry into the WTO, a campaign that under Deng Xiaoping, from China's fear of a working-class explosio·n. As we other capitalist countries. But for the united right-wing Republicans with lib­ failed 1979 invasion of Vietnam to its aid wrote in the first part of "Whither China? revolutionary-internationalist Bolsheviks, eral Democrats. to the CIA-backed mujahedin terrorists in 'Market Socialism' and the Legacy of the aim was to buy time until the victory It is in the direct and immediate inter­ Afghanistan and its setting up of CIA lis­ Mao" (WV No. 743, 6 October 2000): of proletarian revolution in the advanced est of working people in the U.S. to tening posts on its border with the USSR. "As it pursues 'market reforms' and opens capitalist countries, which they worked to defend the Chinese deformed workers In aiding and abetting the destruction of the door to exploitation by Western and prepare by building the Third (Commu­ state against the American capitalist rul­ the Soviet Union, the Beijing bureaucracy Japanese imperialists and the overseas Chinese bourgeoisie, the Beijing regime nist) International. The Stalinist bureauc­ ers. Just as happened in the wake of the helped place the Chinese deformed work­ is paving the way for capitalist resto­ racy which usurped power in a political counterrevolutionary destruction of the ers state itself directly in the cross hairs ration. It is simultaneously preparing counterrevolution in 1923-24 put forward Soviet Union, capitalist restoration in of imperialism. We warned in "Deng's the ground for a new revolutionary pro­ the anti-Marxist dogma of "socialism in China would embolden the U.S. bour­ China and Political Revolution" (Sparta­ letarian explosion-not a social revolu­ one country," transforming the foreign geoisie, and the imperialists internation­ tion which would overturn the economic cist [English-language edition] No. 41- fou·ndations of society as in 1949 but Communist parties into bargaining chips ally, to ratchet up their assault on the 42, Winter 1987-88) that the Mao/Deng a political revolution to oust the ruling in an illusory search for "peaceful coex­ working class and minorities at home. It course of anti-Sovietism and nationalism bureaucracy and to place political power istence" with imperialism. That program would also make the world an even more would "ultimately threaten China with in the hands of workers, soldiers and led to the destruction of the Soviet degen­ dangerous place. The International Com­ disaster, bloody counterrevolution and a peasants councils (soviets). Such a politi­ . cal revolution is premised on uncon­ erated workers state through capitalist munist League fights to reforge Trotsky'S new colonization subjugating the country ditional defense of the planned, collec­ counterrevolution in 1991-92. Fourth International, the world party of to the yoke of imperialism." tivized economy which is the social The all-sided misery pervasive through­ socialist revolution, as the indispensable While much of the harking back to foundation of the (bureaucratically de­ out the former Soviet Union today-the instrument to lead the proletariat in the Mao is couched in the language of Chi­ formed) workers state." wholesale devastation of industry and struggle for new October Revolutions nese nationalism, there is also a yearning The urgent task is to build a Trotskyist social services, the massive unemploy- around the world .• for the relative egalitarianism of the Mao party in order to provide leadership to years as against the current regime's the combative proletariat and to link its "market reforms" which have led to ram­ fight for political revolution to the strug­ pant corruption, increasing economic dis­ gle for socialist revolution in the imperi­ parity, joblessness and loss of previously alist centers. guaranteed benefits. But the policies of the Mao regime, which were premised on For Proletarian the anti-revolutionary Stalinist dogma of Internationalism "building socialism in one country," were A revolutionary China of workers and marked by economic autarky and insane peasants councils issuing out of a prole­ economic adventurism, such as the 1950s tarian political revolution would face "Great Leap Forward." At the same time, virulent imperialist reaction. While doing through its appeasement of imperialism what it could to aid the fight for socialist in the name of "peaceful coexistence,"· revolution internationally, not least in \ Original Documents Published from Soviet Archives Organizational RUI;S---·j the Mao regime laid the basis for the pol­ the U.S., a revolutionary workers and Trotsky'S Fight Against Stalinist Betrayal and Guidelines icies pursued by the current ·bureaucracy. peasants government would have to of Bolshevik Revolution International Communi~E~p,!!:~,(Feurth Internatienalisl) Mao's heirs have increasingly opened undertake necessary economic and mili­ .-.-- .,.