ON THE INSIDE Yugoslav Repression p. 8 Struggle in Latin America p. 6 f Communication Worker Strikes.p. 3 10

Nixon leaves, EWS inflation stays

By Charles Denby, Editor The most pressing question that is being talked about and discussed among working people these days is infla­ tion, tins runaway inflation. A worker was saying that if this spiral of high prices continues for the next two or three years as it has in the past year, many will be faced with starvation on a mass scale, and we will have a revolution throughout this country. There was a news report that Ford Motor Company has raised the price of their cars an average of $35 a month every month this year. If a worker asks for a $35 VOL. 19—NO. 7 27 PrintMs^percent AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 1974 raise a year, they will yell to high heaven, as though we are insane, that this is inflationary. They are saying that workers and poor people are what causes inflation, not the big corporations and capitalists that have the con­ THE BIGGEST COVER-UP trolling powers in their hands, not the millions and billions that this country is throwing away to the military. Now we find out the big wheat deal that Nixon made with Russian leaders, hoping to build his own prestige, as the only American President to break through in NIXON RESIGNATION AVOIDS bringing friendship with Russia, is the biggest reason that all food prices are so high today. Nixon ran for office six years ago pointing out that inflation was too high at that time, and promising that EXPOSURE OF FULL TRUTH if elected he would reduce this inflation. But prices have soared upward ever since. This is what puzzles me about by Andy Phillips mitted only that he had made a "mistake in judg­ those who kept on supporting him to the bitter end — ment." the man has never told anything but lies from the very When over 130 million Americans turned on beginning. their TV sets on Aug. 8 at 9 p.m. to listen to the At the same time, the people became witness to the resignation speech of President Richard Milhous beginning of the greatest political cover-up of all: the This country is in such a mess after his adminis­ resignation itself, and the efforts of both Republican tration, it will take many long years to return it back Nixon, they listened in disbelief to the gall of and Democratic Congressmen to avoid further exposure to where it was before he came into office, and most the President, swept out of office by the ava­ of the total degeneracy of the political system in the of the important things that are relative to working lanche of national disgust of the people at the U.S. and those who represent it. and poor people may never be returned—especially when impeachment proof, who even now claimed he Nixon's hand-picked successor is in charge. Anyone can had done all for "the national interest." He ad- It is for this reason that the great cry of relief went (Continued on Page 7) up from Congress and virtually every newspaper in the country hastened to christen their new "Mr. Clean," President Gerald R. Ford, to heap extravagant praise on the "courage" of Congress, the Judiciary Committee Editorial and the effectiveness of the Constitution in achieving Nixon's resignation. HYPOCRISY CONTINUES This is insulting hypocrisy. Especially since there ' Latin America-in search of revolution is hardly a more inept person to assume the tremendous September 11 marks the first anniversary of the burdens of U.S*. President than Gerald Ford; since a right wing military coup in Chile. In the months since near-totally reluctant Congress was literally forced into the coup, the government of General Pinochet has moved the impeachment proceedings by a determined U.S. pop­ both within the country and without to consolidate its ulation which long ago was convinced of Nixon's guilt; position of dominance. Within, there has been a syste­ and since Watergate had virtually paralyzed the country matic policy of torture and "trials" of political prisoners. for two whole years because of the delaying tactics per­ The first "open trial" has just been concluded and has re­ mitted by the Constitution. sulted in sixty convictions. Four were sentenced to death. "ertf B.E.I Far from showing the strength and effectiveness of The trial was conducted on the ground that all the activi­ the Constitution, Watergate exposed its weaknesses in ties of the Allende government since 1970 have been containing or preventing excessive accumulation and declared illegal and thus participants and supporters of abuse of power —the U.S. came within an eyelash of that government acted illegally. being transformed into a totalitarian state. It also con­ Outside the country, the Chilean government has firmed the double standard of justice in America: there been involved in the formation of an unofficial alliance is one law for the rich and powerful, and another for among the right wing military dictatorships of Brazil, the weak and poor. Uruguay and Bolivia. The major purpose appears to be What Nixon misjudged, was the reaction of the Amer­ that of combatting any Latin American left social move­ ican people to the proof of his total corruption, policies ments. of war, attempts to destroy every Black revolt gain of The U.S. involvement with the Chilean military gov­ the '60s, increasing unemployment, skyrocketing infla­ ernment has hardly been one of "neutrality." Tens of tion, deepening recession and flagrant favoritism shown millions of dollars have been allocated to the govern­ to capital at the expense of labor which moved the U.S. ment for military assistance. There has been, in addition, at a much faster pace toward state capitalism and in­ a renewed flow of capital which has aided in "stabilizing" creased speed-up and oppression of the working class. the economy, just as the withdrawal of economic credit —News & Letters photo (See " 'Nixon's Choice' takes office"—p. 3). by the U.S. and its agencies during the Allende regime Mexican students support striking workers. had disrupted the economy and thus created the ground FORD MISJUDGES AMERICAN PEOPLE for the coup. tion requires a license, which can be issued only by the For any who harbored illusions about Ford's Model- government and its controlling party, the PRI (Partido T mentality, he should have laid them to rest with his THE LEFT REEXAMINES REVOLUTION Revolutionario Institutional). Anyone speaking in the address to Congress on Aug. 12. After assuring that he The military takeover in Chile as well as the emer­ name of the revolution without government sanction is would support the defense budget, which is the greatest gence of right wing governments in a number of Latin doing so illegally and is dealt with. inflationary influence in the nation's economy, Ford then American countries, supported by the United States, has When the population has tried to implement their declared inflation to be enemy No. 1. If the defense caused the left social movements throughout Latin interpretation of the Mexican Revolution—most notably budget remains intact, his cuts will clearly come in America to rethink their conceptions of revolutionary in massive demonstrations in the National University and domestic programs. change. Mexico is a good example. in the streets in 1968, the government response was the Moreover, President Ford pledged a continuity of Mexico has had a reputation of being "progressive" machine gun. Hundreds were wounded or killed. Thou­ Nixon's foreign policies, and virtually guaranteed it with because of its continued relationship with. Cuba as well sands were jailed. The fight today, as in 1968, is Jaot his retention of Dr. "Strangelove" Kissinger as Secretary as its willingness to give political exile to a number of over the proper interpretation of the Mexican Revolution of State. Far from reassuring, these early steps of Latin American revolutionaries from other countries. of 6*4 years ago. It is over the social conditions of the "Clean" President Ford guarantee that the same de­ Yet, despite its liberal exterior, its internal policies are present. structive roads hewn by his expelled predecessor will another story. Present-day Mexico is steeped in revolu­ MEXICO-A ONE-PARTY STATE continue to be followed in both domestic and foreign tionary slogans and trappings. The government is con­ The state in Mexico is in effect a one-party-state policies. stantly doing this or that in the name of the revolution which, if possible, buys off and swallows up its opponents, or in the interest of continuing the revolution. Subway but does not hesitate to briskly get rid of them by force There is no part of the globe where the imperialist signs urge the population to produce more so they if necessary. Those students who were radicals at the adventures and mis-adventures of Nixon-Kissinger do can.expect more—all in the name of the revolution. university often find themselves with the opportunity not play key roles — either openly or undercover. This But to speak and to act in the name of the revolu- (Continued on Page 6) (Continued on Page 5) PACE 2 NEWS & LETTERS AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 1974 Chinese women organize, strike SF sweatshops Leaders stifle LA CLUW San Francisco, Cal.—A victory for the women Los Angeles, Cal.—On July 13, the first "of­ ficial" organized meeting here of the Coalition of San Francisco's Chinatown garment sweatshops of Labor Union Women (CLUW) was held since was won Aug. 7. Fifty years of attempted organiz­ the national convention last March. Several groups ing has always resulted in defeat and increased of union women have met since the convention, but intimidation. The women, most of whom speak the state convenor and west coast vice president stopped no English, work in tiny, usually illegal store­ Garm ent this telling them they wera not allowed to meet as fronts in squalid conditions. w or k e r CLUW without the steering committee having arranged At the Great Chinese-American Sewing Co., the breaks down a "proper" CLUW meeting. women finally had enough and called the International after telling The meeting started off with guards at the door Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) to organize rally about making sure all people who came in were card-carrying them. The worker who called them was fired immedi­ s weatshop union members. They even turned away the babysitters ately, and on July 20 the women voted to go on strike. conditions. who had volunteered to watch our children, because At their picket line over 90 persons marched, and the they didn't have union cards. Also, 40 women who were women told of the sweatshop conditions. in the process of organizing the plant they worked at, . When a scab drove his truck through the picket line, were turned away because their union does not issue injuring one of the women strikers, the police moved in union cards until you have a contract with your em­ and arrested 38 women for "obstructing the sidewalk" ployer. and "interfering with the police." Owner Douglas Tomp­ When these points were brought out in the work­ kins closed down the.shop claiming: "It wasn't making shops, the response from the steering committee was any money, it has nothing to do with the organizing gave gifts of money and dinner invitations, providing the national CLUW decided for the first year of its life, campaign." the women would not join the union,-The union vote CLUW members must be union members. Also, you On Aug. 7, the court hearing was so jammed with lost and the promises vanished into the fog. cannot belong to an independent union, you must have supporters of the 38 arrested women that the overflow When the women realized they had been tricked, an international. Ironically, CLUW's first goal is to or­ crowd formed a picket line a block long. All charges they formed the Lee Mah Workers Association demand­ ganize the unorganized. against the women were dismissed. The judge also said ing an end to harassment and firings, and that all dis­ Prior to the meeting, several people passed out he would investigate the violations perpetrated by the charged workers be rehired. Although charges against resolutions they wanted presented on the floor, includ­ owner. Charges of unfair labor practices have also been the company have been filed with the NLRB, these ing an alternate agenda. The official agenda was set up filed with the National Labor Relations Board. women said: "We cannot depend on them alone" and so no feedback from it-he workshops came back to the • began to picket the plant. general session. The steering committee decided that San Francisco, Cal.