No. 166

KKK cross burning in Louisiana earlier this year. LaffonliSygmaChicago Nazi Fuhrer Frank Collins {left} and stormtroopers.

25¢15 July 1977

Labor, Blacks Must Crush Fascist Vermiq

Carter's America: KlanTurnsCrosses on the Fourth

Heroic Soviet Spies....6

The Invisible Empire, Knights of theKu Klux Klan, is crawling out from itscover ofdarkness on the slimy underside()f American society. After decades ofnightriding terrorism against blacks,Catholics, Jews and communists, the"new" Klan has been buoyed by a recentwave of social reaction emanating fromthe highest levels of government. It wasentirely logical, therefore, that thesefascistic race-haters should chooseJimmy Carter's home town of Plains,Georgia for a cross burning in broaddaylight on the Fourth of July weekend.

About 30 white-sheeted KKKersswarmed around the flag-studded plat­form for what they called a "patrioticdisplay." The climax was to be theburning of a 20-foot cross wrapped inkerosene-soaked muslin, the dreadedsymbol of generations of racist lynch­ings. But as the cross was about to beignited, Buddy Cochran, a 30-year-oldwhite truck mechanic who had beenparked within earshot of the genocidalfilth emanating from the rally, revved uphis Jaguar XKE sports car and rammedit into the back of the plywood podium.He crunched another 50 feet into theracist mob, injuring dozens of robed

PART 2 OF 2

Klansmen and, unfortunately, a CBSreporter in this kamikaze attack.

Cochran has now become the targetof the state's efforts to keep Georgia safefor the Klan. The Klan mobyelled "whitenigger" and "kill him" as this southernwhite worker, who reportedly told policethat he "had a lot of black friends," wasarrested and charged with 19 counts ofaggravated assault. The cops are nowholding him on $190,000 bail. These arethe same enforcers of capitalist "law andorder" who in their zeal to protect theKlan rally had earlier threatened toarrest blacks in the vicinity for trespass­ing upon a "strictly white gathering of awhite Christian organization" (AtlantaConstitution, 3 July).

Many of these racist cops simplyexchange their blue uniforms andbadges for white sheets and pointed hatsafter nightfall. In their hands, Cochran,who is becoming a symbol of militant­if. in this case, Quixotic-anti-Klanaction, is in danger of being brutallybeaten and possibly killed. Moreover,he is in any case not an apparent threatto anyone except the crossburningfascists. While we do not advocate suchindividual and impotent methods of

fighting the fascist terrorists, we de­mand that Buddy Cochran be immedi­ately released and the charges againsthim be dropped. .

Another KKK rally in Columbus,Ohio on July 4 was broken up by ademonstration of several hundred anti­Klan protesters. While Ohio "ImperialWizard" Dale Reusch was playing atape of the national anthem, a largelyblack section of the anti-Klan demon­stration moved directly to the podiumand drowned out the "Star SpangledBanner" with chants of "Ku KluxKlan-Scum of the Land." Thereuponthe Klan leaders began wielding flagpoles like clubs and the fight was on.

Anti-Klan demonstrators got hold ofReusch, knocked him down, strippedoff his purple robes and inflicted injuriesthat sent this dangerous race-hatemonger to the hospital. A battered"wizard" dripping with egg yolk criedout, "Where are you my people?"Immediately he was answered as OhioState Highway Patrol troopers in fullriot gear poured out of the statehouse toprotect the KKK and arrest anti-Klanprotesters. Four were jailed on chargesranging from "disturbing a lawfulmeeting" to felonious assault. Theworkers movement must demand thatthe charges against these anti-KKKmilitants be dropped.

The fascists also reared their uglyheads over the July 4 weekend in theChicago area. For several months, localNazis have targetted the largely Jewish

continued on page 4

• CODslitlltjOI'

Klansman posing at Plains, Ga. cityline before the start of the rally onJuly 4 weekend.

~p-artacist Lea~ Holds Fifth Conference

Forging aBlack~Trot ist~Cadre

Participants at recent Spartacist League national conference.

The Fifth National Conference of theSpartacist League/U.S. was held earlythis month in an East Coast city.Although only the elected delegateswere mandated to attend, a total ofcloseto 300 comrades came to participate inthis highest body of the SL/U.S.Attending in addition to North Ameri­can comrades were seven representa­tives of European and Australasiansections of the international Spartacisttendency, as well as a delegation fromthe Los Ang~les-based Red Flag Union,a group denved from the homosexualleft which is engaged in fusion discus­sions with the SL. Preceding the three­day party conference was a nationalconference of the SL's youth group, theSpartacus Youth League (SYL).

The survey of SL/SYL memberspresent indicated that 30 percent hadjoined two years ago or less, while 59percent had been members for fromthree to six years. The largest numberwas concentrated around the five-yearmark, testimony to the period ofextremely rapid recruitment out of theNew Left milieu, including the antiwar,women's and black movements. Some39 percent were women; 41 percent wereunion members.

Only IO percent were non-party SYLmembers. This figure, taken in conjunc­tion with a substantial rise in the averageage of the SL/SYL since the 1974 con­ference, indicates that the slight mem­bership contraction noted previously inWV reflects a certain tailing off of newrecruitment by the youth organizationreflecting the downturn in campusradicalism, while the party has contin­ued to recruit professional revolution­ary cadres out of the youth group. Thusthe cohesiveness and maturity whichhelped make for a comfortable andproductive conference reflect not onlythe revolutionary seriousness of thecadres but also the objective difficultiesconfronting communist militants in thepresent period of strangulated laborstruggles.

Politically, the Conference was inpart a continuation of the work of theActive Workers Conference held in theMidwest some six months previously.Along with supplemental resolutionsprepared for the National Conference,the Memorandum presented to theActive Workers Conference constitu-tedthe main resolution defining the per­spectives and tasks of the organizationfor the coming period. The documen­tary basis of the National Conferenceincluded the written material preceding.

WfJRNERI"NfiIJARIJMarxist Working-Class Weeklyof the Spartacist league of the U.S.

EDITOR: Jan Norden

PRODUCTION MANAGER: Karen Allen

CIRCULATION MANAGER: Anne Kelley

EDITORIAL BOARD: Jon Brule. CharlesBurroughs, George Foster, Liz Gordon, JamesRobertson, Joseph Seymour

Published weekly. except bi-weekly in Augustand December, by the Spartacist E'ublishingCo., 260 Wesr Broadway, New York, N.Y.10013. Telephone: 966-6841 (Editorial),925-5665 (Business). Address all correspond­ence to: Box 1377, G.P.O., New York, N.Y.10001. Domestic subscriptions: $5.00 per year.Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y.

Opinions expressed in signed articles orletters do not necessarily express the editorialviewpoint.

2

the _Midwest meeting as well as fourmore recent internal bulletins producedduring the pre-Conference discussionperiod.

The Main Enemy Is at Home!

At the Conference, the main NationalReports stressed the increasingly ag­gressive attacks on democratic rightssuch as Supreme Court decisionsundermining previous democratic gains(abortion, school busing, etc.), as well asthe vicious anti-homosexual backlashspear~eadedbyAnita Bryant's reaction­ary fundamentalist campaign. Thereporters underscored the centrality ofthe slogan, "The Main Enemy Is atHome," in opposition to the liberals andNew Leftist residues who refurbish U.S.imperialism's "democratic" pretensionsby seeking to associate their sectoralistreform demands with Carter's funda­mentally anti-Soviet "human rights"rhetoric. The prospects for substantialrevolutionary regroupments were notedas quite bleak as the ostensibly revolu­tionary organizations overwhelminglypursue a rightist course.

The international report and thefraternal greetings from the Trotzkis­tische Liga Deutschlands, Ligue Trots­kyste de France, Spartacist League ofAustralia and New Zealand and Trot­skyist League of Canada testified to theinternational Spartacist tendency's con­tinuing consolidation as the program­matically united Trotskyist alternativeto the United Secretariat rotten bloc.The greetings from the Red Flag Uniondelegation were grounds for continuedoptimism about the prospect of a deepand principled fusion between thesecomrades and the SL.

One session of the conference agendawas devoted to commission meetingsunder the auspices of the Trade UnionCommission, financial department ofthe Central Office and the legal defensecommission. Virtually every other avail­able time slot, including meal breaks,was also utilized for additional commis­sions, such as press, archives, RFUfusion and Central Committee slate.

The hyperconcentration of importantpolitical work into a few agenda sessionswas the result of a decision by theoutgoing leadership to focus this Na­tional Conference overwhelmingly onone subject: the black question. Thisdiscussion had been painstakingly pre­pared through the circulation of roughlya dozen written documents as well assubstantial local discussions during thepre-Conference period. At the Confer-

wv photo

ence, eight reporters were given present­ation and summary time. More thansixty comrades spoke from the floor.The lengthy and lively discussionreflected the comrades' recognition ofthe importance of this question to thecontinuing transformation of the Spar­tacist League into the nucleus of thevanguard party.

That such a discussion was able totake place at this Conference reflects theorganization's acquisition, for the firsttime since the rise of black nationalismin the late 1960's, of a significant layer ofcommitted black members, some withseveral years of experience in the party.The priority accorded to this discussionindicated not only a recognition of theimportance of the development of blackTrotskyist cadre and leaders, but alsothe party's determination to concentrate

. the deliberations of its highest bodyaround areas of unClarity and/ or differ­ences within the organization.

Lumpenism vs. CommunistMorality

The original precipitant of the discus­sion was a manifestation of somesoftness on the part of many of the blackcomrades toward modes of functioningand attitudes characteristic ofa lumpen­proletarian existence. Beneath a debateover whether the term "Iumpen" refersonly to hardened criminal elements orcan be applied to a broader stratum ofthe chronically unemployed lay differ­ing estimations of the potential revolu­tionary role of lumpenized black ghettoyouth.

