')on 25¢ WfJliNEIiSNo. ",gU """(;0"'':~) )(·$23 8 May 1981 Anti-Imperialist Contingent, May 3

~~ • eltis In arin alvaDorl" WASHINGTON, D.C.-"l, 2, 3, 4­ sections of the rad-lib anti-Reagan provocative "disruption"-baiting of the that was repeated throughout the Leftist Rebels, Win the War!" chanted demonstrations. They alone took sides militants, then sealed it by throwing up a march, the Anti-Imperialist Contingent the SOO-strong Anti-Imperialist Contin­ with the workers and peasants in the line of "marshals" to physically block replied, "No draft, class war, V.S. out of gent as they swung onto the Arlington raging civil war against the gang of protesters from joining the Anti­ EI Salvador!" Memorial Bridge May 3. "5, 6, 7, 8­ uniformed murderers backed up by U.S. Imperialist rally. "Stay on the right," If it were not for the Spartacist Nothing to Negotiate!" they added, in a imperialism. Only the Anti-Imperialist they said, "it's a counterdemonstra­ League, May 3 would have been an sharp attack on the Democratic Party Contingent understood and took on tion." In fact, the PAM march was a unchallenged celebration of Kennedy liberals and fake-left reformists who Reagan's anti-Soviet Cold War threats, counterdemonstration against military liberalism. In the late '60s and early '70s spread treacherous illusions in a "politi­ proclaiming "Defense of Cuba, USSR victory to the Salvadoran leftists. many young radicals chanted "Ho, Ho, cal solution" in EI Salvador-a deal Begins in EI Salvador!" The Associated PAM and the other reformist/liberal Ho Chi Minh, NLF has gotta win" and with the puppet Christian Democratic/ Press photo flashed around the world of organizers had appealed to a layer of defiantly waved the Viet Cong flag in the military junta or with the puppeteers in the D.C. demonstration of 80,000 Democrats looking for a vehicle to take face of American imperialism. Among Washington to cheat the Salvadoran against U.S. intervention in EI Salvador some of the wind out of Reagan's and them were many of today's PAM masses out of the victory they are had the Spartacist League front and Haig's sails. And the large turnout, far organizers, who today held little green suffering and dying for. The Contin­ center. exceeding predictions, reflected favor­ flags of liberal "concern." On May 3, the gent's huge red-on-white banners drove There was a sharp political line able publicity from the liberal bourgeois only flags of the Salvadoran Farabundo the point home: "Avenge the Blood ofEI through the demonstrations, the first press. A section of the ruling class is Marti National Liberation Front Salvador: Military Victory to Leftist big protest marches since the Vietnam worried that some of the Reaganite (FMLN) were carried by the Anti­ Insurgents!" War. The Anti-Imperialist Contingent binges may go too far. And the march Imperialist Contingent, whose color In San Francisco and Seattle another challenged demonstrators, "Which side organizers consciously played to this guard also bore Vietnamese and Cuban 350 Anti-Imperialists organized by the are you on?" in EI Salvador. The mood of scared liberalism. Their main banners, along with r"d flags of prole­ Spartacist League were the reddest, People's Antiwar Mobilization (PAM) chant was "N0 draft, no war, V .S. out of tarian internationalism with the symbol and just about the only militant made it clear where they stood by EI Salvador!" And in a counterpoint continued on page 6 __._.'~_.' ~_, ,,"_~__~~ ~__. __, __.•~ ~ ~~ '_~ '_'·_~~'~~.'9_~. ,~ __~.•. ~,~._,_,,_, ·~_ _',~.~_.'~'_ '. ,~ ..,,_•••~_ .• <-1 East Coast! Midwest tOUf. which has M!y 3 Benefit Packs House taken him to five cities and coliege campuses from Ann Arbor to Oberlin to Brandeis and Harvard. His talk traced the history of oppression in EI EI Salvador: Salvador including the Indian revolts of the last century and the 1932 Communist-led uprising, brutally AProgram of. Protest crushed by the predecessors of the same military butchers who rule today. Photos of the contested zones in northeastern Morazan and Chalate­ at the St. Marks Cinema nango, scenes of "daily life"-such as the repressive forces' sweeps through the working class districts of NEW YORK-"EI Salvador: A Pro­ donations. Inside the theater, bus Soyapango-brought the civil war gram of Protest"

SAN FRANCISCO-Results were an­ company: one young worker in Plant ment or the racist anti-labor thugs ofthe nounced April 28 in the Communica­ agreed that the workers must win in EI KKK or Nazis. All that Watts, Imerzel, tions Workers ofAmerica (CWA) Local Salvador and declared, "I hope they get Contreras and the rest of them have to FOR 1981 9410 mail-ballot election for nine a lot of guns from the Cubans and offer is that our union should shovel delegates to the annual International the Russians!" millions of dollars to the capitalist. CWA Convention to be held this July in Following is the campaign leaflet Democratic Party to get someone like Boston. Three candidates of the class­ issued by the Bay Area MAC. "right-to-work," Mr. Ethnic Purity CONVENTION struggle Militant Action Caucus • • • Jimmy Carter back in office and beg (MAC), Kathy Ikegami, Kat Burnham • •• him for crumbs. DELEGATES and Larry Ackerson, increased their The upcoming CWA National Con­ The other road is MAC's-for class vote totals over last year's elections but vention will be held at a time when our struggle-of our union, the labor fell short of winning a delegate position. union faces very grave problems. The movement and the working class fight­ --LEe. lkegami placed twelfth in a field of 30 new Reagan administration· has de­ ing for our own interests. The Militant IX! KATHY IKEGAMI candidates with 302 votes, up from 190 clared war on the unions, the poor, Action Caucus of Local 9410 is running • 6 years in last year, while Burnham and Ackerson blacks and Latinos. three candidates for CWA Convention Plant Dept • 3 years got 187 and 181 respectively. In I..-os At home, Reagan promises union­ Delegates. If you want delegates­ Steward Angeles CWA Local 11502, the relative­ busting, racism and mass unemploy­ -who will tell you the truth ly new MAC candidates Barbara Brit­ ment. Abroad, he is gearing up for -who know picket lines mean.don't ton, Manuel Delgadillo and Barry World War III with the Soviet Union. cross IX! LARRY ACKERSON The steps along this road to thermo­ • 3 years in Janus received 227, 177 and 139 respec­ -who will fight to make the CWA a tively. These are impressive results for a nuclear holocaust are clear-first EI Sal­ Plant Dept union that defends its members • Steward hardhitting political campaign in the vador, then Nicaragua, Cuba, Poland face of the right-wing current in Rea­ and finally the USSR. -who fight racial and sexual gan's America. Feeling that Reagan's election puts oppression and stand for labor/ MAC didn't mince words about the the wind in their sails, all sections of the minority mass mobilizations to smash 00 KAT BURNHAM Klan/Nazi terror • 12 years in tasks ahead: to defeat Reagan's war on U:S. capitalists are taking the offensive Plant Dept the unions, the poor and minorities, and against the labor movement. The -who oppose Reagan's anti-Soviet war • Founding to oppose the U.S.' anti-Soviet war bankers and big executives at Ma Bell drive and stand for the military member of MAC drive. MAC took a strong stand for are going to be leading the charge victory of the leftist Salvadora~ international working-class solidarity, against the CWA. insurgents against the right-wing Send fighters, not fakers, to the con. especially for victory to the workers and How is our union going to respond to junta vention. Get this union off its knees!!! peasants in the civil war in EI Salvador this crisis? There are two roads to -VOTE MAC SLATE ONLY! We and breaking all CWA ties to the CIA­ choose. One is that of CWA President want the labor movement to have its backed American Institute for Free Glenn Watts and the Local 9410 own party, a workers party, that will Labor Development (AIFLD) in Latin bureaucrats-Imerzel, Malliett, Mc­ fight for a workers government that will America. This was met with an enthu­ Kenna & Co.-"grieve it and forget it"; throw out the capitalists and establish a siastic response especially from a num­ lay down and play dead in the face of planned economy based on the needs of MAC candidates' campaign ber ofSalvadoran workers in the phone attacks by the company, the govern- working people, not profit.. brochure. 2 WORKERS VANGUARD No Choice in USWA District 31 Elections Balanoff: The Wages of Reformism CHICAGO-The election campaign petitions and donated thousands of for director of the Chicago-Gary Dis­ dollars-both the International and trict 31 of the United Steelworkers of district director Balanoff sat on the America (USWA) is in high gear. For grievance for over a year, refusing to eight years a stronghold of forces take the case to arbitration. Only when grouped around dissident bureaucrat union officials from Balanoff's home Ed Sadlowski, District 31 this year local at Inland Steel threatened a public could well swing back to the camp of fight at a District conference did International president Lloyd McBride. Balanoff give way. McBride's man Jack Parton, the conser­ Anwar's courageous stand that vative president of Local 1014 of U.S. Steel workers "picket lines mean don't cross" was Steel's mammoth Gary Works, stands a have heard Jim borne out within weeks in the strike of good chance of unseating the incum­ Balanoff's two USWA locals against the Northern bent, Sadlowski supporter Jim "fightback" talk Indiana Public Service Company Balanoff. for years. (NIPSCO). The company managed to They've When Sadlowski won district director get injunctions limiting the number of in 1973, thousands of steel workers stopped listening. pickets, essentially making it impossible believed his "Fightback" slate represent­ to stop scabbing. When the Balanoff ed a genuine opposition to the Interna­ leadership did nothing to challenge the tional's notorious no-strike Experimen­ injunctions, NIPSCO workers found tal Negotiating Agreement (ENA). By themselves out on the bricks for a good 1976 the Fightback opposition con­ eight months before they could get a trolled every major local in District 31 compromise settlement. except for two. But at every crucial unIon janitor Louise Sheffield when support to EN A to joining in the Local 10 14 moved to its flashy new chauvinist chorus for import limitations juncture the Sadlowskiites betrayed the For a New, Militant Leadership membership. As a result the ENA headquarters (named Lloyd McBride on foreign steel, has led steel workers to remained intact until the companies Hall) last fall. Parton retaliated by suing a dead end. USWA members can defend It has become abundantly clear that scrapped it last year, and the bosses have Balanoff for slander. But neither candi­ their interests only through mass, what comes first for Sadlowski/ utilized a decade oflabor peace to soften date has an answer to plant closings, militant action and this means, first of Balanoffas well as McBride/Parton are up the union, attacking the jobs and anti-union attacks and the growing all, reviving the strike weapon. Not since not the interests of steel workers, but living standards of its members. right-wing mobilization that the mem­ 1959 has the USWA waged a national enforcing ENA, the no-strike clause and The 1980 contract-which both bership faces. strike! For all its hot air a few years ago court injunctions-and then preaching Parton and Balanoff endorsed­ Whoever wins, Parton or Balanoff, about the need for the right to strike, the that the racist, anti-labor Democratic provides a 3 percent wage increase, the workers lose. A case in point was Sadlowski/Balanoff gang has been as Party will grant what the bureaucrats while inflation rages at 15 percent, and a U.S. Steel's decision last year to close its reluctant to take on the companies as won't fight for on the picket line. Steel rip-off of the May 1980 cost-of-living American Bridge subsidiary in Gary. McBride & Co. workers fed up with mass layoffs, plant increase to pay pension benefits. Thou­ The company offered the workers an In the entire period since 1970, only closings, company takeaways, routine sands of steel workers have been "alternative"-accept a wage freeze and the iron ore miners ofthe Mesabi Range scabbing when picket lines are set up permanently laid off: District 31 alone cuts in COLA benefits. Three times the struck against the ENA-and when they and the victimization of militants like has lost 20,000 members over the last workers voted down this blackmail. did, in August 1977,presentingagolden Anwar who won't cross such Iines­ five years as more and more plants close District director Balanoff announced opportunity to bury EN A-the Fight­ must wag~~Ji~t~9!.