—Lee Mah Electronics, located in Lee Mah workers, unlike their sisters at the Ruckers no resolutions would be heard. San Francisco's Chinatown, is owned 90% by Farinion Electronics plant on strike in suburban Concord, do not Approximately 200 women attended from 30 dif­ Electric, a multi-million dollar corporation. They pay have a recognized union. When Ruckers refused to nego­ ferent unions, including many Black and Chic ana wom­ the workers, mostly all Chinese women, $1.65 per hour tiate or recognize the union, the women voted to strike. en. The workshops were structured to only discuss the starting pay. Since November, 1973, they have been Women's groups and organized labor, especially Union national CLUW booklet of purposes and nothing else. trying to unionize themselves. W.A.G.E. women, are" supporting them, and they in turn Of the main speakers, there was a Chicana woman The campaign was becoming so successful that the are supporting the Lee Mah workers picket line. who spoke of a 16-month strike of rubber workers where bosses promised pay raises; increased workers' benefits; — Elbee W. the wives, husbands and children joined the picket line to bolster the strikers. Although the strike was not yet over, the company's stock had dropped from $12 per share to less than $1.. Rowbotham's narrow view of Marxism misses new in WL The last speaker, Ruth Miller, the state convenor, by Deborah Morris zations is due to women's inability to overcome "the said that if you didn't agree with all the statements The women's movement is today concerned more traditional fatalism, the passivity, the timidity and lack in the national booklet and wanted to work outside of than ever with Working out the relationship between of confidence which were characteristic of women in this scope, you did not belong in this organization. Women's Liberation and social revolution. Sheila Row­ normal times." —CLUW member botham's Women, Resistance and Revolution (Vintage In the second section dealing with Russia and China, Books, 1974, $2.45) takes up this task and proposes to Rowbotham again runs into difficulties, for she finds If you have a story, or want to contact develop this relationship by tracing the idea of Women's that the idea of women's liberation still has not been News & Letters Women's Liberation Com­ Liberation in its various historical forms. Unfortunately carried through to completion even after the revolution, for the women's movement, it is a task that remains to much less during. Her conclusion is that the women's mittees in San Francisco, Connecticut, De­ be done, for in the book's conclusion Rowbotham herself movement cannot be left until after the revolution but troit, Lo$ Angeles or New York, write to the admits that she has been unable to develop the relation­ must be an integral and equal part of any revolutionary addresses in the box on page 3. ship theoretically. struggle. NARROW VIEW OF MARX WOMEN RE-CLASSIFIED She states that the Women's Liberation movement Her final solution is to challenge the Left to work and social revolution "cohabit the same space uneasily" out a class analysis of the women's movement so that Women strike Harper & Row and that "the connection between the oppression of wom­ "the scope of production must be seen in a wider sense New York, N.Y. — Three hundred twenty employees en and the central discovery of Marxism, the class ex­ and cover also the production undertaken by women of Harper & Row struck for 17 days last month and ploitation of the worker in capitalism, is still forced." in the family and the production of self through sex­ changed the publishing industry. The editorial and pub­ That Rowbotham has not been able to develop the uality." Rowbotham thinks that the gap between social licity workers, mostly young women, have for years links between the women's movement and social revolu­ revolution and Women's Liberation can be bridged by gotten low pay and few benefits in exchange for the tion is due to her own narrow concent of Marxism'as the simple reclassification of women as workers. supposed "glamor and excitement" of publishing. Now merely "the exploitation of the worker in capitalism." The history of the idea of Women's Liberation is more than 20 houses are planning to organize after see­ She is thus not able to see that the worker is a creative very important, but as with all ideas it moves to new ing Harper & Row's success. subject in the overthrow of capitalism; she cannot com­ stages. Rowbotham is obviously writing under the im­ Harper & Row had a house association for 33 years prehend the women's movement as reason as well as pact of today's women's movement, but it is precisely (it was started by the company to forestall organization force. While hailing Marx's early writings for his treat­ their newness, their questions, and their self-activity that by the CIO) before it took a militant action. No one ment of women, she criticizes Marx' for leaving it at a Rowbotham has refused to deal with. The challenge for was more surprised than the association officers when "bourgeois humanism" stage and failing to develop the today is not to re-write Marx, but to use the method the membership voted by a margin of 20 to 1 to reject woman question into a class analysis. Marx developed to capture what today's movement rep­ management's "final offer" this year and strike. One Like many on the Left who still resents and on (that basis begin to work out the rela­ woman explained, "The strike was defensive. They were refuse to reorganize their thought 40 tionship between Women's liberation and social revolu­ trying to take away benefits we already had, and they years after the Russian Revolution tion. weren't treating us with respect." has been transformed into its oppo­ For years management had told them that "books site, state-capitalism, Sheila Row­ make money, employees don't," and that they could botham is still trying to discuss the easily be replaced by unemployed college graduates and women's movement with the same free-lancers. But the industry is very dependent on dead- categories that call Russia and China WL NOTES • lines, and after 17 days the strike won a new contract "socialist". The form and content of Chanting "day care, not welfare!" 3,000 predomin­ which is regarded as a victory. It includes across-the- her book is dictated by the question, antly Black and Puerto Rican women and children board raises each year, cost-of-living raises every six "Must women wait until after the marched on New York City hall on July 24. The women months, and profitsharing for present members. Also revolution to get liberation?" were protesting cutbacks in day-care funds that would maternity leaves, abortion benefits, and "other increased This question of waiting until after the revolution is throw 6,000 children out of centers and force hundreds medical benefits. precisely the point on which women broke with the Left of women onto welfare rolls. The strike has had an electrifying effect on the rest in the late 1960s. While this certainly must be worked of the industry; Employees came together in houses all out, Rowbotham is so limited by her narrow concept of * « * over New York to discuss unionization, and now they Marxism, that she does not take a look at what is new in Nurses in Britain continue striking and agitating for are meeting jointly to take action city-wide. Several the women's movement today. She does not even discuss higher wages, better patient care, and an end to private large unions are suddenly offering to conduct organizing today's Women's Liberation movement in the western practice (where those with money get imuch better care drives, and the group will decide whether to affiliate world. Nor is Rosa Luxemburg mentioned anywhere than the poor). They have received support in the form with one of them or form an independent publishing in the book. of strikes and work stoppages from auto and factory union. workers, miners, and dock workers.. —Molly Jackson The book can be divided into two sections. The idea, * * * of women's liberation and women's practice up to the In Portugal, the new national pro-divorce movement Russian Revolution, and the fate of the idea under "so­ recently gathered 8,000 persons at a rally to demand cialism". There is a lot of interesting material in the repeal of the 1940 law making divorce from a church Notes on II first section, particularly the thoughts and activities of marriage impossible. The junta is dragging its feet the women during the 1848 Revolutions and later during claiming that to "preserve unity" a decision on divorce Women's Liberation the Paris Commune. Here Rowbotham is forced to con­ must wait. cede that "women's •movements have often been char­ We Speak in Many Voices acterized by a stress on self-activity, equal participation * * * and a suspicion of leaders." Even with the women's Calling themselves the Black Women's United Front, Price $1.00 self-activity evident in the history that she presents, and 800 Black women met at Newark, N.J. at the first Black (plus 15c postage) even though the social revolution as a whole was crushed Nationalist women's conference. Some of the things dis­ Order from: News & Letters cussed were capitalism and oppression of Black women, during these periods. Rowbotham concludes that the 1900 E. Jefferson, Detroit, Mich. 48207 failure of the women's movement to build lasting organi­ education, health and child care and equal pay for equal work. AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 1974 NEWS & LETTERS PACE 3 Bell workers walk out nationwide, deny union (Editor's note: The Communication Workers of America an operator in one day. But all the women got really mad. (CWA) contract with Bell Telephone expired July 17. We have this data that is everything you need to Since then, there have been continuous wildcats and know to complete all kinds of calls. It has routing num­ work stoppages nationwide, even after the CWA reached bers, emergency numbers, rate steps, telephone com­ a settlement with Bell. The following stories are from pany numbers —- everything. Without those pages, even the Cass I information operators who wildcatted on July a skilled operator wouldn't be able to complete many 20 in Detroit, and from a West Coast operator who tells calls. So, suddenly, a lot of pages began disappearing what happened as the official strike neared.) from these books. There were lots of things like that the women did to prepare for the strike. Detroit, Mich.—We're down here to better our I called the local about half an hour before we were conditions first, and then we're down here for supposed to