------... ~ -. ____ .. ______.. ____1 the country to imperialist penetration. tary measures in its own defense. This Revolutionary Regroupment or Centrist Alchemy? r:=lIIII';.anli Pernlan.:t~utioRIp Sautll~ This has been met with massive proletar­ would require the reconsolidation of cen­ ....,IW...... -'.. ".. c_" ...... " .. _ ..... o.c.. •• u...... ian resistance, with tenS of thousands of tral economic planning based on state­ strikes and workers' protests every year. owned industry. Under a government No. 53, Summer 1997, $1.50 (56 pages) No. 54, Spring 1998, $2 (48 pages) Reflecting the brittle and contradictory based on workers democracy and led by nature of the bureaucracy, Chinese pre­ a Leninist -Trotskyist party, a centrally Make checks payable/mail to mier Zhu Rongji, who has spearheaded planned economy would optimize Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 13 APRIL 2001 11 WfJRltERI """'RI) Dalil IIIIDWill: ReaBliDoal1 DeliagagllB ID Nationwide Olensile Racism and Witchhunts

ning dog.' The image was allowed to just Young Sparlacus stand there, making me appear to be a theoretician for the Posse Comitatus or Racist ideologue David Horowitz is on On Campus some lunatic fringe group/' As for call­ a nationwide offensive to portray black ing Horowitz a "capitalist running dog," people as indolent untermenschen who leader Tom DeLay provided copies to thousands of students who demonstrated if the shoe fits, wear it. Horowitz also owe a "debt" to America for "welfare every Republican Congressman, with a and struck the campuses for free speech in declared that his appearance at Boston benefits and racial preferences ... all under cover note praising the contents. the '60s were in ·revolt against precisely University would be threatened with the rationale of redressing historic racial With the inauguration of the Republi­ what Horowitz seeks to reinstate: the stul­ attack by "Maoists," which shows how grievances." That is, Horowitz thinks that can Bush administration whose attorney tifying reaction of the McCarthyite era, divorced from reality he is. The truth of black people are lucky their ancestors general, John Ashcroft, is an open sym­ with its imposition of Loyalty Oaths, in the matter is, there has been no signifi­ were kidnapped and brought here to be pathizer of the Confederate slavocracy, loco parentis and witchhunting HUAC cant Maoist organization in the U.S. slaves. Horowitz's campaign is part of an Horowitz and an increasingly militant star chambers. In no small part, the Free since the late 1970s. A former New Left­ effort by forces of the far right to roll campus right obviously feel the wind in Speech Movement arose out of sympathy ist turned raving racist anti-communist, things back to the McCarthyite 1950s, their sails. Horowitz also fits well with for the Southern civil rights movement, to Horowitz is obviously caught in the time when communists, leftists and even liber­ the crew that Bush has resurrected from which the Berkeley student body would warp of his own warped mind. als were witchhunted off the campuses the basement of the Reagan White House contribute many cadre elements. Free while black students were excluded alto­ who are particularly infamous for back­ speech protesters sought to further this Who Are These Racist Pigs? gether. And they're using the issue of ing the sadistic torturers and murderers' work unhindered by, for example, draco­ At UC Berkeley, the stage for Horowitz "free speech" as a cover for this racist who made up the Nicaraguan contra nian regulations designed to keep leftist was set last September by his ally Dan witchhunt. forces in the 1980s. As noted in an article "outside agitators" from being able to Flynn of Accuracy in Academia (AlA) In late February, Horowitz submit­ in the 3 July 2000 Nation, Horowitz him­ speak on campus. Of course, as a former and its parent group, Accuracy in Media ted an ad to some 50 campus newspa­ self was dispatched by Elliott Abrams, Berkeley radical, Horowitz knows this (AIM). The Berkeley College Republi- pers, titled "Ten Reasons Why Repara­ tions for Slavery. Is a Bad Idea-and Racist Too." Obscenely claiming that Ten Reasons slave labor "created wealth for black Why Reparations Cor Slavery Americans .. .including the descendants is a Bad Idea - and Racist Too. of slaves," Horowitz all but argues .that black people should pay the cost of be­ ing brought here as slaves. After pointing to programs like the "war on poverty" which were instituted to quell the anger of the brutalized and impoverished ghet­ tos in the '60s, Horowitz asks, "Where is the gratitude of black America and its leaders for those gifts?" As Nation col­ umnist Eric Alterman responded in a 22 March MSNBC Web posting: "One might just as appropriately ask Jews show their 'gratitude' to Germany because of all the UC Berkeley, March 15: SYC-initiated protest gifts bestowed on them there, aside from against reactionary ideologue David Horowitz. that small matter of the Holocaust." Racist ad by Horowitz is part of national drive by An op-ed piece in the San Francisco the right against black people and leftists. Chronicle (26 March) noted: "Horowitz is no more worried about the likelihood Reagan's assistant secretary of state, to quite well. His "Celebrate Free Speech" cans and the Berkeley Conservative of reparations for slavery than he is about assist the contras: "Horowitz found him­ appearance at Berkeley was a calculated Foundation invited Flynn, author of the the possibility of owls taking over the self in Managua, Nicaragua, where, at provocation. scurrilous tract Cop Killer: How Mumia government." The aim of Horowitz and the expense of US taxpayers, he offered The only place at Berkeley that night Abu-Jamal Conned Millions into Believ­ his associates is to increase and intensify tactical advice to anti-Sandinista labor where there was any free speech was at ing He Was Framed. Their purpose was to the atmosphere of racism and intimida­ unions, politicians and journalists, and, our united-front protest, which fought to propagate the lies of the Philadelphia tion on the campuses. Students and pro­ in the dining room of the Interconti­ refute Horowitz's racist bigotry and to police and District Attorney's office that fessors who dared to protest against nental Hotel, thundered, 'For the sake of defend free speech rights for leftists, rad­ were used to frame up this innocent man Horowitz's ad are already being threat­ the poorest peasants in this Godforsaken icals and black and minority students. who had long been in the sights of the ened. At Brown University, where an country, I can't wait for the contras to Protesters had to face down a howling state for fighting against black oppression entire run of the university's paper was march into this town and liberate it from mob of anti-communists and racists. and racist cop terror. Flynn was met with confiscated by outraged students after it these fucking Sandinistas!'" Such a level of organized right-wing protests by outraged students who burned printed the ad, a black student received intimidation has not been seen on the his literature and shouted him down. As an anonymous letter with a picture of a SYC-Initiated Protest campus since the 1930s when ROTC we wrote at the time, "It's too bad that the mutilated black youth. And the Afro­ Refutes Horowitz's lies mobilized Berkeley students to scab on Berkeley protesters fell into Flynn's trap. American Studies Department has had a Horowitz used the publicity garnered the 1934 San Francisco general strike. It would have been much more effective series of racist messages left on its by his racist ad to launch a nationwide Meanwhile, on the inside, Horowitz to expose AlA's smear campaign against answering machine, one spelling out the speaking tour grotesquely titled the pulled the plug on his own charade. Mumia for what it is: a bunch of lies" racist epithet "n-----." "Freedom Tour." When Horowitz brought When the third speaker in the discussion ("SYC Defends Mumia Against Reac­ Horowitz is not some individual nut­ his tour to UC Berkeley on March 15, round, a black man, simply questioned tionary Smear Campaign," WV No. 745, case or a fringe element. He is well con­ courtesy of the Berkeley College Repub­ Horowitz, the event's moderator shouted, 3 November 2000). nected 10 and funded by some big-time licans and the Berkeley Conservative "No debate!", cut the microphones and A couple of months later, when former right-wing forces, including in the upper Foundation, he was met by more than 50 hustled Horowitz out of the building! Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netan­ echelons of the Republican Party. Just anti-racist protesters who joined the Spar­ Newsweek (2 April) published a pic­ yahu was scheduled to appear in Berke­ last year, prominent Republican Sena­ tacus Youth Club-initiated picket, which ture of a participant in our protest hold­ ley, UC Berkeley's Daily Californian and tors and Congressmen hosted a soiree was endorsed by prominent Berkeley pro­ ing a sign which read, "Protest David the San Francisco Chronicle joined the for him in Washington at which some fessors Waldo Martin Jr. and Robert Horowitz, Racist Ideologue!" The refer­ Berkeley Conservative Foundation's Cal­ $40,000 was raised for his activities. Allen, editor of The Black Scholar. ence to our protest drove Horowitz to ifornia Patriot in denouncing the 300 His recent pamphlet, The Art of Politi­ Cynically playing the issue of "free rant in his regular Salon. com column (2. peaceful'- demonstrators who exercised cal War: How Republicans Can Fight to speech" for his sinister purposes, the ad April) that the article did not "explain their democratic right to protest this war Win, was endorsed by 35 Republican for Horowitz's speech featured a photo of that the protesters were members of the criminal, for "violating" Netanyahu's Party chairmen. Thousands of copies a Free Speech Movement demonstration Spartacist Youth League [sic], a Trot­ "freedom of speech." In fact, Netanyahu were distributed by the right-wing Heri­ at UC Berkeley in the 1960s. To call this skyist splinter group whose members wasn't even there. He skipped out on tage Foundation, and Republican House Orwellian only partly captures it. The also denounced me as a 'capitalist run- continued on page 9

12 13 APRIL 2001