WfJRKERS III1N(JOIIRIJ 25¢ No. 313 :~) X-523 17 September 1982

Begin Howls

Karlinsky/Time Center photo: In devastated Sidon, Israeli Ficara/Newsweek for More Blood soldiers terrorize Palestinians.

acutely aware of the fragility and busy massacring Palestinians and their implacably the enemies of Palestinian explosiveness of the Near East coun­ own masses. But feasting under opulent national rights as the Israeli butchers. tries. Reagan & Co. fear Begin's hard tents, amidst undulating dancers and For a Socialist line on the "Palestinian problem" galloping Berber horsemen, as if cele­ Reagan/Begin's "Holy War" threatens any prospect for stabilization brating the Israeli devastation of Leba­ Against Soviet Influence Federation of of the Near East as a bulwark against non, they unanimously endorsed Rea­ Capitalist Europe put aside its anger "Soviet influence." But the denial of gan's proposal. Participating in the over Reagan's heavy-handed anti­ the Near East! Palestinian national rights and continu­ festivities was Palestine Liberation Soviet pipeline sanctions to hail his ing genocidal expansionism are funda­ Organization (PLO) leader Yasir Ara­ Near East "initiative," which it per­ mental to the Zionist state. And U.S. fat. Having surrendered the courageous ceives as keeping the Arab pipelines Hailing Israel's genocide in Lebanon imperialism is stuck with Israel as its PLO fighters to the U.S. Marines and flowing. "Socialist" president Mitter­ as "a rare opportunity for peace," closest and most stable ally in the French Foreign Legion in war-ravaged rand of France, a former imperialist Reagan went on TV September I to region. Beirut, Arafat joined the Arab poten­ overlord of the Levant, hailed the propose a "fresh start" in the continued Israel is not U.S. imperialism's only tates in saying the Reagan plan "could Reagan plan as "going in the direction national oppression of the Palestinian ally in the Near East, as fake-leftists and form the basis for a negotiated settle­ of what we had defined" while the Tory people. While Israel initiated "phase Arab nationalists would have us believe. ment of the Middle East conflict" (New government of the region's other former two" of its bloody Lebanon invasion by Reagan has tried to pull together an York Daily News, 9 September). Rea­ imperialist master, Thatcher's Britain, attempting to provoke a major military anti-Soviet "strategic consensus" from gan's plan refuses to recognize the PLO termed the scheme "a constructive and confrontation with Syria, the U.S. Khartoum to Jerusalem to Riyadh (not at all (much less as "sole legitimate imaginative step." The French eagerly commander in chief initiated a diplo­ without difficulty, as the AWACS affair representative of the Palestinian peo­ threw their professional colonial butch­ matic confrontation with Israeli Prime shows) to which Zionist expansionism ple"), rejects Palestinian statehood and ers, the Foreign Legion, in with the U.S. Minister Begin. Reagan called for a halt and the Palestinian question have supports a reunified Jerusalem (which Marines to disarm the PLO in Beirut. in new Zionist settlements in the Israeli­ become obstacles. It is to remove these in the present context endorses Begin's But Menachem Begin responded occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and obstacles that Reagan has proposed a annexation of predominantly Arab east hysterically to the proposition that the introduction over five years of an Palestinian "homeland" dominated by Jerusalem). Israel give up the West Bank, which he "autonomous" authority in these terri­ Jordan. To bring Lebanon into this The Palestinian nation was dismem­ calls by the Old Testament names of tories culminating in "association" with "consensus" Reagan backed the presi­ bered by imperialism, as part of its Judea and Samaria to emphasize that Jordan. This would create a South dential "election" at gunpoint of Pha­ "divide and rule" conquest of the Arab Jehovah gave them to Abraham. The Africa-like "bantustan" for Palestinians lange fascist Bashir Gemayel, who calls East, through the instrumentality of Israeli Knesset (parliament) voted 50 to in which Zionist occupation would be for the expulsion of all Palestinians both Zionist Israel and the Hashemite 36 to back Begin's hard line. Begin, replaced by subjugation to Jordan's from Lebanon. An anti-Soviet "Pax Kingdom of Jordan. Israel's successful former leader of the fascistic Irgun King Hussein. Like blacks under apart­ Americana" in the Near East necessarily seizure of the present Occupied Territo­ Zionist gang, includes in his Cabinet heid, Palestinians would have an eco­ means continued capitalist enslavement ries in the 1967 war was a redivision of elements to his right, who demand nomically unviable "homeland" while and national oppression for the Arab the Palestinian lands previously immediate annexation and massive remaining stateless, an economic colony peoples of the Near East. grabbed up in 1948 by the Arab regimes: Zionist settlement of the West Bank. of Israel and a dispossessed people Reagan timed his announcement to the Jordanian-occupied West Bank and These fanatical Orthodox rabbis and without rights anywhere in the Arab intersect the Arab League summit in Egyptian-occupied Gaza. The Arab Zionist terrorists with state power world. Fez, Morocco. Normally this gang of rulers-like King Hussein who in responded to Reagan's appeal for a Begin invaded Lebanon with obvious military despots and medieval sheiks are "Black September" (1970) massacred settlement freeze with an $18.5 million U.S. approval. But the U.S. is also at each other's throats when they are not 10,000 Palestinians in Jordan-are as continued on page 11 Labor" Blacks: Roll Back the Givebacks! u own etroi ! r- City Workers: tf! Strike for a 200/0 Pay Hike! S\T-­ DOWN DETROIT, September 14-The long­ Republican convention which nominat­ FoR \ awaited class battle to begin to turn ed Ronald Reagan. With his close ties to ~.ol;l<) crt" l'J\ things around can start right here. Right the big auto makers, Young administers JoBS ~*'f1( now in this embattled labor/black city a town with black youth unemployment ~'. the necessity ofa city-wide general strike running up to 70 percent as the inner city '( is posed. The fight against rollbacks is comes to resemble an industrial junk­ ; already on; the point is to win it: yard. Cross-burnings and KKK terror • More than 11,000 teachers are on are on the rise. The black population is strike and the Detroit Federation of seething with bitter resentment and Teachers (OFf) is walking picket lines desperation. The city stands on the against the Coleman Young admini,stra­ brink of an explosion. tion's provocative, union-busting de­ Strike! We should have struck before, mand for an 8 perct:nt giveback. while the 200,000 auto workers now on • At midnight tonight the Chrysler layoff still had their jobs and some contract runs out and the company economic leverage. But it's not too late! wants even more concessions. Tens of What is Detroit but auto workers, city thousands of Chrysler workers in and workers, blacks locked into intolerable WV Photo around Detroit are fed up with give­ ghetto conditions? If the unions got up Hit by 25% unemployment, auto workers from Flint, Michigan march to backs. They are no longer buying the off their knees and started acting like demand Jobs In front of General Motors headquarters In Detroit. scam that givebacks mean jobs. All unions, this city would come to a level wages in the form of uncondition­ around this city, workers see the results grinding halt until their demands were him on their board of directors after he al, unlimited unemployment compensa­ of lost jobs after the billion-dollar met. Teachers: call out your class pushed through a billion dollars in givebacks. The shells and empty lots brothers and sisters! All city workers tion with full cost-of-living protection, givebacks in 1979. "Giveback" Fraser remain: Dodge Main, Lynch Road, must join with the teachers to fight for paid by the federal government­ sold this as a necessary means to "save Mack Avenue Stamping. Workers at the lives and livelihoods of all Detroit! Reagan's anti-Soviet war budget be jobs." Since then, 40,000 jobs have been lost at Chrysler. Dodge Truck are talking wildcat, and All auto workers must support the damned! they say the only way they'll go in union brothers and sisters at Chrysler! A city-wide general strike in Detroit At that time, the Spartacist League d~..-c~ ~n would overwhelm Coleman Young's was unique in warning that a govern­ ...... -,.. __ ...... , : ... :1' .. L_.....'_.... -c- .. by "he Auto and city workers on strike means a ment bailout of Chrysler would mean union. general strike against the givebacks, the cops and scabherding plans. And laborI • The flying squadron picket forma­ layoffs and shutdowns, the cutbacks. black defense guards, necessary to both the gutting of union benefits and massive layoffs. We demanded that the tion has appeared for the first time in And the demands of the strike must go , protect the picket lines, would also be workers seize the plants, auction off the years as UAW Local 1200 prepares to beyond "no concessions." Fight for a 20 the beginning ofthe end of the genocidal assets and distribute, the proceeds: meet General Dynamics' threat to lock percent pay increase across the board racist terror that threatens the homes "Whatever Chrysler's worth, give it to out the union and break a strike with for all city workers! Break the back of and families of black workers. the workers!" scabs. The General Dynamics contract Coleman Young's rollback drive! The 1982 Detroit General Strike can also expires tonight. Detroit labor-powerful and begin the powerful labor offensive Fraser has made it very clear that the • Ford has announced it will integrated-can lead all the oppressed needed to bust the union-busting give­ givebacks are no short-term measure. permanently shut down the Dearborn ofthis city in a fight for survival. Here is back drive. It can lead to sit-ins On July 20 he said, "Now is the time for Assembly plant, the heart of the giant the chance to unite the factory and the throughout southern Michigan-the Chrysler workers to begin the long, long River Rouge complex, where 17,000 are masses of unemployed in a struggle center of auto production-and spark road back to wage equity and parity employed, and where along with Flint against the closing of hospitals, schools, labor action to bring down Reagan. with Ford and GM." A week later he the militant traditions of the UAW were housing. The unemployed youth and all added, "Make that three 'longs'." With Oust the Sellout Bureaucrats! born. of Reagan's "expendables" can be Fraser talking like this, no wonder • Coleman Young-Democratic cut­ linked to the source of potential power Auto workers have to fight. But they Chrysler, which made a little money this back man for Detroit-has torn the city in America-the factories and the should have no illusions that they will be year, is demanding still more givebacks. to shreds. Slashing essential social integrated proletariat. Ford, Iacocca fighting only the auto bosses. They will Less than 48 hours before the deadline, services and the unions which provide and Coleman Young can be beaten! An be up against Coleman Young-and the Chrysler offered a cost-of-living formu­ those services hits black people on all immediate goal must be to keep working Fraser gang in Solidarity House as well. la tied to the corporation's profitabili­ sides. City workers remember that it was people-laid-off UAW members, pen­ Chrysler management knows that Fra­ ty-kind oflike hiking boots embedded Young who busted the 1980 city workers sioners, single women with children­ ser will put their profits ahead of his in concrete-in exchange for additional strike to make Detroit "safe" for the off the welfare lines by winning union- members' needs-that's why they put concessions in health care and other benefits. The company is also demand­ ing a cutback in shop-floor union >4 ,1 representation and a free hand to cut down on absenteeism. This was just too much for the ranks, so Fraser has to make a show of resistance. But in place of a company­ wide strike, much less an industry-wide strike, he's "threatening" a series ofone­ day strikes in this or that plant which would dissipate union militancy without hurting the company's profits. In place of a fight for jobs and higher wages, the UAW president is asking for more union seats on the Chrysler board! The UAW bureaucracy is tied to the auto bosses not only via membership on the Chrysler board of directors but also and more importantly through its role in the Democratic Party ofFritz Mondale, Teddy Kennedy and Coleman Young. When Young was elected Detroit mayor nearly a decade ago he was considered the very model of a "fighting liberal," a true "friend" of labor and blacks. Since -- . ,'- . WV Photo then the only fighting Young has done is Detroit Labor Day: UAW Local 1200 marches In "flying squadron" formation symbolizing labor's militant traditions. But appeal to patriotism disarms workers for battle with companies and government. continued on page 12

2 WORKERS VANGUARD Spartacist Candidates at S.F. Central Labor Council "You Don't Get Anything Unless You Strugglel" SAN FRANCISCO, September 8­ his chum Roger Dillon of the SEW (see demonstration to stop the Nazis and the that's going to fight for the interests of The remarks of Spartacist Party candi­ exchange below); Dillon and the local Klan. It was a mass demonstration of the working class. dates Diana Coleman and Richard lAM president J.B. Martin were out­ labor and blacks and Jews and gays in J.B. Martin, lAM official: I don't know Bradley at the San Francisco Central raged at Spartacist criticism of this city. if I misunderstood some of your Labor Council (CLC) Candidates' "Wimpy" Winpisinger and the Demo­ Today Ronald Reagan says the presentation. Were you suggesting that Night this year (reprinted below) were cratic Socialist Alliance (see coverage of Soviet Union is the main enemy. Well, handgun legislation is anti-black? received with grumbles, growls and the Spartacist picket of DSA referred let's just take a look at this country. The Bradley: First of all, I believe in the undisguised hostility. This is hardly ,~<,. unemployment rate according to the right of armed self-defense. Gun control surprising. Yet when Diana Coleman .. ~ government is 9.8 percent and we all does kill blacks. It's an attack on blacks addressed the same body during the . know it's much higher. Just look what's because today and if you look back into 1980 election campaign, she got a happening to the labor movement! Is history, blacks have been attacked by RE,A6A the Soviet Union really the enemy ofthe bemused, even benign reception from vigilante squads, the Klan, Nazis. the local AFL-CIO tops. Back then they American working class-or is it Ron­ Blacks need protection. For instance, regarded her candidacy for SF Board of ald Reagan? my parents live in the suburbs. My Supervisors as a harmless, utopian BUSTS Il1TCOJ The capitalists in this country would parents would like to protect their curiosity, perhaps a reminder of labor like to open up the borders ofthe Soviet home, to stop these nightriders from socialists of the distant past, "like Union and other [non-capitalist] coun­ riding up on their front lawn. Eugene Debs," said one. What hap­ tries to exploitation. The Spartacist Coleman: My name is Diana Coleman. pened in two years? LOVES League calls for the defense ofthe Soviet In a word, PATCO happened. Union and all these countries-and for I was a member of the Communications Workers of America for six years and I Reagan destroyed the striking air proletarian political revolution against ~c~ am pres~ntly a member of the National controllers union and has gone right on SOlJDARNOSC the bureaucracies of those countries. Association of Letter Carriers and a kicking labor in the teeth. This naturally And those who don't believe in supporter of the Spartacist League. spotlights the role of the AFL-CIO ,) S/}lRIACIST LEAGUE' opposing the anti-Soviet war drive don't This is the time when labor should bureaucracy, which is busily tying the believe in struggling here at home. I've make its voice heard. Reagan is con­ hands of union members behind their been a member of the UAW for ten backs. The ranks are so restive that the years. Doug Fraser, the president ofthat ducting a war on labor and minorities in labor bureaucrats fear to have more union, sits on the board [of directors] of this country, from Reagan's smashing of than a few of them gathered in the same Chrysler. Now what does he do on the the PATCO union to the killer budget place at the same time. The SF CLC board of Chrysler? He helps manage­ cuts that we see in the Congress. But as canceled a planned Labor Day march ment layoff [workers], helps Chrysler Ritchie said here, you can't fight Reagan this year, remembering the 500,000 survive-survive at the expense of the with Democrats. What we're interested angry unionists who inundated Wash­ workers' interests. What the working in is a program of independent class ington, D. C. last September 19 and the class needs is leadership that is going to struggle to turn labor around and stop AFL-CIO rally here the same day, when fight for a workers party based on the the cycles of defeats. I Too long COPE has endorsed Democratic mayor Feinstein was booed WV Photo interests of the workers, not on the and Fritz Mondale was drowned out Richard Bradley interests of the capitalists in this Democrats in this country and I've seen that in my own union. Because if with chants of "PATCO! PATCO! to: "Jay Lovestone's Bastard Grand­ country, And that's why I'm running for Reagan is waging war on labor then the PATCO!" children," WV No. 312,3 September). the Board of Supervisors. field marshals of that war have been the So, to the gentlemen of the CLC, a Sweanng loyalty to Reagan's bipartisan Roger Dillon, SEIU official: Approxi­ big-city Democratic Party mayors. And pair of socialist union militants running anti-Soviet war drive, one speaker was mately a week or two ago, the I mean people like Detroit's Coleman on a program to bring Reagan down moved to declare unanimous CLC Democratic Socialists of America spon­ Young, Koch in New York, in Chicago through militant labor action is no joke support for the counterrevolutionary sored a conference and one of the major Jane Byrne, in San Francisco Fein­ this year. They were also stung by a Polish "union" for the CIA and Western speakers was Bill Winpisinger from the stein-all Democratic Party union­ Labor Day article in the San Francisco bankers, Solidarnosc. Machinists union. There were people in busters, all enemies of blacks. The Chronicle (5 September), "SF Labor Democratic Party supervisor Nancy your group carrying posters saying Democratic mayors were all there Council Has Lost its Clout," which they Walker rose to the defense of Winpi­ denied repeatedly throughout the meet­ singer: "I sit on the SANE Board of ing; the "clout" they're worried about Directors with him," she said. She stated losing is not clout against the bosses­ the case for the whole Central Labor it's clout within the Democratic Party. Council when she declared, "Well, ifhe's The CLC officials knew the Sparta­ out of step [with the rank and file], so cist League this year; they knew they am I." hated it; and they let the social­ democrats among them lead the charge. * * * * * Charles Lamb, Local 2 president who Excerpts (edited) from Candidates' sabotaged the 1980 hotel workers strike, Night at San Francisco Central Labor and who ascended to office in the union Council, September 8: with support from the entire reformist Bradley: I'm Richard Bradley, sup­ left in the union, was present along with porter of the Splutacist League, auto worker for ten years. I fought against the closing of Mahwah [Ford] in New Jersey. WORKERS As you look around the country today, you see what Reaganism means. VANGUARD You can't fight Reagan with Demo­