PLAYING THE RULES Tommy Lee Dotson (Bro. Yukeena), an The violence was the work of police and/ Or take sick pay. We don't have any, On Tuesday, July 30, 1974 the Judici­ IFA leader at the nearby Holman maxi­ or fascist agents provocateurs. Letters unless you're out a long time and are ary Committee voted impeachment of mum security prison. from policemen are a regular feature in covered by disability. But if you have the President for defying their subpoenas The Brothers who did not die with fascist papers and it is known that the the flu one day, they make you feel of the Watergate tapes. Then they voted Chagina and Yukeena are now being fascists pass on information about social­ guilty to take a day off. The number not to recommend impeachment of the tried for murder. Their crime is this: ists and immigrants to the Special of absences is really low—not because President for his secret bombing of they organized the IFA and refused to Branch, Britain's ipolitical police. Stu­ people are so healthy, but because they Cambodia, nor his income tax evasion. submit meekly to the physically brutal dents and workers are demanding an can't afford to take off. To me that's They were saying to the President, you and mentally poisonous conditions in the independent inquiry by the Labour move­ a more important issue than a closed can not defy us, but you can defy every­ prisons. ment as the only way to discover the shop, even though I believe in a closed body else. If I could even accept this Aid of all kinds is urgently needed- truth about Kevin's death. shop. slave system, and the House Judiciary time, lawyers, money. For information Over 8,000 marched in silence the next Bell Telephone Operator Committee vote to impeach the Presi­ on how you can help, write to: week behind a banner proclaiming "Kevin California dent shouldn't article #1 have been the Atmore-Holman Brothers Gately killed opposing racism and fasc­ * * • secret bombing of Cambodia? Defense Committee ism" to a meeting were calls were made Unemployed workers in auto who In actuality, it makes no difference 802 6th St. North, to honour Kevin by escalating the fight thought they had some income security how the committee voted. What differ­ Birmingham, Ala, 35204 against fascism. with unemployment benefits and SUB ence is there between a Nixon, Ford or * * * Terry Liddell (supplemental unemployment benefits), anyone else playing the game of govern­ On top of the unbelievable brutality of London were just given an unexpected economic ment by the rules, when we all are the Texas prison shoot-out of August 4, -• jolt. As News & Letters reported last slaves to this system. How long are we police officials twisted our language VVAW MARCH fall when the oil crisis precipitated mas­ the people going to be ruled by these around so that these police murders be­ The best thing about the July 1 to 4 sive auto layoffs, the huge drain on the phony institutions, before we abolish came "suicides."' Don't words mean WAW protest in Washington, D-C. was SUB fund placed continued benefits in them? anything at all anymore? the number of people who participated doubt. Now there is no doubt, for unem­ Auto Worker Reader from all over the country. The demands ployed auto workers with less than five Los Angeles Detroit covered a wide range from better GI years' seniority were informed in Au­ • gust that their SUB payments will be * * * benefits to general amnesty to ending cut because of the depleted funds. How just are the laws when the former SEPT. 14—UFW BOYCOTT DAY U.S. imperialism. But except for one Observer Vice President of these United States September 14 is International Grape Latino POW who gave one of the speech­ •"' Detroit goes free on income tax evasion and Boycott Day. Illegal alien workers are es at a rally before the Fourth, and one * * * some 49 other charges of breaking the flooding California, and the U.S. Border Black woman who spoke at the March Drivers, mechanics and clerical work­ law, and the attorney general goes to Patrol ignores the enforcement of im­ on the Fourth, nobody connected these ers have been on strike against the jail for only one month for perjury. The migration laws. In Arizona as many as struggles with racism or with the Black Alameda/Contra Costa (AC) system for same law in Hollywood sent a lady to 80 percent of the work force on some movement. over a mdnth. Last week, they voted jail for a week because her cat walked ranches are "illegals." The growers are Nevertheless, the whole protest was down a contract offer by a 200 vote across her neighbor's lawn. How plain using the wretched conditions of Mexi­ run very democratically. None of the margin. Both the bosses and union offi­ it shows who the laws are made to can workers to fight against the farm national leaders were allowed to pull cials were predicting the contract would keep in line. workers here who are trying to better rank, and any groups who tried to take pass! High School Student working conditions for all of them. The over (like the Radical Union, Revolution­ When the buses run, I take them every Los Angeles strikers need all the help they can get. ary Student Brigade) were nicely put day to and from San Francisco to go $ $ $ Please urge your readers to iget involved down. in the Boycott and to call their local to work. But I'm sure that the striking Martha Tranquilli, a 63-year-old nurse All the marches were peaceful except workers are suffering more than the from Mississippi, was sentenced to nine United Farm Workers office to find out on July 3, when the cops blocked the how to help on September 14. stranded commuters. A month is a long months in jail for refusing to pay $1,000 streets and started attacking anybody in time to live on $50 a week strike benefits. war taxes during 1971 and 1972. She Boycotter the line of march/The marchers began named six anti-war groups as her de­ I can only figure that the contract which Detroit to fight back, and by the time it ended was rejected must have been pretty bad pendents on her tax returns. About 150 5 demonstrators were seriously hurt and women came from all over California as • if the workers voted to stay out. BOYCOTT KRAFT! 10 or more arrested. After a quick re­ Commuter well as her family and friends, to walk grouping the march continued on to with her to the Federal Building where I enclose a poem called "Kraftco," Oakland which is to be included in a volume of the Capitol. she surrendered to jail authorities. A Black Marcher • rally was held and even the news media political verse to be published this year BACK-SCRATCHERS joined in singing anti-war songs for her by Alice Press in Guelph, Ontario. The New York •' Olga Madar, super bureaucrat of farewell. Show your support—write to author, however, said he would prefer newly formed CLUW (Coalition of Labor her: Martha Tranquilli, #2752, Bureau that it be read by farmers than people A DECLARATION OF Union Women) and the SWP (Socialist of Prisons, FCI, Terminal Island, San who usually buy poetry books. It appear­ INDEPENDENCE Workers Party) have a chummy policy Pedro, Cal. 90731. ed in the newsletter of the Kraft Boycott The First International Indian Treaty of "You scratch my back and I'll scratch Supporter supporters of Canada: Council has drawn up a Declaration of yours." In exchange for the SWP women California Independence. The U.S. government has They determine your health voting "en masse" in Detroit to exclude • violated every solemn treaty ever written 92 percent of all working women, (those PRISONERS APPEAL by allowing you appetites and ratified, and we are forced to take fulfilled as if they were human rights not already organized into a union) from The state of Alabama is now using its our case to a higher authority—a world membership in CLUW (an organization they determine your health peoples court. courts against inmates to kill the move­ by snaring your attached importance theoretically committed to "organizing ment for human rights and simple de­ We ally ourselves with the colonized the unorganized") Ms. Madar has signed cency that it couldn't kill with guns, to packaged things, foods so easy Puerto Rican people in their struggle for her name to an SWP lawsuit trying to clubs, and knives. It's trying to give one they spread the taste of last night's independence from the same U.S.A. We force an end to illegal government sur­ Brother the chair and add decades to the tobacco note that there is only one color of Man­ veillance and harassment. sentences of ten other Brothers, because from your heart and spirit to your very kind in the world not represented in the actions This is not to say that Madar should they organized to demand their rights United Nations—the indigenous Redman not have signed her name to such a list; as human beings inside Alabama's in­ they determine you of the Western Hemisphere. We intend by an identity card marked money she should have long ago. It is to expose human prisons. The first action by In­ to make application to the United Nations the revolting relationship that the SWP mates For Action (IFA), was a peaceful by a belief, instead of hatred, for recognition and membership of the in what is advertised has with the bureaucracy of CLUW. I sitdown strike at the Atmore prison sovereign Native Nations. wonder how, after such a disgusting vote farm. The official response was a mass by a niche Copies of our Declaration can be ob­ they call your name. to exclude so many working women they clubbing of the prisoners. After that act tained from: can still call themselves a "Socialist of raw repression, the state went on to Kraft Boycott Supporter The American Indian Movement Workers" Party. It ds obvious from the kill George Dobbins (Bro. Chagina), Canada 1500 Pacific Boulevard vote that they have no interest either chairman of the IFA at Atmore, and • ••• Venice, Cal. 90291 in workers or Socialism. ANTI-FASCIST MARCH Feminist Some 2,000 workers and students gath­ CLASS BATTLES Detroit ered in mid-June to demonstrate against There's a chance