----~---.~.----='--~-~----~--~-~~--~-----------.---~- No94 January 1988 20p Monthly paper of the Spartacist League Defend the Soviet Union through world revolution! Gorbachev talks "peace" with war-crazy Reagan Soviet missiles on display in Red Square (left). Gorbachev with imperialist warmonger Reagan (right). Disarmament hoax endangers Soviet workers state. The following article is adapted from as a "useful idiot for Kremlin propa­ bering defence of the land of the until capitalist exploitation, the Workers Vanguard no 443, 1 January ganda". October Revolution by "arms control" source of imperialist war, is rooted 1988. That the year 1987, which began agreements with its implacable im­ out. The road to peace lies through with the screening of Amerika, end­ perialist enemy. defending an,d extending the gains of ed with Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev Behind the euphoria there is a October through world socialist It almost seemed like the fulfil­ filling television screens singing , fundamental conflict: the Stalinists revolution. ment of a Christmas wish: peace on rounds of the Russian ballad "Moscow in the Kremlin want coexistence, the earth, goodwill towards men. Here Nights" in the White House over and imperialists in the White House want AFGHANISTAN, NICARAGUA: was Rambo Reagan glad handing and over is testimony to how far the counterrevolution. Just a week be­ CRUSH REAGAN'S CONTRAS! joking with the head of the Soviet Reagan administration's fortunes fore Gorbachev's arrival, Reagan "evil empire", raising toasts to peace have fallen. The Philadelphia Inquirer denounced "Communist tyranny" in In Washington, the Kremlin bu­ and disarmament. The Marriot Hotel (11 December 1987) remarked: a speech to the ultraright Heritage reaucracy once again made clear its temporarily renamed its restaurant "Americans compare him [Gorbachev] Foundation. Before the summit willingness to sacrifice other people's the Cafe Glasnost. And Washington­ not only to his doddering prede­ Reagan declared that the Soviet revolutions on the altar of "peaceful ians who had lined the streets for cessors, but to their own president, leader had better come prepared to coexistence". Gorbachev reportedly days to get a glimpse of the Soviet twenty years Mr. Gorbachev's senior, "bargain" over "regional issues" such told Reagan that the Soviet Union leader cheered when Gorbachev who is so clearly ill the twilight of as Afghanistan and Nicaragua. But would cut off military aid to the forayed out from his ZIL limousine his career." In fact, a Washington when Gorbachev obligingly sweeten­ embattled Sandinista regime in to meet them in the flesh. Little Post/ ABC News poll following the ed his terms for a Soviet withdrawal Nicaragua - restricting arms ship­ children hoisted on their fathers' summit found that more Americans ff'om Kabul and offered to cut off ments to "small arms for police shoulders waved the American flag had a favourable view of Gorbachev military aid to Managua, Reagan work" - if the US stopped supplying in one hand and the Soviet red flag than of Reagan. As one conservative pretended not to hear. And on the the contras. This would represent in. the other. Republican quipped, "The good news heels of the summit, the Pentagon a betrayal of the Nicaraguan Revolu­ To hard-core right-wingers the is Gorbachev got out of town and set off a nuclear blast in Nevada. tion, for which more than 50,000 sight of government workers at the didn't win the nomination." Moscow, which had been observing workers and peasants have already Department of Commerce taking The popular euphoria over the a unilateral testing moratorium, given their lives. Nicaragua faces a down the Great Seal of the United Reagan/Gorbachev summit demon­ countered with a test of its own. host of US bases and airfields just States and replacing it with an em­ strated the superficiality of the For 70 years - under Republican over the border in Honduras and is blem showing the stars and stripes anti-Communist Rambo mentality and Democratic administrations, in besieged by the CIA's mercenary combined with the hammer and sickle in the US population. People over­ periods of Cold War and "detente" terrorists striking from Honduras must have seemed like the anti­ whelmingly desire peaceful relations (the unmentionable "D-word" in and Costa Rica. A cutoff of vital Communist soap opera Amerika with the Soviet Union. But the war­ Washington for most of Reagan's Soviet aid would be a green light to come true. Jeane Kirkpatrick warn­ crazed nuclear nuts who rule the presidency) - US imperialism and its the imperialist warmongers. ed Reagan not "to set aside a life­ declining American empire have no allies have maintained their goal of Even as the ink was drying on the time of caution concerning what such intentions. If they are willing overthrowing the Russian workers missile treaty, Reagan was pushing communists are like and how we to limit some existing (particularly revolution which shook the world. hard for renewed aid to his