A document submitted to the pre­Conference discussion and adopted bythe Conference delegates explained:

"Black criminals are drawn from abroad pool of poor ghetto youth, asocial fact which conditions the latter'sactivities and attitudes. If GeorgeJackson's assertion that all black menover the age of 18 expect to go to prisonis an overstatement, it nonethelessexpresses a certain reality. Not manyblack youth living on welfare becomeprofessional thieves, but a significantnumber have robbed stores at one timeor another. For most welfare does notprovide even a minimal standard ofliving unless it is supplemented by someform of 'hustle.' Few ghetto youth willbecome pimps or pushers, but-as thepopularity of black exploitation moviesattests-many aspire to those roleswhich seem like an easy way out ofpoverty and social degradation. Similarsocial attitudes were common amongimmigrant ethnic minorities beforeWWII. AI Capone was a hero figure formany second-generation Italian youth.An important point for this discussion

is that it is common for poor blackyouth to regard pimping, pushing andcommitting violent crimes as a legiti­mate way of life. and even as a form ofprotest against white racist society."Except for the incorrigible, hardened,anti-social criminals, we are not host tIetoward the lumpenized population. Onthe contrary, to narrow the term'lumpen' to these hardened criminaltypes is to' deny the brutal effects ofracial oppression on a whole section ofblack youth who have no future in theeconomic process under capitalism. Forthem there is no escape from theirgrinding poverty under capitalismunless they turn to crime, and thereforethey are forced to share many of thevalues of hardened criminals. -We. onthe other hand, must face this realitvsquarely if we are to be the bestdefenders of the rights of the black poorand the best fighters against conditionswhich are wasting a whole generation ofblack youth. For example, when theUAW bureaucracy sought to organizevigilantism against street gangs inDetroit, we resolutely opposed thisaction, and also demanded an immedi­ate end to Mayor Young's curfew (see'Cops, Mayor Push "Anti-Crime"Hysteria in Detroit,' WV No. 127).However, the struggle to forge acommunist-led black transitional or­ganization requires an implacablestruggle against lumpen activities anda~titudes, particularly promiscuousVIOlence. Every organization which hasseriously attempted to affect theghetto-the Communist Party in the1930's and '40's, the Black Muslims intheir way and the Panthers at theirbest-has resolutely and ruthlesslycombated lumpen lifestylism...." ... a communist following in the ghetto(black transitional organization)cannot be built with petty thieves. It canonly be built through a ruthless struggleagainst lumpen lifestylism and lumpenvalues,' by an organized cadre withauthority among the black masses whoare exemplars of communist morality."

The conference also endorsed the lineof the article "Fear and Violence inNYC" (WV No. 147, 4 March 1977).The SL's hostility to hustlerist attitudes,inimical to communist consciousnessand disciplined functioning, contrastssharply with the patronizing approach ofother avowedly leftist organizations,most notably the Workers League andInternational Socialists. Unlike thesefake-lefts, who orient toward transientrecruitment offootloose minority-groupyouth on a minimum program to providethe appearance of a "mass base," the SLaims at the creation of a hardened cadreof committed black Trotskyists who canbecome proletarian leaders. These com­rades must be prepared to lead whiteworkers as well as blacks, to lead withinthe party as well as among the masses.

Toward a Black TransitionalOrganization

Unlike the classic Debsian approachthat "Socialism has nothing special tooffer the Negroes," the program of theSL recognizes that the special oppres­sion of blacks under capitalism meansthat black workers will playa vanguardrole among the most militant fightersfor socialist revolution. "Black andwhite unite and fight" can be realizedonly on the basis of a militant, broadattack against capitalism, including afirm commitment to struggle against thespecial oppression ofghettoized minori­ties. Our perspective of revolutionaryintegrationism means the mobilizationof the union movement to fight forequality, e.g., the formation of black/labor defense of black schoolchildrenagainst the segregationist anti-busingbacklash. The Debsian outlook atbottom reflects the pressure of the"laboraristocracy," whereas the communist

15 JULY 1977

Striking office workers at American President Lines last week try to keepengineer out of L.A. Terminal yard.

Solidarity with Strike in L.A. Port

Diverted Cargol34-president Herman's home local­suspended working rules to provideexIra clerks to at least four of the struckshipping lines. The failure of Local 63leaders to even issue an appeal toboycott the scab cargo has facilitatedthe scabbing.

The treacherous leadership sabotagewas exposed in the latest issue of"Longshore Militant" (8 July), a class­struggle opposition paper published byStan Gow and Howard Keylor, mem­bers of the S.F. longshore Local 10executive board. Gow and Keylor blewthe whistle on the leadership's attemptto bla'ck out news of the strike:

.... .last Saturday when weekend B.A.[business agent] Watkins was informedthat more than half the cargo aboardthe President McKinley was diverted,he ordered the men to work it! GeorgeKekai, who had been informed of thestrike by the Local 63 leadership,deliberately suppressed any news of It.Meanwhile, B.A. Herb Mills is claimingthat he doesn't know of any agreementbetween L.A. and S.F. not to handlediverted cargo. Yet Local 13 presidentAlmeida stated at our June 9 meetingthat there is such an agreement andLocal 10 president Williams has beenbragging about it for months!"

Cle'rly the iongshore ranks mustdemand that their leadership live up tothe elementary solidarity agreement notto handle scab cargo.,

But recent events have made it clearthat the Local 10 leadership, includingthe Mills/Wing clique and CommunistParty supporters, are so committed toclass peace that they consciously sabo­tage all attempts at working-class unity.All wings of the bureaucracy lined up tohelp the employers' Pacific MaritimeAssociation (PMA) declare S.F. a "lowwork opportunity port" (LWOP), there­by preparIng the way for forced trans­fers and massive deregistrations oflongshoremen. PMA's attack on Local63 is part of the shipping companies'

continued on page 10

SAN FRANCISCO, July 9-ln re­sponse to a walkout by the officeworkers division of Los Angeles shipsclerk Local 63, the leadership of theInternational Longshoremen's andWarehousemen's Union (ILWU) hasisolated the strike and ordered long­shoremen to scab on their own union byhandling cargo diverted from L.A. tothe San Francisco port. Thus the hand­picked successors to the recently retiredBridges/ Goldblatt regime­International president Jimmy Hermanand secretary-treasurer CurtisMcClain-have made clear their inten­tion to continue the most despicableaspects of Harry Bridges' disastrouspolicies of class collaboration.

Demanding a $2.01-an-hour wageincrease over two years and resisting theemployers' demand to eliminate supple­mental unemployment benefits, 98office workers, mostlv women, struckfive targeted terminals on Jul~ I. Butthe ILWU tops began undermining thewalkout from the start. Pickets werepulled down and sent back to work atone firm, Standard Food, because itdeals in -perishable fruits! The ILWUhas also made no move to stop membersof the Marine Engineers BeneficialAssociation (MEBA), who have beencrossing the picket lines with impunitysince the second day of the strike.

To effectively back up the small officeworkers division, the L.A. port shouldhave been shut down tight. But theleaders of San Pedro longshore Local13, backed by the International, barreda port-wide strike and agreed to allowall companies to be worked except thosedirectly involved in the dispute.

As the struck companies moved todivert cargo to the Bay Area, the ILWUbureaucracy moved in tandem toundermine coast-wide unity and isolatethe L.A. strike. San Francisco long­shoremen have been ordered to handlethe diverted cargo, and S.F. clerks Local

Bay Area Dockers:Don't Handle

YoungSpartacus

Vietnam). Muhammad Ali's famousremark, 'the Viet Cong never did me anyharm,' expressed the attitude of a largefraction of black draft-age youth."Blacks are naturally less prone toillusions about the democratic, class­neutral character of the state apparatus.Ghetto high school students hate copsin a way few white workers do...."As victims of racist oppression by awhite ruling class, black lumpens easilyaccept some of the negative conditionsfor communist consciousness. They arecomparatively freer from chauvinistand bourgeois-democratic illusions inthe American state than are whiteworkers at the present time."However, lumpenized black youthlack those positive elements of commu­nist consciousness derived from partici­pation in the labor process and organ­Ized workers movement...."... the black lumpenproletariat (like itscounterpart in other countries) isalienated from and potentially hostile tothe organized workin~ class, which itviews as a socially privtleged group; thisview is strengthened by the fact that thetop trade-union leadership (though notthe middle-level) is overwhelminglywhite. Black lumpen hostility to theworking class (black as well as white)can find a political expression. If blacklumpens cannot be won to fascistbonapartism, they can be won tobourgeois liberal union-busting on apopulist-leveling program. Sonny Car­son's actions on behalfof Lindsay in the1968 NYC teachers' strike and Baraka'son behalf of Gibson in the 1971 Newarkteachers' strike conform to one of thecentral elements of classic fascism-themobilization of lumpen violence against.the workers movement in the name ofplebeian-nationalist ideology."The political aspirations of the lum­penproletariat can express themselvesin forms other than fascism. Lumr.enradicalism can also take an ostensIblyrevolutionary form, posing as a left­wing alternative to Marxian proletariansocialism. In The ABC ofCommunism,Bukharin and Preobrazhensky' charac­terize anarchism, with its hostIlity to allsocial authority and emphasis on theleveling redistribution of consumption,as 'lumpenproletarian socialism' ...."

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"You Can't Lead a Party YouDon't Trust"

The deforming effects of lumpenexistence are far from solely ideological.The observation that "being determinesconsciousness" is true not only in themass but among subjectively revolu­tionary elements. The communist van­guard, defined by its commonality ofprogram, must exert its conscious will totransform its lumpen-derived membersinto disciplined Leninist cadres. Subjec­tively revolutionary militants recruitedout of a lumpen background must breakfrom a lumpen proletarian economicexistence and reject all vestiges oflumpen lifestylism. Only on the basis ofa rough equality between comrades-inliving standards, educational skills,etc.-can a truly communist cadre beforged, free from servility, patronizingand pretense.

A break from lumpen existencerequires a change in being and inconsciousness. A disciplined black com­munist cadre is forged by transcending aprevious experience characterized bydegradation and manipulation. The

continued on paKe 10

Lumpen Radicalism

During the heyday of the New Left,all shades of radical opinion tended toview ghetto youth as the most politicallyadvanced section of American society,as "natural revolutionaries." Derivedfrom that period of left-wing upsurge, asection of the SL membership, includ­ing many of the black comrades.has tended to carryover that attitude.The alienation of young blacks fromaspects of capitalist ideology will be animportant factor in their disproportion­ate representation in any radical up­surge. But spontaneous ghetto radical­ism has sharp ideological limitations aswell as material ones. As anotherdocument submitted to the pre­Conference discussion and adopted bythe Conference delegates explained:

"Many of the decisive ideologicalattitudes which bind white workers tothe American bourgeois order arenecessarily much weaker among blacksof all social classes. Great Americanchauvinism, closely identified withwhite AnglQ-Saxon supremacy, iscertainly weaker in black ghettos thanin white working-class suburb~. Forobvious reasons, blacks are far moredisposed to sympathize with thestruggles of colonial peoples a~ainst ~he

Western imperialist powers, mcludmgthe U.S. This attitude can produceamong blacks a broad-based tolerancefor 'communism' when associated withnational liberation struggles (e.g. Cuba,

based upon a proletarian core-seeks tobecome the "tribune of the people," thechampion of all the oppressed.

The special oppression of blacksdemands a struggle by the communistvanguard against "labor aristocratic"parochialism, chauvinist attitudes andbackward consciousness institutional­ized in the pro-capitalist labor bureauc­racy. And it demands special forms oforganization as well, a black transition­al organization under communist politi­cal leadership. While insisting that onlythe working class organized at the pointof production has the social power toeffect revolutionary change, the partyinvolves itself in every significant socialstruggle, posing a class axis to leadpartial struggles in a revolutionarydirection.