the contract with Bell • News & Letters an anti-immigration march and meeting won't be ratified because there's so UTOPIA AND REALITY Vol. 19, No. 7 August-Sept., 1974 in London's Conway Hall, organized by much discontent. In some areas, work­ the fascist National Front. Liberation, ers have been picketing the union offices Wild things are happening internation­ News & Letters is published monthly the organizers of the anti-fascist demon­ to let the union know how they feel. ally. China picks Sen. Jackson to tell except for January-February and Au­ stration, had issued a leaflet calling for Take the wage increases. Craftsmen the world Chou is sick. Rev. Abernathy gust-September, by News & Letters, a peaceful march and warning marchers earning $236 a week will get $25.50, says he can love Angela Davis because 1900 E. Jefferson, Detroit, Mich. to be on guard against police provoca­ while an operator earning $159.50 will Nixon went to Russia to see a Commu­ 48207. Telephone: 961-1010. Subscrip­ tions. get $17—and that is really high, tops, nist. Makarios went to China; and two tion: $1 for 12 copies; single copy When the march reached Red Lion for an operator. All the operators earn­ NATO countries have gone to war with 10c; for bulk order of ten or more- Square where the hall is located, without ing $123 a week will get is $12 or $13. U.S. arms. Cuba had three days of Be each. warning the police attacked on foot and Our contract has been in effect for three mourning for the fascist Peron. You have horseback, lashing out indiscriminately years and nobody is going to tell us that to conclude that you cannot rely on any Raya Dunayevskaya, Chairwoman with their batons. Many marchers were $12 will keep up with the inflation that's state power. The two worlds are, indeed, National Editorial Board beaten to the ground and trampled on, been going on for three years, and will within each country. There are those who 55 were arrested. keep going on for the next three. call Marxist-Humanists Utopians, but the Charles Denby. Editor real Utopians are those who think they O. Domanski Managing Editor Kevin Gately, a 20 year old student, Or take the dental plan. We got one. was taken to the (hospital where he died But it doesn't start until 19761 And it can finish a revolution without changing Second Class Postage Paid at without regaining consciousness, killed doesn't cover orthodontics, or the big the lives of the ordinary people. Detroit, Michigan. by a blow on the bead. Such a blow could expenses. It covers filling or having a Marxist-Humanist ______only have been inflicted by the police. bridge made. But not false teeth. New York AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 1974 NEWS & LETTERS PACE 5 TWO WORLDS Why Hegel? Why Now?—a critique By Raya Dunayevskaya Author of PHILOSOPHY AND REVOLUTION Marx is, you know from his letter to Weydemeyer from terested in the beauty of its harness, it would pull much and Marxism, and Freedom 1852, the decisive year, by the way.) better. . . . So many anti-Hegelians who consider themselves Lenin was right that one should study Hegel to be One can accept every word in Hegel, and still not Marxists have surfaced to attack Philosophy and Revolu­ better able to understand Marx, but one does not need be a revolutionary. Kautsky, etc., tried to do it with tion that I felt it only proper to give the floor to a Ger­ Hegel to understand Marx. Lenin spoke to revolution­ Marx. It did not work. The Parteivorstand had to cut aries who fell for Kautsky, etc.—like he, himself, did, out sentences from Marx and Engels, "explain", and man revolutionary Marxist of the Old Left whose indi­ before he had studied Hegel. You, however, speak, in the end to say openly that Marx and Engels, after vidual view objectively sums up the others. through the Dell company, to people who at best are on all, were humans and made mistakes—or were valid — Raya Dunayevskaya their way to becoming revolutionary. One can be a revo­ for a certain time only. . . . The Russians still talk * * * lutionary without Hegel! Marxism-Leninism (too bad Stalinism was taken out; Dear Raya: * S * it will come back), but the introduction of "values" etc. I do not believe in "Hegel Now". I think it can only WHY HEGEL NOW? Why not Feuerbach Now? into "socialist economy", as you had shown, clashed lead to more confusion. Sure, I am for studying Hegel After all, Feuerbach was just as important as Hegel. too much with Marx's Fetish character of commodities. now as I was in the '20s when "Lenin's Notes" appeared. Feuerbach, and not Hegel, was the first in the whole Don't tell me that Hegel understood the real meaning But not much more than for studying Spinoza, Herder, history of Philosophy who introduced consciously the of Napoleon on the white horse. I do not think he did, etc. I am afraid it is, again, a smuggling away from idea of "WE" instead of the "I". (For Hegel even "the but even if he did, the whole of Hegel cannot reach up Marx. It is the same, exactiy the same^ as when^he great people" were still "I".) to the few pages of section 4 in the first chapter of intellectuals started to go back to the "Young Marx". I If you give today's intellectuals only Hegel (of at Kapital. Again, what does one need Hegel for? Why enjoy, and will agree with, every word of the "Young best Marx via Hegel), they will never understand the today? Marx", but I do not need the "Young Marx" (he really proletariat and Marx's and Engel's discovery from the meant what he said about the "nagging mice") since I Concrete Humanism starts with Marx, with nobody "Holy Family" on. More important than Marxism as a else! Up till Marx it was the great dream! Before Marx have a much better (concrete) one from the year 1852 whole is the development of the thoughts of Marx and on . . . it was an abstraction; also for Hegel though he un­ Engels, and if you wish, the development from Hegel, doubtedly went after the experience of the French Revo­ Engels hit it right when, at Marx's funeral, after but from many, many others than Hegel. They learned lution further than all Humanists (Philosophy) before summarizing the great theoretical, philosophical and sci­ much, much more from Fourier than from the whole of him. . . . Just as Spinoza started Philosophy (as Hegel entific achievements, he said: "For Marx was before all Hegel. Why go back to Hegel who still, contrary to the rightfully said), arid thereby started the end of Theology' else a revolutionist." You, Raya, are the one who, right­ French and English thinkers, bothered with theology, —so the end of Philosophy started with Marx. Why fully, speaks so much about theory and practice—where no matter what his God really existed of? Today's intel­ go back? was Hegel's practice? Hegel ran away. He was first a lectuals will never, and that was Lukac's mistake, Un­ — P.B. journalist (practice) and then took refuge in the univers­ derstand the proletariat from studying Hegel. The task ity, while Marx ("turning Hegel on his feet") started to is not only to understand the dialectic of class struggle become a professor, but decided to accept the editorship and thereby discover our Freedom and Humanism, but of the "Rheinische Zeitung". RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA U the Chairwoman the role of the proletariat. That, and that alone, the of NEWS & LETTERS COMMITTEES, an organiza­ I do not believe, even without having to see your young people have to be taught, and that one can get book, that you know your Hegel better than Lassalle did. tion of Marxist-Humanists, which practices the only from Marx and Engels and Lenin and Luxemburg unity of worker and intellectual, and of philosophy Lassalle went to Bismark. Lassalle was not a renegade; and from Trotsky and Mao (I for one can say such things it was the Logik of Hegel to go to Bismark. Walking and revolution, and totally new human relations. since I never, never agreed with anything typically NEWS & LETTERS is edited by a Black production through the streets of East Germany, I saw plenty of Trotsky) — and never from Hegel. Any one of the prole­ Lassallean socialism, and nowhere is Hegel taught as tarian revolutionaries is worth more than the whole worker, CHARLES DENBY. It was born in 19S5, the much as at the university in Leipzig. Everywhere at the year of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, on the one of Hegel. hand, and the wildcats against Automation, on the walls you see the good Hegelian word "people" (Volk), * * $ but not once "proletariat". other. It is a monthly publication which does not ISN'T IT TYPICAL that the official intellectuals separate reports of the activities of workers, Blacks, * * * in the West as well as in the East fall for "Alienation"? 'I AGREE, HEGEL introduced the idea of freedom women and youth against capitalism, racism, sex­ Sure, a good word, very Hegelian and Marxian, but ism, and imperialist war, from the activity of think­ into philosophy by saying: "The people will learn to feel there is a very, very good reason why Marx since 1852 the dignity of man." Here truly is the genius of Hegel. did not use this word any more except in connection with ing and working out theory for our age. Participa­ But "Hegel Now"? When he lived 30 and 40 years after labor in the production process. Every liberal you can tion in the freedom struggles and the creation of Marat and Babeuf—and still did not go as far as they? impress with the slogan "Alienation", but he will still be a forum for all the new voices from below by the His horror against them is somewhat the same as yours a liberal. Indeed, the best way to become and feel a publication of the paper, pamphlets and books are against Mao. What other effect can your Hegelianism liberal is the outcry against "Alienation", because the all forms of activities we invite you to join in work­ have than winning friends for something which is away, best way to reduce (not abolish) "Alienation" is to make ing out with us. and backwards, from the real Marx? (What the real the fellow "interested"—if the horse could only be in­ Nixon resignation avoids exposure of full truth (Continued from Page 1) This pitiful farce of a choice, drawn-and-quartered includes Southeast Asia where the war has never stopped, by the press at the time of his vice-presidential appoint­ Greece where the military junta overthrew President ment, has suddenly been anointed by the press and fellow Makarios of Cyprus only to be followed by the Turkey Congressmen as the new Messiah come to heal the military junta's invasion of Cyprus which continues the wounds of the nation and usher the country and the war there, or the Mideast where Russia and the U.S. play world into a new era of economic stability. an increasingly deadly tug-of-war with Arab and Israeli lives. This is indeed a miraculous transformation, especial­ The flimsy detente between the U.S., Russia and ly since the record of Gerry Ford is among the worst of China was possible because it suited the imperialist aims any representative in Congress. He has unfailingly voted of all three to take a temporary