~Hiean alternative for good. A large number of the 18,000 that he stood behind the USWA back team sat on its rear while the iron leadership. Time IS runnmg sHort. I he names on file in Inland Steel's employ­ members. But when the company made miners went it alone for 120 days. And bosses, who have run the domestic steel ment office are steel workers laid off at good on its threat and shut the plant, neighboring plants. Balanoff did nothing. So today Parton. Confronting massive inflation, speed­ is claiming that Balanoff should have up and unemployment, it is hardly accepted the pay cut. Balanoff's de­ surprising that increasing numbers of fense, printed in his official campaign 9tstr-iet JI steel workers see the Sad­ material, Ts tha1 "the membt:r~ -were lowskiites as identical to the gang they aware that many would receive better threw out eight years ago. One Inland pensions ... if the plant shut down than worker who ran a couple of years ago if it stayed open." So what kind of for griever on the Balanoff-supported choice is this: a trade-union campaign Rank and File slate told a WVsupporter where one guy campaigns on a platform that he might vote for Parton because of wage cuts-and his opponent argues "the Rank and File hasn't done shit." that plant shutdowns aren't so bad! And significantly, Sadlowski's home With leadership like this, workers at local at U.S. Steel Southworks voted Pullman Standard, whose Chicago last month to make Parton its official plant is slated to close this July, have nominee. plenty to worry about. Balanoff's Meanwhile Parton and Balanoff are answer is to push for a bill sponsored by engaged in an endless mud-slinging his sister-in-law, Democratic Illinois campaign. Balanoff calls Parton a state representative Miriam Balanoff, "Pittsburgh parrot" for McBride. Par­ that would provide for one-year notifi­ ton charges that Balanoff is divisive and cation before a plant is shut. And this is a commie. Balanoff accuses Parton of sold as a measure that will benefit steel WV Photo racism over the firing oflong-time black workers! In any case the pro-capitalist Balanoff's home local, U.S. Steel Chicago Southworks. His District 31 has Democratic and Republican parties will lost 20,000 members to layoffs over past five years. do nothing to help workers at the when the basic steel contract expired industry into the ground, intend to WfJRNERS expense of corporate profits. Chrysler once again in 1980 not only did the make the workers pay several times workers, subjected to pay cuts as well as District 31 leadership capitulate to over. Last year, when the companies VANGUARD plant closings and mounting layoffs, ENA, but it went so far as to endorse dumped ENA they made it clear that Marxist Working-Class Biweekly would have a few things to say about McBride's settlement. The agreement they are no longer willing to pay the of the Spartacist League of the U.S. government bail-outs. "answers our most glaring immediate paltry 3 percent and COLA "guaran­ When the bosses threaten to shut EDITOR: Jan Norden needs. It's not a bad contract," Balanoff teed" by that agreement. down, unions should respond by sitting ASSOCIATE EDITOR. Charles Burroughs told the press (Hammond Times, 16 Just this month, Balanoff told the down-and mobilizing their power PRODUCTION Darlene Kamiura (Manager), April 1980). Tell it to the thousands of press that "every day [the corporations] Noah Wilner nationally to hit the companies' most Chicago-Indiana steel workers who mistreat people in the mills. They're not CIRCULATION MANAGER Karen Wyatt profitable operations as well! Militant have' been" Orr 'indefinite layoff for our enemies, but they're also not our EDITORIAL BOARD George Foster, LIZ plant occupations demanding unlimited months! pals" (Daily Calumet, 9 April). Indeed, Gordon, Mark Kellermann, James Robertson. unemployment benefits, full SUB guar­ Joseph Seymour, Marjone Stamberg In District 31, where there's a history for Balanoff, the bloodsucking steel anteed by the government and of lots of militant talk but very little companies are not the enemy. And the Workers Vanguard (USPS 098-770) published company-paid job retraining would biweekly, skipping an Issue In August and a action, the case of Keith Anwar created phony leftists that consistently support­ week In December, by the Spartaclst Publishing arouse enormous enthusiasm in the considerable interest. Anwar, a worker ed him-from the Communist Party Co, 41 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007 working class and should aim at Telephone 732-7862 (Edltonal). 732-7861 at Inland Steel Company, was fired for and its front group TUAD to the SWP, (Business). Address all correspondence to: Box sparking industry-wide strikes to fight refusing to cross a picket line ofanother RSL, et al.-have learned nothing but 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116 Domestic for a shorter workweek with no cut in SubSCrIptions $3.00/24 Issues Second-class USWA local at his plant. Although want only to continue supporting such postage paid at New York, NY pay and jobs for all. Anwar's fight to get his job back was class collaboration. Only the Spartacist Opinions expressed In Signed articles or letters endorsed at successive District 31 League has from the beginning exposed do not necessarily express the edltof/a! Unleash the Strike Weapon viewpOint conferences in 1979 and 1980, backed by the Sadlowskiites as frauds and fought The gross collaboration ofthe USWA several locals and actively supported by for a leadership based on a genuine No. 280 8 May 1981 bureaucracy with the companies, from over 1,500 steel workers who signed continued on page r 8 MAY 1981 3 French Elections 1978/1981: What Unity? Why the Union of the Left Fell Apart

When the French Communist Party LCR: "Unity is what's needed." Krivine (PCF) launched its general secretary and friends tended to hold the Stalinists Georges Marchais as candidate in the Or, How the LCR and OCI Lick the and social democrats equally responsi­ presidential election, proclaiming that ble for the rupture. But the Lambertists "for the first time we are going over to Boots of Mitterrand ...and the CIA went into Stalinophobic conniptions. the offensive and directly putting the One week later, 10 thundered: "Mar­ question of voting Communist at the chais splits, Brezhnev approves," "At center of the battle," the bourgeois press the root of the split campaign: the once again accused the PCF of volun­ Kremlin's call to order" and "the hand tarily retreating into the "ghetto" of of Moscow." Even Mitterrand didn't go Cold War isolation. The Ligue Trot­ this far with social-democratic demon­ skyste de France (LTF) responded to ology, merely coyly remarking on a this unaccustomed combative tone from "conjuncture of interests" between the the Stalinists by declaring that if the PCF and the Kremlin. PCF conducted a campaign independ­ While the OCI's histrionics are largely ent ofpopular-front entanglements with peculiar to it and the Meanyite AFL­ the bourgeoisie, we could consider CIO, its explanation of the collapse of the Union of the Left is the standard EXCERPTED FROM LE BOLCHEVIK bourgeoisjsocial-democratic account, NO. 24, APRIL 1981 which in a milder form is taken up by most of the "far left" and by "Eurocom­ munists" fleeing from the PCF. Every­ giving "savagely critical" electoral sup­ thing is due to a supposed sudden about­ port to Marchais in April as a class­ face by the Communist Party, they say. against-class vote. Since then the "Com­ Since this is a blatant Cold War myth, it munist" Party has waged a virulent is instructive to take a closer look at how campaign "against ghettos" of a very the French popular front actually broke different sort-a chauvinist attac1<;, on up. It tells a great deal about the immigrants which makes the Marchais remarkably short life of the Eurocom­ candidacy presently unsupportable by Der Spiegel munist hoopla, and about the pro­ revolutionaries, and indeed by any Before the break-up: Stalinist Marchais, social democrat Mitterrand and nounced social-democratization of the class-conscious worker. But the bulk of bourgeois Left Radical Fabre campaign for Union of the Left. pseudo-Trotskyist milieu in recent the French "far left" had a very different The reformist Organisation Commu- geois Left Radical Movement (MRG) as years. In particular, it underscores the approach: lining up with the anti­ niste Internationaliste (OCI) of Pierre a pledge that it would not transgress the decisive importance of the Russian Communist and anti-Soviet propagan­ Lambert opined that stepping down on limits of capitalist class rule. This was question, which gave rise to Trotskyism da barrage, they condemned the PCF as the second round was not nearly clearly shown at the time of the 1978 some 50 years ago and which in large "anti-unity" for running an independent enough. When the LCR proposed a legislative elections, when both the LCR part determines where various forces eandidate atftil propaganda blGcfur ".desistement;' the .and DCl called for the victory of the -Stand.-on the-political map_today,.Andit What the pseudo-Trotskyist Ligue OCI reasoned that the only truly Union of the Left: .sets the context in which the polemics Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR) consistent desisting position was to run • The OCI's Informations Ouvrieres (8- and political battles of the upcoming had to say was summed up in a front­ no candidate at all. (They've got a point, 15 March 1978) headlined that "if the presidential elections unfold. page headline, "To beat Giscard: Krivine, don't they?) And after that, the PCF leaders commit themselves today A mainstream liberal politologue, Desistement!" (Rouge, 17-23 October OCI kept up its role as waterboy for the to desister," then the result would be: Maurice Duverger, talks of the "neo­ 1980). ["Desistement" is the practice of PS by calling for a first-round vote for "March 12: PSjPCF Majority! March Stalinism" of the PCF, and compares its stepping down in the decisive second Mitterrand! 19: Victory!" The "victory" of the current stance to the early Cold War: "as round of voting, in favor of the PCF or To listen to these pseudos, one would bourgeois popular front, that is. ' in 1947, when the PCF locked itself in Socialist Party (PS) candidate whc think that Trotskyism consisted of • The LCR's Rouge (15 March 1978) the ghetto ..." (I.e Monde, 6-7 Novem­ received most votes on the fin;t round.] endless permutations of "unity": unite, proclaimed, "Everywhere, mobilize in ber 1977). Of course, Thorez and his If the PS and PCF would agree in united, unified, union, unitary. The OCI unity to defeat the right!" comrades hardly locked themselves up advance to cede to the "best-placed left tries to dress it up with references to a Both LCR and OCI wept at the in the ghetto-they were put there by the candidate," they argued, "unity" could "strategy" of the workers united front electoral defeat of the popular front! hard anti-Soviet line of the imperialist be achieved to oust the representatives supposedly elaborated by the early Rouge termed it "the price ofdivision." .bourgeoisie and international social ofbig capital from power. LCR perenni­ Comintern. For Lenin and Trotsky the I.ettre d'IO blamed it all on "the PCF, democracy. Not that the Stalinists were al Krivine set the tone by pre~enting united front was a series of tactics to guardian of the Fifth Republic." "The to "blame" for the Cold War, as certain himself as the "desistement" candidate build an independent Bolshevik party; Union of the Left is dead, long live the liberal historians today allege. The par excellence, and the theme was and the only genuine unity of the Union of the Left" was their common World War II "anti-fascist" alliance repeated week after week, culminating workers was that based on their historic program. Only the Ligue Trotskyste de foundered on the fundamental contra­ in the slogan "Against the right, there's class interests. But all the present-day France put forward a policy ofproletar- diction between world imperialism and one solution! Desistement! For a PC­ "unity"-mongering means something ian opposition to the bourgeois popular the Soviet degenerated workers state, on PS Government!" (Rouge, 6-13 Febru­ else entirely. It is a thinly veiled call for front. The LTF stated, "The minimum the bourgeoisie's natural appetite for ary). You can't help thinking back to the reconstituting the popular-front Union condition that workers must set in order bloody counterrevolution to recover for days when the "far leftists" ofyesteryear of the Left, a class-collaborationist to give electoral support to the PCF and capitalist exploitation the vast territory chanted, "One solution: revolution!" coalition which included the tiny bour- PS is that they break with their "lost" in the October Revolution. But bourgeois electoral partners and with there is a definite parallel: just as the Common Program which provides the post-war tripartite "government of the framework for this class-col­ national union" fell apart as a by­ laborationist alliance" (I.e Bolchevik, product of the collapse of the Soviet­ March 1977). And a special LTF pre­ American alliance, the Union ofthe Left election leaflet warned: was in part a casualty of the decline of "By calling for a vote for the PCFjPS, "detente" and the resurgence of imperi­ these centrists call directly for the alist anti-Sovietism in the '70s. popular front to take power. But when the workers mobilize to insist that their In the middle of the 1978 election demands be fulfilled by 'their' govern­ campaign, the Socialists blamed the ..'~•rf ment, they will find the popular front PCF's refusal to "disagree with the blocking their path.... With cries of foreign policy of the Eastern bloc 'defeat the right' and 'Giscard out,' the LCR and OCI have adopted the excuses countries on any issue whatsoever," and traditionally offered by the Stalinists to Marchais' attacks on the "so-called justify popular fronts." 'Atlanticism' [pro-NATO line] of So­ cialist policy" as the cause for collapse of the Union of the Left negotiations in Behind the Break-Up of the September 1977 (I.e Monde, I February Union of the Left 1978). And in fact the first point ofsharp Already at the time of the initial discord between the Communist Party breakdown of the Union of the Left in and the PS was over Frehch nuclear September 1977, in negotiations over policy and international alliances. The "updating" the Common Program of PCF, seeking as usual to pose as more capitalist reform, the two greats of patriotic than the bourgeoisie, had come French pseudo-Trotskyism had a virtu­ out for de Gaulle's force de frappe JuliennefSygma ally identical line calling for pasting [nuclear strike force] and an "all-sided" Portugal, 1975: CP offices wrecked by rightists. Portuguese revolutionary back together the Humpty-Dumpty nuclear "defense" policy directed in crisis drove European social democrats back into waiting arms of U.S. popular front. The OCI: "Enough of particular at West Germany. In August imperialism. division! PCF-PS Unity!" And the Mitterrand denounced this as veiled 4 WORKERS VANGUARD French Trotsky'ist~ Say~ Giscard Never, Mitterrand No!

