WfJRKERS ,,1N(JIJI1R' 25¢ No. 180 :-=~ x·s:u 4 November 1977 Labor Must Demand: Recognize Black Unions! Imperialist Chi"ef Carter Scolds South African Ally The hard-line posture of South Afri­ ca's white supremacist regime is unset­ tling Western capitals. With -Pretoria rapping at the door of the atomic pow­ ers' club, its rulers pugnaciously de­ nouncing foreign (especially U. S.) "meddling," and the country hurtling toward greater chaos and bloodshed, the major imperialist powers are ner­ vously searching for measureS to disso­ i ciate themselves from their increasingly embarrassing ally. Hence, the world's most dangerous warmongers have made a partial concession to long-standing "Third World" demands that South Africa h::: dcclared a "threat to interna­ tional peace," empowering the United Nations Securit) CounciL under the terms of the UN Charter, to impose international sanctions. This is the significance of the resolution initiated by the major imperi­ alist powers to ban all sales of weapons to South Africa. Such an embargo would not, in fact, prevent Pretoria from covertly obtaining arms (particu­ larly from its close ally Israel) unless it Sahm Doherty were accompanied by a full-scale mili­ Moralizing Carter (left) threatens empty "sanctions" over crackdown by South 'African premier Vorster (right). tary blockade. Nevertheless, the arms­ embargo motion represents an attempt by the imperialists to pose as the cham­ pions of "democracy" in South Africa and to rap the knuckles of the murder­ ous regime which they have long protected. Unfortunately for Carter and his Eu­ ropean cohorts. hnvC\t:r, their arms ban resolutlon was upstaged at the UN yesterday by an African-sponsored res­ olution for economic sanctions against South Africa. While an economic quar­ antine of the Vorster regime would not really aid the victims of apartheid-it would either be ineffective moral pos­ turing or a stage in the escalation of inter-imperialist conflict-the African resolution effectively stole the imperial­ ists' thunder. With its militant rhetoric and its demand that the "multinational" giants and the governments which serve South Africa buys Western armaments despite UN embargo imposed in 1963. them relinquish South African super­ tionalized the civil war among rival quite specific about the timing of the profits, the resolution forced the U.S., Nor is it "democratic" imperialism's black nationalist groups. Nor was the move: Britain and France to exercise their disdain for bonapartist police-state "The crisis was engendered last week [!] murder of perhaps a thousand black and Security Council veto right. measures. South African "Justice" Min­ when South Africa took away the rights Coloured youths in the six months But the very willingness of the West­ ister Kruger responded to the recent of free press and eliminated many ofthe Western criticisms with a remark that following the Soweto massacre deemed organizations themselves who had been ern powers to brand South Africa's working toward improved equality for however self-serving or overstated, sufficient grounds for invoking the UN acquisition of arms as a "threat to inter­ Charter powers. the citizens of South Africa." national peace" is an indication of the struck effectively at the major powers' -New York Times, 28 October shift in imperialist strategy in sub­ incredible hypocrisy: "We're in exactly Announcing his decision to back Now, it will come as news to the black Saharan Africa. Two years ago the U.S., the same position as the British are with "strong sanctions against the sale of masses of South Africa that "the rights Franee and Britain vetoed a mandatory the I. R. A. and the Germans are with the weapons to South Africa," Carter was continued on page 8 arms embargo; today it is their propo­ Baader-Meinhof case" (New York sal. Why the change? It is obviously not Times, 22 October). the noxious apartheid system itself. The Pretoria was certainly not less of a imperialists have long shed crocodile threat to its black neighbors two years tears and passed paper resolutions ago. Indeed, in October 1975 it threw its Cambodia: Peasant against apartheid while arming South European and American weapons (ob­ Africa to the teeth and garnering super­ tained despite a voluntary arms ban Stalinism Run Amok •••6 profits from the savagely exploited dating from 1963) into a full-scale inva­ black workers. sion of Angola and decisively interna- --Letters,--------- Bakke Decision it from being tainted with the liberal state. its reason for existence as an We do know this: Watergate is the litany of conspiracy apologia. Marxists instrument of oppressive class rule. exception--targeting Martin Luther San Francisco must make use of every opportunity But what about the Kennedy assassi­ King, Jr. and Ma''-Ulln X is the rule. October 21, 1977 handed them to reveal the nefarious and nation'? Does not exposure of that also There was a state lOnspiracy to disrupt