breather between the against every progressive legislation introduced, includ­ confrontations. ing Medicare, increased minimum wages for workers, public welfare programs, child lunch programs, school WORLDWIDE ECONOMIC DECLINE aid bills, increased Social Security payments, health and In the meantime, the'worldwide economic decline set safety legislation, environmental protection acts, civil in motion by Nixon's 1971 New Economic Policy was rights laws, increased workmen's compensation, aid to brought to a new climax by the international oil pol­ the elderly and handicapped, and on and on. itics which quadrupled the price of oil. At the same time, he has been equally consistent in Between 1960-73, the average rate of inflation in Wes­ voting for the most repressive legislation. He supported tern Europe was 4.3 percent, and in Japan was 4.8 per­ the Taft-Hartley slave labor act, Landrum-Griffin Bill, cent. Between April 1973 and April 1974, the rates in efforts to place unions under anti-trust legislation, anti- Western Europe were up to 12 percent, and in Japan to busing legislation, expanded wire-tapping, "no-knock" 24 percent. They are both higher today. In India, Cey­ laws, Vietnam war, all military appropriations, aid for lon, Bangladesh, Pakistan, S. Korea, and South America military and civilian dictatorships in countries "friendly" the inflation and economic situation are far worse, and to the U.S. There is no answer in this record for the needs some areas at the point of imminent collapse. Italy is of the American people. a perfect example. CLASS BATTLES MULTIPLY In the U.S., when Nixon assumed the Presidency in Despite the work layoffs and continued economic 1969, unemployment stood at 3.3 percent, with an infla­ crisis, the militant fighting spirit of the workers has in­ tion rate of 4 percent. After six years of Nixonomics, un- • creased against unsafe work conditions, forced production employment has jumped to over 5.5 percent of the work speed-up and slashed buying power. Wildcat strikes have force, and inflation, which fluctuated quarterly in 1974 erupted everywhere — in auto, steel, mines, rubber — from 11 to 13 percent, zoomed during the month of July and spread to include new layers of the working class. to an incredible annual rate of 44 percent! Municipal workers, among the least militant in the past, NIXON'S RUINOUS LEGACY AHH'. AT LAST, IGOR — A "CLEAN" MONSTER! have suddenly exploded throughout the nation in illegal During the six years of Nixon administration, the liv­ strikes. In July, over 600 municipal strikes involving more than a half million employees were in progress ing standards of the working class were cut by more than narrowed, but has widened under the Nixonomics again v five percent, while corporate profits steadily climbed, to the point where the gap is greater now than it was in" as workers sought to regain buying power, and win union reaching an average increase of 25 percent for the second the early 1960s. recognition and improved working conditions. quarter of 1974. This is the Nixonomic legacy that the new President Class battles are clearly on the horizon for the rest These general figures, however, do not accurately Gerald Rudolph Ford inherits as he steps into the White of the year as contracts expire in basic industries of steel, reflect the true situation among the Black population, House. It is a system of state capitalism, and it is the coal, transportation, petroleum and utilities, as well as which has suffered the hardest blows. Unemployment system which produced Nixon, not vice versa. It is a sectors including education and other public services. among Blacks is well over 11 percent, or twice that of system based on oppression, exploitation, imperialist In the face of the continuing crises of the capitalist whites, while among the Black youth joblessness is so expansion and control — all of them corrupting influences system of economics there is the positive force of the high that the government doesn't keep data on this group. which found their most perfect reflection in a viciously working classes who are constantly striving to change In many inner city areas, Black youth unemployment ruthless Richard M. Nixon. Now, in a writhing convul­ the system they live under. Class conflicts are much often exceeds 50 percent. From 1960 to 1968, the-econ­ sion it vomits out that pathetic mediocrity called Gerald sharper and longer-lasting. This means that revolts are omic gap between Blacks and whites was substantially Ford. sure to erupt everywhere. PACE 6 NEWS & LETTERS AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 1974 Uruguayans struggle to oust dictatorship Mexican crisis intensifies Mexico City, Mexico—The capitalists—thor­ Montevideo, Uruguay — In September, 1973, revolutionary forces have learned the need for new and oughly disillusioned with President Echaverria, a military coup took place in Uruguay which gave living contacts with the Working class from which the who has tried to rule as a leftist demagogue and the president the role of dictator, destroyed the mass movement will arise. We also learned the necessity of a closer relationship with revolutionary movements has failed—are taking the offensive. Today the remainder of "democracy", abolished the Senate entire city of Monterrey, led by its five monopol­ and House of Representatives, closed newspapers in neighboring countries. We have a message to the ruling class and to im­ istic families, is completely closed as a result of and TV stations and declared unions illegal. perialism: No matter what, our desire for freedom will a lockout. Not even restaurants are open. The night of the coup workers went on an insurrec­ not die. Our militancy is going to double and triple and A 20 percent wage increase was won in Sept. of last tionary strike. Thousands struggled to take over the one day we will be free. year by the unions. Then about 15 percent in January. factories. For 15 days Uruguay was in a general strike. Hasta La Victoria Siempre! Venceremos! But those increases have been eroded toy now. The mini­ People by the thousands were fighting and marching. — Uruguayan student mum salary is about $4 U.S. a day in Mexico City. Con­ Huge marches went over the entire city. The police trols have been taken off cooking oil, which now sells at could do nothing then because there were so many. $1.60 a liter, and is expected to go up. By the end, thousands of people were jailed. But when the power of the ruling class was trembling Latin America and revolution GUERRILLA ACTIVITY GROWS and at the same time became more ferocious, the Com­ (Continued from- Page 1) The Monterrey shutdown is a warning to the govern­ munist Party of Uruguay made an agreement with the ment that no wage hike will be accepted, and that things of joining the government by becoming a paid functionary in general must toe put in order. forces of the oppression and urged the workers to resume in some area of civil service. Those activists who are production. The crisis is further intensified toy the rise of guerrilla not wanted or cannot be bought off are kicked out of activity. The army had begun to once more jail, torture, A HISTORY OF COLONIALISM school or job, often jailed and can even disappear. and kill campesinos in the area of Costa Grande. This Thus today, like all Latin American countries, Uru­ It is not just the students and faculty who feel this was the order of the day during some months until about guay, once known as the "Switzerland of the Americas" overpowering presence of the government. The PRI a year ago Lucio Cabanas, a former school teacher in —because of its high standard of living and democracy has control of the labor unions in the country. In the the area who fled to the hills to organize a band of —is a dictatorship. Uruguay has been a dependent late 1930s labor legislation was passed that was supposed guerrillas, ambushed a column of soldiers and killed country almost all of its life. We were a former colony to give workers a say in the government. But this has, them. of Spain from whom we liberated ourselves after a period in fact, come to mean giving the PRI a dominating voice Thereafter, until a few weeks ago, the campesinos of revolution. Then came England, which controlled our over the workers through the union bureaucracy. One were more or less safe. But shortly before Easter week economy and therefore our politics. Then came the clause in labor contracts which employers sign with the army became so violent that the campesinos feared United States. At first it showed a fake face of brother­ a union states that the union can for any reason fire to come down from the hills to sell their coffee and to hood. Our big brother was helping the underdeveloped an employee. Thus a worker who attempts to fight his make their purchases, and this was enough to cause a countries to stand on their feet. This was and is a lie. union leadership can be fired. little economic crisis in that area at least in terms of Once the United States controlled our economy either Economically the working people of Mexico have retail sales. by owning whole sectors of production or by lending not fared well. Close to three quarters of the population A few weeks ago Ruben Figueroa, a very''wealthy money, its real face started appearing. As the post-war live on less than $150 a month. This cannot simply be man, was designated to be the future governor of the capitalist world developed, an economic crisis began. dismissed as a stagnating economy. Since World War II state of Guerrero. He began to make the sort of speech­ Ten years ago the bus fare was approximately one- there has been economic development in Mexico. The es common: to such politicians, including statements to fourth of a peso. Today it is about 75 pesos. Together Gross National Product has risen faster than the popu­ the effect that Cabanas was not a bad man, that abuses with the economic crisis came the political crisis. We lation. But it is the wealth of the nationalist enterpreneurs existed, etc. and that he would like to reach an agree­ now saw that the United States was not our brother and that has grown steadily while the lot of the workers and ment with him. that our own ruling class was completely corrupt. Honest campesinos (peasants) under the government's subor­ dination has stagnated. OFFERS, T?HEN THREATS politicians started resigning and a new mass movement Lucio Cabanas did not fall into the trap similar to started—the Tupamaros. U.S. CAPITAL STILL DOMINATES one about a; decade ago, in which another peasant leader, THE TUPAMAROS MOVEMENT Despite a governmental policy of nationalization, or Jaramillo, iiad been lured, then cold-bloodedly murdered The Tupamaros playea a very important role in de­ Mexicanization of development, there is a significant by the officials. On the contrary, he offered to meet nouncing the corruption and in organizing people in U;S. investment. Around 12 percent of the total invest­ Figueroa and then kidnapped him. opposion to it. There were then years of fighting and ment in Mexico is by