Our program toward the doublyoppressed ghetto masses is not one ofsocial welfare schemes, but rather ofworking-class struggle against lumpeni­zation of the black population. Ourperspective is counterposed to that ofthe ghetto-oriented black radicalgroups, such as the Panthers, whoseprogram centers around minimal de­mands for slightly improving the condi­tions of the lumpenproletariat anddefending them against victimizati()n.While struggles against racist frame­ups and police brutality, around wel­fare and rent and community healthcare, are supportable, they are not themain focus of our program, which aimsat delumpenizing the lumpenproletariatthrough jobs and educational opportu­nities. Struggles for a shorter workweek,for massive government public works atunion wages, for free higher educationwith stipend, for union-controlledtraining programs cannot be conductedessentially from a ghetto base, butrequire the mobilization of the socialpower of the workers movement.

Lumpenization is not only the mostvicious oppression to which blacks aresubjected. It constitutes also a realdanger to the future existence of blackmasses. Racism is so central to Ameri­can political reaction that blacklumpens-in contrast to the lumpenpro­letariat in ethnically homogeneoussocieties-cannot become the shocktroops of an American fascist move­ment. But a black population which is ofno economic use to the ruling classstands doubly defenseless against afascist onslaught. The only defense ofthese "wretched of the earth" resides in aclass-conscious proletariat. The union­ized black worker, who frequently has amother on welfare and a friend inprison, is the living bridge to andnecessary leader of the ghetto masses.

15 JULY 1977,3

WORKERS VANGUARD

The banners, which read "ProChristo, Pro Patria" and showed a fistsmashing a hammer and sickle, were notthe only outrage tolerated and protectedby the SWP that day. When the fascistband of four grabbed the microphoneand repeated the chant, "Abortion ismurder," over and over, angry womenattempted to remove them. Again SWPmarshals tried to protect the "freespeech" of fascists against the outragedfeminists, who at last removed thisraving provocateur from the mike.

Despite the increased visibility andmodest growth of the Nazis and theKKK, they remain isolated and despisedgangs on the lunatic fringe of the ultra­right. As such, they attract criminallyinsane sadists and a variety of socio­paths. This has been underscored byseveral recent atrocious murders. LastFebruary national attention was caughtby a grotesque killing spree by amentally defective gun fetishist andmember of the National States RightsParty who went on a ten-hour bloodyrampage in New Rochelle, New York,killing three black men and a dark­skinned Indian. In Chicago recently,Sidney Cohen was killed by an avowedNazi who forced him to ingest hydrogencyanide, a poison used in Hitler's gaschambers. In searching the Nazi's home,police discovered anti-Semitic litera­ture, other poisonous chemicals and adeath list containing the names ofCohen and two other Jews.

Vile as these crimes are, they do notrepresent the real historical danger offascism. While they are today isolated,the fascists' growing aggressivenessrepresents a real, if embryonic, dangerto the labor movement and oppressedracial/ethnic minorities. Their presentgrowth is as the far-right wing of ageneral conservative-reactionary trend,but their real flourishing will come whenthe bourgeoisie can no longer rule byparliamentary means. Then a massfascist movement will be fostered whoseprimary purpose will be to smash theorganized workers movement throughmob violence. Therefore, it is necessaryto stamp these racist, anti-communist,anti-labor terrorist bands into theground now, when they are stil1 weak.

The fascist groups which are begin­ning to raise their loathsome heads willnot be defeated by groups like the SWPwhich preach "free speech" for genocid­al terrorists while seeking to lure theminto debates in order to "expose" them.Nor will liberal and Stalinist reformistssucceed in stopping fascism through thecourts and state houses. And howeversatisfying it may be to adventurists tofantasize about driving a sports car intoa Klan rally, it is obvious that suchexpressions of individual outrage cansolve nothing. Only the mobilization ofthe working class, particularly theformation of disciplined labor defenseguards and a revolutionary struggle forstate power, can crush the fascists in theegg.•

Crush the Nazis and the Klan!

TROTSKYIST LEAGUE FORUM

Euro-Communism

TORONTO

Speaker: Ed ClarksonSpartacist LeagueCentral Committee

Place: U[liversity of TorontoHart HouseDebates Room

Date: Saturday, July 23Time: 8:00 p.m.For more information call 416-366-4107

defenders of democratic rights. Themarginal presence of JDLers at anearlier anti-Nazi Skokie ral1y did notdeter participation by the SpartacistLeague/Spartacus Youth League indefense of the Jewish population andagainst the fascist provocation. But theJuly 4 ral1y was little more than apropaganda vehicle for the JDL, thusexcluding participation byrevolutionaries.

A smaller march the same day inSkokie was dominated by the legalist/pacifist politics of the Communist Party(CP). The main thrust of the CP'sorganizing was to cal1 on the govern­ment to ban fascist organizations. This"ban the Klan" strategy not only createsillusions in the capitalist state, it is alsocertain to backfire on the left, which isinvariably a victim of political prohibi­tions of "extremist" organizations bythe bourgeois government. Moreover,the Stalinists push this treacherousprogram in the name of the reactionarycampaign that has emboldened thefascists: Carter's anti-Soviet "humanrights" crusade. A statement of theIllinois CP "demanded from PresidentCarter" and his government, "theoutlawing of racist and anti-semiticorganizations," concluding: "The rightto be free from racist insult and violenceis a human right!" (Daily World, 30June).

The Communist Party, however, atleast criticizes the ACLU for the latter'sefforts t() gain "free speech for fascists."The Socialist Workers Party (SWP), incontrast, makes this civil libertarianapproach its hallmark. Whereas theACLU takes on court cases for the Klanand Nazis, the SWP takes its defense offascists' "rights" directly into the left andlabor movement, and occasionallyphysically protects the Nazis from angrymilitants or provides a platform to"debate" the racist terrorists.

Recently in D~troit, a July I pro­abortion rally called by the NationalOrganization of Women (NOW) wasrepeatedly disrupted by a local fascistgroup under the name of Break­through. The SWP, whose reformismleads it to build NOW as the bestproponents of bourgeois feminism,showed that it is also the left's bestdefender of fascists. When a handful ofBreakthrough supporters brought theirbanner into the middle of the rally, someof the infuriated feminists wanted toremove them, which could have beeneasily done except for the SWP marshalswho restrained them.

Liberals, Reformists Push"Rights" for Fascists

As the Klan attempts to expand itsterrorist organization it has foundsupport from an assortment of liberalsand reformists who argue for "freespeech" for fascists. Seeking to enlist thecops and courts more actively in theircause, the KKK talks a lot these daysabout being "law-abiding." In Plains,Georgia, "Grand Dragon" David Pow­ers said that "we try to do anything wecan to get along with law enforcement."In Chicago, the Nazis loudly announcedthey would not march on Skokie on July4 because the Illinois Supreme Courthad not yet reversed its earlier verdictupholding a city injunction on Nazirallies. But no one is fooled by thesestormtroopers and night riders-noone, that is, except the civil libertariansand their reformist hangers-on.

Commenting on the Columbus rally,the executive director of the AmericanCivil Liberties Union (ACLU) be­moaned the fact that the cops didn'tintervene soon enough to protect theKKK. "For me, this is a sad Fourth ofJuly," he said. "I'm distressed that theKlan did not get their First Amendmentrights" (Plain Dealer [Cleveland], 5July). From Camp Pendleton, Califor­nia to Far Rockaway, New York, theACLU has become the active legaldefenders of the Klan and the Nazis'"right" to organize racist terror, whetherin the form of beatings of blackMarines, burning of crosses or stagingprovocative marches in a community ofvictims of Hitler's holocaust. Fighting inthe name of classless "democracy," theACLU aids the fascists' attempts toobtain the protection of the state.

Of two anti-Nazi ral1ies held inSkokie on July 4, the largest wasorganized and dominated by the JewishDefense League (JDL). The virulentlyanti-communist JDL organizes aroundits brand of right-wing Zionism whileposing as the best defenders of theJewish community against anti-Semiticattacks. Yet its paramilitary ethnicchauvinism and reactionary anti­working-class politics seek to divideJews from the best and most powerful

UFI

Ohio Klan "Imperial Wizard" gets angry response during race-hate rally.

backlash. A despicable Maoist tenden­cy, the Revolutionary Communist Party(RCP), capitulates to racism among thebackward sections of the working classand has become notorious for its JimCrow "socialist" opposition to busing.At the Columbus anti-Klan rally, theRCP-dominated "United Workers Or­ganization" carried a banner proclaim­ing: "We are Black and White TogetherAgainst the Busing Plan!" So while theKlan calls for whites to oppose busingon the basis of "race purity," the RCPtakes the disgusting position of callingfor "people's unity" in support of t~is

attack on the democratic rights ofblacks! But what else can one expectfrom the group which hailed anti-busingriots in Louisville as a "tremendousfight back" which the Klan was trying to"divide"?

4

Fascists Rear Their Heads in theLand of "Human Rights"

Despite the welcome fact that some ofthe recent fascist marches and rallieswere broken up, the Klan and Nazishave been surfacing across the country.While the Nazis peddle their savagedoctrine of "Aryan superiority" anddefend Hitler's death camps and ovens,the KKK fills the air with the stench ofburning crosses and "white power"rhetoric. Not only revolutionaries butalso trade unionists, blacks, Jews and alldefenders of democratic rights mustfervently desire to see these fledglingfascist bands crushed completely, whichcan only be accomplished through therevolutionary mobilization of the work­ing class.

There is an ominous pattern to therecent emergence of the Klan and Nazison the streets of American cities withtheir swastikas and hoods, cross burn­ings and jackboots. Fascist terror gangshave grown increasingly brazen inJimmy Carter's land of "human rights."They are marching and rallying, open­ing up storefronts and seeking publicityfor the first time in years. It is clear thatthe anti-Soviet "human rights" crusadegoing hand-in-hand with a broadreactionary offensive against racialminorities, women, immigrants, homo­sexuals and workers has created a fetidpolitical climate which spawns suchfascist scum.

The Klan and Nazis have watched theSupreme Court, the president andCongress line up on their side ofsome oftheir favorite issues: rolling back limitedcivil rights victories such as busing forschool desegregation, cutting off Medi­caid funds for poor women to receiveabortions, denying unemployment be­nefits to striking workers and restoringcapital punishment. The SupremeCourt, Anita Bryant's fundamentalistbigotry crusade and deadly "right-to­lifers" have joined hands with mission­ary zeal in a drive to "save the family"from homosexuals, abortion andpornography.