The following statement on the "His disgusting campaign of racist French presidential elections was pub­ provocations against immigrants gives lished shortly after the first round in a vote for Marchais a meaning which France's two-tiered voting system. The nothing else has superseded so far, namely [it has become] a referendum In second round runoff between Gaullist favor of Vitry and [the CP's] chauvinist incumbent Valery Giscard d'Estaing anti-immigrant line. We could under­ and Socialist Party candidate Fran~ois stand why, given the absence of any Mitterrand will take place May 10. The other perspective, workers might want ­ Bourgeois to vote for Marchais based on their statement by the Ligue Trotskyste de disgust for Giscard and Mitterrand autocrat France, sympathizing section of the and/or their attachment to the state Giscard (top) international Spartacist tendency, is which emerged from the October campaigns for excerpted and translated from Le Revolution. But unless something austerity and Bolchevik No. 25, May 1981. happens (especially linked to the ques­ militarism, tion of the defense of the USS R) which while pro­ could change the meaning of voting for NATO Socialist PARIS, April 29-After the first round Marchais between now and the elec­ Mitterrand of voting two· points stand out: a tions (and still with the minimum maneuvers for possible victory for [Socialist Party condition that he be free from any bloc with right. popular-front link with the bourgeoisie) candidate] Mitterrand and a defeat for no revolutionist, no conscious worker, the Communist Party (PCF). The can give Marchais the slightest support, Socialists assert that "the CP's defeat is even the most violently critical." the price of its divisive policies," and in the SP's wake follow the pseudo­ No to the Mitterrand/Gaullist revolutionaries of the LCR [Ligue Bloc! Communiste Revolutionnaire of Alain "Vote Mitterrand, get rid ofGiscard!" Krivine] and OCI [Organisation Com­ shouts the so-called "far left." "Yes, muniste Internationaliste] who, ever victory is within our reach," says the since the[1977-78] breakup ofthe Union LCR in a leaflet put out the morning of the Left, have accused the PCF of after the first round. Mitterrand's turning its back on "unity." In fact, the victory is supposed to be a victory ofthe Communist Party is paying the bill for workers?! What has Mitterrand prom­ the renewal of the anti-Soviet Cold War ised which creates such enthusiasm in (which turned not a few intellectuals, our leftists of yesteryear? To form a petty bourgeois and sundry Eurocom­ popular-frontist alliance with represen­ munists, frightened at being rejected by tatives ofthe bourgeoisie (Left Radicals, their bourgeoisie, away from it) and its Gaullists, etc.). To reinforce the links of Union of the Left line. imperialist France with the Atlantic .~i ~~r..-",,!!,.," Marchais says that "the workers who Alliance aimed at the USSR. To make -·~*4 -;JT\ -4 -"r"" - .... f~:--" have confidence in the party ... thought the workers pay for the crisis of Nogues/Sygma they should cast a useful vote on the first capitalism. It will be the popular front no account of its demands and even that Union of the Left and as supporters of round [by voting MitterrandJ to get rid under the colors of Gaullism! Where in he will be an obstacle to its struggles. Mitterrand. Workers looking for a of Giscard" (L'Humanile, 27 April). all that is there even a hint of the Remember 1937: The Blum Popular revolutionary alternative will turn only Who is at fault? The PCF was the best beginning of an alternative to Giscard Front government did not hesitate to toward those who have no responsi­ builder and propagandist of the Union for the working class?! open fire on the workers, many of them bility for the victory of the popular of the Left, as it was ofthe other popular members of its own party! And this front, those who have from the be­ You need all the cynicism of the LCR fronts in 1936 and 1944. Unfortunately incipient popularfront is not even trying ginning intransigently fought class leadership to write in the leaflet quoted workers who have confidence in the to entice the workers or pretend to be on collaboration. above, "Once elected thanks to the votes Communist Party believed them. And the left. Even the American imperialists The LCR talks a lot about struggles, of the workers, Mitterrand must be the PCF leadership is still calling to vote are prepared to "extend the hand to the but all it now believes in is the"unity" of warned that he cannot govern with the for Mitterrand in the name ofthe Union socialists" if they can't do anything else. the treacherous bureaucrats and Mitter­ representatives of the bosses." You have of the Left! Let's just hope that The Washington Post presents Mitter­ rand'~ electoral victory.'tf Mitterrand to be dreaming! But comrades of the Communist militants and workers will ralliLas ".m-M€favorable"-th-an Glscard is not elected, We will have to take it for LCR, you know that Mitterrand wants refuse to vote for this :lpostle of anti­ to "the--anti-Soviet mood of the Reagan seven more years." Some revolution­ to govern with the right. And once Sovietism and class collaboratiQnt administration" (Le Monde, 29 April). aries, making the destiny ofthe proletar­ elected, who will stop him? You? The At the beginning of Marchais' cam­ The LCR [claims] Mitterrand's iat dependent on a few votes! The only workers? How? Mitterrand will not be a paign, while violently criticizing his poli­ victory will unleash a "dynamic" of solution for the working class lies not in prisoner of the workers but of the struggles which will overwhelm the cies of french chauvinism and repres­ Gaullists (not to mention the Royalists replacing Giscard by a popular front sing struggles, we projected giving reformist bureaucrats. But if revolution­ and Poujade, founder ofthe reactionary presided over by Mitterrand, but in its electoral support to the Stalinist bureau­ aries are to lead these struggles which own battles and the capacity of the movement of small businessmen in the crat Marchais, on the basis that he was temporarily escape the bureaucrats' vanguard organization to organize 1950s, who are calling for a vote to running (if involuntarily and for tactical control, they have to be an alternative to them, against the reformists, to defend Mitterrand). and conjuntural reasons) independently the reformists and their class­ them against the bourgeoisie's attacks of any bourgeois ally. This could have And a willing hostage! By seeking an collaborationist policies. The LCR is and to put forward a series of transition­ been a class vote. But as we stated in the alliance with the class enemy, he is not this alternative. Workers perceive it, al demands leading to setting up its own April issue of Le Bolchevik (No. 24): telling the working class that he will take and rightly so, as rebuilders of the power, the workers government..

neutralism and emphatically swore ment would "hamper the communica­ an politics had not been seen in years­ tions. This was how such a tiny allegiance to NATO: "to leave the tion of top secret information and lead there was no doubt that the U.S. was bourgeois formation, the MRG, Atlantic Alliance without having any these governments to relegate the issuing a diktat. acted-just as we had said-as a alliance in hand would be senseless" (Le financing of military expenditures to tbe guarantor for capitalist interests in the Monde, 9 August 1977). As a U.S. background" (L'Humanite, 30 Novem­ Portugal 1975: The Imperialists left-wing coalition. Yet Krivine/ National Defense University mono­ ber 1977). Take Fright Bensai'd's tailist appetites were so strong graph noted, "In the PS-PCF interparty In another unusual political It wasn't simply a CIA plot which that even in the face of such dramatic negotiations to update the defense intervention NATO secretary-general kept the PCF out ofthe government and proof, the LCR continued to deny that platform of the 1972 Common Pro­ Joseph Luns threatened that if the led to the breakup of the Union of the the Union of the Left was a popular gram. Mitterrand couldjust as well have Union of the Left came into office, the Left, of course. But it's a far cry from front. been speaking for the government" (The ministries of defense, foreign affairs and Moscow ordering Marchais to return to When the Socialist Party issued its French Communist Party, Nuclear interior must be kept out ofPCF hands. "the ghetto," or the PCF having a own refusal/ultimatum a week later it Weapons and National Defense: Issues In January, the American embassy in perverse desire to block a popular-front was over the same issue of nationaliza­ of the 1978 Election Campaign). Not Rome issued a highly publicized state­ government, as many social democrats tions. Before that the PS had refused to only were the Socialists vigilant in ment saying that the U.S. was "not and pseudo-Trotskyists claim. Rather, take a clear position on Communist defending NATO, the United States favorable to Communists participating the imperialist bourgeoisies in unison ministers in a "left government." Its intervened emphatically in the middle of in the governments ofWestern Europe." turned against popular-front "experi­ message: no need to fear a revolutionary And at the same moment, Jimmy Carter the election campaign to make clear it ments" and this opposition was ex­ danger from the PCF, Mitterrand is paid a rapid visit to Paris in which he would not tolerate Communist Party pressed via their transmission belts into there. This right turn by the Socialists presence in West European govern­ went out of his way to hold an the left. The first crisis of the Union of was not just, or even primarily, a unprecedented tete-a-tete with Mitter­ the Left, on September 14, 1977, came ments. In November 1977, General domestic development. It was the rand and to describe the PS leader's Alexander Haig, then NATO com­ when the leader of the Left Radicals, outcome of a lengthy controversy inside mander in Brussels, warned that the actions as "beneficial." Such open Robert Fabre, walked out denouncing presence of Communists in the govern- American interference in West Europe- the PCF's call for expanded nationaliza- continued on page 10 8 MAY 1981 5 Avenge the Blood 01 EI Salvador!