LOS ANGELES, September 8-An plant then took part in a meeting other left groups. The legal definition of ordered by the court to name names of outrageous and ominous two-month between the PL defendants and their conspiracy is used to include anyone PL members. When she refused the witchhunting trial ended here August 19 lawyer. When this was uncovered, the with even tacit agreement in an action judge threw her into maximum security as Progressive Labor Party (PL) mem­ criminal charges were thrown out of deemed unlawful. It can include mem­ isolation for 11 days for contempt. bers and the organization itself were hit court. bers of an organization Which plans a There she was given the standard with a judgment of more than $300,000 Then the LAPD, the DA's office and demonstration who do not themselves maximum harassment treatment to for civil "conspiracy to commit assault make her talk, including keeping her and battery" on the Los Angeles cops. handcuffed in the showers. When she The money is to go to nine ofthe LAPD asked for her medicine, she was tossed cops who set' up and attacked a PL into the infirmary where she was kept on demonstration protesting INS deporta­ a liquid diet for four days. tions, held in the garment center in the Perhaps most important was that the summer of 1977. This organization­ judge did not allow Hertz to testify for breaking legal robbery includes $90,000 the defense-her own defense and that in "punitive damages" assessed against of her comrades-because she had PL as an organization, making it earlier refused to name names as a possible for the government to grab PL witness for the plaintiffs. Like the financial assets anywhere in the U.S. postwar Foley Square trials against the This menacing court decision climaxes a Communist Party, the government has five-year LAPD vendetta against PL found a legal device which demands the and threatens any group on the state's defendants either squeal or lose the right to defend themselves. In another in­ enemies list. At the start, the 1977 demonstration stance a witness fOT the PL defendants seemed like the cops' usual M.O. for testified about a PL class she attended. disruption of the left. The protest was She was asked by the cops' lawyers to broken up with the use of cop agents name the owner of the house, which had provocateurs. Demonstrators were nothing to do with her testimony. When beaten by the cops, arrested'and charged she refused her entire testimony was with assault. As described by the Los stricken by thejudge. So no matter what Sharkey/LA Times the verdict in this and future "conspira­ Angeles Daily (law) Journal (29 July), LAPD SWAT team at work. the 18 June 1977 cop attack began when cy" cases, the method is a McCarthyite the LAPD went after "a man carrying a the courts got together like a legal lynch attend it, as well as anyone who may dream-providing punishment and the bullhorn." When other demonstrators mob to destroy PL in round two: the happen by. In the PL case two PL threat of punishment while denying . protested, "undercover agents among civil suit for "conspiracy." This attempt leaders, Milt Rosen and Mort Scheer, democratic rights to anyone decent the demonstrators joined the struggle, to destroy a, left organization by were named as "conspirators" although enough to refuse to help the witch­ and a fight resulted." When it was over a bankrupting it through individual cops' they were not even there (the case hunters spin their web. few cops and a PL supporter were suits for civil liability places a sinister against them wasn't dropped until For the government the very exis­ hospitalized. The cops arrested 29, new weapon in the witchhunters' legal midway in the trial). tence of a left group is evidence of some charging eight with "assault with a arsenal. But the danger of this case lies Under the "conspiracy" noose the kind of conspiracy (usually to "over­ deadly weapon" (picket signs). So far, not only in the verdict but in the cops' lawyers demanded lists of names throw the government with force and :",,_ ... L_ ~11 ...... _:1: .... _ " ...... _"...... "" "AcCar..hY'..e process of the trial itself. of members of the "conspiratorial" violence"). While the judge allowed the criminal state prosecuting its victims. When Superior Court judge Nancy organization-PL leaders, policies, in­ LAPD to name the PL organization as But the cops and DA couldn't make Watson ordered PL to pay $500 a week ternal structure and so on. When, to part of the "conspiracy" and probe its the criminal charges stick! They had for "jury expenses," it was only the their credit, two PL defendants refused membership lists, PL was not allowed to also arrested their own agent, Con­ beginning. To the end this trial resem­ to name names, the judge slapped them include the LAPD in its countersuit. stance Milazzo Dial, along with the rest, bled nothing so much as the postwar into jail for contempt of court. Con­ Thus while all the "evidence" about PL no doubt to preserve her cover for anti-Communist trials. The cops and tempt means no appeal; the victims can was admissible, indeed demanded, PL disrupting PL from within. According their lawyers used the loose net of the be held until they talk or the case is over. was barred from presenting the very real to the Los Angeles Times, Dial had "conspiracy" charge to pe;-secute PL PL local organizer Barbara Hertz was evidence of the cop conspiracy against infiltrated PL in the mid-1970s. This cop and lay the legal basis to do the same to called as part of the cops' case and continued on page 12

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4 WORKERS VANGUARD to strike out on their own. Flo~ But no one wants to toss his hat in the Jackson's ChicagoFest Boy.colt ring just yet. After all, you pay a price when you buck the machine-political firings, loss of patronage. The victory of black alderman Alan Streeter, who broke with Byrne over her school board appointments and was elected over her opposition, gave the black pols a glimmer of hope. But winning a ward is Labor/Black Struggle, one thing; electing a black mayor in a city as racially polarized as Chicago is another matter altogether. Harold Washington, the Democratic congressman from the 1st District, is currently the frontrunner, but he has yet Not Black Democrats! to officially declare his candidacy. Part of the problem for any black mayoral CHICAGO-This city in August is a eruption of bloody racist violence all in Brooklyn. They cynically used blacks candidate is that the machine has its hot, seething, racist hellhole. But for over town. from the Marlboro Housing projects to loyal black captains. In 1977, when Mayor Byrne it was ChicagoFest-a 12­ Chicago, with its mean racist suburbs, stage a march through the racists' Washington ran against Bilandic right day lakefront extravaganza celebrating massive layoffs and unemployment and stronghold in Gravesend demanding after Daley's death, he got a pitiful 11 the "good life" in Chicago. This is not its grinding Democratic Party machine, more police protection. These actions percent of the vote, including only 30 just one ofthe many fetes which bearher is on the brink of explosion. Huge were a display of weakness and isola­ percent ofthe black vote! Ground down majesty's name to show that all good cutbacks in social services, vicious tion. The nationalist demagogues by poverty and misery, many of Chica­ things in Chicago emanate directly from slashes in welfare and unemployment, trekked out to Brooklyn, shot their go's blacks rightly see that the ballot box Jane Byrne (Mayor Byrne's Kool evictions/foreclosures and police vio­ mouths off, and then went home, is no way out. While the city population JazzFest, GospelFest, OctoberFest). lence .are pounding the desperate black leaving the black project residents to is 40 percent black, there are well over This is the showpiece event of the year. population harder than ever. Profes­ face the frenzied racist thugs and cops. 300,000 blacks who don't even bother to Ordinarily the mayor would open the sional hustlers like Jackson seek to What was needed instead was the register. So Washington's holding out festivities with a rousing speech at the manipulate the just anger of Chicago mobilization of integrated union power. until there's a massive drive to register front gate. But this year she slipped in blacks to get a few more black elected Militants in the largely black NYC blacks to vote. Meanwhile, for all the the back way by boat to avoid black picketers carrying signs, "Give Jane cardiac arrest-Boycott the Fest:' and chanting, "One, two, three, four; we don't need Jane Byrne no more!" Rev. Jesse Jackson and black Demo­ cratic Party politicians on the outs with ~. Byrne called for a black boycott of ~,' .... > ChicagoFest to protest her recent 1 .~:#:~j;,~_.\-thXtli~fi~i' ~ t. " appointment of three whites to the ';$, If,'j 1 Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) board, creating a white majority on the board which runs the mostly black projects. The boycott flopped; a few hundred at most picketed the front gates of an event that blacks do not attend in great numbers in any case. But it captured the attention of all of Chicago as the media went wild with speculation: Would Kool & the Gang play? Would Aretha Franklin stand in for Stevie Wonder? Would Leon's Ribs sell there? ~ Dean Paul/NFl The racists were delighted with the June 27: Jane Byrne's cops protect Nazis from mass labor/black-centered mobilization organized by the SL. prospect of no blacks at ChicagoFest. Some even sported T-shirts reading officials (BEOs), their "fair share" of transit union called for such union hoopla, all the BEOs have right now is a "HonkyFest" and "Thank You, Jesse." city government appointments, a bigger action: "Our union has the power to put bunch of "mayoral maybes." Jackson and the black pols saw the slice of the patronage pie. The black a stop to this crap. We could dispatch Of course Jackson's keeping all boycott as an opening shot in a power politicos are willing to deliberately squads offlatbed trucks with thousands options open. Certainly he would prefer play, a chance to direct the pent-up inflame racial tensions and court a ofTWU brothers and sisters prepared to a black mayor. But he's even made anger of Chicago's black people into an large-scale racial blowup which would defend our members and smash these noises about supporting Boss Daley's intra-Democratic Party squabble with pit blacks against the majority white updated versions of the Ku Klux Klan kid against Byrne. Jackson used to talk Byrne. But for blacks, this stunt to test ethnic population and the infamously southern lynch mobs." about Massa Daley and how he ordered the waters for a black mayoral cam­ racist Chicago cops. The Daughtrys and Jacksons are blacks around. No more. Turns out paign was a cynical diversion and a Jackson's boycott stunt was compar­ trying to make themselves brokers for Jesse thinks Chicago's blacks had it potentially dangerous one at that. In able to the Brooklyn demonstrations led the Democratic Party. They fan the better under Daley: he was "stable and this city where black bus drivers have to by the Black United Front's Herbert flames of racial polarization, then run to predictable." "I found," said Jackson, rescue black children from racist mobs Daughtry and CORE's Roy Innis city hall to offer themselves up as continued on page 15 in Marquette Park, where a black man following the racist murder of a black mediators to keep the lid on. Their was nearly beaten to death for stopping transit worker this summer. Though implicit message is: "Give me a piece of for a pack of cigarettes in Boss Daley's Jackson is more closely tied in with the the action in the Democratic Party, or old Bridgeport neighborhood, an ugly "black establishment" than Daughtry/ there'll be a riot." But they're playing black/white confrontation at the gates Innis, his ChicagoFest power play with fire. The urban centers are seething Just Out! of ChicagoFest could have triggered the wasn't very different from what they did with race hatred, goaded by economic contraction. Something could blow. In any large-scale racial confrontation, A Spartacist Pamphlet $100 blacks will be the losers. Blacks Don't Need Democratic Party in Blackface It was the black vote that elected " Byrne, but she has contemptuously refused the payoff for services rendered by the black pols. Once in office, Byrne deliberately and savagely cut ties to her black backers. She's making a strong American pitch for the white ethnic vote, to undercut her rival, Richard Daley. Workers Revolution Instead of "black faces in high places," Byrne has bypassed blacks particularly Needs on the school board and the CHA, choosing whites (including staunch Black leadership segregationists) to run the largely black - school system and the 85 percent black projects. While the black population is insulted and angered by Byrne's haugh­ $1.00 ty racism, the black pols' main beef is that the door to city hall has been Make checks payable/mall to: Gunn/Chicago Defender slammed in their face. So now Jackson Spartaclst Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 Demagogue Jesse Jackson hopes Chicago's blacks will forget he supported and the BEOs, who supported Byrne Jane Byrne for mayor, 1979. when she ran for mayor, are threatening