The fascists feel that this increasinglyreactionary climate offers them a chanceto take center stage by basking in the"respectability" conferred by govern­ment backing of their causes. The KKKrally in Georgia was given a permit onthe grounds that it was merely a"patriotic display." When the Plainstown council, uncomfortable over thenational attention focused on "Carter­ville," claimed it had been duped,"Imperial Wizard" Wilkinson pointedout that the police knew perfectly wellwho he was.

In the north the Klan had sought,largely unsuccessfully, to capitalize onthe racist anti-busing mobilizationwhich gripped Boston in 1974-75, andmanaged to play a role in mountingsegregationist demonstrations in Louis­ville. This year the KKK hopes to placeitself at the head of anti-busing protestsin Ohio. The Columbus rally was calledunder the slogans of "majority (white)rule" and stopping "forced busing.""Imperial Wizard" Reusch said, "I'mready to fight. I'm ready to drive theenemy right off of this land." And who isthis enemy? "The groups who favorbusing. And there are a lot of commun­ists involved" (Cleveland Press, 5 July).

But the faSCists are not the only onestrying to latch onto the anti-busing

Klan ...(continued from page 1)suburb of Skokie, whose populationincludes an estimated 7,000 survivors ofHitler's death camps. So far, localofficials have been successful in stavingoff a threatened Nazi march by obtain­ing successive court orders (which havebeen overturned on appeal). While thisstopped the Hitler-lovers from staging aprovocation on July 4 as they hadthreatened to do, in the Southside areaof Marquette Park, a hotbed of racistagitation last year, a National Socialistconvention was held over the weekend.

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For AMilitant L.A. County Workers Strikel

FORUM------------~

Dade County-A RevolutionaryTrotskyist Analysis

STOP ANITA BRYANTI

corporations, especially those withnotoriously low pay scales for clericalpositions, like banks and insurancecompanies. Even so, the SEIU reportsthat this year's survey showed thatcounty workers were, on the average,earning seven percent less than thosesurveyed.

In addition to offering puny wageincreases, which as a result of inflationin fact amount to wage cuts, the countyhas been steadily whittling away at jobs.In 1974, a hiring freeze was instituted inmost departments. The freeze has meantmore wor" for fewer employees and hashit particularly hard at eligibility work­ers, who deal with mushrooming wel­fare rolls, swelled by continuing highlevels of unemployment. In manyinstances, departing employees arereplaced by "temporaries" who have nojob security and few benefits. Despitethe fact that more than 10,000 "tempor­aries" have worked for years in thissecond-class status, the unions have noteven raised this issue in the negotiations.

The union leaderships' response tothe county's escalating attacks is one ofretreat and rotten compromise. Thomas& Co. are unwilling to lead a militantstrike for a job-expanding shorterworkweek with a big pay boost, anunlimited cost-of-liviog escalator, fullstatus for "temporaries," the right tostrike over all grievances and an end toall cutbacks in desperately needed socialservices. Fearful of a confrontation withthe county, the union tops prefer todocilely collect dues while the rankssuffer scandalously inadequate anddeteriorating conditions.

This tired bUSIness unionismprogressively saps the strength of theunions. Seeing bureaucrats manifestlyunwilling to lead a fight, only a third ofthe county workers have joined theunions, even though they gained collec­tive bargaining rights in 1970. In mostdepartments, there are onlya handful ofappointed shop stewards. In manyareas, even higher union officers areappointed rather than elected.

In a desire to boost their dues basewhile avoiding militant organizingcampaigns, the bureaucrats have resort­

continued on page 10

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by crushing the city workers union; inDetroit, where 10,000 municipal work­ers struck for one day last week to beatback Mayor Coleman Young's take­away demands; and in Wisconsin, wherestate employees are currently on strike.

In Los Angeles these attacks have aninsidiously racist character, as dema­gogic politicians whip up support fortheir cutbacks among white taxpayers,irate over skyrocketing property taxrates and alarmed at the prospect ofbusing for school integration, whileaiming their attacks at the predomi­nantly black and Mexican-Americancounty workforce as well as the ever­popular target of "welfare chiselers."

L.A. county management has learneda thing or two from the San Franciscoboard of supervisors, who have been onan anti-labor rampage, winning voterapproval for anti-union initiatives andcrushing city workers strikes. They havealso been heartened by Abe Beame andthe New York City financier union­busters, who have administered blowafter blow to municipal labor with onlypathetic whimpers of protest fromcowering union bureaucrats. The LosAngeles County administratorsfigure ifsuch campaigns can succeed in laborstrongholds like New York and SanFrancisco, they should be a cinch in a

-non-union town like L.A.The board of supervisors' offensive

has the added encouragement of Cali­fornia governor Jerry Brown, bestknown for his "limits of growth"preachings. Though the state budgetpromises a $2.5 billion surplus this year,Brown recently cut legislature-approvedallocations for state employee salaryincreases and more than a quarter of theamount for the handicapped, despitewell-publicized sit-ins by disabled ben­efit recipients in his Sacramento office.

The current contract negotiationsalso take place in the midst of acampaign to repeal the "prevailing wageclause" in the L.A. county charter,another weapon borrowed from SanFrancisco's arsenal. This provisionrequires that the county pay wages "atleast equal" to those of private industryfor similar job classifications. LosAngeles County regularly undercuts theclause bv snrveying non-union private

July ll-Militant workers fromSEIU Local 535, representing 3,800welfare eligibility workers of LosAngeles County, voted at a meetingtoday by 373 to 177 to reject the'county's offer and strike the nextday. However," using the pretextthat only 10 percent ofthe member­ship was present at the meeting, thebargaining committee highhanded­Iy overruled the vote, unilaterallydeclaring there would be no strike.

The meeting, attended by severalthousand people, was marked byrepeated outbursts of anger fromthe floor against the Coalition ofCounty Unions and their no-winpolicy. Although contracts expireda week and a half ago, the bureau­crats conspired to put a strike offuntil July 12 in order to wear downand isolate pockets of militancy likeLocal 535. Another militant sector,Local 660 (clerical workers), wasprevented from voting until aftertonight's midnight strike deadline.

The bureaucrats' stalling tacticssparked demands that SEIU attor­ney Harry Gluck explain the delays.He refused to do so and instead senta representative who was shouteddown. With the bargaining commit­tee straining to control the seethingmembership, they received sometimely aid from supposed radicalsin the union, like Kathleen O'Nan,who, at the height of the uproarrushed up to the podium to supportthe leadership's position of nostrike.

As it became clear that the SEIUtops were determined to frustrateevery attempt by the 70,OOO-strongL.A. County workforce to strike indefense of their job conditions andliving standards, the meeting dis­solved into chaos as droves ofworkers stalked out in disgust.

ing arbitration is formalized as the"solution" to all grievances. The termsare so favorable to the county thatboard of supervisors member JamesHays boasts that the agreement "will bethe best [lowest] settlement of anygovernmental unit-state or federal­this year."

Meeting in all-night session June 30,the clerical (SEW Local 660) andeligibility workers (SEW Local 535)bargaining teams rejected manage­ment's final offer, which approximatedthese terms. But rather than immediate­ly calling the workers out on strike, theunion leaders set a July 12 strikedeadline, arguing. the effectiveness ofwaiting until after payday, July II. Butthis sham excuse was quickly exposedwhen the union set a membership voteon management's last offer for 5 p.m.,July 12, even though the strike isscheduled to begin at 12:01 a.m. thatsame day! The labor skates of theCoalition of County Unions, headed byLocal 660 president Jack Thomas, hopethat they can use the additional time towear down all resistance to the rottenagreement.

Management Offensive

By their cowardly behavior, the uniontops are only fueling the anti-laborappetites of the county supervisors. Liketheir cohorts around the country, thesupervisors seek to resolve their budgetwoes by slashing the wages and condi­tions of public employees and decimat­ing the already minimal services pro­vided to the working people, poor andheavily black and Latin ghettopopulations.

Similar attacks have provoked recentstrikes in Atlanta, where Mavor May­nard Jackson exploded the myth of"progressive" black capitalist politicians

LOS ANGELES-Some 70,000 LosAngeles County employees should havebeen on strike as of midnight, June 30.But when the contract coveringjob titlesranging from clerks and welfare workersto nurses and engineers expired, union"leaders" told the workers to stay on thejob as they greased the works for amassive sellout to the hard lining countyboard of supervisors.

L.A. county workers are primarilyrepresented by the Service EmployeesInternational Union (SEIU). A smallernumber are covered by the AmericanFederation of State, County andMunicipal Employees (AFSCME), theInternational Brotherhood of ElectricalWorkers (IBEW) and the CaliforniaAssociation of Professional Employees(CAPE). The workers are furtherdivided by being broken up into 55separate bargaining units.

The unions had previously agreedthat all county workers would walk outif anyone bargaining unit failed to reacha satisfactory agreement. But there isevery indication that this bloc waspurely rhetorical. In line with SEWInternational president George Hardy'sstatement that, "The best strikes arethose which never have to be called"(Service Employee, May 1977), localunion leaders have already settled inmost of the bargaining units on the mostpitiful terms. They are now trying toforce a similar agreement down thethroats of clerical and welfare eligibilityworkers, who constitute the bulk of theunionized workers and among whomstrike sentiment is strongest.

The terms agreed to in most of thebargaining units are an outrageousinsult to the workers: 5.25 percent wageincreases with no cost-of-living protec­tion, cuts in pensions and workmen'scompensation, provisions limiting auto­matic "step" pay increases and tyingthem to arbitrary management evalua­tions of "merit," and a two-year ratherthan a one-year contract. In addition tothese obvious setbacks, the contractsays nothing about the workers' jobsecurity, the hiring freeze imposed in1974 or ever-mounting speedup. Bind-

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15 JULY 1977 5

Heroic Soviet Spies

Soviet court document Issued In 1955 reversing 1M7 8nd 1952 decisions8g81nst Trepper "for 8bsence of b8.lc elements of crime,"

6 WORKERS VANGUARD

transfer large units from the Far East tobe thrown into the battle of Stalingrad.The operations of this truly brilliant"masterspy" were so effective that theGerman embassy and foreign officevehemently protested his arrest in 1941,and continued to pressure Japaneseauthorities on his behalf for months.even after receiving his confession!

Sorge was a man of great daring andintelligence. Arriving in Japan withimpeccable credentials as a correspond­ent for the Frankfurter Zeitung, he hadtaken the somewhat dangerous precau­tion of joining the Nazi Party (luckilyhis police record, revealing a host ofclandestine activities for the GermanCommunist Party in the early 1920's,was not thoroughly checked until afterhis arrest). His service record in WorldWar I (he received an Iron Cross) andreputation as an expert on Japaneseaffairs (partly due to reports from hisextensive espionage network) recom­mended him to the German officialcommunity. He became particularlyclose with Major-General Eugen Ott.who was eventually appointed ambas­sador. Sorge was given a room at theembassy and trusted with highly confi­dential information, on which hisopinion was often sought.