contra should deal with them" -to wit, "the Soviet) arms, it's because they're From the American expeditionary killers. The White House surfaced a only good 'un is a dead 'un". The day madly developing new weapons sys­ force sent to Arkhangelsk in 1918 to Nicaraguan traitor, former Sandinista before Gorbachev arrived, the Zion­ tems themselves. "Arms control" is snuff out the newborn Soviet state Army major Roger Miranda Ben­ ists staged a demonstration of a hoax, which in no way reduces the to the deployment of contra cut­ goechea, putting in his mouth tales 200,000. But on this one, die-hard threat of nuclear war hanging over throats in Nicaragua and Afghanistan of Nicaraguan plans to conquer Cen­ Russia haters were out in the cold, mankind. The Soviet Union should today, the imperialist rulers have tral America with Soviet support. leaving right-winger Howard Phillips build and acquire the weapons it waged bloody war against the USSR. Congress agreed to $14 million in to complain that Reagan was serving considers necessary without encum- There can be no peace on this planet continued on page 6 NUM elections: Miners: break with Labourism! As elections for NUM president dockers struck but were ordered back take place, the mineworkers union is to work. The Labourite misleaders did at a crossroads. Confronting a vi­ not want to shut down the country ciously reactionary government which because they did not want to fight for has already carried out massive pit genuine workers power. closures and would like to privatise The strike exposed starkly the vile the coal industry, miners are well rottenness of the Labour Party and aware that the existence of their its pretensions to represent the inter­ union, jobs and communities is at ests of the working class. It posed the stake. burning need for a revolutionary party A little over two and a half years that can lead the wvrking masses to ago the biggest class battle in this victory. Anyone who claims the country for decades came to an end. mantle of a workers leader ffi.ust be For 12 months the miners and their judged according to this criterion. wives held at bay the concentrated Thousands of militants in the coal­ forces of the capitalist state. The fields and elsewhere look to Scargill, strike inspired millions of trade union­ not Kinnock, for leadership. But de­ ists and minorities who justly hate spite the Labour Party's treachery dur­ Thatcher and understood that a vic­ ing the miners strike, Scargill brought tory for the m'iners would also be a out the NUI\1 vote for the arch-scab decisive victory for them. In the end Kinnock. In backing him, therefore, the strike was defeated because it was Scargill bears a major responsibility for maintaining the Labour traitors' stabbed to death by the Labour Party / Miners gala, June 1987: Arthur Scargill shares platform with Judas K innock. TUC misleaders. Judas Kinnock, as he hold over the working class. For this was reviled in the pit villages, sup­ reason we do not advocate a vote for wants to negotiate with the scab UDM steel, rail and mining. The working ported Thatcher's scab ballot and Scargill in the NUM elections. and go along with the Coal Board's class and poor are butchered because violence-baited miners for defending John Walsh, the right-wing non­ union-busting "flexible working" ar­ no money is spent on the crumbling their picket lines. The right-wing trade entity who is running against Scargill, rangements. Earlier he was a pro­ National Health Service or on decent union tops ordered their members to is obviously worthless and backed by ponent of the divisive incentive and safe transport. These attacks can scab, while the "lefts" promised soli­ the coal bosses. His campaign is a scheme that pits miner against miner. be reversed through sharp class darity but refused to call their unions bad joke and he doesn't stand the During the strike he stated that the struggle. For example, after the out in joint strike action. Twice the chance of a snowball in hell. Walsh British judiciary is fair! Walsh ob­ King's Cross inferno, had the rail scenely blames the NUM's difficulties union leaders taken strike action, they on the militancy of the union. His mess­ would have rallied the support of hun­ Lenin on defence of age is "class struggle doesn't pay". But dreds of thousands of people against the Soviet Union. union concessions won't appease the the butcher Thatcher, but the trade bosses. Even the government admits union leadership has continued in re­ Reformists and Stalinists of all this. As one Coal Board official put treat. The miners strike that began stripes hail the recent missile agree­ it: "Mr Scargill's opponents on the at Frickley last summer over the ment signed by Ronald Reagl 1n and executive are decent men whom I're Coal Board's draconian disciplinary Mikhail Gorbachev as a step forward could talk to, even if they have code was stifled by prominent Scar­ for the cause of "peaceful coexist­ a naive belief that if they offer con­ gill supporter and Yorks NUM leader ence".