17 SEPTEMBER 1982 5 French Trotsky'ists Op-P-Ose Mitterrand's Foreign Legion Israeli/Imperialist Troops Out of Lebanon! PARIS, September 12-"Washington, As for the LCR, which cut its teeth in capital of the Arab world." So one protest against the Algerian War, they French journalist summed up the have come a long way. After months of counterrevolutionary anti-Soviet con­ silence, they could barely bring them­ sensus being forged in the Middle East. selves to oppose the troops-and one of But this "Pax Americana" is just as the main axes oftheir argument was that much a Pax Gallicana. The popular­ Mitterrand was undermining a law front government of social-democrat requiring the consent of parliament to Frantyois Mitterrand has worked hand send draftees overseas (the other half of in glove with Reagan to impose this new the French contingent were drafted anti-Soviet lineup. Not only was Mitter­ marines)! In any case, this opposition rand's Foreign Legion first into Beirut remained in the pages of Rouge-no to oversee the expulsion and disman­ demand concerning the troops has ever tling of the PLO, but Mitterrand could appeared 011 a banner, picket sign or justly say, "The proposition of Ronald nat10nai leaflet. Reagan seems to be going in the The bottom line of the LCR argument direction we had indicated"-the de­ is that this "government of the left" lacks struction of the Soviet-backed "rejec­ "i~ only the political will to turn itself into tion front" in favor of "Arab unity" Paris Match something other than the social­ around "implicit or explicit recogni­ In Lebanon Zionist mass murderer Ariel Sharon welcomes French Foreign democratic guarantor of French imperi­ tion" of the Zionist state and a "solu­ Legion killer elite, a well-known haven for Nazi war criminals. alism's interests and that, in any case, tion" of the Palestinian question via any overt opposition to this "govern­ some sort of West Bank bantustan Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire September). ment of the left" will aid the right wing under the thumb of Jordan's King (LCR) of Krivine and Mandel, fake­ Mitterrand quickly sent a telegram of and the fascists. We wonder what they Hussein. Trotskyist sister organization of the hearty congratulations to Gemayel, the would have done in 1956 when a very While the American left called on U.S. Socialist Workers Party, called on ruthless butcher who not only has similar popular front headed by Mollet Reagan to take "effective action" Mitterrand to "really" pressure Begin slaughtered thousands of Palestinians was building concentration camps in against the Zionist Blitzkrieg, the (maintaining silence on the question of and Muslims, but climbed his way to Algeria and invading Egypt. In fact it French left and "far left" not only the troops for two months). The PCF power over the corpses of the entire was the popular front which opened the demanded similar measures from Mit­ and LCR were simplY capitulating to families of his Maronite rivals, down to door to the victory of reaction, in this terrand but either openly supported the their own bourgeoisie in the form of the the last little girl. To make French case de Gaulle's unopposed seizure of sending of French troops to France's popular front. imperialism's support to Begin's candi­ power in 1958. former protectorate or maintained a date perfectly clear Jacques Huntziger, The Recolonization of Lebanon complicit silence. For if the American Mitterrand's man in the Second Inter­ Cold War Popular Front national (fresh from a visit to Lebanon fake-left ended up capitulating to Israel is not U.S. imperialism's sole French policy in the Middle East Reagan's Cold War by its search for a client in the Near East. One key element with none other than Mario Soares!), stated, "Bashir Gemayel is a young man. presents many parallels with its line on class-collaborationist bloc with the no is the conversion of Lebanon from a Central America: it was necessary to less anti-Soviet Democrats, in France a bastion of "Soviet-backed terrorism" to normally elected [!] in the framework of constitutional guidelines. We must give avoid the final Israeli assault on Beirut classic class-collaborationist bloc-a a state defending "Western Christian which would risk "terrorism in all popular front-is in power. values." The creation ofsuch a Lebanese him a chance. He has very clearly expressed his intention of restoring a directions, the destabilization of the M itterrand, who visited Israel even as "strong state" lies ofcourse through the strong, sovereign and independent entire region, and a deterioration of the Begin annexed the Golan, took office uncontested rule of the Maronite Lebanon" (1£ Monde, 3 September). system which would ultimately benefit widely viewed as a "friend of Israel." clerical-fascist bands. Here the role of the Soviet Union," as Liberation (3 The French social-democracy has a the imperialist intervention team was September) put it. As with the Franco­ What is the Foreign Legion? justly deserved reputation as pro­ not only to oversee the expulsion of the Mexican declaration on EI Salvador, Zionist-unlike the Gaullists-dating PLO, but to back up the Phalangists "Left" hedging on the nature of the France found itself a local partner­ from 1956 when "Socialist" Guy Mol­ and get in on the ground floor of the French intervention in Lebanon is Egypt-but there was never any real let invaded Egypt in alliance with reconstruction of the Lebanese state. simply cynical. The paratroopers of the difference over the basic goal of the the British and the Israelis. And of Lebanon's former French colonialist Foreign Legion make up one halfofthis Zionist invasion-restore a "sovereign" course Mitterrand and the Israeli La­ overlords have a vital role to play in this "peace-keeping" force. This gang of (Maronite) Lebanon and bring the bor Party cohabit the yellow Second respect. When Bashir Gemayel, the sadistic killers has been in the forefront Soviet-backed Syrians to their knees. If International. Maronite warlord, was elected president of every dirty colonial war waged by the fanatic Begin's insistence on keeping The French Communist Party (PCF), in a barracks ringed by Zionist troops, France since Napoleon III invaded "Judea" and "Samaria" is an obstacle to which sold itself to the Cold War French "observers" were there, in the Mexico, not to mention the bloody a wider imperialist project for the "Socialist" Mitterrand for four minor corridors, giving journalists the low­ suppression of the Paris Commune. region, this time Mitterrand's got cabinet posts (continuing more than 45 down on the behind-the-scenes maneu­ What is the Foreign Legion? In June Reagan on his side. years of reformist betrayal), organized vering. Meanwhile 1,500 lieutenants of this year workmen in the Algerian There could be no better illustration demonstrations in support of the gov­ from the Lebanese army are to receive town of Khenchela (which from 1955 to of the anti-Soviet consensus of the ernment's Middle East policy. And the training in France (1£ Monde, 9 1962 was a fortress town garrisoned by American, French and Israeli bourgeoi­ the Legion and the site of a concentra­ sies en bloc than the Conference for tion camp for "suspect" Algerians) Soviet Jewry projected to be held in accidentally uncovered the mass grave Paris in late October: announced of more than 1,200 men, women and participants are Mitterrand, Teddy children. Their mutilated skeleto'1s bore Kennedy, George Bush and Begin! the traces of monstrous scenes oftorture The Ligue Trotskyste de France was rivaling the most revolting crimes of the the only group to raise the call "No Gestapo: crushed skulls, scissors or steel imperialist troops to Lebanon!" and wedges driven into the kneecaps, oppose Mitterrand's Cold War collab­ corpses literally chopped in half or oration with Reagan and Begin-just as impaled on a gigantic corkscrew. Ac­ we were the only group that refused to companying this grisly relic of French vote for this Cold War "Socialist." For imperialism's "civilizing mission" was the fake-lefts, wedded to the popular the button from the uniform of a front, the main enemy is anywhere but legionnaire. at home; our irreconcilable opposition The chauvinists of the PCF often to all forms of class collaboration is pretend that the atrocities of the French inseparable from our championing the army, from Indochina to Algeria to the slogan of Lenin, Luxemburg and Congo, are to be blamed on ex-Nazis, Liebknecht: the main enemy is at home! who indeed found refuge in the Legion. *** But the "gangrene" of torture and mass On the facing page is a slightly '0 ~':.- .. m:oo-.-. < Le Bolchevik murder infected the entire army. No abridged translation ofthe leaflet issued Reagan's European tour In July sparked massive anti-missiles marches. imperialist army has ever conducted by the Ligue Trotskyste de France on 24 Photo shows LTF contingent's banners In Paris protest. colonial war in any other way. August. 6 WORKERS VANGUARD Mitterrand's paratroopers have despair create a real danger that fascist landed in Lebanon, back in France's Ligue Trotskyste de France Leaflet: bands will find a growing echo in the former protectorate to oversee the enraged petty bourgeoisie as it is PLO's liquidation. The imperialist touched by the crisis and wilI swell their troops lend the Begins and Sharons a ranks by suggesting attacks on every­ hand in the expulsion of the Palestinian "Israelis, thing un-"French." fighters, handing them over to the Rooting out racism and struggling Assads, Husseins, etc., Arab hangmen against the fascist bands is a life-or­ of the Palestinian people. Mitterrand, in French Paratroopers, death question for the working class. sending this so-calIed "peace-keeping" And for this it must place no confidence force-which is pledged in advance not in Mitterrand's bourgeois government to hamper Israeli action against "insub­ Fedayeen~adds that sends cops against workers in ordinate" Lebanon to U.S. Marines struggle, nor in the workers movement Suez and Algeria in the long list of bureaucrats who try their best to keep imperialist crimes perpetrated by the working class passive in the face of French social-democracy with PCF government attacks. It must count only [Communist Party of France] backing. Out of Lebanon!" on its own strength organized in picket Ravaged Lebanon will not find peace, lines and self-defense militias to prevent in this imperialist "solution." Just the any of its oppressed brothers from being opposite. For the Zionist terrorists, anti-Semitism so deeply rooted in trated on the same territory. While anti­ threatened by this scum. wilIing to level whole cities to achieve French society. This coldly calculated Semitism has fed Zionism for years and Today it is the popular front that is their goal of exterminating the Pales­ butchery targeting the Jewish communi­ continues to do so, inversely and quite paving the way for reaction by disarm­ tinian people, smashing the PLO is only ty shows once more just how much inherently, Zionism lends justification ing the working class. But the PCF, the beginning. The Palestinians remain­ Zionism feeds anti-Semitism. With the to anti-Semitism. Particularly in Stalin­ responsible for the repulsive Vitry ing in Lebanon will be delivered genocide being carried out in Lebanon ist propaganda can be found this rotten incident [where a PCF mayor ordered defenseless to reactionary Maronite by the terrorist Begin, one of those impulse to want to put forward perfectly bulldozers in to break down the doors of killers taking their orders from the responsible for the massacre at Deir Zionist occupiers. The French troops Yassin in 1948, every anti-Semite now didn't go to Beirut to direct traffic in rue has his excuse. General de Gaulle, like the UN troops at Using "anti-Zionism" as a pretext, the start of the Israeli invasion (witness Direct Action [which was not involved the famous photo ofa French lieutenant in the rue des Rosiers massacre] is on a in the dust of the Israeli tanks he is terrorist campaign targeting Jewish watching pass by). This time, along with hardware and department stores, mim­ French military transports will come the icking the Nazis' 1934Kristallnacht. We old diplomats, those old specialists in savagely denounce these actions and the the byzantine machinations utilized for use of terms belonging to the workers decades to "divide and conquer." movement-i.e., anti-Zionism-to per­ Th'eir experience can be an important petrate acts that can only be racist and support for the American artillery and anti-Semitic and that strike a deep French paratroopers because once these responsive chord in this country. In the latter finish their work on General petty bourgeoisie, in the peasantry, Sharon's behalf with the Palestinians, even in the workers movement (one of the question for Israel and the American many examples of the results of Stalin­ Bombed-out imperialists would be how to prop up ism), anti-Semitism is widespread. The Paris this extremely diversified, explosive same thread runs through, from Barre's synagogue. Recent anti­ region so as to be able to contain Soviet slip after the rue Copernic attack when Semitic attacks influence. The Zionists' next goal is he deplored how innocent French underscore precisely Syria and ultimately rooting citizens had been made victims, to French out-in league with the imperialist anti­ Defferre's complaint after rue des revolutionaries' Soviet warmongers-all Soviet influ­ Rosiers about innocent citizens dying duty to combat ence in the Middle East. The landing of for foreign causes, to Mitterrand's antl-Semitism the marines and paratroopers in Beirut, insistence upon denying that it was masquerading really an anti-Semitic attack: Jews are as "anti- where a few miles east they will confront Zionism." Syrian troops armed by the Soviet not like "us," the "real Frenchmen." degenerated workers state,' could make And this in a country that during the the Middle East a bridgehead for the war delivered its Jews voluntarily and anti-Soviet war campaign led by Rea­ from the zone unoccupied by the Nazis gan and supported by Mitterrand.. to the ovens and gas chambers. The Everyone who calls himself a socialist or working class should have exploded opponent ofgenocide must demand not with rage at the atrocity in the rue des only that Israel withdraw immediately Rosiers. from Lebanon but also "Imperialist Although Israel is a by-product ofthe anti-Semitic politics in the name of so­ immigrant workers' housing in an troops out of Lebanon!" most barbarous excesses of capitalism called anti-Zionism. attempt to drive them out oftown], is no in its agony-the Nazi "final solution" The only way out ofthis trap is united alternative for those who want to No, Anti-Zionism Is Not and the closing of the "democratic" struggle by the Hebrew proletariat with combat racism and fascist terror. Anti-Semitism imperialist countries' borders-the Zi­ its Arab class brothers against their The organizers of Vitry have once onist state could only be carved out of Zionist masters. The truly democratic again dug into the garbage cans of But while negotiations trailed on and the living body ofthe Palestinian people answer to the problem of national chauvinism. Responding to a Zionist Beirut's inhabitants awaited the final with Hitlerite methods: mass terror and oppression in the Near East (and not a spokesman who said, "France did even assault, the monstrous rue des Rosiers forced transfers of entire populations. completely phony solution, like the worse things in Algeria," /'Humanite (9 attack [the August 9 bombing of a Zionism is a capitalist genocidal "solu­ proposal for a Palestinian "bantustan" August) declares: "No French govern­ Jewish restaurant in Paris which killed tion" for the problem ofthe existence of in the West Bank)-self-determination ment laid siege to Tunis and massacred six] by killers in the service of persons two peoples-the Palestinian and for the Palestinians (which should its inhabitants"! These remarks simply unknown swells the putrid effluences of Hebrew-speaking peoples-interpene- involve also the territory ofJordan) and reflect the PCF's refusal at the time to for the Hebrew-speaking people-can struggle for independence in Algeria, be brought about only in the context of where the paratroopers who today are in socialist revolution throughout the Lebanon were laying siege to Algiers. region and a socialist federation of the The Ligue Communiste Revolution­ Middle East. naire is also crawling on its belIy to Popular Front Clears Mitterrand. And this even though its 18 August demonstration was banned. The the Way for Reaction LCR said it was "astonished" at this A beneficiary of the outrage in the rue decision, as the slogans "were not hostile des Rosiers is the right and the fascists, to the French government" (Liberation, who are holIering for reinforcing the 19 August). For weeks the LCR hasn't police apparatus. Mitterrand didn't breathed a word about the sending of need their encouragement-he banned paratroopers to Lebanon, these kilIers Direct Action. This 1936 law against they demonstrated against in 1978 "armed leagues," a product of the first during the Kolwezi [Zaire] intervention. popular front, in fact targets any Repeated appeals for sanctions against working-class self-defense action and Israel, a strategy of"solidarity" with the should be condemned. Palestinian and Lebanese peoples that Not only Jews are victims ofthe racist amounts to pressure on Begin, make it attacks; murderous violence is also quite unlikely the LCR wilI take a Paris Match aimed more and more frequently at position against French troops to Mltterrand with French troops In Algeria. At Khenchela, site of former French immigrant workers. The economic Lebanon. If the LCR is today on the Foreign Legion detention camp In Algeria, 1,200 gruesomely tortured crisis, the unemployment throwing ever­ verge of frankly supporting a military corpses were discovered this year. broader sectors of the population into continued on page 12