Sorge's reputation was that of ahighly respected, if somewhat eccentric,member of the diplomatic community.His sociability and occasionally ob­streperous behavior were seen as theattributes of a typical Berliner: shrewd.uproarious. fond of drink and women.He was quoted as commenting admir­ingly on the famous Japanese 17th cen­tury rebellion of the 47 ronin (unem­ployed samurai), who killed their lord'smurderer after putting him off guard."They knew how to cover up their aimswith drinking and restless wandering,"commented Sorge. perhaps reflectingon his own habit of roaring aroundTokyo on a motorcycle after nights ofheavy drinking. Even his Japanesemistress was totally in the dark about hisespionage activities. The self-assurancewith which he was able to play out hisrole was no doubt partly a result ofBerzin's insistence that a "cover" mustbe as little artificial as possible-that iswhy the head of the Fourth Departmentinsisted on Sorge using his own name.

Sorge's one recorded moment of deepdepression came when the Germansinvaded the USSR. According to hismistress. he spent the day crying andanswered her concerned questions withthe reply, "I am lonely. I have no realfriends." It is not hard to imagine hisfury at Stalin's refusal to use the vitalinformation his Japanese network hadbeen supplying the center for monthsabout preparations for the attack. Healso provided an in-depth analysisabout the February 1936 insurrection ofyoung Japanese army officers, reportsof the German-Japanese negotiationsaround the formation of the "Anti­Comintern Pact," extensive informa­tion on the Japanese invasion of China.and in the last months before his arrestreports that Japan would attack theUnited States in December 1941. or inany case no later than January 1942.Sorge admitted his spy acti\ities. hopingthat the Soviet government would cometo his rescue: his hopes were dashed andhe \\as finall\ executed in Nowmhcr1944.

Ignace Reiss

Like Trepper. Rado and Sorge.Ignace Reiss had been a communistmilitant hefore joining the Sovietintelligence apparatus. But although heworked for a longer period in thevarious espionage services, he alone hadthe courage and political vision to breakwith Stalin while remaining true to his

safely to France (where he learned thathis entire family had perished in thedeath camp of Auschwitz).

Richard Sorge

One of the strengths of the RedOrchestra was the fact that its keycomponents were dedicated revolution­ary militants with long common person­al ties and work. This gave the membersa sense of each other's style. extremelyvaluable in clandestine conditionswhere maintaining contact was the firstand most difficult task, but it was also aweakness. Once the first arrests weremade. because of their intimate rela­tions (i.e., the lack of rigid compartmen­talization) some of those who brokeunder torture-an inevitable occur­rence--knew too much and opened thewhole network to exposure. This failingwas even more pronounced in theOrchestra's vital Berlin group wherethere was a total confusion offunctions.

In this respect the "Red Troika" was amore professional espionage apparatusand also more successful in with­standing the enemy's pressure. But themost effective Soviet spy operation ofthe World War II period was thatheaded by Richard Sorge in Japan.which operated from 1934 to 1941.Sorge's brilliant analyses and carefullycultivated circle of friends at the highestlevels of the German embassy andJapanese government not only pro­d uced precisely accurate informationabout "Operation Barbarossa," but alsoled to the conclusion that Japan wouldnot attack the USSR in 1942-a vitalfactor permitting the Red Army to

CitadeL" whose aim was to take Kursk,was reported on by "Lucy" in greatdetail. When it was finally launchedafter much delay in July 1943, the RedArmy already had a precisely workedout counterplan:

'" n the spring of 1943 we got hold of-­thanks to the brilliant work ofSoviet in­telligence--a quantity of importantdata about the grouping of Germantroops preparatory to the summeroffensive.... · On the basis of theseconclusions we worked out our plan forthe battle of Kursk.... First the Soviettroops wore down the enemy in defen­sive engagements; then. switching to theoffensive. they smashed the enemy armygroups in pieces."

-Grigory Zhukov, Memoirs andReflections

While the German army fell backbefore the Soviet offensive, the Gestapointensified pressuie against Rado, whowas forced into hiding. His second incommand, Alexander Foote, was raidedby the Swiss police during a transmis­sion--as they broke in the door hemanaged to smash the radio with ahammer, while burning telegrams with acandle's flame. But with the Nazis nowclearly losing the war and due to Swi~s

neutrality. the fate of the members of the"Red Troika" was not the same as thoseof the Orchestra. Foote and others wereeventually released and Rado made it

The Lubianka, headquarters of the GPU.

had been no troops at all there, and thensuddenly they attacked in such strengththat they made a decisive difference."

Soviet troops finally broke throughthe German positions in the north inJanuary 1943, 'relieving Leningradwhich had been besieged for 18 months.The Wehrmacht, put on the defensivefor the first time on the eastern front,began construction of the "Ostwall," aline of strong fortifications in the Balticstates. However, the "Red Troika"managed to obtain and transmit plansof this defensive line. Hitler's lastoffensive against the USSR. "Operation

cooperation of highly placed elements inthe German bourgeoisie, just as in thecase of the Harnack/Schulze-Boysengroup in Berlin. The Swiss network'smost important coup was its connectionwith Rudolf Rossler (codenamed"Lucy"), formerly a left-liberal Germantheater critic who fled to Switzerlandafter the Nazis came to power. He joinedSwiss intelligence and developed a webof informants in the Wehrmacht andLuftwaffe commands and the foreignoffice, while feeding his information tothe USSR via Rado. To this day theexact sources of "Lucy's" informationare unknown.

As massive battles raged on the Donand Volga steppes from July 1942 toFebruary 1943. Moscow was receiving asteady stream of data from the Swissnetwork on the strategy and state of theGerman forces. "Lucy" told the centerthat the Wehrmacht's flank was unpro­tected on the "Black Fields" southeast ofStalingrad and it expected no attackfrom this quarter. That was then chosenas the very area from which the RedArmy launched its November 1942counteroffensive. Marshal Zhukov citesthe former German chief of operationalstaff. General JodI. as saying: "We hadno idea of the strength of the Russiantroops in this r"gion. Previously there

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Rado, a Hungarian communist who hadbeen trained as a cartographer, hadestablished the network for the FourthDepartment. Rado had served as apolitical commissar in the army of BelaKun's Hungarian Soviet Republic at theage of 19. His wife, Helen Jansen, hadtaken part in the 1919 Spartacusuprising in Berlin, providing fire coverfor her comrades as they left theCommunist Party headquarters, andlater fought with the Red Army inputting down the Kronstadt mutiny. In1935 Rado was approached by theFourth Department and began hiscareer as an officer in the Sovietintelligence service.

Rado's memoirs (Codename Dora:Memoirs of a Russian Spy, London:Abelard. 1977) detail the work of the"Red Troika" in providing the RedArmy with information which provedcrucial in the battles of Stalingrad andKursk, the turning points of the war onthe eastern front. The book points outthat the Troika's information was ofsuch high quality because it obtained the

A review of: The Great Game, byLeopold Trepper; The RedOrchestra, by Gilles Perrault;Our Own People, by ElisabethPoretsky; Codename Dora: Me­moirs oj a Russian Spy, bySandor Rado.

As the Red Orchestra was beinghounded by the Sonderkommando,other Soviet networks assumed corre­spondingly greater importance. Themost significant of these was the Swissnetwork which the Gestapo referred toas the "Red Troika" for its threetransmitters. Soviet intelligence hadmaintained an independent operation inSwitzerland since the late 1930's, but itsvital work took place in 1942-43 asTrepper's Belgian and French groupswere smashed. In December 1942German counterintelligence learnedfrom an arrested member of the RedOrchestra the code of the Swiss networkand the scope of its information. Butbecause of Swiss neutrality it was unableto wipe out the group directly, onlymanaging to cripple it in 1944.

Under the cover of the "GeopressMap Publishing Company," Sandor

PART20F2

Ignace Reiss

Leninist convictions. After 18 months inPilsudski's prisons for his militarvinformation gathering in 1920. he mad~his way to Germany where he participat­ed in military preparations for theabortive 1923 uprising. Following thatfailure he spent several years in Vienna.Prague and Amsterdam. returning toMoscow in 1927 to receive the Order ofthe Red Hanner for his work.

In 1929. as the Stalinist bureaucracywas continuing to consolidate its hold o~the Soviet state apparatus. Berzin.sensing that despite his credentials as anOld Bolshevik his own position wasthreatened, began to shift some of histrusted associates out of the line of fire.Reiss. for example. spent the next threeyears in the archives section of theFourth Department. During this time.he could not help but notice the degener­ation of the revolution and the straitjack­eting of the party and Soviet society.When Berzin suggested he considertaking a Comintern assignment, Reissresponded to his wife's reminder that hehad always wanted to return to partywork: "What party work? What party?There are no parties any more, there isnot even a Comintern." In Our OwnPeople, Elisabeth Poretsky, Reiss'swidow, described those grim years from1929 to 1932, when friends began todisappear. stories of arrests and execu­tions came closer and closer to home andReiss and his circle sought to escape fromthe vicious corruption of everythingBolshevism had stood for. Explainingwhy her husband refused to work for theComintern, Poretsky explained:

"He knew it would mean involvement inthe inner party struggles that were thentearing the international Communistmovement apart. Ludwik [Reiss's pro­fes~ional name] was not a Trotskyite, onmany points he disagreed with Trotsky,but like all old party members he couldnot conceive of a Communist move­ment without Trotsky ... since the vi­cious anti-Trotsky campaign, whichhad continued after his expulsion fromthe party and the country, Ludwikwould no longer feel at home either inthe Soviet Union or in the party."

Eventually Reiss decided to join theNK VD's foreign department, the INO,since it appeared to be the only way toleave the USSR and stay out of the partypurges. It was not an easy decision, forhe not only shared the disdain of theFourth Department for the crudemethods and personnel of the NKVD,but also the fear and hatred widespreadamong veteran communists toward thisbastion of Stalinist terror. The attitudeof Reiss's circle was revealed by hiswife's comments on one of the NKVOthugs:

"Lisa Zarubin was another of those

15 JULY 1977

Simon and Schuster

As Soviet intelligence officer, KimPhilby worked inside Britain's Sec­ret Intelligence Service.

Harper and Row

Richard Sorge headed Red Armyintelligence in Japan.

whom we called 'theirs'-people Mos­cow entrusted with tasks their Europe­an Communist agents, most of themrecruited from the Fourth, would neverhave performed. These were the peoplein the NKVD whom Moscow relied onfor burglaries, kidnappings, and mur­ders. . . . But the particular reasoneveryone avoided Lisa Zarubin wasbecause of the role she had played in thebetrayal and eventual death of JacobBlumkin."'