was to get the thousands ofprotesters to the Pentagon so they could hear Bella May 3... Abzug, Paul O'Dwyer, Herbert Daugh­ (continued from page 1) try and John Conyers (a no-show). of Trotsky's Fourth International. After themselves being subjected to While leftist guerrillas have been sinister "violence"-baiting by social fighting for their lives and liberation of democrats from the SWP to Michael their people in the hills of El Salvador, Harrington's DSOC, the Marcyites their reformist cheerleaders in the turned around and used the same sort of United States have been squabbling for smear against the Anti-Imperialist organizational control of the protests. Contingent, accusing the Spartacist Sam Marcy's Workers World Party/ League of being "provocative." When Youth Against War and Fascism an independent on one PAM bus (WWP/YAWF) would ace out the protested that he knew of no examples Socialist Workers Party (SWP) which of SL provocation, the bus captains istration. In other words: "Vote Demo­ of progressive and peace-loving peo­ then stalked off in a huff. (The only threatened to throw him off! crat in '82." Only the Anti-Imperialist pie ... who are demanding a just political As for disruption, this was the Contingent-chanting "Remember the settlement to the internal crisis of El monopoly of PAM on May 3. These Bay of Pigs, Remember Vietnam! Salvador," which would be "one step in waterboys for the Democrats used Democratic Party, we know what side the long and difficult climb to the coercion to prevent marchers from you're on"-drew a class line against the summit of democracy and social justice exercising their democratic right to imperialist "doves." in Central America." This is a program participate in the Anti-Imperialist rally. for a bloodbath. What About "Two, Three, Many Like Fred Halstead's_SWP goons in the El Salvador is a classic case of Vietnams"? '60s, the YAWF organizers understood permanent revolution. The local bour­ that their job was to keep youth Way back when, the Marcyites used geoisie has proved itself over more than "uncontaminated" by communism, so to be super-Guevarists, chanting "Two, a century and a half to be implacable they could be "clean for Gene" (or Bella Three, Many Vietnams." Today one of foes of even basic bourgeois-democratic or Teddy) at election time. These were the main slogans in the PAM/May 3 demands. Attempts at compromise with the provocateurs and disrupters, and it's Coalition march was "No More Viet­ the junta will only leave the murderous too bad that they didn't get a taste of nams," reflecting the liberals' opposi­ officer corps and oligarchy.intact. their own medicine Sunday, for they tion to another losing imperialist war. Speakers at the Anti-Imperialist rally could badly use a lesson in workers Today they only carry slogans accept­ stressed the theme that anti-imperialism Workers democracy. Sam Marcy, self-proclaimed counter­ able to Teddy Kennedy and the New abroad means class struggle at home. A revolutionist. At the assembly site near the Lincoln York Times. And just in case there are WV reporter back from the coal fields Memorial a speaker for the Committee ~ome aging YAWFers around who stressed that the question of "which side SWP presence in Washington May 3 in Solidarity with the People of El fondly recall their New Left days, Sam are you on" is as crucial in the was some Militant salesmen and a lit Salvador (CISPES) made it clear that Marcy recently produced an opus, "On Appalachians as in Central America: El table for its "socialist Watersuit.") The the protest was to be nothing but a Negotiated Settlement and the Right of Salvador is Harlan writ large. While Communist Party (CP) was initially pressure tactic, as he spoke of "a Self-Determination" (Workers World, Democrats and reformists at the Pen­ upstaged by YAWF, but remained the groundswell that has forced Reagan to 17 April) arguing in effect that there is a tagon were talking ofpressuring Reagan main mobilizer of unionists and minori­ reassess his Salvadoran policy." (Want democratic right to sell out the struggle. with promises of deals and threats of ties through its myriad front groups and to bet?) At the Pentagon the political Thus Marcy has become a self­ "electoral punishment," the Anti­ ties to the "progressive" union bureau­ bloc with Bella was explicit. The confessed enemy of revolution. Imperialists were underlining the funda­ crats. But the crowd built during the day Democratic loser elaborated on the The Marcyites' appeal to the liberal mental alternatives for the Salvadoran to unanticipated numbers as "no-nuke" liberal slogan of "no more Vietnams": Democrats is in harmony with that of masses-"revolution or death, workers kids and anti-Reagan liberals poured in "If we learned anything from Vietnam, the bourgeois politicians of the Salva­ must rule." from all over the East Coast and it's that the time to stop a war is before it doran popular front, the Democratic And their voice was heard. Over Midwest. begins." She also praised a court suit by Revolutionary Front (FOR), who faced 21,000 leaflets in English and Spanish The PAM/YAWF organizers sought II Democratic Congressmen against with the murderous potential of Ameri­ were distributed in Washington May 3, to replay the role ofthe CP/SWP in the Reagan's arms to El Salvador, and can imperialism fearfully seek imperial­ and thousands more on the West Coast, Vietnam antiwar movement-deliver­ urged the many thousands brought ist brokers for a deal with Reagan and calling for military victory to the ing young politically heterogeneous there by PAM/YAWF, CISPES, the his puppets. At the Pentagon May 3 Salvadoran leftists. Over 1, 100 issues of protesters to the liberal wing of the CP and the rest to "visit electoral FDR spokesman Arnaldo Ramos said Workers Vanguard and Young Sparta­ Democratic Party. So their main job punishment" on the Republican admin- the demonstration was part of"millions cus were sold as well as pamphlets and hundreds of buttons. Nine Anti­ Imperialist Contingent buses came to D.C., including a group of 24 that traveled 900 miles from Madison, Wisconsin. At Detroit's Ford River Rouge factory nearly $500 was contrib­ uted to send a group to Washington. And ex-Peace Corpsman Tom Janota tirelessly got the message out in Mid­ western and Eastern cities, ending up in a successful fundraiser in New York City. May 3 may prove to bea pivotal event as were the early Vietnam antiwar protests of 1965-66: Then, also, the Spartacist League participated in the Revolutionary Contingent calling for an NLF victory in the Vietnamese civil war and as against the petty-bourgeois radicals of the day we fought for labor action against the war. Today the SL is far larger, with roots in the factories and an audience on campuses from coast to San Francisco: Anti-Imperialist Contingent chants "No Draft, Class War-U.S. Out of EI Salvador!" coast. And many of the thousands of 6 WORKERS VANGUARD +t.,~.., ~ ' L·.,· •..·.••···. • .....', .• ~~>_.{~- 4; '...... ' <, - '.... ,. -. -' ," j- .:' .

_\ #nAi"""" w·~ t V'W .~ ,;t ,. dill' ....' "fIIfIIII!' '"• ..~, .'C"""\W',," altieliI"'*U···Iej~ e\~~~-3pEMAY: Leftist Rebels OB~l Must Win the War!

ance (SWP/YSA) which did not march, Vietnamese who were killed by U.S. but sent a few Militant sellers to the rally imperialism will be avenged." site. When asked why there was no SWP At the conclusion, while the liberals and contingent, YSA leader Bill Baker preachers across the way were still dismissed the 5,000 demonstrators as "a droning on, the Anti-Imperialist Con­ lot of jaded leftists." The CIA/fascist tingent enthusiastically adjourned to a "Moonies" were expelled from the area: well-attended party. they obscenely hung a Latin guerrilla in effigy and were attacked, their banner ,- and effigy ripped down. After the long march, the crowd Vancouver marching five abreast filed into Dolores VANCOUVER-As in Washington, WV Photo Park. Here it divided, the reformists D.C. and San Francisco, a militant, marching off to the right, the Anti­ young protesters who walked miles to them the spectrum of Bay Area Stalinist spirited Anti-Imperialist Contingent Imperialists turning left to their own demonstrated in Seattle, joining over hear Bella and the Democrats will and social-democratic organizations. rally site. remember that the Spartacist League While politically indistinguishable in 3,000 who paraded despite a drenching told the truth: "Defeat Reagan's Cold their refusal to take sides against their At the rally Diana Coleman, downpour. Thirty-five militants from War, The Line Is Drawn in El "own" bourgeoisie, the weeks before the Spartacist-supported candidate in the Vancouver, Seattle and Portland Salvador!" • march were dominated by squabbling 1980 elections for SF Board of Supervi­ marched to demand "Military Victory between the two groups for organiza­ sors, noted that "The repression contin­ to Salvadoran Leftists." Scores more tional position. ues in El Salvador as it has for decades." picked up the chants, "Smash the She told of the 1932 insurrection of Junta-Workers to Power!" and "Left­ San Francisco That both coalitions were united in predominantly Indian coffee workers ist Rebels Must Win the War, Avenge tailoring their demands to the interests under the leadership of the Communist the Blood of El Salvador!" SAN FRANCISCO-Upwards of of Democratic Party liberals was graph­ Party, and the 30,000 killed when the Several times during the march, PAM 10,000 people marched here May 3 from ically demonstrated in the line ofmarch. junta crushed that insurrection. "We marshals limply asked the contingent to the Federal Building to Dolores Park, As the Anti-Imperialist Contingent want a workers revolution in El Salva­ chant only the liberal slogans they had demanding "U.S. Out of El Salvador!" filled the streets with its chants, the dor that will avenge the blood of the "authorized," but t~e Anti-lmper~list. The Anti-Imperialist Contingent ofover Harvey Milk Gay Democratic Club martyrs of 1932," she said. marchers refused to allow the politics of 300 people which filled the streets with behind took up a chant ofits own: "Stop The crowd cheered when Coleman the liberals and their left hangers-on to its chants of "Smash the Junta­ Your Macho Chants Now!" They were said "We want the Soviet Union to send monopolize the protest. Earlier in the Workers to Power!" was the only especially incensed at the Contingent's guns to El Salvador. We want them to week, PAM had unsuccessfully at­ revolutionary contingent and the largest chant, "Remember Bay of Pigs, Re­ send anti-aircraft guns so they can shoot tempted to exclude from the demonstra­ political tendency to march that day. member Vietnam-Democratic Party, those American helicopters out of the tion all organizationally identified From the moment its banners went up, We Know Which Side You're On!" A sky!" She concluded, banners except their own. the Contingent's energy and hard class rag-tag dozen of anti-communist an­ "As long as U.S. imperialism exists, While differing organizations insisted stand on the side of the armed struggle archists plunked themselves down in they will continue to support every on the right to march under their own ofthe Salvadoran insurgents were a pole front of the Contingent-correctly military dictatorship around the world, banners, the politics they marched of attraction to youth and working-class sniffing out the Bolsheviks as a target from El Salvador to Somoza in Nicara­ under were practically indistinguish­ for their red-baiting ire. Their ox was gua, to the shah of Iran, to Marcos in militants throughout the Bay Area. the Philippines, to the junta in Chile, to able, with the outstanding exception of In contrast to the New Leftovers really gored at the Contingent chant, the junta in EI Salvador. And they'll the Anti-Imperialist Contingent. The dominating the rest of the mushy liberal "Cuba/USSR-Arms to El Salvador!" continue their drive against the Soviet anti-draft coalition CARD, the crowd, the Anti-Imperialist Contingent, Union. So we say we need a workers "feminist-socialist" FSP and the "peace­ Notably absent from the demonstra­ revolution in the United States. And we organized by the Spartacist League, tion was the legal cretinist Socialist will see to it that the blood of El ful, legal" reformist SWP/YSA all stood out for its youth and energy. Workers Party/ Young Socialist Alli- Salvador and the blood of a million carried as their main slogan, "No Draft, Marching with it were students under No War," with CARD and YSA adding the banners of University of California/ "U.S. Out of El Salvador." To this Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz and San liberal pacifism, the Anti-Imperialists Francisco State. A busload of marchers countered, "No Draft, Class War, U.S. came up from Los Angeles. A dozen Out of El Salvador!"-a chant that was high school students from Mendocino also taken up by other marchers. County joined the Contingent with their The sharpest political confrontation banner, "Our generation missed the last centered on the pivotal question of the war, let's keep it that way." Soviet Union. The U.S. imperialists The Contingent swelled along the line have targeted their nuclear missiles at of march. Scores joined up, knowing in Russia, while Reagan and Haig want to their guts there is nothing to negotiate draw the line against communism in with the kill-crazed Salvadoran junta rivers of blood running through El butchers, that only the military victory Salvador. The Anti-Imperialist Contin­ of the leftist insurgents can build a gent's most spirited chant was, "1, 2, 3, future for the masses of this besieged 4-U.S. Out ofEI Salvador! 5,6,7,8­ land. Some 180 "Military Victory" and Defend the Soviet Workers State!" This other Contingent placards were distrib­ slogan resounding up and down the line uted to demonstrators. Some took them of march drove into a frenzy an unholy to other parts of the march-when the alliance of the Albania-loving Marxist­ liberals kicked them out, they returned Leninist Party, the bizarre pro-"Gang of to march under the Contingent banners. Four" Revolutionary Communist The size and spirit flabbergasted the Party, the State Department Socialist SL's reformist opponents in the area. "I Party and a rag-tag crew of self­ didn't know there were that many proclaimed anarchists. When the MLP Sparts in the world," one dismayed tried to spit out their anti-communist bystander cried. venom with the chant, "Smash Red The SF march was jointly organized Army in Afghanistan," they were by the People's Antiwar Mobilization completely drowned out by the Anti­