17 SEPTEMBER 1982 7

------~---_._- f they set foot on American soil, they actually believes his own anti­ could be arrested and sentenced to as Communist propaganda that the Soviet I much as five years in prison. The economy is on the verge ofcollapse it la malefactors: the top executives of West Poland. When last June he called upon Europe's leading engineering firms. the British parliament to join him in a Their "crime": selling equipment to the new "crusade" to overthrow Commu­ Soviet Union to construct a 3,500-mile nism, he assured them that: natural gas pipeline between Siberia and "We are witnessing today a great West Europe. revolutionary crisis-a crisis where the Venting his frustration at the failure demands of the economic order are colliding directly with those of the of Solidarnosc .counterrevolution in political order. But the crisis is happen­ Poland, on June 18 Reagan struck back ing not in the free, non-Marxist West, ... against his European capitalist allies. but in the home of Marxism-Leninism, He ordered all foreign firms using the Soviet Union." technology acquired through American Ten days later Reagan decided to give licenses to rip up their Siberian pipeline this imagined "final crisis of Marxism­ contracts or face the full rigor of U.S. Leninism" a little push by trying to legal sanctions. In addition to possible sabotage the Siberian pipeline, asserting criminal penalties, this could mean fines that "the Soviet Union is very hard­ of up to five times the value of the pressed financially and economically components shipped and a ban on the today. They have put their people future acquisition of products made in literally on a starvation diet" (New York the U.S.A. Times, 1July). EveryWesterndip!omat, The European reaction was swift and journalist and even tourist in Moscow defiant. West German chancellor Hel­ or Leningrad can see that the Russian mut Schmidt, in one of the milder re­ people are not starving. In fact, the sponses, told CBS News: "The pipeline Sovfoto Soviet standard of living has visibly will be built, and the British, the French, improved in the past decade or so the Germans and other Europeans will despite the burdensome military ex­ stick to the agreement which their firms penditure necessary to counter the have been making with the Soviets." imperialist arms buildup. Reagan's wild Every West European government statements about the Soviet Union are involved has conspicuously ordered the not just Cold War rhetoric but the more firms to meet their contractual obliga­ or less seriously held views ofa man who tions. The French minister of industry, can blow up the world at will. Jean-Pierre Chevenement, declared that If Reagan sees the Soviet Union Dresser France, a U.S. subsidiary, was about to collapse, he sees in his "a French company subject to French European NATO allies a fatal weakness law," threatening to "requisition" its of a different kind. The former Holly­ facilities if it did not deliver pipeline wood actor turned president is evidently compressors as scheduled. The private playing Cold War II according to the reaction among West European ruling scenario of the 1950s Gary Cooper film circles was commensurate. According to High Noon. The townsmen (West a top U.S. trade negotiator: eaaan's European allies) are too cowardly to "All thev wanted to do was talk about fight the bad guys (Russian Commu­ the pipeline. You read a lot about nists) so the lone marshal (American European resentment of the pipeline commander in chief) has to do it him­ decision, but you have to see it to appreciate it." •• self. The Reaganites thought they could - Wall Street Journal, 15 July whip their supposedly weak-willed One does not have to see it in the flesh European allies into line by a show to appreciate the depth of the European of forcefulness. Hence the pipeline bourgeoisies' resentment. The $10 bil­ sanctions. lion pipeline project-Brezhnev calls it IDe Ine In and around the Reagan regime "the deal of the century"-is big there is a strong current of disdain for business, and very welcome business the West European bourgeois democra­ amid the worst economic conditions cies, seen as semi-pacifistic and "soft" on since the Great Depression of the 1930s. • Communism, and a feeling that Ameri­ When completed it will supply much of ca's really tough, reliable allies are the West Europe's gas at prices well below likes of Begin's Israel, Botha's South those charged by North African and Africa, Major Blowtorch d'Aubuisson's Near Eastern producers. And whatever El Salvador, South Korea et al. Thus, lasco Moral Majority senator Jesse Helms Reagan may think, European capitalists know that the Soviet Stalinist regime is conspicuously voted not to support a far more reliable supplier than the Britain in the Falklands/Malvinas war, Bedouin chieftains, Shi'ite ayatollahs while the UN's leading aficionada of and Ba'athist colonels on whom they "authoritarian" regimes, Jeane Kirk­ now depend for energy resources. patrick, publicly tilted toward the For many of the firms involved the Argentine junta. multi-million-dollar pipeline contracts It's noteworthy here that a week after are a matter of financial survival. AEG­ the pipeline sanctions were announced Kanis in West Germany, for example, is the most pro-European member of the one of the few profit-making operations Reagan team, former NATO command­ of the about-to-go-bankrupt AEG­ er Alexander Haig, was forced out. Telefunken empire. The pipeline con­ Haig, who warned the sanctions would tract accounts for fully 70 percent ofthe backfire, apparently tried to convince Italian Nuovo Pignone's backlog of his boss that the West European allies orders. were not a bunch of mushyheaded Over and above these considerations pinkos but a group of important of marks, francs and lire-and they are capitalist states with their own national not to be sneezed at-Reagan has interests and national pride. He suffered affronted the most sacred cow in the the usual fate of counselors who inform bourgeois ideological pantheon, that of their monarch of unpleasant realities. national sovereignty. The European Common Market formally protested California Gaullism at Work Reagan's "attempts to exercise extrater­ The pipeline dispute is not an Economist ritorial legal powers." The influential Even decrepit British Imperialism defied Reagan's pipedreams. incidental quarrel in a basically harmo­ Frankfurter Rundschau was less diplo­ nious marriage. The financial press matic: "This is not what partnership Britain's Margaret Thatcher, for all her have planned it any better," commented routinely writes of U.S./European among democratic countries should be. fervent anti-Sovietism, told Reagan he one European diplomat-that the Rea­ economic relations in the language of This is sheer imperialism" (Washington was way out of line on this one. The gan administration is already backing armed conflict-the interest rate war, Post, 25 June). Since some of the firms sanctity of contracts and all that, you off. Last week treasury secretary Don­ the developing trade wars over steel and involved, such as France's Alsthom­ know. ald Regan announced that the original agricultural products. The highly na­ Atlantique and Italy's Nuovo Pignone, One can say of Reagan's pipeline sanctions "were a little too sweeping" tionalistic policies ofthe Reagan admin­ are nationalized, Reagan is in effect sanctions what Theodore Draper said of and that violators will be barred only istration (dubbed "California Gaullism" claiming sovereignty over European John F. Kennedy's Bay of Pigs adven­ from U.S.-made oil and gas equipment. by the liberal French I.e Monde) have governments as well. For an American ture: it is that rare example of a perfect been deeply injurious to its main president to lay down the law to a political failure. It has infuriated all The Lone Ranger Shoots capitalist rivals. Months before the nationalized French firm is one thing his European allies, heartened the Himself in the Foot pipeline sanctions a senior West Ger­ certain to unite all Frenchmen from the Russians-and failed to delay the man official complained to the New most decadent royaiist count to the construction of the pipeline. The failure What caused Reagan to do something York Times (13 February): "We have most primitive Stalinist hack. Even is so striking-"the Russians couldn't so stupid? Part of the answer is that he simply never before seen a United States

8 WORKERS VANGUARD • ._------_._---- has been a massive rechanneling of came from his social-democratic heart, CD ~" money capital from corporate invest­ but he probably also thought it entitled S ::J ment and mortgage and auto loans into him to Washington's economic largesse. CD the Pentagon budget. Despite the arms If Reagan showers dollars on the boom, corporate investment is project­ Salvadoran junta, he may have rea­ ed to fall 5 percent this year. In July new soned, why not on France, a far more orders for machine tools-the core of important ally. any industrial construction program­ And Mitterrand needed Reagan's aid were almost 50 percent below last year. for his own economic gamble. Reagan Reagan's unorthodox method of won the U.S. presidency promising a financing his preparations for World "supply-side" economic miracle; Mitter­ War III has not only crippled American rand won the French presidency prom­ industry but has sucked in footloose ising a Keynesian/social-democratic money capital from the world's financial economic miracle. Ifelected, he told the markets. Why should the sheiks of French working class, he would create OPEC keep their funds in London, 200,000 new public-sector jobs, reduce Paris or Frankfurt if the return is so the workweek from 40 to 35 hours, Hawk in "socialist" much higher in New York? Reaganom­ increase state pensions and family feathers Fran~ois ics thus has produced an excruciating allowances by 50 percent, raise the Mitterrand inspects dilemma for the West European govern­ minimum wage 25 percent and institute French nuclear ments. If they do not raise interest rates an additional fifth week of annual submarine. His to more or less New York levels, they summer vacation. Add to this an massive anti-Soviet will suffer massive capital flight, enor­ rearmament drive ambitious nationalization program with contributed to mous balance-of-payments deficits and generous compensation and a major largest bUdget a rapidly depreciating currency which rearmament drive. deficit In postwar will generate domestic inflation. If they Where, pray tell, would the billions of French history. do raise interest rates sufficiently, they francs needed to pay for all this come will choke off any recovery in capital from? From the printing press, said the spending. smart money. The day after Mitter- A few months after Reagan was elected president, Helmut Schmidt decried "the highest interest rates in Germany since the birth ofChrist,as far as real interest rates are concerned." The Administration that displayed this for the Siberian pipeline!) This is, of one-sided interest rate war quite domi­ degree of indifference to the effects ofits course, no less true of Reagan than of nated the July 1981 economic summit in action on its allies." his European imperialist counterparts. Ottawa, Canada, where Reagan in effect And it's especially significant that Reagan infuriated the European bour­ told the European leaders to shut up and Mitterrand's France has reverted to the geoisies when one month after ordering eat it. As West Europe slid deeper into old Gaullist role of the most vocal them to tear up their Siberian pipeline depression, the complaints against the spokesman for European independence contracts, he announced the U.S. was international effects of Reaganomics vis-ii-vis the United States. Until fairly extending its multi-billion-dollar grain became shriller. Earlier this year French recently Mitterrand had been the conti­ trade agreement with the Soviet Union. finance minister Jacques Delors de­ nent's main spokesman for Reagan's In his heart of hearts Reagan would like nounced high U.S. interest rates as "the anti-Soviet war drive. Late last year to cut offgrain shipments to the USSR, principal obstacle" to European eco­ Time magazine (9 November 1981) indeed to starve the Russians ifhe could. nomic recovery and asked rhetorically: titled an article on the new French But alas for Reagan, he operates within "How can we defend our alliance with president, "Hawk in Socialist Feathers: the framework of bourgeois parliamen­ the United States when critics say Mitterrand backs a strong military in tarism, and the Republicans badly need American policy is making us bank­ tandem with U.S. policy." At the June the farm vote come November. Farmers rupt?" (New York Times, 13 February). economic summit in Versailles Mitter­ too are suffering from this most unusual While the U.S. Treasury was sucking rand embraced Reagan as "mon cher recession which combines record-high in money capital from Europe, U.S. industrialists were moving to keep Ron" and made a show of Paris­ interest rates with slumping agricultural • European exports out. Last January • Washington amity. Yet within a month prices. II Pittsburgh once again declared war on French foreign minister Claude Cheys­ Reagan was elected president two son was speaking of "the progressive years ago promising to restore military the RUhr, Lorraine and South Wales. divorce" between the United States and "superiority" (first-strike nuclear capa­ U.S. Steel and its lesser brethren filed a petition with the Commerce Depart­ Europe. bility) over the Soviet Union while I ment charging the European Common A recent article in Business Week (2 cutting everyone's taxes by a th;~d. This • Market with subsidizing steel produc­ f August) laments the unraveling of the was to be the "supply-side" economic tion and dumping it on the American Paris-Washington Cold War II axis: miracle based on the crackpot theory of market. After efforts at a negotiated "A year ago, French President Francois a claque of right-wing economists. Cut Mitterrand, despite his avowed social­ taxes enough, they prophesied, and this solution failed, in June the Commerce ism, looked like the firmest foreign­ would stimulate such a vast outpouring Department announced stiff penalty " policy ally the Reagan Administration of work effort and capital investment duties-up to 40 percent-on steel ! had on the Continent. Mitterrand had imports from the Common Market I sent the Reagan Administration signals that national income would increase -I he would be tough with the Russians. enough to restore the old total tax countries. On June 12 New York Times -I I But the disastrous economic summit in revenue, even more. financial correspondent Clyde Farns­ ~ , Versailles in June and the events that To restrain the inflationary impact of worth commented: have followed have completely changed the huge federal budget deficits in the "The penalty would amount to the the picture, opening serious disagree­ severest trade restriction that the United ments on East-West trade policy, which meantime, the supply of money and States has set in years. The Europeans the Reagan hardliners see as a touch­ i credit was squeezed hard. The predict­ said that much of their steel would be I' stone of alliance loyalty." able result was that real interest rates priced out of the American market and De;"'Spiegel II' Among capitalist states, anti­ (subtracting the inflation rate) went threatened retaliation against American Reagan wants Pershing 2's In J Communist ideological unity is all well through the ceiling. Historically in the exports." Europe to launch first strike against the USSR. and good, but not at the sacrifice ofvital U.S. real interest rates have been in the One week after dealing this body blow national economic interests. (Even 2-3 percent range; under Reagan they've to the depressed European steel indus­ rand's unexpected victory in May 1981 Begin's Israel is supplying some pumps been running at 8-10 percent. The effect try, the Reagan administration struck both the Paris Bourse (stock market) again with the pipeline sanctions. No and franc went into a tailspin. Within wonder the European bourgeoisie has I two weeks of the election France lost $7 been howling in rage ever since. billion of its $27 billion in foreign­ POSSIBLE! • WE COULD USE IT'S NOO-STRmGK ATC».l1C IT'S TOO BAD. exchange reserves. The run on the franc IT'S REALLY WEftSlOM$ IN A "Fran~ois A'ilOiT EUROPE. .... The and was halted for the moment only by POSS/8LE!-OOR WAY THAT Mon Cher Ron Show" Folds STUDIES SHON HlXJmti TOTALLY jacking up interest rates to levels even LIM/TEO NUCLEAR [)£YASTATE THE While the policies of the California higher than in Reagan's America. This UNIT£/) flATES Gaullists have hurt all of West Europe's definitely put the kibosh on any pros­ II WAR IS I POSSiBLE! OR RIJ.fJIA!I economies, none is quite so vulnerable pect for a recovery of capital invest­ I as Mitterrand's France. At a time when ment. In fact, since Mitterrand's elec­ I other capitalist governments were tion French capital has been on a ii preaching the virtues of austerity, the slow-down strike. Outside the national­ u French popular front came to office in ized sector, industrial investment fell 10 the spring of 1981 promising prosperity, percent last year and worse is expected I full employment and sweeping social this year. reforms. At the same time Mitterrand With the French rate of inflation I :~" aligned himself closely with Reagan's more than twice that of its main trading I~ anti-Soviet bellicosity. The right-wing partner, West Germany, the devalua­ London Economist (12 December 1981) tion of the franc was inevitable. The commended him for "a more anti­ inevitable came the first time in October Russian policy than any previous 1981 as the franc was devalued 10 ____ IJ president of the Fifth Republic." percent against the deutschmark. To Mitterrand's strident anti-Sovietism continued on page 10