frenetic machinations ofcapitalist rule if focus attention on the bourgeois state, the civil rights movement and any or­ To the Editor: they are to hasten the hour of socialist asks A. B. The "nexus," he says, lies in ganized expression of black militancy: Wnile I agree cQmpletely with the WV victory, the question, "Would a reinvestigation exposing this constant conspiracy by the position on the Bakke decision (No. 178, In the same article you also speak of into the Kennedy assassinations reveal armed bodies of men who are the heart 14 October), r thought I might expand the myriad of conspiracy theories con­ indicting data of the capitalist system?" of capitalist state power is a central task somewhat on one aspect. cerning the Kennedy assassinations but Our answer: probably not. Even if there of Marxist propaganda. On page 4 you say: "The failure ofthe nowhere have I seen you give these were a conspiracy by one wing of the liberal civil rights movement followed theories the same attention you have bourgeoisie against another, while im­ from its strategy of linking the struggle given the ones surrounding King's mur­ portant in terms ofevaluating the politi­ Prostitution for black equality to the capitalist state der. Granted, we do not mourn the cal climate, this would not necessarily Oakland rather than to the struggle of the work­ Kennedy deaths or place them on equal expose the class nature of the state. 8 July 1977 ing class against capitalism.... It is footing with the murder of a black Suppose it were revealed that the Ken­ Dear Comrades, nearly 10 years since a claque of liberals, dissident such as King but that is not nedy assassinations were the result of a black nationalists and 'socialists' suc­ really the crux of the matter. Rather, it right-wing plot: since there was no class­ In WV No. 164 [I July 1977] in the introduction to 'The Lumpen Van­ ceeded in mobilizing the 'black commu­ would seem that the nexus of the conscious workers movement to speak nity' against the 1968 New York teach­ assassination/conspiracy question is of, what this would show is not "the guard Myth," WV refers to "anti-social ers' strike, helping to cement the racist posed by asking: would a reinvestiga­ great lengths to which the fetid capitalist parasites (e.g., prostitutes)." While labor bureaucrats' hold over backward tion into the Kennedy assassinations class and its conspiratorial agencies will prostitution as an institution is certainly white workers...." reveal indicting data of the capitalist go to maintain and preserve their choke­ parasitic, prostitutes, as individuals, are The role of the Socialist Workers system (e.g., paranoic divisions within hold on the proletariat," but rather the both socially parasitic and victimized, Party in the 1968 strike was, unfortu­ the bourgeoisie, Mafia ties, etc.)? If the extent to which one wing or element of but not necessarily anti-social. This is a nately, something more than "mobiliz­ answer to this question is yes then it the bourgeoisie would go to impose its distinction that the SL and the revolu­ ing the 'black community' against the ... would behoove all Marxists to demand will on the other sectors of its class. tionary Marxist movement has general­ strike." it! There was such an investigation recent­ ly made. Women and Revolution No.9, Summer 1975, in an article entitled I was at that time a member of the Of the questions surrounding the Nix ly, namely the Watergate exposures, "French Prostitutes Protest Police Minneapolis branch of the SWP. When and Zapruder films, the "magic bullet" and while it temporarily weakened capi­ Harassmept," writes: the news of the party's position reached theory (and accompanying ballistic talist repressive forces, in the absence of a combative working-class opposition '~Prostitution is criminal, but the prosti­ us, I took the floor and opened an attack tests), the possibility of the Oswald tutes are not criminals; they are the on the leadership for supporting the double, JFK's missing brain and the E. its net result was to strengthen the victims .... scabs. Howard Hunt connection, none have Democrats. "They are mercilessly exploited by pimps While virtually alone in my opposi­ been adequately answered to the satis­ For our part, we do not know if there and madams-disgusting social para­ tion, the leadership launched a sus­ was a conspiracy to assassinate the sites whose prosecution Marxists wel­ faction of millions of lay people and come. As in past revolutions, they tained counterattack against me. I was experts. And thus, fourteen years hence, Kennedys. Unlike the attitude of reli­ [pimps and madams] can expect to meet told that not only did the leadership give enough suspicion and pressure prevail gious agnosticism, in our case it is not a with summary j,~stice when the workers full political support to the strikebreak­ to have forced the creation of a House question of lack of faith but of the take power ...