- -". '-""""-l (PAM) and the May 3 Coalition, two <;,-- .. ~'--" --., ""In.. Imperialists who proudly proclaimed, reformist outfits dominated by Workers "Down with the Bride Price, Down WorId Party and the Communist Party with the Veil, Hail Red Army in respectively, and representing between AP photo of Anti-Imperialist Contingent flashed 'round the world. Afghanistan!" • 8 MAY 1981 7 "The Line Is Drawn in EI Salvador!" Vietnam to anybody who stands on the working-class side of the class line was a Speeches at D.C. winning war. We called, in the last Anti-Imperialist stages of that war, for "Viet Cong Take Saigon!" We were notorious in the Contingent Rally antiwar movement because we said "All Indochina Must Go Communist!" That was the program of the Trotskyists. Tom Janota They published a poll last week. The last Peace Corps teacher to leave EI Seventypercent of the American people Salvador. Janota was expelled from a are opposed to any U.S. involvement in Madison-area CISPES affiliate for El Salvador. And the reason is simple. If criticizing the FDR popular front and you've learned one thing from Vietnam, endorsing an SL-initiated rally for it's that the interests of the American military victory to left-wing rebels in EI working people and the interests of the Salvador. He has just completed a masses in this country are counterposed Midwest/East Coast tour to build the to the interests of the government, May 3 Anti-Imperialist Contingent. which has to sow death and destruction I was in El Salv&dor last year at this around the world, because it is time and saw what the reforms by this imperialist. civilian-militaryjunta mean. I was there What really defeated the movement in in October of 1979, when the first the '70s was that everything was divided actions of that junta were to crush up into sectoralism. You had a move­ workers strikes in San Bartolo, in WV Photo ment for gays, you had a feminist Soyapango. Following the October 15 Tom Janota: In EI Salvador you have to take a side. movement, you had a movement for coup, I watched as workers in the everybody. Even the workers could get country has so long needed. And now they just murdered another their movement. Everybody could do working-class suburbs of San Salva­ There is a civil war in El Salvador. We Maryknoll missionary from Chicago­ dor-Cuscatancingo, San Marcos, their thing. It was called sectoralism, here cannot stand idly by. We must take a courageous man who had just gotten and it wasn't united because it didn't Mejicanos-as they rose up to extend a side. Our brothers and sisters are out of an American jail for planting the "revolution" and to make it real. I have the crucial element to unite all already fighting and dying everyday. wheat in the Pentagon lawn. More often these elements, and that's the vanguard also saw what the reaction of the Victory to the leftist insurgents in El they try to intimidate the masses with military was: they brought in the troops, party. Salvador! Long live the social revolu­ random terror, shooting peasant wom­ The era ofsectoralism is over. Reagan they brought in the tanks and they tion in El Salvador! en in cotton dresses and leaving their massacred working people. This was the has killed it. And what's needed now is bodies alongside the dusty roads to to struggle in this country as well, to reform junta, so-called, this was the serve as a lesson to all. progressive colonels and their changes Jan Norden unite all of those forces of the working They make My Lai look like child's class and the oppressed behind a for El Salvador-nothingbut a continu­ Spartacist League Central Committee. play. And why not? They've got Green ation of 50 years of military rule. Editor, Workers Vanguard. struggle for proletarian power. Anti­ Beret advisers who assassinated ''Che'' imperialism abroad means class struggle I was there in January of last year I'd like to appeal to the people who in Bolivia. They've got Huey helicop­ at home. when on January 22, 1980 more than are leaving the PAM rally to come down ters, 105 mm bazookas, phosphorus to the Anti-Imperialist Contingent. This So it's the Spartacist League that has 200,000 leftists marched in the streets of bombs. They hired Cuban gusano said, you have to prepare for the Reagan El Salvador-a march stretching 70 is the only rally which takes a side in the marksmen to put Archbishop Romero blocks from the outskirts ofthe city into civil war in EI Salvador. We have here between their cross hairs while he was the center. the flag of the FMLN [Farabundo celebrating mass. These are the terror­ 1was there in March oflast year when Marti National Liberation Front, mili­ ists. And they're terrorists made in the so-called land reform was called, the tary organization of the Salvadoran USA. reform that is known in Salvador as the leftists]. You won't see that flag in the At the Pentagon they have some "reform by death." The agrarian reform other rally. You know why? The FMLN Democrats and liberals saying ,that was followed the next day by a state of is the enemy of the American govern­ Yankee imperialism should have anoth- siege that allowed the military to occupy ment. And they don't want to sid'e with er policy-spend American dollars in the countryside-so that the country­ "the enemy." They just want the America, self-determination for EI side became already in March of last American government to have more Salvadorans, hands off. Well, we're for year a militarized zone. I watched as the intelligent policies. That's why they imperialist hands off, but we can see the peasants of Colima hacienda in Chala­ refuse to call for military victory. reality-that there's a civil war going on tenango organized themselves-took Our flag, the Trotskyist flag with the and if the workers and peasants do not over the estate and said, "Alright, the hammer and sickle and four, is the flag win it, the Salvadoran colonels will agrarian reform has been called. Let's under which the Russian Revolution stage a bloodbath whether or not they see if it applies to us." The government's was made, the October Revolution, are accompanied by American army answer came quickly: they were sur­ which was the first and only time that advisers. We stand with the exploited rounded by tanks and blown away. the workers of the world had been able and oppressed. We fight-for our class to ­ I watched in April of last year as the to take history into their hands. This win, for workers revolution. Frente Demomtico Revolucionario flag flies at our demonstration as well. And we tell the truth to the masses. was formed. Somehow they had to use You won't find red flags at that other The truth is that EI Salvador has the same leaders that had already been demonstration because they might become the focal point of American tried once before. So that Guillermo offend Bella. They might offend John imperialism's anti-Soviet Cold War. Ungo, the current president ofthe FDR, Conyers. They might offend Teddy That's why we say that the defense of was also a member of the first junta­ Kennedy. Cuba and the Soviet Union begins in EI that first bloody junta that came to So their rally is in fact counterposed Salvador. It's the issue that the refor­ power by crushing workers strikes in the politically to ours because this is a rally mists want to duck and it's the issue that Free Trade Zone in San Bartolo. And to deal a defeat to imperialism and theirs the liberals are opposed to, because they the first president of the FDR, Alvarez is a rally to side with the Democratic stand with Reagan four-square in that Cordova, was also a member ofthat first anti-Soviet Cold War. It was started by WV Photo doves of imperialism: the same people Don Alexander, SL Central Com­ junta, the first try at a coalition who were Democratic doves over Carter. mittee member. government. Vietnam and who one year later were Now, all of the "human rights" Those events have led me to take a imperialist hawks over the Mideast. imperialists-excuse me, today it's years by fighting for the class line, side in the civil war, just as my friends So I ask you now: the American the "anti-terrorist" imperialists-an­ whether it's in EI Salvador, whether it's right now in El Salvador, my friends in bastion of what it calls the "Free World" nounced last year they were just helping fighting to smash the Nazis, to defend Atiquizaya, my friends in Chalchuapa, says it's fighting against an interna­ freedom fighters in Afghanistan. Those black people from racist terror in this my friends in Morazan, my friends in tional terrorist conspiracy. Commu­ "freedom fighters" sell young girls as country, whether it's a question of Soyapango-must take a side in the nism equals terrorism, say Reagan and chattel slaves. They shoot anyone trying defending democratic rights for homo­ war. Just as they must confront the Haig-that's General "Just-Call-Me­ to teach young girls how to read as sexuals. We defend the class line and the military, confront the so-called Duarte Douglas-MacArthur" Haig. And who communist subversives! And now, it's in democratic rights of all the oppressed. government, the facade for the military are the terrorists? the paper today, the U.S. is giving That is what it means to be a communist repressers. Just as they must take a side Take El Salvador. Who are the killers military aid to the "Kampuchean vanguard party. in the civil war, so must we all. who shot down four American nuns rebels." Well, who's that? That's Pol That's why this demonstration exists That's why I say there is no way, there with American guns, as the slogan goes? Pot, right? Two years ago Pol Pot was today. If it were not for the Spartacist is no way there is going to be a Were those agents of Moscow? Their supposed to have carried out commu­ League, nobody would have come out negotiated settlement made in Mexico men from Havana? No. Even the FBI nist genocide-well, it was genocide all for military victory to the left-wing City, a negotiated settlement in Stock­ admits that it was the Salvadoran right, but it wasn't communism. But insurgents in EI Salvador. That is a great holm, a negotiated settlement in Wash­ National Guard, the forces of law and today he's a defender of the "Free honor, that we have done that, and we ington, D.C. Victory on the battlefield, order-bourgeois law and order, that is. World" for Reagan. intend to continue that movement. victory in the factories of El Salvador, They also gunned down the leaders of So they say, "No more Vietnams." We're very proud of the fact that we've victory in the countryside ofEl Salvador the left-wing opposition, even dissident How come you see a Vietnamese flag up­ drawn several hundred here today. for the. leftist insurgents-that will be landlords. They don't care. They even here and they don't want to put a Because it is a promise for the future, the change in El Salvador. That will murdered CIA-connected land reform Vietnamese flag there. Because Vietnam and we intend to fulfill that promise. bring the social revolution that that officials in the Hilton Hotel coffee shop. to the liberals was a losing war. Well, continued on page 11 8 WORKERS VANGUARD Miners Heckle "Sellout Sam" at Pittsburgh Rally PITTSBURGH, April 3O-0ver a with "independent" companies (outside In late April there were incidents of teams with high-powered rifles and .357 thousand miners rallied in Point Park of BCOA) and reducing the strike to snipers firing on scab coal trucks in magnums. here today in response to a call from so­ concentrate on the giant Consolidation Kentucky, where independent truckers Joint strike action is urgently needed called "dissident" local officials of Coal Co., whose head, B.R. Brown, also are seeking to unionize. In Raleigh to smash the injunctions, stop the United Mine Workers of America speaks for the BCOA. Therally organiz­ County, West Virginia miners began government attacks and bring the (UMWA). But miners who came ex­ ers went so far as to allow a speaker gathering in front of Philpott Coal bosses to their knees. But the key to all pecting to hear a militant strategy found from one ofthe independent companies! Company offices on April 23 when they this is to forge a class-struggle leader­ the "dissidents" were rallying around But even Perry admitted to a UPI heard the company might try to process ship with the program and determina­ union president Sam Church, who reporter recently that such a deal was scab coal. Company guards fired shots. tion to lead the struggle to victory. And spoke at the rally-and the miners did not probable because "it only takes Eventually the company president, the for all the militant and imaginative not like the fake "unity" one bit. seven large [BCOA] coal companies to mine superintendent and five guards tactics, the "dissident" UMWA local "Hey, Sam, how's that Wheeling control a majority of the tonnage." were escorted out of the offices and out officials stumble over the crucial ques­ feeling?" one miner heckled-a refer­ ofstate by the local sheriff and UMWA tion of leadership. Thus after the bitter ence to Church's attempts to sell the first Coal, Rail: Strike Together! officials! 