U.S. corporations. This is double Meanwhile, the PRI (Mexico's ruling party) shows organizing, of talking and suffering, of uniting workers the proportion of all foreign investment in Latin America unmistakable signs of decay and ineptitude. First they arid students against the system. . as a whole, and is packed into the country's mightiest made veiled, then almost open offers to Cabanas that if corporations, such as Union Carbide Mexican and the he would release Figueroa, he would be "co-opted" in However the Tupamaros strategy changed. Their some sense into the ruling class. Recently the tone has movement had generated from the victory and innova­ Dupont complex. changed and the death penalty is being demanded for tion of the Cuban Revolution. But their members were In addition to the significant presence of U.S., Cabanas. capital, there is the concentration of wealth. Some two- mainly middle class people and during their first ten This conjunction of economic and political crisis leads years they failed to make real and strong contacts with thirds of the private capital in the country is at the dis­ me to believe that for the first time in decades a military the working class. posal of five percent of the entrepreneurs. Almost half of takeover may be a real possibility, coupled with perhaps They also failed to take Marxism as their tool the national income goes into the hands of one-tenth of Outbreaks of armed rebellion. toward revolution. This caused them to accept Regis; the nation's families. Debray's theory. Their main idea was now "action The massive demonstrations of 1968 were not per­ J. (Mexico, June 18, 1974) generates consciousness." They thought that the work manently defeated, but only driven underground. New they had done with the people during those ten years was manifestations of the spirit have come forth in a number enough and that it was now time for a real confrontation of areas: continued protests on campus, unofficial strikes Just off the press—in Spanish with the ruling class. of workers, guerrilla activities in the state of Guerrero. In April, 1972, they executed four members of Escuadron de la muerte—a government controlled execu­ A NEW SEARCH FOR INTERNATIONALISM tion group created by Dan Mitrione, an instructor in tor­ What is new, and not only in Mexico, but throughout ture sent by the U.S. In response the government de­ Latin America, is an appreciation for internationalism clared a state of war in order to crush the Tupamaros. as part of a search for a total solution to the class ques­ The Communist Party claimed that this was a war tion within each country and in relation to the colonial only between the Tupamaros and the government. But domination of Latin America as a whole by the United in reality it was a war on the mass movement and the States. The necessity to break down the isolation of both working class also. In September, 1973 the final step, an actual revolutionary situation such as Chile, and the the military coup, was taken. revolutionary movements within each country becomes Thus today we face both a crushing dictatorship and crucial. This internationalism in turn cannot be separated the continued dependency on the United States. The from a working out of revolution as the social act of masses of people, not the isolated act of groups or parties acting "in the name of" masses of people. The conception of a continent-wide revolution as Ontario Indians occupy park well as the specific struggle within any particular coun­ try must be worked out not alone in theory, but in Detroit, Mich.—As we go to press, the police have actual relationships. This is what has been demonstrated sealed off the Indian people who have been occupying both by the military takeover of an isolated Chile and Anicinabe Park, Ontario, near Kenora, for the past three the formation of alliances by the reactionary govern­ weeks. The Ojibwa Warriors' Society occupied the park ments in Latin America. No people can substitute their in protest over its sale to the Kenora city government. • social revolution for the revolution of others. But there They say that the sale of the park was illegal because can be a unifying cement of ideas of freedom which the land was stolen from them. Four native people have can act as a catalyst from one country to another. been arrested and charged with unlawful assembly and possession of firearms. The internationalism that the revolutionary move­ An Indian woman who has friends and family still ment in Latin America is seeking is also the concern in the park told News & Letters: "Really, it is part of a of revolutionaries in the United States. For it is U.S. general protest against the conditions whites have forced imperialism's role in Latin America which is the glue - Indian people to live under in Kenora. Economically they holding together the repressive governments that crush hold you down. We have some smart people here, movements for revolutionary social change, and it is Indian people with a lot of know-how. Some even have U.S. imperialism which is providing the impetus for re­ degrees. But they are pushed back. They aren't allowed actionary governments to unite. . to get anything. And then there is the violence. Really, Our internationalism must begin with a thorough ex­ it is just like South Dakota." More than 100 native people posure of the U.S. role in Latin America for the U.S. hav met violent deaths in the last year. people to see. But it cannot end there. The building of At the same time, there are reports that the highway - our own movement at home is crucial, because that just outside Prince George, British Columbia, was closed is where our enemy is. Finally, what becomes central for after a clash with the R.C.M.P. While the Canadian both Latin America and ourselves is an interchange on Left which offered so much aid to draft evaders from the unfolding of a philosophy of liberation to unite with the U.S.A. remains silent, native people on both sides the activity of liberation. If these tasks are approached Envie a: l*rec'0: IOc Por c0Pia of the border are making it clear that self-determination comprehensively, then internationalism will not be only News & Letters, 1900 E. Jefferson is very much on their agenda. an historical question, but actual concrete practice to­ l wards a new,humanjsociety, . ,., ^.,,, ! Detroit, MI 48207 «... -> - a . »*, ** .rr-Steve*JFletch*i . a AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 1974 NEWS & LETTERS PACE 7 WORKER'S JOURNAL Chicanos set up new school; HEW, McClellan shut it down (Continued from Page 1) Berkeley, Cal. — Recently, the Berkeley Unified Chicano movement is going. School District, under pressure from the U.S. Office see now, there are two standards of justice in this coun­ of Civil Rights, closed the Casa de la Raza and the CLOSING UNJUST try, one for the rich and the other for poor and working Black House. The Office of Civil Rights, prompted by The Office of Civil Rights thinks we segregate Chi­ people. Sen. McClellan of Arkansas, considered the schools to canos but they're wrong. We wanted anyone who want­ Practically every one of Nixon's aides who has been be "in probable noncompliance" with the 1965 Civil ed to study in a Chicano atmosphere to come. We convicted of a crime has gotten a pat on the wrist or Rights Act because of having a singular ethnic curri­ offered to show them surnames and pictures of students. some minor sentence at some institution where life to culum. Here is what a parent of students in Casa de la to prove that not all were Chicanos, but they wouldn't th&m can be the same as it was before the sentences. Raza says: even listen. I think they just didn't want Blacks and For much lesser crimes, a poor person would be sen­ Chicanos to get together. The decision to close the school tenced to years at hard labor, locked in a cell, with no La Casa started in September, 1971 because of the was political. They didn't give us due process of law privileges. need felt in the Chicano community for a school that They were supposed to have a hearing to determine non­ Henry Ford II said that inflation rates are 10.9% would emphasize the Chicano culture and people. Even compliance with the law, not just probable noncom­ now and expected to go higher. Although some predict with the voluntary integration programs in the Berke­ pliance", and then wait 30 days after that to cut off that inflation may decline by 1978 to 8.9%, Henry Ford ley schools the Chicano students were still way below the funds. They never work that fast on a white school doubts that it will come down, even though it is much the average in achievement. We set up the school with that is really segregated. higher than any time in the history of this nation. "'This, La Mesa Directiva — the governing board — having % My children developed pride and freedom from Casa. coupled with the high rate of unemployment, has many parents, Vs students, and V3 staff, so that the parents, They learned to reason for themselves. Casa is still people living on bare subsistence. community, and students would have a say in how the there now, even though the school no longer exists. The This runaway inflation is the biggest robber of school ran. philosophy lives on, and Casa will function again some working people that ever occurred in this country. day. There is no way to put it in jail, but it causes many to A NEW KIND OF SCHOOL —Casa de la Raza parent go hungry and broke. Some are talking about a depres­ La Casa was much different from the regular school sion coming soon. It will be unlike the depression of the system. Not only was Chicano history and culture taught, 30's. Then, if one could get a small amount of change, but also the basic skills necessary in society, such as you could exist for another day, because prices were reading and math. Many of the 125 students were WAY OF THE WORLD down so low. "problem" students in the regular schools, but we found Today it is not possible. At some gas stations, you out they couldn't get along because they didn't read well, must pay 68 cents for a gallon of gas. This is why people or didn't speak English well, so they disrupted classes. Life and death in black and white will toeforce d to revolt to survive. Two years ago, it was At Casa,. students were dealt with individually, and by Ethel Dunbar nothing to drive over town to visit a friend. Today, every helped if they had problems. We also helped the parents, time you drive your eyes are glued to your gas gauge if they had job problems, legal problems, etc., because One day when the temperature was 92 degrees, my noticing how much gas you are using. the school was based in the community. husband and I went to Belle Isle to get some relief from the miserable heat. Stretched out on our blankets, we People should not have to live under such strains. A lot of the teaching didn't come from books, either. noticed a police helicopter circling overhead, and hover­ What we need-now is not just a Gerald Ford in place of They went on trips to factories and to the farm fields ing right over the water. When we got up to see what Crooked Dick Nixon, but a complete change in this to see what problems Chicano workers have. Speakers was going on we noticed a Black man holding back a society. came to the school from the United Farm Workers, from the Shell strike, even from the Farah strike in EI Paso. Black woman who was partly in the water. He was Indians from the Wounded Knee struggle came to talk. yelling that she couldn't swim, and she was yelling, The students studied not only past Chicano heroes, such "Can't some of you men get that child?" 