17 SEPTEMBER 1982 9 ~ ~ ~ I ." spending good dollars to mop up excess bankruptcy only by government bail­ war hitherto, the steps which Roosevelt francs. outs. It is not just that every week sees and Churchill took in July to cut off her 'That would, in effect, amount to Pipeline ... another international financial crisis as economic resources were bound to hitching the dollar to the spending make her strike back in the only way (continued from page 9) schemes of France's Socialist govern­ Mexico, Argentina or some country possible for her-by force of arms'" ment, and mercifully the Reagan team cannot meet their billions of dollars in -History of the curb inflationary pressures (fueled in managed to slip out ofVersailles without debt payments. It is that the bourgeois Second World War (1970) part by the currency depreciation itself), promising anything more than a studyof and reformist parties can offer no the Mitterrand government reimposed the whole idea ofcurrency intervention." As the capitalist world once again credible way out of the prolonged slides into depression, once again we wage/price controls which had been A week after Reagan dumped cold economic slump. They offer only more lifted by the conservative Giscard/Barre water on them at Versailles, the French hear the cries in West Europe and the austerity. Each in its own way, the U.S. of the Japanese "trade menace." regime three years earlier. This pro­ devalued the franc once again. More spectacular failures of Reagan's voked a strike wave, concentrated in the significantly, the Mitterrand govern­ When a Japanese trade delegation "supply-side" economics and Mitter­ visited the Common Market countries nationalized industries, which marked ment imposed a four-month wage freeze rand's neo-Keynesianism demonstrate the beginning of working-class disillu­ on all French workers. Not even the last October, they were shocked by the the impotence of bourgeois govern­ sudden upsurge in anti-Japanese senti­ sionment with the new popular-front haughty bourgeois Giscard had dared to ments before the anarchy of the world government (see "Strikes End 'Social­ risk a total wage freeze as an "anti­ ment. French trade minister Michel capitalist system. Jobert (a loud-mouthed old Gaullist) ist' Honeymoon in France," WV No. inflation" measure. The economics Influential sections of the U.S. 293,20 November 1981). correspondent for the right-wing I.e told them bluntly "there's nothing we bourgeoisie are fed up with Reagan's really need" to import from Japan. Despite these attempts at holding Figaro, Yves Guihannec, wrote in a we­ crackpot economic schemes and true­ However, anti-Japanese feeling in down wages, the Mitterrand regime was told-you-so vein: believer political gambits. But no Europe is not nearly as strong as in the faced with the impossibility of what the "The French government-suddenly section of the ruling class can find a way waking to the harshness of the real U.S. There is now a bill in Congress snotty Economist termed "Keynesian­ out of the underlying problem: the ism in one country." The French budget world after its second currency devalua­ requiring that 90 percent of the content tion in nine months-is totally reversing deficit for 1982 is expected to be the its economic policies. The fight against ofJapanese autos sold here be manufac­ highest deficit in postwar French inflation becomes again, as it was under tured in this country. And the shock history. To finance this huge deficit the former conservative Prime Minister troops in the anti-Japanese trade war Mitterrand regime was running the Raymond Barre, the No. I priority." are the same labor bureaucrats, central­ printing presses at a time when inflation - Wall Street Journal, 30 June ly the Fraser gang in the Auto Workers, in the rest of the advanced capitalist Since June the economic pronounce­ who are also leading the givebacks world was being damped down by the ments of the Mitterrand regime are campaign and are staunch supporters of impact of tight money, slashes in social virtually indistinguishable from those of the anti-Soviet war drive as well. It is programs and an ever-growing reserve Reagan or Thatcher. The language of the liberal Democrats, the so-called army of the unemployed. With the franc solidarite has been replaced with that of "friends oflabor," who are most vocal in still way overvalued, French exporters rigueur. Social security taxes on workers whipping up "yellow peril" chauvinism. could not sell profitably in world have been raised, for example, while At a closed Congressional caucus markets. Renault and Peugeot, for benefits are cut. A Communist Party Michigan Democrat John Dingell example, were forced to sell cars at cost functionary exclaimed to a British reportedly called the Japanese "little in West Germany, otherwise they journalist friend: "It's got through my yellow people." Democratic Congres­ couldn't sell them at all. To bridge thick skull at last: we're landed with sionalleader Tip O'Neill is calling for a the widening balance-of-trade deficit, another government of the Right" total ban on Japanese auto imports and France was borrowing heavily in the (Manchester Guardian Weekly, 25 speaking in Detroit last March boasted, international money markets. In the June). This "revelation" has not pre­ "If I were President ... I'd fix the first seven months of this year alone vented the Stalinist ministers from Japanese like they've never been fixed." France increased its foreign indebted­ loyally serving in Mitterrand's "another Considering that his fellow Democrat ness by a third. Mitterrand's France was government of the Right." Der Spiegel Harry Truman dropped two A-bombs on its way to becoming the Poland or From the outset the Mitterrand U.S. soldiers prepare for chemical on the Japanese, that is one hell of a Mexico of West Europe. regime-here enthusiastically backed warfare. threat. To get out of these financial straits by the Stalinists-has been highly Small wonder that the head of ~itterrand, who doesn't lack chutzpah, economically nationalistic. The main decline of capitalism and its long-term Japan's ruling bourgeois Liberal Demo­ has tried to induce other governments, slogan used in pushing through the and increasing unproductiveness. The cratic Party, Susumu Nikaido, recently above all Reagan's America, to subsi­ nationalizations was to "reconquer the U.S. Democratic Party's railing against told a U.S. trade negotiator: "Opinions dize France in the name of a "new domestic market," in other words, trade "Reaganomics" is intended to help the expressed about Japan in the United international economic order." As host protectionism. Now that the reformist gullible forget Carter's record ofdouble­ States are anti-Japanese. They give us of the June Versailles summit he pretensions of the popular-front gov­ digit inflation and "austerity" policies. It the impression of the prewar days" (Los proposed a series of grandiose schemes ernment have been totally exploded and was under the Democrats that Cold War Angeles Times, 19 March). Perhaps for restructuring world capitalism. All it is calling for austerity and nothing but II was begun, paving the way for Nikaido was justifying Japan's rearma­ these schemes had one thing in com­ austerity, the appeals to French chau­ Reagan's more ideologically rarefied ment program. The conventional pic­ mon: they would channel other people's vinism are likely to become more style. All wings of the bourgeoisie are ture of Japan as an economic giant but a money, mainly denominated in dollars strident yet. That is all the reformists committed to the anti-Soviet military military midget is no longer accurate. and deutschmarks, into the coffers of have to fall back on. The social­ buildup, necessarily a multi-billion­ The Japanese military budget is the the Banque de France. In particular the democrats and Stalinists will undoubt­ dollar drain on a contracting capitalist sixth largest in the world and is growing French made a big push for internation­ edly blame all of France's economic ills economy. faster than that of any West European al currency stabilization, a scheme to on the "multinationals" and Wall Street And the depressed economic condi­ country. Japan's rulers know better have the U.S. Federal Reserve take over and seek to channel the mounting tions intensify all the destructive irra­ than most that world trade wars can the hopeless task of propping up the proletarian anger against French impe­ tionality of the capitalist order. It is no easily escalate into world wars of a far faltering franc. rialism's German, American and Japan­ accident that a fanatical warmonger like more destructive kind. No way, said Wall Street, was it going ese rivals. Reagan became U.S. president at a time when the American ruling class keenly The outbreak of the first imperialist to subsidize the French social democrats world warin 19 14 signaled thattheforces no matter how loudly they denounce the Depression, Trade War, felt the loss of its former economic and Imperialist War military superiority. A true reactionary, of production had outgrown capitalist Soviet SS-20 missiles or whoop it up for property relations and the nation-state the counterrevolutionary Polish Soli­ Reagan dreams of restoring the short­ The snide Tories of the London lived "American century" of the 1950s. system, and so required the internation­ darnost. The Wall Street Journal (9 al socialist reconstruction of society as June) commented acidly: Economist remarked that the "fiasco This"American century" was achieved about a pipeline from Siberia ... must be by defeating in war America's two the only alternative to destruction. As "The French, it appears, have been the warring European capitalist"father­ intervening so merrily in the foreign­ amusing the ghosts of both Groucho principal imperialist rivals-Germany exchange markets they are about to run and Karl Marx." Certainly the pipeline and Japan. Now once again we find lands" sent a generation of youth to the out of money. How nice it would be for brouhaha has all the elements of first­ American imperialism pitted against a slaughter, the great Russian revolution­ them if Messrs. Reagan and Volcker German-dominated Europe and a resur­ ary Leon Trotsky raised the call for a could be induced to take over the job of class political farce. And as communists we particularly appreciate that the gent and rearming Japan. Socialist United States of Europe. The world's number one imperialist war­ It is very timely to point out that continuing power of that program is proven, for example, in the demonstrat­ Spartaclst League! monger, Ronald Reagan, comes out of Japan, in particular, was driven into the it with much egg on his face. Second World War by a decade oftrade ed need for a Siberian gas pipeline, even Spartacus Youth League in the face of capitalist irrationality and Public Offices But the pipeline dispute should not be protectionism and economic sanctions treated simply as a subject for derisive directed against it. With the onset ofthe Stalinist mismanagement. Imagine the -MARXIST L1TERATURE­ laughter. At bottom it represents the Great Depression, tariff barriers were possibilities opened up by a planned, Bay Area intersection of the two main forces erected everywhere against the Japanese integrated economy fully and rationally Fri.: 5:00-8:00 p.m .• Sat: 3:00-6:00 p.m. utilizing the labor power, technical 1634 Telegraph. 3rd Floor (near 17th Street) driving us toward World War III: the "trade menace" as it was then called. Oakland. California Phone: (415) 835-1535 appetite of capitalist imperialism­ Most damaging to Japan was trade knowledge and natural resources from openly and loudly voiced by Reagan­ protectionism in the Asian colonies of the Siberian tundra to the Iberian Chicago to overthrow the Soviet Union, which peninsula. Tues.: 5:30-9:00 p.m .• Sat.: 2:00-5:30 p.m. the other imperialist powers (e.g., 523 S. Plymouth Court. 3rd Floor despite Stalinist degeneration still em­ British India, French Indochina). Japan The Russian Bolshevik Revolution of Chicago. Illinois Phone: (312) 427-0003 bodies the social gains of the Bolshevik was thus pushed into creating its own 1917 was the first step toward a socialist New York City Revolution, and the intensifying inter­ Asian "Co-Prosperity Sphere." world order. But the failure to extend Tues.: 6:00-9:00 p.m.. Sat.:12:00-4:00 p.m. imperialist economic conflicts. To counter Japanese expansionism the proletarian revolution, centrally to 41 Warren St. (one block below Increasingly the capitalist world of American and British imperialism Europe, in the early 1920s led to the Chambers St. near Church St.) New York. N.Y. Phone: (212) 267-1025 the 1980s resembles that of the 1930s. It resorted first to economic warfare. In Stalinist degeneration of the Soviet is not just the 30 million unemployed July 1941 (five months before Pearl Union, the victory of fascism in Ger­ Trotskyist League in West Europe and North America. Harbor) the U.S., British and Dutch many and the second imperialist world of Canada It is not just that firms which have embargoed Japan's oil supplies without war. Now that the preparations for a Toronto been household names for decades­ which it could not survive. The eminent nuclear World War III are well under Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m. Chrysler, International Harvester, British military historian B.H. Liddell way, the time is short to resolve the 299 Queen St. W.• Suite 502 Toronto. Ontario Phone: (416) 593-4138 AEG-Telefunken-are on the verge of Hart has written: historic choice facing mankind: social­ bankruptcy or can be saved from "Although Japan had stayed out of the ism or barbarism.•

10 WORKERS VANGUARD c1udes a quarter of a million Israeli predicated on the denial that such events Lebanon, pleading with Reagan to Palestinians ... Arabs at the bottom. As with the present could possibly take place. redirect budget funds from military aid (continued from page 1) Reagan plan, "Labor" wanted to impose Despairing of revolutionary class to Israel to social services in the U.S. But fake "autonomy" on the more populous struggle, the reformists and nationalists the real reason for U.S. imperialism's plan to launch ten new settlements in the regions of the West Bank and Gaza'in follow the Arab League despots in massive buildup of its own war machine heart of the West Bank. This is in "association" with Jordan. But Israel calling on U.S. imperialism to rein in its and that of its allies-the anti-Soviet additio'1 to the already existing 115 would be the effective state power, Zionist puppet and impose a mini-state war drive that unites the AFL-CIO tops, settlements with a population ofclose to controlling ail aspects of "security" Palestinian "homeland." the Zionists and Reagan-cannot be 30,000 which the Reagan plan has no through the Zionist settlements and An example of the American fake­ addressed by cowards who run away intention of dismantling. military stations that would ring these lefts who look to pressure imperialism from defense of the USSR against Opposition to Begin in the Knesset regions. The Zionists would also domi­ to play a "progressive" role in the imperialism. Now Reagan has declared was led by the Israeli "Labor" Party. nate economically through an "open colonial world is the Marcyite Workers Lebanon a "vital interest." And if Although affiliated to the pro­ border policy," encouraging Israeli World Party. Immediately after the Israel's efforts to provoke war with imperialist "Socialist" International of Syria should drag in their respective Mitterrand and Helmut Schmidt, the military backers, defense of the Soviet Israeli "Labor" Party is not even a Union will be directly and centrally bourgeois workers party like the Eu­ posed. ropean social-democrats or Labour in Britain. It is the main party of the For a Socialist Federation Zionist bourgeois establishment which of the Near East! founded and ruled the racialist state of Israel for 30 years. The Reagan plan is Trotsky called Zionism a "deathtrap" an adaptation of the "Labor" Party's for the Jews in the Near East. Years of own program for the territories it national subjugation, expansionism and conquered in-1967 and colonized for a genocide have militarized Israeli society decade. and pushed forward clerical, racialist The Kremlin bureaucracy absurdly and fascistic elements, the so-called denied there was any rift at all between right-wing "fringe" of the Zionist Reagan and Begin. But its mouthpiece, movement. The country and its armed Pravda (6 September), spoke the truth forces are run by the Begins, Shamirs, when it charged the Reagan proposals Sharons and even the Meir Kahanes "program a further exacerbation of who 20 years ago were kept in the relations between peoples, new bloody shado\\s of the Zionist establishment. a conflicts." Indeed Cold Warrior Rea­ public embarrassment if a private ne­ gan, whatever his gripes over cease-fire cessity for the Zionist state. But the violations in Beirut or West Bank demonstrations against the Lebanon Campion/Gamma-Liaison settlements, fully endorsed mad bomber invasion as well as recent polls show that Begin's crushing of"Soviet influence" in Arab summit at Fez: a rare occasion when these medieval sheiks and military a majority of the population is becom­ Lebanon through smashing the PLO's despots are not busy killing one another and massacring their own people. ing weary of eternal guard duty over a armed forces and wiping out Soviet­ rebellious Palestinian population on investment in the recruitment of cheap supplied Syrian MIGs and anti-aircraft Lebanon invasion the Marcyites called a behalf of Begin's expansionist dream of labor from the Occupied Territories. batteries. "Pax Americana" in the Near demonstration to demand "effective an "Eretz Israel" from the Euphrates to East means Reagan has added Lebanon West Bank and Gaza residents work U.S. action to achieve Israeli withdraw­ the Nile. Ifthe Hebrew nation is to have to his EI Salvador-to-Angola list of as gang laborers in Israel and are not al" at a time when this could only have a future it will not be as oppressors of America's "vital interests." The U.S. even allowed to stay overnight. They meant U.S. Marines to Lebanon­ the Arab people. Three million Israeli Marines have been withdrawn from receive only 40 percent of the average exactly what Begin was demanding! Jews cannot forever declare war on the Beirut but are still assigned to the U.S. Israeli wage, have no trade-union rights Then the Marcyites, joined by their close to 150 million Arabs of the Near Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. and increasingly function as a reserve fellow reformists of the Communist East. Israeli working people, especially Further, U.S. troops and bases in Sinai, army of labor. In this regard Israel is Party and Socialist Workers Party, the relatively oppressed Sephardic the fruit ofthe Camp David accords, are beginning to acquire the social structure called a march on Washington for Jewish Arabs who constitute Begin's part of Reagan's anti-Soviet Rapid of South Africa. Begin has established September II for "No U.S. Troops to base because of disenchantment with Deployment Force as well as border settlements throughout the West Bank Lebanon"-after they had already been the traditional "Labor" Zionist estab­ guards for Israel. Begin.plans to heal the in preparation for annexation and withdrawn! This was not merely lousy lishment, must be broken from Zionism. U.S.-Israeli rift on the battlefield of Sharon wants to fill the area with a timing (reflected in the dismal turnout The Palestinian people have an Reagan's global anti-Soviet war drive­ million Jews. Begin/Sharon intend to of less than 3,000 for the march) but unconditional right to self-determina­ e.g., by attempting to provoke full-scale expel the million Arabs there through flowed from their popular-frontist line tion, including real, independent state­ war with Russia's major military client the triple terror of the Israeli army, of seeking to "reform" imperialism hood. But their nation was dismem­ in the region, the Syrian Ba'athists. fanatical Orthodox Jewish fascist gangs through blocs with liberal capitalist bered to the profit of both the Zionist and recently recruited right-wing Pales­ politicians. state and the Jordanian monarchy, with Israel Out of the tinian thugs, the Village Leagues. Over the Near East as everywhere the concurrence of the rest of the Arab Occupied Territories! else, the reformist groups duck the regimes. Their national rights will be No to Anti Soviet "Russian question" to keep their dem­ realized only through the revolutionary When the "Labor" government seized "Pax Americana"! onstrations "ready for Teddy" Kennedy. proletarian overthrow of the Israeli and the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, it set But U.S. imperialism's global anti­ Arab ruling classes. up military facilities to police the Arab nationalists see Israel as no Soviet strategy is key to its Near East Palestinian self-determination means Palestinian inhabitants and refugees more than a U.S. puppet and garrison policy. It's no accident that the Ameri­ it is the Palestinians, not psychopathic .,. and encouraged settlements in a perime­ state. They believe there can be no real can labor bureaucracy-which was in terrorists from Brooklyn like Kahane or ter around the territory. "Labor" verbal­ conflict between the U.S. and its Zionist the vanguard of the Cold War when anti-Communist Jews from Russia, who ly opposed the attempts of ultra-rightist fortress and no polarization within Reagan was still making "Bedtime for have a "right of return" to a Palestinian religious forces to settle throughout the Israeli society because Israeli workers Bonzo" movies-is also the ardent homeland which includes Haifa and West Bank because of the difficulty of are unbreakably wedded to the Zionist champion of the Zionist state. (Likewise Jaffa as well as Hebron and Ramallah. incorporating 1.2 million more Arabs rulers. Fake-leftists now enthuse over it's no accident that the American The genuinely democratic resolution of into the already rigidly stratified racial­ the mass antiwar protests in Tel Aviv, Zionists are a pillar of the Cold War the Palestine national question requires ist Israeli social structure, which in- but their whole nationalist perspective is establishment.) As Israel rained down a binational framework, conceivable phosphorus and cluster bombs on only through socialist revolution workers and refugees in Beirut, the against the Zionist state and the Arab SPARTACIST LEAGUE LOCAL DIRECTORY AFL-CIO took out an ad in the New rulers, both subservient to imperialism. York Times proclaiming: "American This revolution must be led by an National Office Champaign Los Angeles Labor Is Not Neutral. We Support internationalist workers party which Box 1377, GPO c/o SYL Box 29574 New York, NY 10116 P.O. Box 2009 Los Feliz Station Israel." breaks Hebrew-speaking workers from (212) 732-7860 Champaign, IL 61820 Los Angeles, CA 90029 Taking polite exception was an "Ad genocidal Zionist racialism and the (213) 663-1216 Hoc Committee of Trade Unionists oppressed Palestinian masses from the Chicago Ann Arbor Box 6441, Main P.O. Madison Opposed to the Israeli Invasion of dead end of PLO nationalism. The c/o SYL Chicago, IL 60680 c/o SYL Lebanon," supported by the same imperialist balkanization of the Near P.O. Box 8364 (312) 427-0003 Box 2074 reformist groups, who placed their own East will be overcome through proletar­ Ann Arbor, MI 48107 Madison, WI 53701 (313) 662-2339 Cleveland (608) 251-3398 ad in the Times. The ad made no ian revolution to create a Socialist Box 91954 mention of the imperialist troops sent to Federation of the Near East. • Cleveland, OH 44101 Berkeley/Oakland (216) 621-5138 New York P.O. Box 32552 Box 444 A SpartaciSI Pamphl~t $1.00 Oakland, CA 94604 ' Detroit Canal Street Station (415) 835-1535 Box 32717 New York, NY 10013 - Spartacist Pamphlet I Solidarno§c: Detroit, MI 48232 (212) 267-1025 (313) 961-1680 I enclose $ for __ copy(ies) of Polish Boston San Francisco "Solidarnosc: Polish Company Union CompanV Union for Box 840, Central Station Houston Box 5712 for CIA and Bankers" at $1.00 each. Cambridge, MA 02139 Box 26474 San Francisco, CA 94101 CIA and Bankers ...---..,u.-,__ (617) 492-3928 Houston, TX 77207 (415) 863-6963 Name