1977-78 strike, when Miller was virtual­ contract proposal in March. (When The strike was strengthened when The favorable response by railroad ly run out of the coal fields, the only Church appeared 3t a radio station in 2,000 UMWA hard-coal miners in workers in respecting UMWA picket effect on the International was to put in Wheeling on March 27, the station was Pennsylvania voted to strike May 1 for lines makes clear the potential for a joint "Sellout Sam" Church. picketed by 150 miners who pounded on their own contracts, which are normally coal/rail strike, key to victory. (Con- David "Blue" Lamm, editor of the his car yelling, "Sellout, sellout, sell­ Coalfield Defender and member of out.") Another miner summed up his UMWA Local 633, whose pickets shut feelings about Church in one word: down the rail yards in Hinton, has been "Scab!" 20,000 Rail touring the country raising money from Church indicated his desire to settle unions in steel, garment and elsewhere for yet another sellout contract when he Workers for the West Virginia UMWA Strike soft-pedaled criticism of B.R. Brown, Committee. Speaking at a showing of the chief negotiator for the bosses' Protest "Harlan County" in New York on April Bituminous Coal Operators Associa­ 30, Lamm correctly noted that it is tion (BCOA), by asserting that Brown imperative to "move outside of the legal "is not in control of his actions"'(!) but is Reagan Cuts restraints of the labor laws" like Taft­ merely being "held hostage by 'BigOil'." Hartley to "defend our class." AFL-ClO leaders in attendance gave Some20,000railroadworkersfrom This is certainly a step forward, but their usual perfunctory pledges of 21 unions demonstrated in Washing­ Lamm falls down on the critical ques­ support. ton, D.C. April 29 against Reagan's tion of Church and the International. proposed cuts in federal aid to When a WV reporter commented that But what is needed is solidarity Amtrak and Conrail. (So many Church has clearly been repudiated by action-in particular, a joint coal/rail Conrail workers were absent from the ranks and should be recalled along strike-to defeat the coal bosses' take­ work that day that there was a 20 with the bargaining council, Lamm away demands, which threaten the percent cut in rail service.) The commented that recall would be "a UflHHt's-e-xistence. Ihe-UMWAmust not administnltion's cuts threaten to foolish thing to do" because it wastes only maintain pension funding and eliminate 72,000 rail jobs. Although energy, and the ranks snould just jurisdiction over coal jobs but must win contracts for thousands of rail work­ "ignore the International" right now. back the health card lost in the 1978 ers expired in April, conservative Thus Lamm would leave the union strike and make real gains (right to craft union officials are afraid to defy crippled at the top, as in the \91"1-'7'& strike, full COLA) if it is to carry off a the anti-strike Railway Labor Act of strike, which was lost by Miller's (and successful organizing drive in the 1926. With 160,000 coal miners Church's!) conscious sabotage. growing number of non-union mines. already on strike, there is an urgent At the UMWA's rally in Washington So-called "dissidents" like District 17 need for a joint coal/rail strike! on March 9, Lamm showed his true (southern West Virginia) presidentJack Railroad workers-strike now! UPI colors by trying to feed off the right­ Perry and District 6 (Ohio) president Ed wing atmosphere with the assurance Bell clearly have no alternative strategy, negotiated separately. In the coal fields, tracts for thousands of rail workers that his paper was "not a communist and Bell actually tried to quash miners' strike battles have flared up since talks expired in April, but no strike has been paper." Indeed it isn't! militancy at the rally. "Don't break us broke down again two weeks ago. In called.) On April 2 and 3 miners from Already over a month on strike, the up, don't split us up," Bell appealed to Virginia, where 240 state troopers are District 29 in southern West Virginia miners cannot hold on alone forever, the miners in his three-minute speech. trying to keep the mines open for the picketed the train yards in Hinton. For and a defeat would be disastrous for the District 17 vice-president Cecil Roberts bosses, 23 miners were arrested on May 36 hours trains were stopped by railroad entire working class. Strike committees spent his speech calling for a false unity 1 for allegedly pelting two police cars workers, until federal marshals came in must be formed not only to spread the around the leadership and uttered no with stones on Route 606. And in with an injunction. On April 12 and 13 strike but to dump the discredited criticism. Kentucky 200 state troopers with police railroad workers stopped trains for 24 sellout leadership. Railroad workers: The dissidents had been pushing the planes were placed on alert against the hours in Williamson, West Virginia strike now! For a joint coal/rail strike! illusory and dangerous idea of settling strike. until pickets were removed by SWAT Victory to the UMWA! •

traleft" (see article this issue). Certainly party to fight for a workers government, noff contest, which poses a real choice USWA for people who now stand with U.S. and opposition to both chauvinist for steel workers, that gives them a imperialism against Vietnam and Af­ protectionism and the reactionary anti­ chance to beat back the escalating Elections ... ghanistan, opposition to a sellout social­ Soviet war drive. attacks of the steel companies arid the (continued from page 3) democratic labor faker is out ofcharac­ It is a program like this, not the capitalist government. It is the only ter. They, along with other reformist tweedledum-tweedledee Parton-Bala- program that can win.• militant program to sweep out all the "best builders" of the Sadlowski/ pro-company hacks from union office. Balanoffcampaigns like the Communist As early as the 1974 District 31 Party and Socialist Workers Party, elections, we warned: WORKERS Change of Address simply want to climb aboard the ------1 'The Sadlowski story has been played }> z bureaucratic gravy train rather than ; I ~I Q a. out many times before: an 'honest' I I §. ~ a. '" build a class-struggle opposition that VANGUARD ro 3 union official breaks with the incum­ I I =: '" bent team, leading a 'rank-and-file can lead steel workers to victory over the I I ~ '" revolt' to 'clean up the union.' Once bosses and their government. Marxist Working-Class Biweekly I I of the Spartacist League I I elected the 'maverick' is miraculously Steel workers were presented with a I I I Please attach the I tamed, and things go on much as class-struggle program for their union 24 Issues-$3 before." Introductory offer (6 Issues) $1 : address portion I -"Ed Sadlowski: Out­ when Sam Hunt and Millie Leonard ran International rates 24 Issues-$12 alrmalll I of the : $3 seamall Bureaucrat on the Make," WV last July for election as delegates to the I mailing wrapper I 6 Introductory Issues-$3 airmail No. 57, 22 November 1974 1980 convention from Local 1010 at : when writing about I . I Inland Steel. In the local, which is -Includes Spartacist I service or change I (f) This, of course, is exactly what hap­ 0; Balanoffs strongest base and the home Name _ : of address. I pened. But it didn't stop virtually the I ro entire left, except for the Spartacist base of the Rank and File Caucus, these I Thank you. I :u Address _ I I (3 militants racked up over 800 votes each < League, from lionizing the phony "steel I I :J Clty _ () rebel" with his cheap "progressive" on a program which included full I I I I '" rhetoric and no action to fight for the support to the Keith Anwar picket line State ZIP 280 I I urgent needs ofsteel workers. About the case and the right to honor picket lines, I I I 10 N only other group to oppose both plant occupations to stop shutdowns, a Make checks payable/mail to: I I ~ }> I I'" ~ :l Sadlowski and McBride, the Maoist shorter workweek with no loss in pay to Spartacist Publishing Co. -u I I ~ o· z October League (now the crisis-wracked cnd layoffs, no government interference Box 1377 GPO I I co ;:;'" o New York, N.Y. 10116 I I g o CP-ML), has since renounced this in the union movement, labor/black I 10; a. unaccustomed militant posture as "ul- defense against fascist terror, a workers 1------.'" 8 MAY 1981 9 missiles targeted against the Soviet Union of the working masses. In January 1980 Marchais condemned imperialist inter­ Left ... ference in Afghanistan and came out for (continued from page 5) the Soviet intervention there. (In con­ the Socialist InternatIOnal over cooper­ trast, the treacherous PCI of Enrico ation with West European Communist Berlinguer and Carrillo's PCE joined in Parties. On one side were the northern - --~-, the imperialist chorus against the Soviet Union.) This is taken by the bourgeois social democrats (particularly Helmut press as the point where the PCF parted Schmidt's West German SPD), hardlin­ ways with Eurocommunism. These are ers against any form of CP alliance; on also the issues which the Socialist the other were their Mediterranean leaders seize upon in the present colleagues who saw popular fronts as a electoral campaign to declare that a new means of "moderating" Communist Union of the Left is impossible. On the Party influence in a more left-wing TV program "Cards on the table" context. This led to a clash between Mitterrand spoke of a "kind of wished­ Mitterrand and Schmidt at a Second for return to the ghetto in which they International conference in Helsingor, [the Communists] have again shut Denmark in January 1976. In particu­ themselves up"; asked about the possi­ lar, the West German chancellor bility of PCF ministers in fhe govern­ stressed the "threat" to NATO and the ment, the PS candidate replied: ..... as Common Market from "any kind of long as they remain aligned with foreign cooperation" with the Communists. positions on matters as serious as Mitterrand defended the Union ofthe Le Bol;;:;;i"k Afghanistan, it does not seem to me Left and held a conference of southern French Communist Party (PCF) pushes chauvinist anti-immigrant campaign reasonable to think ... there would be European social democrats in Paris a and economic protectionism. Communist ministers" (Le Monde, 18 week later to endorse his position. Yet March). Kenneth Rush told Claude Estier and one month later the "southern frone' dropping references to the dictatorship Gilles Martinet of the Socialist Party of the proletariat from the party So the Communist Party can legiti­ had been broken, as both Mario Soares that the United States would 'not mately talk of blackmail by the bour­ of the Portuguese Socialists (PS) and tolerate' participation by the Commu­ program, they refused to join the imperialist!social-democratic wolf cries geois and the PS-but by now (three Felipe Gonzalez of the Spanish PSOE nists in any French government, they times is enough?) even without the announced in Vienna that no alliance said." over the supposed danger of a "Prague -New York Times,S February coup" in Lisbon led by the Stalinist guidance of the Trotskyist program, the with the Communists was possible. 1976 most vulgar empiricist could figure out "Mr. Soares was categoric: his party Cunha!. The bourgeoisie demanded As for the famous "Solidarity Commit­ guarantees that Marchais was not that this is a political constant. Ques­ cannot collaborate with the Portuguese tee for Democracy and Social Progress tion: what then is the PCF's alternative? Communist Party (PCP), principally prepared to give because he wasn't sure in Portugal" which called the Porto what he was getting in return. Answer: it hasn't any. It would sign up because of the latter's Stalinist posi­ meeting, this was a device whereby the for a new popular front tomorrow if the tions," reported Le Monde (14 February CIA channeled several million dollars international political climate changed. 