300 HUD workers strike as Zapata and Pancho Villa, but heroes nowadays, such A LIFE IS SAVED Oakland, Cal. — On July 8 close to 300 clerical and as Cesar Chavez and Reyes Tijerina, and where the Five or six Black men jumped in, and more people maintenance employees of the Oakland Housing Author­ came running up, trying to see where the child had dis­ ity went on strike. Here one of the striking maintenance appeared. Then two white women, a Black man and a workers tells his story. white man came up. As soon as they were told what We do the work on the city's HUD-financed housing PUBLICATIONS OF had happened, one of the white women jumped in and projects, and our pay averages $4.20 per hour, compared NEWS & LETTERS COMMITTEES came up, yelling to the white man that she had found with over $6 per hour for people doing the same kind the child, and he was directly under her. The white of work in private industry. We're asking $1.25 per hour 1—American Civilization on Trial, Black Masses man dived in and brought him up. increase across the board. We haven't had a raise in as Vanguard Includes "Black Caucuses in the Unions," by Everyone assumed the child must be dead, because three years. OHA also wants to cut the benefits they he had been in the water so long, but the white woman pay, such as medical, from their present 80% to 50%. Charles Denby 75c per copy 2—Notes on Women's Liberation— leaned over him and began to give him mouth to mouth Another major grievance is job classifications. One resuscitation. They were trying to get the crowd to guy told mc, "I have been getting groundsman's pay, We speak in many voices $1 per copy stand back to give them room, when two mounted police but I haven't done groundsman's work in two years. I've 3—China: Voices of Revolt finally arrived. They got the crowd back and by that been fixing stoves and doing things that maintenance Excerpts from Sheng-wu-lien 35c per copy time the child seemed to be trying to vomit, and the workers should do, but I haven't been getting paid for it. 4—Russia As State-Capitalist Society white man and woman who had saved him started to I'm working with people's lives when I fix stoves, and By Raya Dunayevskaya 50c per copy massage his legs to get his blood circulating. He opened I'm playing a key role in renting these places, but they 5—Czechoslovakia: Revolution and his eyes, and the woman cried out, "Thank heaven, don't give me what I should be getting." he's OK." Nearly all of the maintenance workers are Black, Counter-Revolution and some of us seem to feel that that is why we aren't Report direct from Prague 50c per copy QUESTIONS TO ANSWER getting skilled pay for what we do. A few of the guys 6—U.S. and Russia Enter Middle East Cockpit She kept thanking the Black man they had come are concerned that our Local 18 leadership, which is all By Raya Dunayevskaya 50c per copy with for insisting they come out to the Island with him white, won't back us all the way, but instead tell us to 7—Black, Brown, Red because she had been given the chance to save someone's take whatever they get for us. I heard someone say, Black, Chicano, Indian Freedom Struggles life. "The union decides things with management without asking us. We should get some Brothers into the leader­ 8—Polish Shipyard Workers Revolt Against Com­ The question that kept turning over and over in my ship so we could have some say over things." - munist Party Leaders own mind was how all the people with so much race Right now they've hired contractors to come in and Smuggled out of Poland 25c per copy hatred in them would have acted. Would some have said do some of the work, and the union isn't even trying to 9—France Spring 1968 that because the woman was white she should not have stop these guys. Local 18 hasn't gone to any other unions Eyewitness Report by Eugene Walker 10c per copy saved a Black child's life? Suppose it had been a Black to ask for support, and they even let Teamster de­ man or woman saving a white child's life, would some 10—Mao's China and the 'Proletarian have said the same? I was still thinking about something liveries in. Cultural Revolution'— —Striker the late Rev. King had said—that hate, without any rea­ By Raya Dunayevskaya _25c per copy son, is a sickness—when the ambulance arrived to take 11—Workers Battle Automation the child to a hospital for further observation. By Charles Denby ,__ 50c per copy Farm rally rejects Teamsters 12—Culture, Science and State-Capitalism Salinas, Cal.—More than 3,500 cheering farm workers By Raya Dunayevskaya 25c per copy Just off the Press; packed a local high school gym July 11 to hear UFW 13-News & Letters- President Cesar Chavez describe the battle workers are Unique combination of worker and intellectual, presently waging to stop growers from deducting Team­ published 10 times a year $1 per sub. Dialectics of Liberation \ sters dues from their paychecks. The rally was the" third 14—Also Available from News & Letters: mass farm worker rejection of Teamster leadership in MARXISM AND FREEDOM by Raya By Raya Dunayevskaya 1974, and followed two months of active organizing on Dunayevskaya the Teamster ranches by the UFW. Includes The rally featured several labor leaders, including New British Edition with special preface Mr. Bhagavit, the leader of India's largest farm worker By Harry McShane , !_$3 per copy • Summaries of Hegel's Works: confederation, and over 30 national Catholic leaders. New French Edition with special introduction They blasted the collusion between the Teamsters and By Raya Dunayevskaya $6 per copy Phenomenology of Mind the growers, which that very day had resulted in yet Science of Logic another farm labor "accident"—18 year old Armando Smaller Logic (from Encyclopedia Contreras had been crushed by a Merrill Farms Team­ MAIL ORDERS TO: of Philosophic Sciences) ster-driven lettuce truck, and lay in critical condition at News & Letters, 1900 E. Jefferson, the Salinas Memorial Hospital. The Merrill truck did not Det., Mich. 48207 * Excerpts from Letters on the carry a back-up warning system, a standard feature on UFW lettuce contracts. Enclosed please find $ for the following: Absolute Idea Chavez made an eloquent speech in Spanish an­ Please add 15e to each order for postage and handling. * Lecture Notes: Lenin on Science nouncing the union's strategy for cancelling the Team­ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 of Logic sters' dues check-off. The workers are tricked or forced (Plea$e circle number corresponding to literature into signing the dues card when they start work, so a desired as listed above) Price $1 majority of workers signing a legal statement ending the Name dues check-off will prevent the Teamsters from collect­ Order from: ing. No strikes will toe called in the Teamster fields Address News & Letters, 1900 E. Jefferson, unless the workers walk out and Chavez said that then City State.. Zip. Detroit, Mi. 48207 the UFW will back them 100 percent. PAGE 8 NEWS Cr LETTERS AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 1974

OUR LIFE AND TIMES by Peter Mallory Jailed student is latest victim of Yugoslav repression Yugoslav attacks against dissidents reached a most, the protests and demonstrations of the stu­ philosophy of liberation into "Partiinost" (Party new climax when, on June 25, student Vladimir dents, which began with the 1966 protest against dogmatism and domination). Here is an excerpt Palancin was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment, American imperialism's bombardment of Vietnam, from Markovic's rebuttal which he was not permitted and, on June 28, a new law was introduced allowing had moved to a struggle against the bureaucratic to deliver to the University Assembly: the Government to dissolve a Faculty for its oppo­ Communist Party rule in Yugoslavia itself, with For a quarter of a century now, Yugoslav soci­ sition. the seven day occupation, in June 1968, of Belgrade ety has not been treated to a lecture on the need Student Palancin (who is now out of prison dur­ University. The students did not separate their for "partiinost" in philosopsy, social sciences, litera­ ing appeal of bis sentence) had been incarcerated struggles in academia from the revolt of workers for ture, art or music. This principle does not exist in since March 18, when he was arrested for daring to better conditions of labor and for genuine self-man­ Karl Marx—how well the great man knew that phi­ read a Resolution against Communist Party corrup­ agement. Their slogans were: "Students with work­ losophy and culture in general are universal, human tion, bureaucratization of life, and a call for "a ers," and "We are the sons and daughters of work­ products which belong to all mankind. One would return to Marxist humanism." ers." have to be as much a lover of J. V. Stalin as are the The main target is the dissolution of self-man­ Secondly, the expressions of solidarity with Viet­ authors of this EXPLANATION . . .to place "partii­ agement in the philosophy department of Belgrade nam, with Czechoslovakia, with Chile, with Poland, nost" first above all other demands which might be University. The eight philosophers who have been showed that internationalism was as concrete as the made of the creative spirit . . . in the forefront of all the struggles since the mid- philosophy of liberation, Marx's Humanism. It was Just as the move against the students was but 1960's against the Tito bureaucracy had been ac­ no accident that the struggle began and is still a step in the direction of moving against the phil­ cused, in a 34-page so-called Explanation . . . of going on in the philosophy department for it is these osophers who led the struggle, so the legislative "endangering social interests," but 175 (with one philosophers who published Praxis and Philosofia, move is but a step in the direction of trying to stifle abstention) of the 176 faculty members rejected this never separating theory from practice, or action all genuine moves toward self-management as work­ "explanation," and especially praised Mihailo Mar- from philosophy. * ers' control of production in the factories. kovic who was Director of the Philosophy depart­ Thus, on January 14, 1974, when the authorities It is imperative that workers, as well as scholars ment and author of a book on Marxist Humanism. moved against the philosophers with Explanation ..., interested in academic freedom, express their soli­ The struggles have been twofold. First and fore­ they rolled out the Stalinist perversion of Marx's darity with the Yugoslav dissenters.