Address _

TROTSKYIST LEAGUE OF CANADA City State _ Toronto Vancouver Zip Phone _ Box 7198, Station A Box 26, Station A Toronto, Ontario M5W 1X8 Vancouver, B. C. V6C 2L8 Make checks payable/mail to: (416) 593-4138 (604) 681-2422 Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116

17 SEPTEMBER 1982 11 endangered everyone at whom this singlehandedly take on the LAPD­ only a liberal political defense is PL... witchhunting strategy is aimed. notorious for the jackboot methods of possible, PL falsely counterposes politi­ When the case began to heat up, we its SWAT teams, its use of attack cal defense to general "fighting back." (continued from page 4) noted in WVNo. 197 (17 March 1978): helicopters and massive firepower as in Exactly the opposite is the case: political "Should the cop suit succeed, it bodes the massacre ofthe'Symbionese Libera­ defense is part of the class struggle and them. This means that all the LAPD's great dangers for the left and labor tion Army'-are more likely to lead to must be conducted according to prole­ provocations-its years of infiltration movement-providing an additional prison, hospitalization or worse." tarian methods. lucrative incentive for brutal cop and disruption, its racist rampages, its PL's discovery, five years late, that The case is now on appeal, but PL attacks on leftist demonstrators, its set­ attacks. All class-conscious militants must demand that the suit be thrown they are the victims of a McCarthyite doesn't even make it possible to contri­ up of the Black Panthers, the notorious out of court and all charges against witchhunt, doesn't seem to have bute to their legal defense, insisting that activities ofthe Red Squad, and even the demonstrators dropped!" changed anything. They posture that the money be sent to PL directly and conspiracy to disrupt and destroy PL in But PL doesn't make defense very easy. they have the "puny" cops and courts on they will use it for any purpose they see which this trial was a principal instru­ PL c()untersued the LAPD and got the run. Challenge proclaims: "On July fit. At bottom this despairing disorien­ ment-all this was disallowed. , $1,500, which they can presumably '16, we held a press conference and tation is not much different from the Finally, in Judge Watson's deduct from the $334,000 they have picketed the courthouse, scaring the attitude which sends PLers with more instructions to the jury she declared one been ordered to pay the cops. But only cops' lawyers and judge." This mouse­ guts than brains into pointless, losing of the defendants guilty because he recently has it dawned on these hapless that-roared style is not only stupid and battles with the cops from Connecticut didn't show up at the trial. She did not victims that the trial was political. With sectarian, but dangerously self-isolating .Jo L. A. in the name of. "fighting bother to tell the jury that the reason its comrades in jail for contempt, the 4 as well. fascism." PL knows a lot about macho was that sometime after the 1977 August Challenge admits with its usual A recent Challenge (8 September) grandstanding but nothing about how demonstration against INS deporta­ brainlessness dished out as candor: "At denounced any idea of setting up a to fight to win-against McCarthyite tions, he was deported! first we did not see the need to turn it '''left-wing' defense committee, holding witchhunts, against fascist attacks, No wonder the witchhunters are into a mainly political trial"! Now, like rallies to 'save' PLP or various mem­ against racial oppression, to put the ecstatic with the results of this new legal the blind man clubbed over the head, bers." Perish the thought. For PL, it's working class on the road to socialist device. "I hope this will encourage more they are beginning to see the light. But the business of frenzy as usual, no revolution which alone will finally settle police officers to sue when they are PL remains opposed in principle to stopping to wage a political campaign accounts with capitalism's brutal racist wronged," said the cops' lawyer putting up a class-struggle defense. around the trial by seeking to enlist thugs in blue. triumphantly. PL spits on the communist tradition working-class and left-wing support in a The LAPD vendetta against PL must of united-front defense, adopting a be stopped! It directly threatens leftist Defend PL ••. Somehow fight against the witchhunt. Instead they sectarian macho stance against the operate in the framework of the worst militants, black organizations, strikers It is precisely because of the repressive forces of the state. They traditions of Stalinist defense work. on picket lines, anyone who is a target precedent-setting character of this called the cop attack and subsequent PL's excuse for its lack of defense for cop victimization. All the intended ominous case that PL's failure to cop suit "stepping stones to revolution," against the state's attack is that it doesn't victims of repression in Reagan's Amer­ publicize it and defend itself politically bragging in bold type: "WE ARE want to mimic the losing, no-struggle ica have a stake in this case. For united­ is a real crime. PL has not only left its GROWING FROM THIS ATTACK." "defense" response of the CP during the front defense to stop the cop vendetta individual members in the lurch; it has At the time we warned that "attempts to postwar witchhunts. Imagining that against PL! •

the occupied territories as well as in LTF Lebanon Israel. But through the nationalist dogma of "non-interference in the internal affairs" ofthe Arab regimes, the Leaflet... PLOpreventedthe Palestinian proletar­ (continued from page 7) iat from undertaking class struggles operation of its own imperialism, it (even in Jordan, where Palestinians are prepared the way by its support to this the majority) against the Hashemite austerity/ Cold War popularfront. Last monarchy with its extremely narrow December 13 the LCR was the "left" social base. Instead the ~LO's national­ component of the holy alliance extend­ ism channels the rebellions that could ing from the fascists to the far left in have taken a revolutionary direction­ support of Solidarnosc, company union Jordan 1970, Lebanon 1975-76-into for the CIA and Western bankers. self-isolated and easily decapitated movements, contributing to the subse­ For Permanent Revolution quent bloody communalism in Leba­ in the Middle East non. Only a party with a proletarian internationalist vision based on the While Begin's invasion of Lebanon program of Trotsky's permanent revo­ exposed the genocidal logic of Zionism, lution can mobilize the Jewish and it also exposed the bourgeois Arab Palestinian workers for desperately regimes, "radical" as well as "moder­ necessary struggle for a socialist federa­ ate," as its indispensable collaborators. tion of the Near East. The Palestinian and Arab left militants must draw the lesson: the need for • Defend the Palestinians! No to working-class struggle. It's in the name Begin's "final solution"! Israel out of nationalism that the PLO hailed as of Lebanon! French troops out of 1981: UAW members from Chrysler Tank Plant (now owned by General their allies these same Arab govern­ Lebanon! No to the imperialist Dynamics) march against concessions In Warren, Michigan. ments who today stab them in the back. "peace-keepers"! The slogan of "struggling against • Not Jew against Arab but class teachers! Bust union-buster Coleman Zionism" in the mouths of Arab leaders against class! Shut Down Young! is a way to detour the class struggle in • For a socialist federation of the Conditions in Detroit are a more their countries, while these same leaders Near East! powerful argument for socialism than a betrayed the Palestinian cause in a Ligue Trotskyste de France, Detroit... thousand pamphlets. While mass lay­ thousand ways, from "Black Septem­ 24 August 1982 (continued from page 2) offs and plant shutdowns threaten the ber" to Camp David to Tel el Zaatar. organized existence of the black prole­ The main enemy is at h()me! against the city's workers and ghetto tariat, increased racist attacks and fire­ The liberation of the Palestinians poor. bombings have maimed black people cannot be won by a purely national SLiSYL Forum The attack on the teachers, who are and driven them from their homes. A i>truggle or some utopian rapproche­ largely black, isjust the latest in Young's fighting labor movement must oppose ment between Zionist "doves" and PLO American Workers Revolution Needs Black Leadershlpl efforts to grind down the city employees the deadly growth of KKK/Nazi terror-· "moderates." The Zionist state and the --_._- unions, highlighted by the breaking of ism not only with labor/black defense bourgeois Arab states surrounding it For Labor/Black Action to the sanitation and transit workers strike mobilizations but by showing that there must be exploded from inside by Smash Racist Terrorl two years ago. In fact, Young & Co. is a class-struggle answer to the depres­ proletarian revolutionary struggle. The justify their present union-busting by sion conditions that the race-haters feed massive antiwar protests in Israel, even their past union-busting: "We are not off. though today they don't transcend "left" asking our teachers to do anything more Givebacks, layoffs and Klan terror Zionism, smash to bits the idea that the than some of our other employees who are part of U.S. imperialism's massive whole Hebrew-speaking population of have already given us concessions," anti-Soviet arms buildup and war drive. Israel is one homogeneous reactionary declares Board of Education head You can't fight the givebacks without mass. A real solution to the right ofself­ George Bell. What they are "asking" is a determination for the Palestinians is fighting Reagan and the anti-Soviet war Speakers: possible only through the destruction of Myra Owens, salary cut of 8 percent, which given the drive. And you can't fight by replacing George Crawford, SYL National inflation will mean a cut in real income Reagan with Democrats like Coleman the Hashemite monarchy and the SL Central Committee Committee of 15 percent or more a year. clerical Zionist state. These two states Young. There is no way out within the Guest Speaker: In striking against Young, the teach­ capitalist system. What is needed is a were carved out at the expense of the Ed Karlsen, ers are setting a fighting example for all workers party to fight for a workers' Palestinian people. NYC transit worker, chairman of the June 27 of Detroit's workers. They have said government which will rip the produc­ The Israeli workers must break with Chicago mass rally to stop the Nazis they expect a long strike, and if the city tive wealth of this country out of the Zionism, and the Palestinian workers Friday, 7:30 p.m. Machinists' Hall gets an injunction against them, they hands of the capitalist class. That must break with the PLO, which could September 17 7 E. 15th Street struggle must begin now with a general easily become their bourgeois oppres­ will d"efy it. If all Detroit labor went out For more information, call 267-1025 in support of the teachers, it would be a strike in Detroit against Coleman sor. There is already an important real short strike! All out behind the Young and the auto bosses!. Palestinian proletariat in Jordan and in NEW YORK CITY

12 WORKERS VANGUARD Militant Exl!Qses, Job Cutting, Gains Wide SUIID0rt Against Bureaucrats' Purge Trial in S.F. Phone Union

SAN FRANCISCO-Attempts by dangerous growth ofthe Klan and Nazis bureaucrats to keep the company plan vice president Marie Malliet for her Communications Workers of America and called for mass labor/black mobili­ secret; (2) she won't rubber stamp his seeming sympathies to the political (CWA) Local 9410 president Jim zations to smash fascist terror. Ikegami anti-democratic appointments of stew­ positions of her husband Leonard ~ Imerzel to purge Kathy Ikegami, a well­ especially condemned the CWA bu­ ards and committee members ... ; (3) Malliet, a member of ILWU Local 10 • known CWA militant and 9410 execu­ reaucracy for allowing the sale of she's a member of the Militant Action and a well-known supporter ofthe views tive board member, are meeting wide Confederate flag badges-the banner of Caucus...." The same leaflet repro­ of the Communist Party. Likewise we opposition within the local. Ikegami is a slavery-to raise money for COPE. duces a letter from another 9410 would oppose attempts to expel Imerzel leader of the Militant Action Caucus This year, feeling the heat from an executive board member, Rich Contre­ from office because of his affiliation I"l I (MAC), a class-struggle oppositional angry membership fearful oflosing their ras, to Imerzel, which states: with the Bay Area Trade Unionists in II grouping of CWA members opposed to jobs, the union tops hit back. Watts "After having served three years on the Solidarity with Chile, a coalition which the pro-company, pro-Democratic closed the convention with a speech Executive Bd. of Local 9410, I find the includes a number of Communist Party Party policies of the CWA leadership. denouncing MAC: " ... we have been charges you have filed against Kathy supporters based on the same Stalinist/ According to a 12 July Militant Action, put down in royal order by a group Ikegami, as being discriminatory as well social-democratic program of class as politically self-motivated. Mr. Imer­ Ikegami is being charged with "willfully called the Militant Action." Warming to zel, I never voted for any of the collaboration which led to the bloody violating her duties as an executive his subject he denounced "anarchists... appointees that the chief steward defeat of the Chilean workers. All the board member and bringing the union who would say 'never settle; always recommended, and no charges were bureaucrats' flak about "outside into disrepute." The charges afe a cover strike'-always have so much disagree­ for an attempted political purge of ment and violence going on that orderly Ikegami. The 12 June MAC leaflet society breaks down and then somebody l noted that "What gored his [Imer­ can grab it and take it over." Watts zel's] ox was MAC's expose.of some of ended with a green light for Imerzel's the union bureaucrats' attempted cover­ purge: "I would like not to be the only up ofPT&T'sjob-slashing attack on our one that is putting them down by members." answering them." MAC has denounced Imerzel's The word went out from the CWA !r charges as "damned self-serving lies and National-Get MAC! This was a dirty business." According to MAC a confirmed when the Local 9410 Com­ lot of 9410 members agree-over 400 municator (August/September) reprint­ Delegate have signed a petition demanding the ed Watts' speech under the headline Kathy charges be dropped immediately. A "Watts Warns of Destructive Attack­ Ikegaml MAC spokesman said that a broad ers." Local 9410 bureaucrat Linda speaking at spectrum of opinion in the local is Zupan added her comments: "The CWA disgusted by Imerzel's high-handed convention delegates, made their posi­ convention. connivings to ax a political opponent. tion clear that these outside groups, like Local 9410 members know Kathy the Militant Action Caucus, are not Ikegami as a good steward, a fighter for friends of the CWA. While their rights, the union. They understand that if as much as anyone's of freedom of Imerzel and his cronies succeed in this speech must be preserved, their actions WV Photo witchhunt, no one who stands up to the and their agenda are no: in step with brought against me. I would be willing groups" is hypocritical and simply an company will be safe. those of the UNION MEMBERS.... " to testify to that fact. So I urge you to attempt to distract the membership's The charges filed against Ikegami The words "freedom of speech" drop all charges against Kathy Ikegami. attention from the real issue-jobs. were presented to her at the July CWA coming from Miss Zupan have about as So we can get on with the business of fighting the Co., instead of ourselves." The outrageous attempt to purge convention held in Detroit, which she much credibility as a denunciation of Ikegami and get MAC are a sign that the MAC's leaflet goes on to denounce as attended as an elected Local 9410 anti-Semitism from the mouth of CWA bureaucracy sits atop a political "crude and despicable McCarthyism" delegate. There, Ikegami sharply criti­ Hitler's mistress, Eva Braun. Watts, volcano. For years the companyand the the allegation that MAC is "a self­ cized CWA president 'Glenn Watts and Imerzel and their mouthpiece, Miss union tops alike sold the proposition proclaimed left-wing extremist political the union leadership' for refusing to Zupan, are telling CWA members that wages and working conditions at group of Trotskyist 'communists' affili­ mobilize the union to fight the massive certain opinions are outlawed. You are Ma Bell were bad but at least there was ated with the Spartacist League." This job-cutting offensive. not permitted to vote into office job security. Nobody believes this any­ charge is as bizarre as it is untrue-and At the convention, Ikegami de­ someone who says the union should more. When, in late July, word leaked to sounds like the sort of thing that might nounced the Watts bureaucracy for fight the company and fight to defend the California press that PT&T was to be cooked up by some hypothetical once again turning the convention into a itself. You can have only a leadership cut 16,000 workers from its payroll, feeble-minded law school dropout pep rally for the capitalist Democratic that says: never strike; always settle ... both the company and the union rushed working for the FBI, in collaboration Party. She urged labor to break with the on the company's terms. to deny the report. Democrats and forge a class-struggle According to a Militant Action dated with a not too bright sympathizer ofthe workers party. She called for interna­ 29 July, "Imerzel has brought charges Stalinist Communist Party. But just six weeks later CWA VP tional working-class solidarity, con­ against Ikegami because: (I) she pro­ Imerzel and Co. want to put Kathy Malliet reported that Pacific Telephone demning the CWA tops' support for the posed the necessary union action to stop Ikegami on trial because she is a well­ would surplus 1,745 employees in anti-Soviet war preparations of U.S. the company's job-slashing offensive known supporter of the Spartacist California and Nevada in distribution imperialism. MAC also warned of the and exposed the attempt by some union League. The 12 July Militant Action services alone. This should be contrast­ noted: ed with Imerzel's statement on April 25