1976). And in mid-March European SP Eurocommunism with its Back to In his report at the party's nominating monthly to the Portuguese Socialists the Wall leaders gathered in Porto for a meeting through Schmidt's SPD. Felipe Gonzal­ convention, Marchais' lieutenant where Soares got the endorsement for ez' party, also, lived in good part on As we have pointed out, Euro­ Charles Fiterman reaffirmed: "Our line his absolute refusal of any alliance with ... is to seek the union of all the popular massive doses of D-marks during the communism is a transitory stage in Alvaro Cunhal's PCP. This rejection crucial period following the death of forces, the union of the left" (L'Human­ was all the more significant as through­ the social-democratization ofthe Stalin­ Franco. To complete the picture, there ist parties. As reformists for almost half ite, 13 October 1980). For the PCF out this period the PS and PCP had a have been numerous reports of heavy leaders created the Union ofthe Left not comfortable majority in the Portuguese a century (ever since they allowed SPD financing of the PS campaign in Hitlerite fascism to march to power for the conquest of power by the parliament and Cunhal was calling for a the 1978 French legislative elections. working class, but rather as a means to "left government." Instead, Soares unhindered), the Stalinists have defin­ And there is no doubt that ifany ofthese itively passed over to the side of the hold in check the combative energies preferred an unstable PS minority parties had been in a coalition with a shown in May 1968. Their complaint is government that eventually opened the bourgeois order against proletarian Communist Party, their subsidies would revolution. But their primary loyalties that only they aren't given sufficient way for right-wing forces as revolution­ have been cut off down to the last were originally to the Kremlin bureauc­ influence. The Ligue Trotskyste de ary fervor died down. pfennig. racy, and when the Soviet Union came France is the sole tendency that openly Now how did this turnaround of the under attack from imperialism they proclaims the Marxist lessons of histo­ Let's be clear: heavy bourgeois ry: that the popular front is a roadblock social democrats come about? There were capable of withdrawing info a political pressures, threats from Wash­ to revolution. That is why we raised the was indeed a conspiracy, but it is hardly besieged fortress condition. Trotsky ington, dollars and D-marks played an possibility ofcritical support to the PCF the one alleged by the OCI et al. Prior to pointed out that over the years Stalin's important role in keeping southern candidate when he was forced to run the Helsingor meeting, the UniteEl nationalist policy of "socialism in one European Communist parties out of independently of a popular front. States went all-out "urging West Eu­ governmental participation during the country" would lead to the breakdown ropean Socialist parties to reject feelers period 1975-78. The imperialists said no of the Comintern, as Communist parties The LCR and OCI, though they lay of cooperation by the Italian and and the social democrats danced to their outside the USSR increasingly swear claim to the mantle of Trotskyism and French Communists": tune. But, again, it was not simply a fealty to their "own" bourgeoisies. But have many times our forces, are calling not for a break from the popular front "Socialists and Social Democrats in conspiracy. Even as such operations go to be accepted as "normal" govern­ Bonn, Paris and Stockholm say that the it was not on the scale of the American mental partners like the British Labour but for its reconstitution under the guise ambassadors called on them on orders intervention to get the CPs thrown out Party or the SPD, and not just as a last of "PS-PCF unity." Moreover, their de from Dr. Kissinger. resort to stave offthe imminent threat of facto rejection ofthe Trotskyist position "The gist of their message, according to of the French and Italian governments in 1947-48. And the European bourgeoi­ revolution (as in the case ofthe mid-'30s on the Russian question-political several sources, was that despite in­ revolution to overthrow the Stalinist creasing signs of independence among sies and SPs were more than willing. and post-WWII popular fronts), then the French and ltalian Communist Portugal was a real watershed, as they the Stalinists would have to fulfill the bureaucracy, as an integral part of our parties, communism had not essentially watched with anguish the revolutionary imperialists' demand that they break unconditional defense of the conquests changed its aims and the Socialists ferment on the banks ofthe Tage, where totally with Moscow. This is what they of the October Revolution-leads the would be making a fatal mistake in LCR and GCI to draw fundamentally believing that communism was less Cunhal's PCP was under tremendous required of the PCF. dangerous than before.... pressure from centrist forces on its own But the reformists want guarantees as false lessons from the break-up of the '''They haven't heard talk like this since left flank. The bourgeoisie wanted iron­ well. In spite of all their parliamentary Union of the Left and to present a pro­ the days of John Foster Dulles,' one clad guarantees of the "Communists'" deputies, mayors, municipal councillors imperialist program in the present American official said. election. Blaming the "hand of Mos­ 'The American lobbying was intensive undivided loyalties. But while the PCF and an annual budget of 80 million and widespread. In Paris, Ambassador tops talked of Eurocommunism, even francs [more than U.S. $20 million], cow" for the collapse of the French Marchais and his bureaucratic col­ popular front, they propagate imperial­ leagues at Place Colonel Fabien occa­ ist myths, acting as waterboys for SPARTACIST LEAGUE LOCAL DIRECTORY sionally wonder what would happen to Mitterrand. And on Afghanistan the them in a crisis. Their fears were positions of the Eurotrotskyists fol­ National Office Chicago Los Angeles lowed in the wake of Jimmy Carter's Box 1377. GPO Box 6441. Main PO. Box 26282 expressed at the PCF conference which New York. NY 10116 Chicago. IL 60680 Edendale Station nominated Marchais for president, as anti-Soviet "human rights" crusade, (212) 732-7860 (312) 427-0003 Los Angeles, CA 90026 party leaders noted that "three times," in while the reformists of the OCI go even (213) 662-1564 further, calling for the export of Islamic Cleveland 1936, 1947 and 1972, "the PCF-PS Ann Arbor Madison counterrevolution to the USSR itself! clo SYL Box 6765 union, although born in enthusiasm, Cleveland. OH 44101 clo SYL P.O Box 8364 came to a bad end." And just look at the In France today, "unity" has become (216) 621-5138 Box 2074 Ann Arbor. MI 48107 Madison. WI 53701 fate of Mr. Eurocommunism himself, the codeword for pro-imperialist anti­ (313) 994-9313 Detroit (608) 255-2342 Spanish PCE leader Santiago Carrillo, Sovietism and reconstituting the de­ Box 32717 New York who threw caution to the wind and came funct popular front. We agree with what Berkeley/Oakland Detroit, MI 48232 Box 444 PO Box 935 (313) 868-9095 out 100 percent for king and country. Lenin wrote on unity in April 1914: Oakland, CA 94604 Canal Street Station 10013 What does he get? Kidnapped by the "Unity is a great thing and a great (415) 835-1535 New York. NY Houston (212) 267-1025 Guardia Civil, and next time perhaps a slogan. But what the workers' cause Box 26474 Boston Houston. TX 77207 San Francisco successful coup d'etat that would drive needs is the unity ofMarxists, not unity Box 188. M .1. T. Station Box 5712 his party deep underground. between Marxists and opponents and Cambridge. MA 02139 San Francisco, CA 94101 (617) 492-3928 (415) 863-6963 So when the imperialists and social distorters of Marxism." Militants of the democrats began pulling back from Communist Party, demand a real break TROTSKYIST LEAGUE OF CANADA popular-front "experiments," Marchais from the bourgeoisie-not poisonous Toronto Vancouver Winnipeg & Co. responded by cooling off their French chauvinism but genuine prole­ Box 7198. Station A Box 26. Station A Box 3952, Station B own Eurocommunist flirtations. In tarian internationalism! Not a new Toronto. Ontario Vancouver. B.C. Winnipeg. Manitoba December 1979, the PCF launched a Union of the Left but a new 1968 that (416) 593-4138 (604) 681-2422 (204) 589-7214 mini-campaign against the American goes all the way! • 10 WORKERS VANGUARD across the globe by imperialist might are Speeches ... youth. (continued from page 8) EI Salvador inherits the issue of freedom of youth. To GAA this means I"Butcher--Yhatcher­ the destruction of the nuclear family­ Don Alexander replacing it with the freedom to create, Spartacist League Central Committee. rather than submitting it to the dictate A longtime antiwar activist andfighter to procreate. In this country youth, and all of us, are under attack by sub­ Blood on Your Hands" for the rights ofblack people, in 1979 he minimum wage legislation, the draft, the was one ofthe organizers ofthe Detroit MAY 5-Bitter protest against the family protection act, age-of-consent No,!ember 10 rally which stopped the killing of Bobby Sands began to KKKfrom marching in the Motor City. legislation, attacks on abortion rights, and on and on. The economic and explode this afternoon. In New York ~u When "Iron Lady" Margaret City over 5,000 picketed the British Thatcher came to the United States a emotional deprivation this causes gay 3M and lesbian youth demands the strong­ Consulate for hours. An effigy of \\-i\.naFMA couple of months ago and had a chat Margaret Thatcher, draped in the est possible response. GAA has re­ with Reagan they concluded one thing, British flag, was set afire to chants of ,,~~~~T sponded actively to each and .every one that they long for nothing more than to "Burn the bitch!" A sign read "Bobby have this world rid of communism, of these issues. ~\.tN' ·ENe We are here, not only to voice the Sands, MP: Latest Victim of Pox leftism. And of course, in El Salvador Britannica" while bagpipes and drums support of working-class homosexuals that's precisely where it is beginning, accompanied a coffin. ,O\\lRS( for the leftist military victory in El their anti-Soviet Cold War drive. That's But the big Irish politicians weren't Salvador, we are also here to help to where the blood ofthe \yorking people is at the biggest NYC Irish demonstra­ build a revolution in this country. To all running right now, and we're the only tion in ten years, even though Irish ones that want to avenge the blood ofEl male homosexuals and lesbians: it is not nationalist organiz~rs had brought the Salvador. So that this Anti-Imperialist a question of protest, it is a question of power. .American flag and appealed to "Mr. Contingent today-we built this contin­ President" Reagan who calls the IRA gent because we understand the necessi­ just a bunch of crazy terrorists-and ty of taking a side in the civil war going probably Soviet-backed, to boot. The on in El Salvador. Frank Hicks A spokesman for the Rouge Militant Tip O'Neills and Pat Moynihans sure In fact, the organizers of this other put aside their Irish blarney awfully WV Photo rally were really organizing a pro­ Caucus, a class-struggle opposition New York, May 5: "Smash group at VA W Local 600, the largest fast. Thatcher's bloody policies have H-Bfockl" imperialist contingent, because they the full support of the American refuse to take a side. They actually aid local union in the country. Hicks and other militants mobilized Rouge work­ bourgeoisie, and the hack politicians In London itself, heart of decaying, and abet in committing enormous know it-all their talk of "modera­ vicious British imperialism, most of crimes of betrayal against the worker ers to run two KKK-hooded foremen out of the plant in October 1979. A tion" means: don't fight back! the so-called British "left" abstained and peasant masses in El Salvador. And The Spartacist League was at the from protesting Thatcher. But at the in doing so they echo the bourgeois month later the militantsjoinedwith the SL to organize the November 10 anti­ protests, the only socialist organiza­ Trafalgar Square rally the Spartacist liberal critics like Ted Kennedy, who tion with a large, militant contingent. League of Britain stood out as the simply.want to cut off military aid to El Klan rally, thefirst labor-centered anti­ fascist rally in decades. Our chants like "Smash H-Block! most militant contingent among the Salvador and not cut off economic aid Butcher Thatcher Must Go!" were largely Irish protesters. The contin­ which keeps that junta alive, which We have a side in El Salvador. We picked up by many demonstrators. gent's chants-"Smash Britain's tor­ keeps it afloat. So for example, some of must do everything in our power to The organizers graciously brought ture camps! Troops out now!" "Tories, the groups represented here, like the guarantee that the workers and peasants Spartacist representative Kevin Quinn Labour have blood on their hands, Socialist Workers Party, the Commu­ of that country win, and win big! For us onto their flatbed truck to address the bloody butchers of Bobby Sands!" nist Party and the Youth Against War in the labor movement that means rally. Quinn insisted, "The ignomini­ won wide support. and Fascism, they say let's take some of fighting to hot-cargo military goods to ous murder of Bobby Sands must be In the next days, reformist the military aid that's going to El EI Salvador. For the UAW, that means avenged! We stand here in solidarity politicians will weep about the "terri­ Salvador and use it for the investigation political strikes against Reagan if he with the Irish workers, and say that H­ ble tragedy"; Thatcher/Reagan will of the racist child killings going on in sends in the Marines. But the hacks in Block must be smashed! We stand for continue to slaughter rebels against Atlanta. They tell black people in the Solidarity House in the UAW Interna­ unity of the Irish working class: not imperialism as "terrorists," to be shot North to put faith in this racist capitalist tional, they're calling for the so-called Green against Orange, but class or starved. And we will continue our state, its cops, its court, its Congress, its political solution in El Salvador. They against class. Only revolutionary unity fight to avenge Bobby Sands, through politicians. They tell us to look to that want to leave the army and the right­ of the Irish workers. linked up to the united working-class struggie to crush racist dog Reagan to fight for our rights, wing death squads intact, to kill and kill British working class, will free the Irish the imperialists and their torture­ to fight the Klan terrorists. again, and that's the bitter truth. They and all the people of the British Isles." prisons once and for all! And what is very important, when we don't want the brothers and sisters in EI talk about the independent mobilization Salvador to win any more than they of blacks and workers in this country, want us to win against Ford, against we're talking about a strategy that General Motors, against Chrysler. and fake-lefts at a May Day demonstra­ actually works. So in Detroit when the Listen, brothers, the working class in Sands ... tion called by the Birmingham trade­ Klan threatened to march in celebration Detroit is getting ground into dust. We (continuedfrom page 12) union movement on May 4. To the of the