aid extended to the Military Junta by Peter Koro- He misappropriates his soldiers' rice and fills the Cypros-Greece-Turkey milas, a CIA agent who acted as a go-between with sacks with sand. the butcher Ioannidis, has not been denied by the What wonderful war tactics he has. The government of Archbishop Makarios, in U.S. State Department. —Kim Chi Ha power since 1960, was toppled first by officers of The voluntary abdication of the junta, despite Dictator Park Chung Hee may be right when he the Greek military junta who set up Nikos Samp­ the jubilation in Greece, does not mean a rosy future senses in South Korea the kind of immediate total son, a convicted multiple political assassin as for Greece. None of the former military rulers have opposition to tyranny that was the basis for the re­ President of Cyprus. Once Turkey invaded Cyprus been arrested. General Ioannidis, the brutal com­ volt of the Thai students who swept their military it created a world crisis in which two NATO allies mander of the 20,000-man military police force, still regime into oblivion overnight. However, his issuing were fighting each other and might draw the two holds his post. Greece has a 32 percent rate of infla­ of "emergency decrees", making any expression of superpowers, U.S. and Russia, into a confrontation tion, the highest in Europe, and a foreign debt of opposition to his government punishable by death, in the Mediterranean. $1.3 billion. Tourism, which provided 40 percent of will only intensify the opposition. The struggle between the United States and the the national income, has ceased as it has on Cyprus, Park's maintenance of martial law since Octo­ Soviet Union for domination of the Mediterranean and the prospect of any government bringing pros­ ber, 1972 did not keep thousands of students from made Cyprus a desirable naval base for whichever perity back is about nil. open protest and strike last year, and did not stop side could get access to it. Recent gestures by Mak­ But the effect of the events on Greece, where people from recognizing the truth in the lyrics of arios toward the Soviet Union indicated an agreement even a little democracy can go a long way, is that the popular poet, Kim Chi Ha. in progress and the Greek military junta a conven­ it has already opened new roads to the Greek people Park's secret police is estimated at holding up ient method for preventing it. and forced Kissinger to tell the CIA to lay off and to a thousand political prisoners and already has The slaughter and atrocities on both sides which wait for nature to take its course. secretly tried and sentenced 122 including 19 sen­ resulted in the death of thousands of innocent people tenced to death. The same day Dr. Kissinger was did not motivate Kissinger as much as the implied lecturing Congress on the priority of national inter­ threat of a vast Soviet Navy maneuvering around South Korea ests over human rights and asking for a 30 percent the Island and implying a threat to the Mediterran­ THE FIVE THIEVES increase in military aid to South Korea, Park sen­ ean flank of NATO. U.S. imperialism hastened to Long ago peace reigned over the land. tenced five political prisoners to death. The poet have the United Nations arrange a cease-fire truce^ Farmers ate to their fill. Many died of ruptured Kim was sentenced to life imprisonment, changed during which Turkey is continuing to enlarge its sides. from a death sentence after they could no longer sphere of control. People went naked because they became tired of hide the fact that he was being held. Faced with the humiliating circumstances in fine silk. This terrorist regime, 600,000-man standing which the Greek junta was unable to land troops, But right in the middle of Seoul there lived five army, and a vast network of secret police is fi­ the junta resigned and called upon Constantine Cara- thieves. nanced and equipped by the U.S. government to manlis to form a civilian democratic government. Watch the generals—he crawls on all fours, with tens the tune of $177 million a year in military aid The real role of the CIA in planning the overthrow of thousands of medals made of gold and silver alone, a policy President Ford was quick to assure I! of Makarios may never be known, but the extent of wrapped around his body. Park would be continued uninterrupted. BLACK-RED VIEW Gerald Ford and the Urban League by John Alan , x better than Wallace" attitude is a sham because Wallace of Cain on Vernon Jordan's leadership which failed, like­ The National Urban League Convention, held in San never had the power to oppose the Black revolution that wise, to honor Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall the Nixon administration had, which has been applied who declared that anti-busing legislation is the greatest Francisco the last week of July, raises seriously the step backwards in the last 100 years. question: why was this convention held at all? It most in every vital area where Blacks made gains, such as certainly did not convene to mobilize militant opposition school desegregation, jobs and housing. to racism in the United States. The real clincher, expressing the mood of the pre­ dominantly middle class audience, was Ford's estimation The prevailing tone at this convention was one of of where the Black movement is today. He said: "Mi­ open accommodation to the system of capitalism, while norities are no longer marching and staging sit-ins to criticizing, like a loyal opposition, the alleged warts of gain access to lunch counters and other public accommo­ the system — inflation, unemployment, inequality, and dations. The thrust in the 1970's is to own some lunch racial discrimination. counters and other business enterprises!" This statement Inside the San Francisco Hilton, the overwhelming was greated with great applause, a natural reaction be­ impression was that this show was some sort of industrial cause the underground reason for this convention was to exhibition which a lot of Black people had come to promote greater unity of middle class and skilled Blacks observe. Every conceivable retail and industrial company with big business and big labor. had a booth to hawk their wares and to lay claim to An executive of Kaiser Industries put it this way:- their liberalism in employment. "The National Urban League should become active in The main event for the convention, which had 6,000 demanding that there be a tax reduction incentive for Black men and women in attendance, (although only 204 business so they can achieve greater expansion!" Every could vote — this privilege being reserved for only heads worker knows what "greater expansion" in the plant or executives of the local chapters) was the big name means—greater automation and thereby greater domi­ politicians, industrialists and labor leaders, including nation of the machine over living labor. A Dell then-Vice-President of the United States Gerald Ford Big business was not the only ghost in the closet — Hard cover: $8.95 and I. W. Abel, president of the United Steel Workers the other prevalent theme was technological skills. Ger­ Publication Union. ald Ford underscored this clearly: "... When we are Paperback: $2.95 Gerald Ford's appearance before a Black "civil talking about full employment in the last quarter of this rights" organization was the first time any high official century, we're talking about developing and finding jobs Order from: NEWS & LETTERS, 1900 E. of the Nixon administration condescended to recognize for skilled and professionally proficient people. The un­ the existence of Black folk other than by the "code" skilled American worker will find himself competing Jefferson, Detroit, Mich. 48207 names of: law and order, safe streets, or welfare re­ with the unskilled people of the Third World, who will In Britain, order from: Harry McShane, cipients. be doing the unskilled work of the world ..." Wilson 31 Balbeg St., Glasgow SW1, Scotland. Ford, with a view toward his rising political star, Riles, California's Black Superintendent of Education, offered himself as a civil rights advocate by contrasting emphasized this theme: "... job positions must be himself to Alabama's Governor George Wallace when filled toy the 'qualified' and not the 'qualifiable', under Name ..._ he said: " . . . my civil rights record is anything but no circumstances should standards be lowered!" Address negative, and it is a long way from standing in the door The failure to expose that their main speaker, Gerald of a school house in defiance of a Federal Court Order Ford, comes from the very state that fought and won Ctty State Zip to deny Black children a quality education." This "I'm the retrogression against school busing puts the mark