"Regarding the Spartacist League, a in reply to a MAC leaflet outlining job­ I socialist political organization, if some cutting schemes. Imerzel blandly of our union members support some or claimed: "no layoffs are projected. all of the positions of that organization. that is their choice and their right to do PT&T assured CWA that the normal so. In fact, in April of 1980 the attrition of 200 employees would over­ PUILISHED IY THE MILITANT ACnON CAUCUS THE CLASS STRUGGLE OPPOSITION IN THE CWA Executive Board of CWA Local 9410 come any job displacement." Watts and I (San Francisco) and Local 9415 (Oak­ Imerzel want to throw Kathy Ikegami P.O. lOX 8571 SAN FRANCISCO, CA. 941tn land) endorsed an April 19 demonstra­ out of the CWA for the crime of telling tion in San Francisco initiated by the Spartacist League which aimed to the truth about Ma Bell's job-slashing prevent the Nazis from celebrating plans! MAC must defeat their shameful Hitler's birthday at the San Francisco purge attempt and use the opportunity Civic Center. Our union marched in I II NEWS BULLETIN 11 to politically educate the CWA mem­ that demonstration along with 1200 unionists, blacks, latinos, socialists, berst>ip about the real political nature of SECRET COMPANY/UNION MEETING: Jews, and gays. The union-busting, the sellout union leaders-whose no­ race-hating Nazis have not showed their MASSIVE LAYOFFS SLATED 1/83 fight policies truly "bring the union into I faces in San Francisco since then, and disrepute" and breed demoralization • we think the town is a cleaner, more I and cynicism. A 10 August Militant ~ hat PT&T had decent place to live because of this." StOCkS~ do~~n unce plans Action squarely posed the situation: :':.:<..: ~nnlranti~to!:Xnminti MAC is to be congratulated on its Streets :i~:' Ire i~ "The unions have two choices: they can .." 118th YurNo. 40 Wednesday. July 28, 1982 forthright position. Workers democracy either serve the bosses and companies I CWA tops want is vital if the unions are to decide how by administering givebacks, takeaways i to get MAC best to defend their members and and layoffs OR they can lead the fight to "' Phone company cuts jobs leader for telling replace this lousy system with one that advance the interests of labor. Thus it eliminates war, unemployment and the truth about would be a crime for anyone to, for racism, and serves the workers, minori­ .. phone layoffs. example, attempt to purge Local 9410 ties and poor.". 17 SEPTEMBER 1982 13 Labor Day: Bureaucrats &Democrats The union bureaucrats' 1982 Labor ~ ~\). contingents were from the craft­ ~...'.7..'·~.".'."".'<'''./ ,', .~.~ Day parade in New York City, intended .. ~,. .i~"·.i''lD·<·)....".:.:. "\IlII"-,-_ -or,..•,.·' dominated, mainly white building §. ,'; f < . .. "l' '. /,"<.,.,. to demonstrate support for the Demo­ trades, particularly Van Arsdale's Local t ~;%~ 'Yi ~ '. cratic "alternative" to Reaganomics, ~. !'P,i]l'.-.)"J./.f<.,, ' '. "'. '~" .•".".".)' <~.". ~.'.·r·' 3 of the International Brotherhood of was a dismal flop. Fewer than 50,000 Electrical Workers (IBEW). From the 'i"~ .. _!,. '.f!:iV.': ...,--~... unionists-a third as many as last ,L~ heavily black hospital workers District year-made their way up Fifth Avenue 1199 and Transport Workers Union past the reviewing stand at the Public Local 100, only a few hundred each Library, which was packed with bureau­ came out. The phone workers contin­ crats and Democrats like would-be gent had more "Cuomo for Governor" governor Mario Cuomo, Koch-backer NYC labor tops signs than workers. There were the usual Carol Bellamy and right-wing senator push "lesser floats, 150 marching bands and a Daniel Moynihan. One transit worker evil" Marlo contingent of Rockettes from Radio looked at the smiling politicians and Cuomo... City Music Hall. There were protesting remarked, "They'd all like to cut our dancers from the American Ballet throats." At Labor Day rallies across Theatre, locked out by their anti-Soviet the country, the message from the union boss, Mikhail Baryshnikov. But the tops was the same: vote Democrat. But a bureaucrats by and large mobilized lot of workers were less than enthusias­ only themselves and their hard-core tic about bringing back the strikebreak­ WV Photos supporters. ing party of Jimmy "Ethnic Purity" While there were some signs de­ Carter. The fact that over 2,000 New manding "Amnesty for Undocumented York unionists bought WV with the Workers" and "Political Asylum for headline, "Labor: Don't Crawl for the Haitian Boat People," Labor Day was Democrats" shows that bureaucratic dominated overwhelmingly by chauvin­ betrayal hasn't destroyed the workers' ist protectionism and anti-Soviet flag­ appetite to fight back. waving. In Boston the UAW had a Last year's New York parade featured "Buy American" float displaying two ...and attack a militant 3,000-strong air controllers new U.S.-built cars, while New York (PATCO) contingent chanting, workers in other countries. clothing workers carried signs read­ "Strike!" And on September 19, "Soli­ ing, "Jobs-America's Best Defense." darity Day" 1981, half a million work­ lBEW leaders wanted to give the Nobel ers, including at least 100,000 blacks, Peace Prize to Lech Walesa of Solidar­ went to Washington angered at Rea­ nose, Poland's pro-Reagan company gan's racism and union-busting. But union for Wall Street. In Boston the they wanted more than a weekend Enlisting in Cold War II is a class be­ rate since the Great Depression, a parade organizers even created a special parade; there was sentiment to "shut trayal and a recipe for defeat: the same colossal military buildup aimed at the contingent to support Solidarnose. down Washington" on a weekday. government-under Republican or USSR, government attacks on every Missingly entirely, of course, was Similarly in San Francisco, "Solidarity Democratic custodianship-that seeks essential social service, the bureaucrats' PATCO, destroyed when Reagan fired Day" demonstrators drowned out Dem­ to reconquer the USSR for capitalism is Labor Day answer to KKK-backed its members en masse and union leaders ocrat Walter Mondale with cries of prepared to send out cops and even Reagan was: give us more of the same like Van Arsdale and "socialist" Ma­ "PATCO! PATCO!" troops to bust up effective flying pickets. from the Democrats. chinists' leader William Winpisinger "Last year we marched, this year we Plenty of working people are fed up In New York the union bigwigs stabbed the air controllers in the back by vote," Massachusetts AFL-CIO leader and looking for a way to fight Reagan campaigned for Democratic guberna­ refusing to strike the airports. This year Arthur Osborn told the union crowd in reaction. What is needed to bring down torial hopeful Mario Cuomo, who PATCO was "remembered" with a Boston Common last month. The marched at the head of the parade with Reagan and his racist, anti-labor pro­ hearse bearing signs which said, "New Central Labor Council president Harry bureaucrats all but silenced any hint of gram is militant working-class action York Labor Mourns PATCO, 1968­ Van Arsdale and social-democratic city working-class struggle this year. There led by a class-struggle workers party: 1981." Hypocrisy! Van Arsdale, Winpi­ was an exception: in Detroit,. 70 uni­ plant sit-ins where workers are hit by workers union misleader Victor Got­ singer and AFL-CIO chief Lane Kirk­ formed auto workers marched in a mass layoffs and factory shutdowns; baum. Cuomo, who is Governor Carey's land helped dig the grave. disciplined "flying squadron" chanting industrial action to halt arms shipments disciple and lieutenant governor, is military cadences. Formed by United to the U. S.' anti-Soviet allies in Central the bureaucrats' preferred candidate Last year the Spartacist League Auto Workers (UAW) Local 1200, the America, Israel, etc.; and when blacks against the front runner, racist labor­ fought for labor to shut down the squadron is in training for picket duty like New York transit worker Willie hater mayor Ed Koch. There is no airports in solidarity with PATeO. against General Dynamics. The corpo­ Turks are lynched on the city streets, essential difference between these Dem­ Such decisive action could have busted ration, which recently bought its War­ mass integrated union-based defense ocrats: both support the bankers' Reagan's union-busting attack on the ren, Michigan tank plant from Chrysler, guards to smash the race-terrorists. program of continued austerity for New small air controllers union and opened a is planning to run the plant with scabs in But a militant response to the bosses' York which means more racist cutbacks working-class offensive that went be­ the event ofa Local 1200 strike when the racist, union-busting onslaught is the and more attacks on the unions. Both yond the bounds of "pure and simple" contract expires September 14. But last thing on the bureaucrats' minds. candidates support the union-busting trade unionism. As we said after while the flying squadron unionists Since last year's "Solidarity Day," union Taylor Law. Both want more police. "Solidarity Day" (WV No. 289, 25 marched in preparation for a class battle misleaders representing more than a Both want to convert state mental September 1981): against the scabherding military con­ million workers in auto, trucking, hospitals into prisons. Whoever wins, "In 1968 LyndonJohnson'sadministra­ tractor, their signs proclaimed, "We Are meatpacking, airlines, etc. have agreed workers and blacks will lose. tion was rendered impotent by the North Vietnamese Tet offensive. We Defense Workers." Th.; UA W mislead­ to multi-billion-dollar givebacks to the No wonder the powerful New York need a Tet offensive by the U.S. labor ers want to tie these workers to the war corporations. In the face of mounting City working class, especially its black movement to bring Reagan to his policies of Reagan and the Democrats. racist terror, the highest unemployment component, stayed home. The largest knees.".

minontles, women and gays. But this country but was touting the rights of Coleman: Well, that's a good question. S.F. Elections ... can be done only by a break with the Solidarnose. They thought there was I would like to speak to that, and to the Democrats who stand for none of these something kind of funny about that. So question of the gentleman over here (continued from page 3) things, who stand for the same things I would suggest to you that maybe some about William Winpisinger as well. the Republicans stand for, basically. of the rank-and-file members of your During the PATCO strike, it was very this country is going to fuel the anti­ Workers need their own party, a unions, especially some of the black obvious that PATCO stood alone. Communist war drive from Poland to EI revolutionary workers party, to fight for members who have seen what American What was needed was support from Salvador. The Spartacist League says: a workers government which will smash freedom and justice mean to them here other unions. And I don't mean just the "Military victory to the leftist insurgents the bosses' state, expropriate major at home, have a few more doubts about demonstrations which a number of in El Salvador!" We say that Solidar­ industry and institute a planned econo­ [Solidarnose] than you do. people very faithfully came to. nose in Poland is a company union for my. And then, only then, will the the CIA and the Western bankers. It's Question: How do you feel on the Questioner's interruption: You're not working class and black people in this interesting that this is the one "union" nuclear freeze? answering the question. What single country get what they need and deserve. Coleman: I feel it's essentially utopian thing would you have done ifyou were a that Reagan likes. He loves Solidarnose Thank you. and smashes PATCO into the ground. and no answer. I don't think you can get member of the Board of Supervisors, We want the crystallization ofa genuine Question: I have a comment to make as Reagan to disarm by writing petitions or the office you are running for? Trotskyist party to lead proletarian a rank-and-file member of this Labor passing propositions. I believe that only Coleman: I would have got up and political revolution to oust the venal, Council. Is there anybody in this Labor the working-class people, by taking made a speech on television and incompetent, counterrevolutionary Sta­ Council here who thinks that Solidarity state power in their hands, are going to everyplace else I could, that workers linist bureaucrats and defend the Polish in Poland is a tool of the CIA? stop Reagan sending missiles. I believe ought to see that the airports were shut working class against imperialist­ Coleman: I would just like to comment that only the fact that the Soviet Union down. And that means especially the inspired counterrevolution. that the Amsterdam News, which is an has a nuclear arsenal has kept U.S. lAM-and Winpisinger as the head of In this country we want a program to influential black newspaper in the imperialism from taking over the whole that-had to see that the airports were mobilize labor and minorities. We want United States-maybe you've heard of world. shut down. I see running for Board of jobs for all, decent housing, free medical it-came out with an editorial that said Question: If you were a member of the Supervisors as a way of mobilizing the care, child care, education, transit and a "Why Cry for Poland?" Because they Board of Supervisors at the time of the working class to struggle. Because I massive program of public works under noticed that Reagan was smashing PATCO strike, what single thing would don't think you get anything unless you union control. We want full equality for black people and the unions in this you do to resolve it? struggle.• 14 WORKERS VANGUARD sided courtship of Oppenheimer has South Africa ... not, of course, prevented him and his (continued from page 16) colleagues from supporting the basic laws maintaining and establishing the of repression of the mass nationalist apartheid system, not least the Suppres­ organizations, the African National sion of Communism Act. Congress (ANC) and Pan-Africanist The petty-bourgeois nationalists of Congress. The union movement has the ANCand the other exile and been the main vehicle for resurrecting underground nationalist organizations­ militant black struggle. There are now offer no effective strategy to defeat dozens of black unions with hundreds of apartheid. Moreover, their model for thousands of members. Another index post-apartheid South Africa should of the effectiveness of black labor they come to power is based on the anti­ struggle is that the wage differential working-class middlemen for imperial­ between black and white workers has ism such as Mozambique's Samora Ma­ decreased in the past decade from 20 to chel and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe. five to one. Given the savagery and all-sidedness If South Africa's oppressed black of racist oppression in South Africa, masses are to achieve full victory over black workers will never be satisfied the white racist regime they must look with narrow economistic unionism. elsewhere for leadership. A key task in They will certainly identify with the South Africa is the construction of a broader currents of political opposition Newsweek Trotskyist party armed with a program to apartheid. Here it is significant that at Cuban soldiers prevent South African Imperialists from conquering Angola. for workers revolution through smash­ the mass funeral procession for a white ing apartheid. South Africa, a regional union organizer, Neil Aggett, who was Communist Party. The ANCjStalinist Thus, the American CP's Daily World imperialist power, is the key to socialist murdered in prison six months ago, strategy is one of pressuring the sup­ (14 August), here simply expressing the revolution throughout the entire eco­ militants raised the flag of the outlawed posedly "progressive" elements of the views of its South African co-thinkers, nomically extremely backward region. ANC. white South African capitalist class. noted approvingly Oppenheimer's call The South African proletariat is there­ The liberal-nationalist ANC has long Their main candidate for this role is for "cooperation between unions and fore in the vanguard ofsocial revolution been in bloc with the South African diamond magnate Harry Oppenheimer. management"! The Stalinists' long, one- for all of black Africa.•