Greensboro massacre, it was only need some class struggle at home, we the Republicans' fight for cross-class labour movement we say: Black [boy­ the Spartacist League that mobilized need it real bad. We need sit-down Catholic unity-a capitalist united cott] all military transport to Northern labor and blacks in this city. We strikes against plant closings and mass Ireland? What sort of future does a Ireland! Demand troops out now! mobilized over 500-black auto work­ layoffs. But all we get from the labor capitalist Ireland hold that is worth Throw out your misleaders who uphold ers and black youth and socialists-to bureaucracy in this country is a bunch of dying for? Looking south, a fellow imperialist repression in Ireland just as stop the Klan from marching in down­ "Buy American" crap. This only fuels Republican faces the death sentence in they betray your own struggles at home. town Detroit. Now of course we were Reagan's patriotic fever, his anti-Soviet Charles Haughey's Republic right now. Bobby Sands must not simply be­ facing Coleman Young's administra­ war drive. That's his real target in El The economy is floundering and unem­ come another addition to the long list of tion, who threatened to arrest us, but we Salvador-Cuba, Poland, the Soviet ployment and inflation are especially martyrs for Irish freedom. He will only had faith that the working class could be Union. desperate in the deliberate absence of be avenged and British imperialism mobilized. We based our strategy upon But for working people: listen, and state benefits. With elections impending defeated when the united Irish working that. So labor militants in the Ford listen good! There are not 300,000 auto Haughey has only the "Irish unity" card class puts an end to the rule of River Rouge plant and the Spartacist workers laid offin Russia! And the Klan to play in his bid to dodge the issue of capitalism, Orange and Green. An Irish League stopped the Klan from celebrat­ damn well doesn't ride in Moscow! the economy. But even here Haughey revolutionary vanguard must be forged ing that massacre. Sure, they need to get rid of their and other Irish bourgeois politicians are to lead the fight for an Irish workers bureaucrats like Brezhnev, just like we deliberately coy and evasive faced with republic in a ..socialist federation of the need to get rid of the bureaucrats in our the explosive H-block issue. British Isles.• Derek Hirst unions, like Fraser and Kirkland. But For the past two years elected chairman we had better know that if we don't stop Workers Revolution Against and political spokesman for the Gay Reagan's anti-Soviet war drive, we're British Imperialism Spartacist League/ Activist Alliance. The New York-based gonna be in real trouble. Because those If the Republican solution offers no Spartacus Youth League GAA, founded as an outcome of the guys will push the button. And this solution to the plight of the Catholic Public Offices 1969 Stonewall protests against cop patriotic fever-watch out! Reagan's masses it is not for lack of courage but -MARXIST L1TERATURE- repression of homosexuals, is perhaps so-called safety net is being rewoven for lack of a political perspective to the best-known gay rights Qrganization into nothing but a lynch rope for focus a death blow against their imperi­ Bay Area in the country. Historically, GAA was minorities in this country. alist oppressors. But the so-called Fri.: 5:00-8:00 p.m .. Sat.: 3:00-6:00 p.m. known as a single-issue gay rights 1634 Telegraph. 3rd Floor (near 17th Street) So brothers and sisters, we're gonna "revolutionaries" in Britain don't even Oakland, California Phone: (415) 835-1535 organization, hut it has recently been make some hard fights in this country, have that courage. They scrambled after undergoing political change and now against the Klan and the Nazis, with the handful of liberals and "left" Chicago defines itself as a revolutionary propa­ labor/black mobilizations like Novem­ Labourites who wanted a vague "com­ Tues.: 5:30-9:00 p.m, Sat.: 2:00-5:30 p.m. ganda organization. Formerly, Hirst 523 S. Plymouth Court. 3rd Floor ber 10 in Detroit, and like ANCAN in mitment to withdrawal" only in order to Chicago, Illinois Phone: (312) 427-0003 was managing editor of the Torch, San Francisco. We're gonna take a side better "defeat the gunmen." They newspaper ofthe Revolutionary Social­ in El Salvador that calls for the workers dropped campaigning for "Troops Out New York City ist League. Tues.: 6:00-9:00 p.m .. Sat.: 12:00-4:00 p.m. to come to power. Nothing less is what Now!" What is needed in Britain as in 41 Narren St. (one block below GAA calls for military victory of the they need. And likewise in this country, Ireland is a perspective of class mobili­ Chambers St. near Church St.) leftists in El Salvador, to make a clear we're gonna make a fight for a workers sation against imperialism and for a New York. NY Phone: (212) 267-1025 anti-imperialist statement. To all issues party that will build actions like this proletarian socialist solution. Trotskyist League raised in El Salvador, and in our daily Anti-Imperialist Contingent. Sotothose A militant Spartacist League contin­ of Canada work, the resolution is permanent of you who broke through the Demo­ gent marching behind a banner reading Toronto revolution. However, a large concentra­ cratic Party lines up there: brothers and "Smash Britain's Torture Camps, Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m. 299 Queen St. W., Suite 502 tion of those slaughtered in El Salvador sisters, time is running short. I got one Troops Out Now!" fought for such a Toronto. Ontario Phone: (416) 593-4138 by the Christian Democratic junta and question: which side are you on? perspective against the Labour traitors 8 MAY 1981 11 WfJlINEIiS "NGU'II' British Troo~s Out! Thatcher Kills Bobby Sands Workers Unite to Smash British Imperialism!

LONDON, May 5-IRA prisoner Bobby Sands died last night of starva­ tion in the Maze Prison. The death­ watch continues for three other Repub­ lican prisoners on hunger strike for political status, who wait behind Sands in a grisly queue. With arrogance and even relish Margaret Thatcher faced the prospect of their deaths and raced in British imperialism's repressive forces to crush the inevitable response of mass anger and outrage. The loyal Labour opposition backs her to the hilt: "No concessions! Defeat the terrorists!" they say in a disgusting display of imperialist bipartisanship. Meanwhile the British Army shoots UPI down and kills unarmed H-block Belfast, April 26-Mass rally supports IRA prisoners' hunger strike for political status. protesters in the streets of Belfast and Derry, and dozens of protest leaders are garet Thatcher has condemned Bobby meeting his demands not a word was Two young boys were killed and the arrested in Gestapo-style dawn raids. Sands and his comrades to a slow and heard from Benn or anyone else. vehicle was reversed over the broken The hatred for the army of occupation painful death. Meanwhile Bobby Sands was also the dead body of one. The army command­ grows. While Labour traitors join the target of more subtle "humanitarian er "regretted" this "traffic accident." chorus of support for "our boys" in Years of Myth-Making Out the concern" by emissaries from Dublin, Fourteen years for possessing a hand­ Northern Ireland, we say: Get the Window Rome, Brussels and almost everywhere gun ifyouare in the IRA, "regret" over a Armed Imperialist Butchers Out Now! When the voters of Fermanagh in else to put pressure on him, not the "traffic accident" for cold-blooded For the Immediate Unconditional South Tyrone elected Sands their MP in murderous Thatcher, to concede. Sniv-' murder if you are in the army. Such are Withdrawal of the British Army! Smash a by-election on April 9, the govern­ elling pro-imperialist reformists like British imperialism's scales of justice. the Imperialist Torture Call1ps! ment's long propaganda campaign to Belfast MPGeriy Fitt and the former But the other tragedy ofBobby Sands In Belfast and Derry the population, "prove" the IRA were isolated fanatics Officials (now "Sinn Fein the Workers is the sad fact that his death, however Catholic and Protestant, prepares for an was demolished forever. As a Guardian Party") condemned the desperate hun­ honourable his intentions, will not explosion and a bloody showdown. The (II April) editorial put it, "Years of ger strike as "violent," while others further the cause of ending oppression Protestant paramilitary Ulster Defence myth-making go out ofthe window with simply whined their "peace" message. in Northern Ireland. And the reason is Association held a show of strength on the election ofBobby Sands." This was a But there can be no peace so long as political. The bankruptcy of the Re­ the Shankill Road. Irish Republican sweeping well-nigh unanimous vote by Britain lords it over Northern Ireland. publican strategy was shown with the the Catholic community against imperi­ There is real tragedy in the death of defeat of the last hunger strike, whose alist oppression. this man with the courage to die in "humanitarian" focus and emphasis on The full pressure of imperialist protest against oppression. The imperi­ a recognition from notables in foreign opinion and scare-mongering has been alists claim he is a criminal, but Bobby capitals did nothing to stop the ma­ unleashed on the voters of this border Sands' dignity and determination have noeuvring and arrogant refusal of constituency and tested in the straight made him an honourable symbol for the elementary rights by Britain. The whole contest between Sands and Protestant oppressed Catholic minority of North­ strategy of pressuring imperialism, Unionist leader Harry West. Imperial­ ern Ireland in the struggle against the whether by civil libertarianism or by the ism's labour lieutenants pitched in to do obscene British presence. He is an IRA bomb, offers no road forward. And with their bit as well. In an unprecedented officer who would not ask his men to do the situation in the North about to boil polling day appeal from Westminster, what he would not do himself. Sands over, it is undoubtedly the Catholics Labour spokesman on Northern Ireland and his fellow hunger strikers simply who will be on the receiving end of Don Concannon told voters that "a demand that Republican prisoners stepped-up repression from the British vote for Mr Sands is a vote of approval should not be treated as criminals. They imperialist army, police and Loyalist for the perpetrators of the La Mon are right. Free the Hunger Strikers! Free paramilitary terror gangs. massacre, Warren Point, the murder of All Victims of Imperialist Repression in The IRA may well be the only force Lord Mountbatten and all the other Ireland! defending no-go areas and Catholic senseless murders that have taken place Bobby Sands' only "crime" is that he communities from Paisleyite atrocities in Northern Ireland over the years." fought against oppression. He was and imperialist rampage. But it is in the Martyred Irish Republican Bobby Sands. Yet in his fortieth day without food moved to join the Provisional IRA after very nature of Republicanism that as Bobby Sands was elected a member of his family was driven out of their and when the conflict deepens, polaris­ citizens' defence committees prepare the imperial mother of parliaments on predominantly Protestant neighbour­ ing along the lines ofthe early 1970s and contingency plans in Catholic West an 87 percent turnout. There was an hood and he was threatened out of his worse, their nationalism will lead to an Belfast. Households are stocked up on outcry from the gentlemen of Westmin­ job at gunpoint. He has spent· only six exacerbation of reactionary sectarian bread, bottled gas, tinned goods, pow­ ster, who engage in polite debates about months out of prison in the past eight violence on both sides. Republican dered milk. policies of mass deprivation and bloody years. Some old handguns were found in nationalism directs its acts of terror not The army's Spearhead Battalion repression, about having this "criminal" his home in 1972. This earned him five only against imperialist targets like Earl stands ready for dispatch across the seated among them. Eventually the MPs years in the Maze. Six months after his Mountbatten and the British army of water to the Six Counties and all police decided not to expel Sands from their release in 1976 he was stopped in a car occupation but is also capable of such leave has been cancelled. Her Majesty's sovereign body in the expectation he with three others and the RUC [Royal indefencible atrocities as the killing of government provides a steady stream of would soon be dead anyway. Less than a Ulster Constabulary] found one revolv­ thirteen innocent Protestants in the La war propaganda: "IRA Plans to Burn score of Labour "lefts" could even be er in the vehicle. Each of the four Mon firebombing of early 1978. Class Belfast" read one Daily Express head­ heard to murmur that the government received 14 years. unity can and must be forged against line. And all the while Westminster might consider negotiating ("imagina­ Contrast the British troops armed to sectarian terror as well as against arrogantly refuses to accede to the tively") with Sands. Left hero Tony the teeth, killing with impunity. On imperialist rampage through the Republican prisoners' eminently just, Benn graciously hinted that "someone" Easter Sunday an army Land Rover struggle for integrated workers militias. even minimal, demand for political (someone else, that is) should propose ploughed into a group of protesting And what about the political goal of status. With autocratic disdain, Mar- feeding Sands at Westminster. Of children in Derry at 50-60 miles an hour. continued on page 11 12 8 MAY 1981