Blumkin had been a young SocialRevolutionary implicated in the assassi­nation of German ambassador CountMirbach in 1918, who later joined theCommunist Party and GPU. On one ofhis trips he had visited Trotsky atPrinkipo, no doubt out of sentimentalimpulse. Zarubin was assigned to lurehim back to Moscow, playing on aformer love affair. He was shot upon hisreturn.

But despite Reiss's return to westernEurope, there was no escape fromStalinist betrayal. The first MoscowTrial of August 1936-where Zinoviev,Kamenev, I. N. Smirnov, Mrachkovskyand 12 other defendents were sentencedto death and shot-forced Reiss to facepolitical reality. He and Krivitsky,another of the top NKVO residents inEurope, met repeatedly for agonizedprivate discussions. Krivitsky equivo­cated, alternating between despair andhope, and several times talked Reiss outof an open break. His main argumentaside from technical difficulties was thehope that the Spanish revolution wouldtriumph and break Stalin's strangleholdover what had become the "Stalintern."

Reiss considered his work during thisperiod, supplying arms to RepublicanSpain from private and governmentalsources in Europe, a vital task. But by1937 it had become obvious that Stalinalso viewed a revolutionary victory inSpain as a threat. Reiss determined thento refuse to return to Moscow and todisobey orders to spy on anti-Stalinistleftists in Spain. InJuly 1937 hewrote hisletter to the Central Committee of theCPS U denouncing Stalin and openlyallying himself with the Fourth Interna­tional (see box in this issue).

While he sent off his letter, returningwith it his Order of the Red Banner,Reiss refused to make his break publicuntil he felt he had a secure hiding place.But it was not possible to hide fromStalin's assassins-it would have beenfar better, as Trotsky wrote later, to seekmaximum publicity so as to make it toocostly for the NKVO gangsters toassassinate him. For this error Reisspaid with his life, and his bloody corpsewas discovered beside a country roadnear Lausanne, Switzerland in Septem­ber. During the following months hisfriends in Moscow disappeared one byone. Krivitsky finally bolted to the West,but became linked up with anti­Communist circles· and died in aWashington. D.C. hotel room.

The "Reiss Faction"

In his courageous break from thebureaucracy, Reiss stands out as anexception to those like Trepper whotried to evade the essential politicalquestion of Stalinism. As Stalin'ssabotage of Soviet defense which madepossible the initial successes of theGerman invasion in June 1941 sographically underlined, the real defenseof the Soviet Union was a relentlessstruggle to oust the parasitic cliquewhich had usurped power. But in hisdilemma, his inner struggle, Reiss wassymptomatic of a broader layer. Trot­sky wrote, "We may assume withcertainty that in the ranks of thebureaucracy there are quite a numberwho feel as Reiss did. They havecontempt for their milieu. They hateStalin. And, at the same time, theyendlessly toil on and on" ("A TragicLesson," September 1937).

In the Transitional Program, Trotskygeneralized this further, noting that inaddition to a right-wing, ultimatelycounterrevolutionary and fascist wingof the bureaucracy (the "Butenko

faction"), there was also a left wing (the"Reiss faction") that would break fromthe bureaucracy under the impact oftremendous social struggles.

"If tomorrow the bourgeois-fascistgrouping, the 'faction of Butenko,' so tospeak, should attempt the conquest ofpower, the 'faction of Reiss' inevitablywould aiign itself on the opposite side ofthe barricades. Although it would finditself temporarily the ally of Stalin, itwould nevertheless defend not theBonapartist clique but the social base ofthe USSR, i.e., the property wrenchedaway from the capitalists and trans­formed into state property."

At the time of Reiss's assassination,Trotsky projected the existence of a"Reiss faction" essentially on theoreticalgrounds. This understanding armed theTrotskyists, so that when the workersrose up against the bureaucratic rule­as in Hungary in 1956 and Poland in1970-it was no surprise that largesections of the state apparatus and theCommunist Party simply disintegrated,with many going over to the workers'cause, including highly placed stateofficials (e.g., Colonel Pal Maleter inHungary).

Beyond providing an understandingof the Soviet World War II intelligenceoperations, perhaps the chief virtue ofthe books here being reviewed is therevelation of the actual existence of a"Reiss faction" and vivid portrayals ofits private life. The very existence ofsuch a layer, at the very heart of theSoviet state apparatus, not only refutesbourgeois rantings about Stalinismbeing the necessary result of Leninism. Italso sharply contradicts social­democratic claims that the USSR is"state capitalist." For in no capitalistsociety does it occur that a whole layer ofthe state apparatus is prepared to go overto the workers' side. The existence of a"Reiss faction" of the bureaucracy,located as well in the military andintelligence apparatus. is a result of theessentially "conservative" (in a positivesense) nature of those organs ... and ofthe fact that there is still something of theconquests of the October Revolution leftto preserve.

Soviet Spies in Stalin's Prisons

With the end of World War II, thesurvivors among .these revolutionary­militants-turned-Soviet-spies, their jobaccomplished, wanted to come in fromthe cold. Even in "peacetime" they werehunted men: Rado had been forced toescape from neutral Switzerland andenter "liberated" France clandestinely;Trepper, in turn, was still hiding fromFrench gangsters who had collaboratedwith the Gestapo. Finally, in January1945 both men climbed aboard a Sovietmilitary plane headed for Moscow.With them was ShlyapQ.ikov, theformerleader of the Workers Opposition, whohad left the USSR (with Lenin's aid) inthe early 1920's and was now returningvoluntarily on the basis of a warminvitation from Molotov.

While Shlyapnikov ~as filled withnaive enthusiasm, Rido well knew whatwas in store and managed to escapeduring a stopover in Egypt. Trepperadmits:

"While we were flying toward Moscow,Rado's disappearance obsessed me. Iknew he had performed his missionbeyond all expectations, that he hadnothing to reproach himself for. ... Butprecisely because of his profoundunderstanding of the facts, his r~alism

as a man of learning, he felt that in spiteof the victory, nothing had changed inthe kingdom of the OGPU ....''The truth Rado perceived did nolstrike me with its blinding truth untillater. I was too naive. I believed thatnow that the fighting was over, theterror would cease, and the regimewould evolve."

The "Big Chief," who had outwitted thecombined resources of the Third Reich,walked into a trap. Instead of relatives,friends and former associates on hand togreet him in Moscow there were onlyofficials of the NKVO. When it becameclear that Shlyapnikov had been arrest­ed, Trepper was filled with disgust at the

continued on page lJ

1

Soviet Spies...(continued from page 7)shabby trick played on the Old Bolshe­vik trade unionist: "He had beenexpecting Molotov's car; instead, he wasmet by a police car, which drove himstraight to Lubianka."

The "Big Chief' told his NK VD"colleagues" that he wished to return toPoland, but only after talking with thedirectors about the terrible mistakesmade by the center which led to thedemise of the Red Orchestra. Thesecertainly warranted a thorough review:the Belgian group had fallen becauseMoscow insisted on broadcasts of fiveto six hours a day, allowing theSonderkommando plenty of time tolocate the transmitter with its trackingvehicles; and the key HarnackjSchulze­Boysen network was smashed as a resultof a telegram from Moscow to Kentcontaining the names and addresses ofthe three main leaders of the Berlingroup! But Trepperwas never allowed tomake his indictment before the directors.

Instead, he was sent to Lubianka forbeing "so interested in the past." ThereTrepper was subjected to gruelinginterrogation, threats against himselfand his family (which knew nothing ofhis whereabouts) and endless demandsthat he confess his "crimes against theSoviet Union." It was not even becausehe could prove how Stalin nearlywrecked the USSR's defenses that hewas being held, but because he had beenpart of Berzin's Fourth Department andhad escaped the purges by being abroad.Trepper and his associates were threat­ened with the same fate which met

returning Communist veterans of theSpanish civil war, who were jailed andshot because they knew too much andmight have been infected with anti­Stalinist ideas. This was a mopping-upoperation of the Great Purge.

Any possible doubts as to the reasonfor his imprisonment were removedduring a brief interview with GeneralAbakumov, Stalin's minister of securi­ty. Attacked for the large number ofJews in the Red Orchestra, Trepperproudly replied that there were fightersfrom 13 nationalities in the network andthe onlycriterion for' selection was "thedesire to fight Nazism to the end."Abakumov did not reply, but insteadwent to the heart of the subject. "Yousee." he said, "there are only two ways tothank an agent in the IntelligenceService: either cover his chest withmedals, or cut offhis head. Ifyou hadn'tworked with that gang of counterrevo­lutionaries~Tukhachevski, Berzin, andso on-you would be a man laden withhonors today; but you went about it insuch a way that you're good for nothingbut a prison cell." Jail, Abakumovclaimed cynically, was a protectionagainst the imperialist secret serviceswhich would try to seize the head of theRed Orchestra.

Trepper spent almost ten years inStalin's prisons. There he met Klausen,Richard Sorge's radio operator, whoafter long years in Japanese prisons wasarrested immediately after returning tothe Soviet Union. He also encountered aJapanese general, captured in Manchu­ria, who had been vice-minister ofdefense at the time Sorge was arrested.To the obvious question of why Sorgewas not exchanged (Japan and Russia

were not officially at war until 1945), thegeneral replied that the Japanese gov­ernment had proposed this on threeoccasions to the Soviet embassy inTokyo. Each time it was told that theprisoner was "unknown to us." Trep­per's outraged comment in his memoirswas:

"Unknown, Richard Sorge? When theJapanese papers were full of storiesabout his contacts with the sovietmilitary attache'? Unknown, the manwho had warned Russia of the Germanattack. and who had announced in themiddle of the battle of Moscow thatJapan would not attack the SovietUnion. thus enabling the Soviet fhiefsof staff to bring fresh divisions fromSiberia? They preferred to let RichardSorge be executed rather than haveanother troublesome witness on theirhands after the war."The decision had not come from theSoviet Embassy in Tokyo, but directlyfrom Moscow. Richard Sorge paid forhis intimacy with General Berzin. AfterBerzin was eliminated, Sorge, in theeyes of Moscow, was nothing but adouble agent. and a Trotskyite in thebargain! For months his dispatcheswere not decoded. until the Centerfinally realized the inestimable militaryvalue of the information he had pro­vided. After his arrest in Japan, thedirectors at the Center abandoned himlike a cumbersome piece of luggage;such was the policy of the new team."Moscow allowed the 'unknown' Rich­ard Sorge to be executed on November7, 1944. Since then, Moscow hasproclaimed, proudly, the history ofSorge's work. I am particularly happyto expose this imposture today, and tomake this accusation before the world:Richard Sorge was one of us. Thosewho allowed him to be murdered haveno ril!ht to claim him as theirs."