Jackson's diversionary boycott and is Democrats. Little wonder blacks feel The next wave ofblack struggle does not Chicago... pushing a black mayor as the solution isolated and besieged. have to pass through hustlers like (continued from page 5) for black people. In response to the It will take integrated class struggle to Jackson and Daughtry! Black workers vicious racist beating.in Bridgeport the defend black people from the rising line and their class-conscious white union "that if you met with Daley and he made CP called for people to write their of race terror in this country and address brothers can lead a political fight within a commitment, not only could he Congressmen to get the government to the basic economic oppression of the the unions to make them weapons in the deliver, but he would." Right-like enact laws against racism. Faced with black masses. And that means a political struggle for black rights and against when he promised to shoot to kill blacks Reagan reaction these reformists are fight against the Democratic Party; not Reagan reaction. The racist cold warri­ who exploded in anger after the murder pushing the same old Democratic lesser­ just against the high-handed racists like ors who run the American trade unions of Martin Luther King in 1968! evilism-that means Teddy Kennedy in Byrne, but against the black frontmen can't fight Reagan because they share Chicago doesn't need Son of Daley, the White House and Harold Washing­ too. That's what the Spartacist League his program to "roll back"Communism. and it doesn't need a black Democrat for ton in city hall. Their strategy is reliance did when we mobilized 3,000 unionists, Reagan's drive to "roll back" black mayor either. Anyone who thinks a on the racist Federal government and blacks, Jews, gays and socialists to stop rights and workers' living standards is black mayor will improve life for black the Democratic Party, not the working the Nazis in Chicago's Lincoln Park, integrally linked to his drive to "roll and working people ought to take a long class, to defend blacks' and workers' against the appeals of Byrne who told back" the gains of the Russian workers De~roit, hard look at the union and rights. That's why the CP refused to people to ignore the fascist provocation revolution. Black workers are key to the black town ruled by Coleman Young on participate in the June 27 anti-Nazi against the gay pride march. The black fight to oust the pro-capitalist bureau­ behalf of the auto bosses. Young demonstration, though some of their Democrats had Byrne's line. When SL crats and the building of revolutionary presided over the mass layoffs which friends, like Norm Roth of UAW Local spokesman Don Andrews contacted Lu leadership in the unions. have turned that city into a wasteland. 6, felt compelled to make an appear­ Palmer to find out what he planned to Thousands of black workers used to He's declared war on one city union ance. The CP opposes labor/black do about the Nazi rally, he spoke for work in the giant South Side steel mills. after another. In 1980 he busted the mobilization; instead they call on the them all: "Aw, brother, I can't deal with U:S. Steel's Southworks plant used to largely black AFSCME strike so he racist capitalist state to ban the Klan it. You know we have to put togeth­ employ 9,000 people, now only 900 could host the Republican convention. and outlaw racism. er ..."-you got it, a campaign for a workers remain. The steel workers His "Detroit Renaissance" rhetoric has black mayor. union 'recently turned thumbs down on given way to talk of "triCkle down" We Need Black Leaders in a The June 27 demonstration was not the companies' demands for more schemes for the poor. He told the black Workers Party concessions. The steel bosses say they'll population to learn to live on less: "You merely a gathering of several thousand In the face of Reagan's war on blacks, people who oppose the Nazis. It was a close Southworks and other Chicago­ can eat beans!" area plants if the workers don't knuckle Jesse Jackson has his own "trickle minvrities and workers, blacks are glimpse of the power of the Marxist leaderless as never before. There are program for labor/black mobilizations under. Enough! Seize their factories! A down" black capitalist scheme, an class-struggle union leadership would updated version ofOperation Breadbas­ plenty of hustlers like Jackson running against fascist terror. The anti-Nazi around who talk anti-Reaganism to protesters came from the steel mills of organize the unemployed, linking the ket. He wants blacks to use their ghetto masses to the power of the purchasing power to demand a niche for serve the Democrats. The main movers East Chicago, from the Harvester plant behind the black mayoral campaign in in Melrose Park, from the largely workers in the factories, and march the black entrepreneurs in the business multitude of South Side ghetto poor to community. He just signed multi­ Chicago, like Jackson and Lu Palmer of Jewish suburb of Evanston, and heavily the gates of Southworks to defend million dollar pacts with Coke and 7­ Chicago's Black United Communities gay New Town; but most importantly, sitdown strikes. Such militant action Up, and now he's after Anheuser-Busch. (CBUC), were Martin Luther King's they came from the sprawling South lieutenants in Chicago in the 1960s. Side ghetto. The fascists feed off the could spark a nationwide fight against But what will the black community get? mass layoffs, plant closures and unem­ A few black distribution franchises, These jokers have led nothing since they present depression conditions and the helped lead the civil rights movement to bipartisan anti-Soviet war drive. Their ployment. That's the kind of working­ some financial aid to black businesses, a class action blacks need, not crumbs few blacks on the board of directors, defeat well over a decade ago. ultimate function is to act as capitalism's Today there is not a single shock troops, to destroy the unions and from the Democrats. and a promise to hire more blacks. The key to victorious labor/black A boycott campaign might open up a organization that stands for the ele­ whip up genocidal attacks against mentary defense of even the most minorities. They must be crushed in the struggle is the forging of black leader­ few hundred jobs. But it can never solve ship in a communi~t vanguard party. As the problem of the unemployed mil­ minimal needs of the black population. egg: not by small-group confrontations The organizations that do exist­ with the cops, not by suicidal appeals to Spartacist League Central Committee lions. The Communist Party attacked member Don Andrews told a public these petty-bourgeois utopian schemes PUSH, NBUF, the National Black the racist capitalist state which system­ Independent Political Party-exist for atically protects them, but by massive, forum in Chicago following the success­ during the Great Depression in ful June 27 anti-Nazi mobilization: Chicago: one purpose: to peddle blacks to the militant labor/black struggle. That's the strategy of the Spartacist League. "They're telling us that there is no "The triviality of this proposal is solution to racial oppression under obvious on the face of it. It is indeed The phony nationalists who talk capitalism, and they are absolutely possible on occasion to kick up a row about electing a black Democratic right. ... Black workers, potentially the big enough to force a Woolworth store mayor as "self-determination" and most combative section of the working in Chicago to make a promise. But what MarxistBulleti~ I~ "black liberation" mean to tie blacks class, can lead all the oppressed along has this to do with hundreds of $2.50 with their white class brothers and thousands of Negro workers in the coal, -.... into the ghettos. Like the tribal chiefs sisters, through a vanguard party. And iron, steel, oil. automobile and packing who rule the bantustan homelands on WlfAr mATESY II you've got to join us if you want a industries? .. There is no substance to fOR IILACK UIERATION? behalf of the apartheid rulers of South revolution in this country that will give the "use our buying power" proposal; it II us all the things we need and deserve can only be raised by those whose social Trotskyisn, II _Africa, these ward hustlers have a vested lIS. jl interest in segregation; integration that nobody should have (0 beg for. vision is bounded by petty industry and IIIaclI NlItioDaIism !I Everybody has the right to a job-jobs petty trade, who see everything not II would destroy their patronage base. But for all. How you going to get it? You got from the. viewpoint of the Negro II the urban centers are not just rigidly to fight for it. So the question is posed in workers-the great mass of the Negro this country that if you want to change people-but rather from that of the segregated neighborhoods; there are II integrated factories, integrated unions. this rotten system you've got to stand in Negro small businessman." II the front ranks of struggle for working­ -quoted in Drake and Cayton, ~"'-'''''''-';:''''''''-·-'~-'-~::~;;W;~M.,.;,;:·~~, ~ The unions are key. Here lies the class revolution to end this racist Black Metropolis, Vol. 1(1945) possibility for an alliance between black nightmare called America. Because we can't let this country go the way of race Most of the fake-lefts have fallen in Make checks payable/mail to: and white workers, pounded by Rea­ line behind the campaign for a black Spartacist Publishing Co. war, which would profit the Ku Klux ganism, against their common enemy. Klan and the bosses in this country. mayor in Chicago. The Communist Box 1377 GPO New York. NY 10116 The unions today are the main organiza­ That's why we fight for socialist Party (CP) wholeheartedly backed tions of potential black social power. revolution here and everywhere else.". 17 SEPTEMBER 1982 1S WfJ/iNE/iS V'NGU,/iD For International Labor Action to SUp'p'ort Black Unions! ac aoor aKes •

i~ ou rica . Reininger/Contact Apartheid capitalism rests on superexploitation of black workers, especially in the gold and diamond mines. For decades the words "South Africa" case since some of these strikes are centered in the auto plants of the East CIO was scheduled to arrive in South and "apartheid" have been synonymous directed against multinational corpora­ Cape, a stronghold of the new black Africa for a first-ever visit. Lane with brutal police-state repression tions, such as General Motors, Ford and union movement. Led by the National Kirkland & Co. spend most of their against the black majority. Every day Volkswagen. Smash apartheid-For Automobile and Allied Workers Union, efforts supporting the CIA-backed 90,000 blacks are "detained" in South workers revolution! Black unions are in late July 10,000 black workers closed Polish Solidarnosc and running "free Africa's prisons, and not a few are the key! down the Port Elizabeth plants ofFord, trade unions" from the American "found hanged" in their cells. Black General Motors and Volkswagen. The consulates in Washington's Latin Amer­ leaders like Nelson Mandela of the The Strike Wave strike was called off as the union and ican neo-colonies. Their loyalty to African National Congress (ANC) have The recent crescendo of strikes began companies returned to the negotiating American imperialism has prevented been imprisoned on the infamous in the gold mine hellholes in early July. table. When the companies demanded them from lifting a finger for the Robben Island for a quarter of a The death of six miners in yet another outside arbitration, however, the union superexploited black proletariat of century, that is, most oftheir adult lives. fatal accident plus a pay "raise" which adamantly refused and organized a South Africa, the apartheid state which Last month a leading member of the was actually a wage cut triggered the series of mass walkouts throughout has become an increasingly important SouthAfrican Communist Party, Ruth walkout of 4,000 miners at West August. The situation in the plants part of "the free world." First, was assassinated in Mozambique Driefontein mine, part ofthe richest and remains volatile. One of the leading black establish­ by a letter bomb, undoubtedly sent by largest gold-mining complex in the Meanwhile an important battle was ment papers, the Harlem-based Am­ BOSS (the South African secret police). world. The strikers burned down the developing on the Port Elizabeth docks, sterdam News, exclaimed bitterly: Yet despite the massive apparatus of company administration building, and where the General Workers Union "Eight black South African miners have racist terror, South Africa is now being the strike quickly spread to three (GWU) began a slowdown in early been killed while participating in a shaken by the one force too power­ neighboring mines. The police moved in September to demand recognition by strike in Johannesburg recently .... "Has anyone heard from Lane Kirkland ful to repress-the superexploited black with helicopters, tear gas and guns and the government-owned South African of the AFL-CIO? Has Al Shanker and workers on whom this industrial power­ murdered ten miners. Black proletarian Transport. The GWU is already recog­ the Teachers Union opened aNew York house of the African continent rests. rage swelled after these police murders. nized by private stevedoring companies office for the black trade union mem­ From the gold mines of the Rand to the When 12,000 miners were locked up in in the major ports, a testimony to the bers so they can tell the true story about South Africa?" auto plants of the East Cape to the hostels by the security guards for the union's strength. In fact, these private docks of Natal, an unprecedented strike night, they broke out and battled with employers have criticized the govern­ With people like well-known CIA wave is sweeping the apartheid state. the cops, halting production in another ment agency for refusing to negotiate operator Irving Brown running their Now is the time for workers mine. These militant struggles have with the GWU, thus risking a general foreign operations, you can bet the throughout the world to strike a blow forced important concessions from the dock strike. While the capitalist firms AFL-CIO bureaucracy is up to no good against this bastion of capitalist racism. apartheid state. The Chamber of Mines are interested in avoiding labor trouble, in South Africa. While Teddy Gleason's Now is the time for American work­ has given permission for the Black for the Afrikaner nationalist regime the longshore union routinely and repeated­ ers to come to the aid of their South Mineworkers U-nion to recruit members stakes involved are far higher. To ly refuses to load Soviet ships, the head African black brothers. International and has recognized for the first time a recognize this independent black union of the AFL-CIO's African-American labor action-boycotts and secondary non-white union, one consisting of would be a major breach in the entire Labor Center, Nana Mahomo, con­ strikes-can be deci5ive in securing Indian and colored (mixed-race) driv­ apartheid system. To break· the black tends nothing can be done to aid South victory for the black unions struggling ers, handymen and painters. dockers union the government fired 400 Africa's black unions. Likewise the in South Africa. This is especially the The second phase of the strike wave of the most militant workers and is Fraser gang of the United Auto Work­ attempting to deport them to their ers, with its hundreds of thousands of bantustan "homelands." Many of these black members, has not taken a single dockers have gone underground while "l.ction in solidarity with the black the GWU threatens a nationwide port ... vrkers struggling against Ford and strike. General Motors in South Africa. Especially given the division within If Kirkland & Co. now take an the South African ruling class over interest in the burgeoning black union recognizing the GWU, the black doc\\.­ movement in South Africa, it is only to ers can win! And here longshore and sabotage its struggles and combat any transport unions throughout the world tendencies toward political radicalism. can play a vital role in supporting this Class-conscious and anti-racist Ameri­ critical struggle against apartheid by can workers must struggle to sup­ hot-cargoing South African shipping. port South Africa's black unions Unlike the empty boycott/"divestment" against the policies-either do-nothing schemes favored by liberals to display or backstabbing-of the Kirklands and their disapproval of South Africa, Frasers. concrete industrial action by the work­ For a Black-Centered Workers ers movement internationally can deal and Peasants Government real blows to the apartheid rulers. Victory to the GWU-Recognize the The present strike wave comes at the union! end of a decade of a rising line of black struggle which opened with the Durban Beware the "AFL-CIA" mass strike of 1973. At the beginning of jji Mark Peters Significantly, a few days before the the 1970s, active black opposition to Over 2,000 black strikers under pollee guard at Kloof gold mine near South African dock struggle blew up, a apartheid was at a low ebb in the wake Johannesburg. delegation from the American AFL- continued on page 15 16 17 SEPTEMBER 1982