Also during his time in prison,Trepper met Szulgin, the head of theBlack Hundreds, tsarist gangs who had

specialized in anti-Semitic pogroms. Hispatriotism fired by the Russian victoryin World War II, Szulgin returned fromYugoslavia praising Stalin and lament­ing only that the "general secretary"wasn't a real tsar. Szulgin was releasedwell before the surviving communistmilitants.

Most remarkable of all, during thetime Trepper was held at Lubianka,Heinz Pannwitz, a top SS leader andhead of the Sonderkommando RoteKapelle was held in a nearby cell.Pannwitz had continued the Funkspiel["radio game"] after Trepper's escapeand finally surrendered to the Russiansas Allied troops tightened their nets.Even though Pannwitz was the "butcherof Prague," responsible for the massacreof thousands of innocent Czechs follow­ing the 1942 assassination of Heydrich;even though his version of the GreatGame was exploded by Trepper'sreports; and despite Pannwitz' system­atic murder of the captured RedOrchestra members, in order to coverhis tracks by eliminating witnesses to hisbarbaric activities as head of theSonderkommando, this important Naziwar criminal was freed in 1955 as a resultof an agreement signed with WestGerman chancellor Adenauer. At thetime The Great Game was written Pann­witz was managing director of a bank inLudwigsburg, West Germany, andreceiving a state pension for his SSservice!

The Next Generation

"It's too bad you left the USSR. Ifyou'd stayed, you would have beentaken care of long since," one of his

IGNACE REISS:

"Free Humanity ofCapitalism and theUSSR of Stalinism!"-from Elisabeth Poretsky, Our Own PeaRle (Am, Arbor, 1970)

I should have written the letter I am writing you today a long timeago, on that day when the Sixteen' Were massacred in the cellars of theLubianka on the orders of the 'Father of the People.'

I kept quiet then and I did not raise my voice at the murders thatfollowed, and as a result I bear a heavy responsibility. My guilt is grave,but I will try to repair it, to repair it promptly and thus ease myconscience.

Up to this moment I marched alongside you. Now I will not takeanother step. Our paths diverge! He who now keeps quiet becomesStalin's accomplice, betrays the working class, betrays socialism.

I have been fighting for socialism since my twentieth year. Now onthe threshold of my fortieth I do not want to live off the favours of aYezhov. 2 I have sixteen years of illegal work behind me. That is notlittle, but I have enough strength left to begin all over again. For it willindeed be necessary to begin everything all over again to savesocialism. That fight began a long time ago and I want to take my part init.

The noise that is made about the deeds of pilots flying over the Poleis supposed to drown out the moans and the cries of the victimstortured in the cellars of the Lubianka, in Svobodnaia, in Minsk, in Kiev,in Leningrad, in Tiflis. It will not succeed. The voice of truth is strongerthan the noise of the most powerful engines.

It is quite true that the records of the pilots will affect the hearts ofAmerican ladies and of the youth of two continents intoxicated bysports, much more easily than we will succeed .in conqueringinternational opinion and affecting the conscience of the world. Butmake no mistake, truth will find a way and the day of judgement ismuch nearer than those in the Kremlin think. The day wheninternational socialism will jUdge the crimes committed in the past tenyears is not far off. Nothing will be forgotten and nothing will beforgiven. History is harsh. 'The leader of genius,' 'the Father of thePeople,' 'the Sun of Socialism' will have to account for what he hasdone. He will have to account for the defeated Chinese revolution, forthe red plebiscite in Germany, for the defeat of the German proletariat,for social fascism, for the things told to Mr. Howard3

, for his flattery ofM. Laval 4-all acts of genius.

This trial will take place in the open and many a living and deadwitness will attend it. All will speak and this time will tell the truth, all thetruth. All will testify-those who were slandered and those who wereshot though innocent-and the international workers' movement willrehabilitate them, the Kamenevs, the Mrachkovskys, the Smirnovs and

8

the Muralovs, the Drobnis, Serebriakovs, Mdivanis, and Okudzhavas,Rakovskys, and Andreas Nins5-'the spies and enemy agents, thesaboteurs and Gestapo agents'!

The working class must defeat Stalin and Stalinism so that theU.S.S.R. and the international workers' movement do not succumb tofascism and counter-revolution. This mixture of the worst ofopportunism, devoid of principles, and of lies and blood threatens topoison the world and the last forces of the working class.

What is needed today is a fight without mercy against Stalinism! Theclass struggle and not the popular front, workers' intervention in theSpanish revolution as opposed to the action of committees.

Down with the lie of socialism in one country! Return to Lenin'sinternational!

Neither the Second nor the Third International can carry out thishistorical mission. Corrupt and dislocated, all they can do is to preventthe working class from fighting. They can only be the policemen at theservice of the bourgeoisie. The irony of history! In the past thebourgeoisie provided its own Cavaignacs and Gallifets, its Trepovsand Wrangels6 . Today, under the glorious leadership of the twoInternationals. it is the proletarians themselves who have become theexecutioners of their comrades. The bourgeoisie can attend quietly toits own business: order and peace rule. There are still Noskes andYezhovs, Negrins and Diazs7 . Stalin is their leader and Feuchtwanger8

their Homer.No. I cannot stand it any longer. I take my freedom of action. I return

to Lenin, to his doctrine, to his acts.I intend to devote my feeble forces to the cause of .Lenin. I want to

continue the light, for only our victory-that of tne proletarian revolu­tion-will free humanity of capitalism and the U.S.S.R. of Stalinism.

Forward to new struggles! For the Fourth International!

Ludwik17 July 1937P.S. In 1928 I was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for services tothe proletarian revolution. I am enclosing the decoration. It would bebeneath my dignity to wear an order also worn by the executioners ofthe best men of the working class in Russia. (In the last two weeksIzvestiia has pUblished the names of those who have received theaward. Their achievements have been discreetly kept quiet: they arethe men who have carried out the death sentences on the oldBolsheviks.)

1. The 16 Old Bolsheviks tried in Moscow in August 1936 and subsequently executed.2. Nikolai I. Yezhov, appointed head of the NKVD by Stalin in 1936 to carry out the first wave of

purges, then purged himself in 1938 and shot.3. The American press correspondent Roy Howard, who interviewed Stalin in 19354. Pierre Laval was the French foreign minister who negotiated the Franco-Soviet Pact of 1935 and

later served as head of the pro-Nazi Vichy government in World War II.5. Kamenev, Mrachkovsky and Smirnov were tried and execL:.ted in August 1936, Muralov, Drobnis

and Serebriakov in January 1937, and Mdivani and Okudzhava in July 1937. Rakoysky, arrested atthe end of 1936, was not tried until 1938. Andreas Nin, political secretary of the Spanish POUM.was arrested In Spain in June 1937, tortured and murdered by the Stalinists.

6 Cavaignac was the French general responsible for suppression of the Parisian workers during theJune Days of the 1848 Revolution. Gallifet was responsible for the massacre following the defeat Ofthe Paris Commune. Trepov, governor-general of SI. Petersburg. led counterrevolutionary forcesIn the 1905 Revolution, while Baron Wrangel was a leading White general in the Russian Civil Warof 1918-21

7 Juan Negrin was a right-Wing Socialist who headed the Spanish Popular Front after the May Daysof 1937; Jose Diaz was head of the Spanish CPo Both men were responsible for the bloodysuppression of the left from 1937 on

8. German novelist Leon Feuchtwanger, whose book Moscow 1937 slavishly glorified the Stalinregime and justified the Moscow trials.

WORKERS VANGUARD

interrogators told Leopold Trepper.And when the "Big Chief' refers to "us,"he was speaking of that layer of veteranmilitants from the 1920's who, becauseof the importance of their work, werepassed over by the Stalin purges. By theend of World War II, this layer had beenlargely expunged from the Soviet stateapparatus. Another of Trepper's exam­iners, who was thoroughly familiar withthe history of the Red Orchestra, hadextreme difficulty comprehending howa network could be built with so fewprofessional intelligence personnel. Thenew generation of Soviet spies was madeup of decidedly different human materi­al. This was particularly true of theRussian agents, now the overwhelmingmajority, who were essentially police­men and bureaucrats.

But even among those who joined theSoviet intelligence service of the 1930'swhen Stalin's domination was solidlyestablished, the spark of ideologicalcommitment was not altogether absent.This can be seen in the case of the manwho was described by longtime CIAdirector Allen Dulles as "the best spy theRussians ever had": Kim Philby. In theintroduction to his memoirs (My SilentWar, New York: Grove Press, 1968),Philby justifies his decision to continuehis Soviet spy career "when some of theworst features of Stalinism becameapparent":

"It seemed to me, when it became clearthat much was going badly wrong in theSoviet Union, that I had three possiblecourses of action. First, I could give uppolitics altogether. This I knew to bequite impossible.... Second, I couldcontinue political activity on a totallydifferent basis. But where was I togo? ... I saw the road leading me into thepolitical position of the querulousoutcast ... railing at the movement thathad let me down. at the God that hadfailed me...."The third course of action open to mewas to stick it out. in the confident faiththat the principles of the Revolutionwould outlive the aberration of individ­uals. however enormous. It was thecourse I chose...."

Philby, the son of an eccentric Britishdiplomat-explorer, was recruited towhat he took to be communism while anundergraduate at Cambridge, an experi­ence common to many left-wing Britishintellectuals in the 1930's. Instead ofjoining the Communist Party, he cameinto contact with the Soviet intelligenceservice and soon after became a militarycorrespondent for the prestigious Lon­don Times with Franco's forces inSpain. Managing to get himself invitedto join Britain's Secret IntelligenceService (SIS), Philby rose meteoricallyin its ranks while fulfilling his duties as aSoviet intelligence officer. There was noquestion as to his qualifications: he wasa charming drinking companion, a loyaland sentimental friend, a careful andconscientious intelligence analyst and aman of civilized liberal convictionswho stayed out of intra-bureaucraticsquabbling-except once, in 1945, whenhe skillfully engineered the removal ofthe director of the SIS counterintelli-. ~

gence department and gained as hisprize the directorship of section IX,whose target was Soviet and Commu­nist intelligence activities!

Pursuing his promising career inBritish intelligence, Philby was postedfor a period to Washington, where heserved as liaison officer to the FBI andCIA. There he obtained informationabout British-American air drops ofagents into Albania and the Ukraine,and doubtless much more. But it was athreatening period of. witchhunts, asPhilby was well aware. "It was the era ofMcCarthy in full evil blast," he writes."It was the era of Hiss, Coplon, Fuchs,Gold, Greenglass, and the braveRosenbergs-not to mention otherswho are still nameless." J. EdgarHoover expressed to Philby his disdainfor McCarthy. but Philby's evaluationof the FBI director was equally negative:

"Hoover did not catch Maclean andBurgcss: he did not catch Fuchs, and hewould not have caught the rest if theBritish had not caught Fuchs andworked brilliantly on his tangled emo­tions: he did not catch Lansdale; he did

15 JULY 1977

not catch Abel for years, and only thenbecause Hayhanen delivered him up ona platter: he did not even catch me. Ifever there was a bubble reputation. it isHoover's."

Despite his brilliant work, Philbycame near to being caught when two ofhis circle, Burgess and Maclean, boltedtogether from the Foreign Office andsuspicions as to a "Third Man" pointedat him. He was forced to resign from theSIS for several years, but the Britishcould pin nothing on him, and in duecourse he became a correspondent forthe London Observer in Beirut, fromwhich position he continued to workwith the SIS. Then in 1963, when the netfinally began to close around him, heescaped to Moscow, where he re­emerged as a senior officer of the KGB.

Soviet Spies and Stalinist TerrorAgainst the Workers Movement

While the Soviet intelligence appara­tus has successfully combatted itsimperialist counterparts, from the NaziAbwehr to the SIS and CIA, this was byno means the sum total of its work. Theinternal contradictions could be seen,for example, in the conflict between theFourth Department and the GPU.Thus, far from contributing to the causeof proletarian revolution, the activitiesof many Soviet agents have consisted offorcing the counterrevolutionary poli­cies of the Kremlin down the throats ofthe workers movement internationally.Where they have encountered resist­ance, the GPUjNKVDjKGB haveresorted to disrupting anti-Stalinistcommunist movements through provo­cation and physical violence. During themiddle and late 1930's, the NKVD'sforeign operations centered on thisemployment of gangster methodsagainst the Trotskyists and those whocould be amalgamated with them,culminating in the assassination ofLeonTrotsky himself in August 1940.

Among the Stalinist agents targetedagainst the Trotskyist movement wasone Mark Zborowski, alias "Etienne,"whose job it was to disrupt anything hecould. Worming his way into theinternational secretariat of the FourthInternationalist movement he obtainedaccess to confidential correspondence,addresses and meetings, passing thisinformation on to his Kremlin masters.He was implicated in the 1936 theft bythe GPU of part of Trotsky's archives.Having become the closest collaboratorof Trotsky's son, Leon Sedov, whenSedov became mysteriously and violent­ly ill in February 1938, "Etienne" hadhim taken to a Paris clinic run byRussian emigres known to have ties tothe GPU. Several days later Sedov diedunder extremely suspicious circum­stances suggesting poisoning. Twentyyears later, when Zborowski was exam­ined before a U.S. Senate committeehe admitted informing the GPU ofSedov's presence at the clinic, thusconfirming his hideous role in thisStalinist murder. There is also reason tobelieve that he was involved in themurder of Rudolf Klement, the interna­tional secretary of the Trotskyist move­ment, on the eve of the foundingconference of the Fourth Internationalin July 1938.

In contrast, Ramon Mercader, aliasFrank Jacson, alias Jacques Mornard,had a single assignment: kill Trotsky.Befriending the American TrotskyistSylvia Ageloff, he used this relationshipto strike up an acquaintance with theFrench syndicalist leader Rosmer whowas visiting Trotsky in Mexico, andthrough the Rosmers gained access tothe Trotsky household. Meanwhile, aStalinist assassination squad led by thecelebrated Mexican painter Siqueiroshad attempted to murder the leader ofthe Fourth International in a May 1940machine gun raid on his house. Allow­ing a few months for things to calmdown after this failure, Mercader struckon August 20 and finished his grislyassignment for Stalin and the Kremlinbureaucracy.

In contrast to selfless revolutionary

militants such as Reiss, Sorge and themembers of the Red Orchestra, theMercaders and Zborowskis were themost consummately cynical hired as­sassins. (In fact, there is considerableevidence suggesting that it was"Etienne" who tipped off the NKVDconcerning Reiss's movements andwhereabouts, and thus played a key rolein his murder.) With the minds ofmercenaries, they were utterly uncon­cerned about the world-historical mag­nitude of their crimes. The fact that thesecurity organs of the Soviet state hadcome to rely on such murderous robots,filthy scum who could have servedequally well as agents provocateurs forany capitalist secret police, is an index ofthe Stalinist degeneration of the Rus­sian Revolution.

But how can it be that within one andthe same government apparatus, at thevery heart of the military and securityorgans of state power, there can be suchmortal enemies: the Zhukovs andTukhachevskys, the Abakumovs andTreppers, the Zborowskis and Reiss's­the jailers and those who tomorrow willbe their prisoners, the assassins andthose who will be their victims, allloyally working in the interests of theKremlin? The answer is to be found inthe fundamentally contradictory char­acter of the Soviet. deformed workersstate.

Stalin's capture of political power inthe USSR marked the imposition ofiron rule by a parasitic stratum that hadescaped the control of the working class.This bureaucracy sought above all todefend its own privileges. At times thiswould force it to resist encroachmentsor direct attack by one ofthe imperialistcamps, as in World War II. Then theStalinist ruling clique would be forcedto defend-albeit in a partial anddeformed manner-the proletarianproperty base on which its power rests.It was because of this face of thebureaucracy 'that dedicated Sovietintelligence officers could accomplishthe outstanding work that they didagainst the Axis imperialists, although itwas constantly sabotaged by theirsuperiors.

But there is another face of theKremlin as well, that of the stateprosecutor who demands "confessions"for imagined "crimes against the SovietUnion," and of the prison camp guardwho executes jailed oppositionists whilethey sing the Internationale and vow todefend the USSR against imperialistattack. In the service of counterrevolu­tion, this gangsterism against commu­nist opponents extended to every levelof the Stalinist movement. Thus Trep­per was assigned to break up Trotskyistmeetings in the Paris left Jewish milieuin the early 1930's, and Reiss's widowreports. he was ordered to direct hisactivities toward repressing a "Trotsky­ite Fifth Column" in Spain in 1937.

"The Trotskyites Can Lay Claimto This Honor"

Running through the several booksreviewed in this essay is a strong elementof tragedy. "I belong to a generationthat has been sacrificed by history,"wrote Trepper in the epilogue to hisautobiography. Elisabeth Poretsky'saccount of her husband and his com­rades takes its title from the warninggiven her by an old friend in Moscow in1929: "Either the enemy will hang us orour own people will shoot us." And, infact their lives were tragic, they weresacrificed by history, their own peoplewere their worst enemies. This is whatTrepper refused to face until he waslocked up in the Lubianka.

Perhaps the most poignantexpression of the dilemma of this layerof the Soviet bureaucracy, what we havereferred to in political shorthand as the"Reiss faction," was a fictional accountby Victor Serge in his novel The Caseo!Comrade Tulayev:

"Nothing remains for us, then, but to goon serving nevertheless, and, if we aremurdered. to submit. Would ourresistance do anything but make badworse? If-as they could have done at

any instant -a Bukharin. a Piatakovhad suddenly risen in the dock tounmask their poor comrade lyingthrough their last hours by command,thc fraudulent prosecutor, the abettingjudges, the double-dealing inquisition,the gagged Party, the stupid andterrorized Central Committee, thedevastated Political Bureau, the Chiefridden by his nightmare-what demor­alization there would have been in thecountry, what jubilation in the capitalistworld. what headlines in the fascistpress! 'Read all about it-the MoscowScandal, The Bolshevik Sink, The ChiefDenounced by his Victims.' No, no-­better the end, any end."

Was there no alternative? Trepper'smemoirs contain an insightful passagewhich goes to the nub of the issue. Tothe question "Who did protest at thattime?" he writes:

"The Trotskyites can lay claim to thishonor. Following the example of theirleader, who was rewarded for hisobstinacy with the end of an ice-axe,they fought Stalinism to-the death, andthey were the only ones who did. By thetime of the great purges, they could onlyshout their rebellion in the freezingwastelands where they had beendragged in order to be exterminated. Inthe camps, their conduct was admir­able. But their voices were lost in thetundra.~'Today, the Trotskyites have a right toaccuse those who once howled alongwith the wolves. Let them not forget,however, that they had the enormousadvantage over us of having a coherentpolitical system capable of replacingStalinism. They had something to clingto in the midst of their profound distressat seeing the revolution betrayed. Theydid not 'confess,' for they knew thattheir confession would serve neither theparty nor socialism."

"But their voices were lost in thetundra." In Trepper's view, then, theTrotskyists were just as tragic as hiscomrades. This, also, is the view of IsaacDeutscher whose three-volume biogra­phy of Trotsky could have been entitled"The Prophet Doomed." (Not surpris­ingly, in the post-Stalin "thaw"Deutscher developed illusions thatStalinism could be overcome by forceswithin the bureaucracy-which wasexactly the hope which guided Trepperand his comrades. Everything in thehistory of the Red Orchestra demon­strates over and over that this hope wasin vain.)

Trotsky wrote repeatedly in his lastyears that it was not possible to assurethe defense of the Soviet Union bycontinuing to follow orders:

"The Fourth International can defendthe USSR only by the methods ofrevolutionary class struggle. To teachthe workers correctly to understand theclass character of the state ... enablesthe workers to draw correct practicalconclusions in every given situation.While waging a tireless struggle againstthe Moscow oligarchy, the FourthInternational decisively rejects anypolicy that would aid imperialismagainst the USSR."... Only the world revolution can savethe USSR for socialism. But the worldrevolution carries with it the inescap­able blotting out of the Kremlinoligarchy."The Kremlin has on again revealeditself as the central est of defeatism.Only by destroyi this nest can thesecurity of the U SR be safeguarded."

-"Manifesto of the FourthInternational on theImperialist War and theProletarian Revolution," May1940

This is the fundamental truth whichthe "critical Stalinists" and capitulatorsfailed to grasp. As the Left Opposition­ists proclaimed this in front of Stalin'sfiring squads, it was not just the tundrathat listened. A new generation ofTrotskyists will be and is being forgedthrough learning the lessons whichthose courageous revolutionaries de­fended with their lives. That is why theTrotskyists were nottragic figures, andthose who remained silent or "howledwith the wolves" were. But when theSoviet working class rises up to expelthe Stalinist bureaucracy, they willremember the vital work done by theheroic Soviet spies, the martyrs of theRed Orchestra and their comrades. Norwill they forget the infamy of theZborowskis and Mercaders and theirmasters. To each his due.•

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Kent State...(continued from page 12)violence the state itselt had perpetrated!

Thus on July 6 the Akron BeaconJournal came out with an article aboutthe protest which said:

"SYL [Spartacus Youth League] mem­bers said they are committed to thesame cause as the peaceful protestersbut preferred to use force to make theiropinions known. Students who havelived peacefully on the site for weeksverbally berated the SYL in debateswhich nearly came to blows. SYLmembers left within about two hoursvowing to return daily."Coalition members said the SYLattempts '-to provoke confrontationcould be handled by theirown trainedmarshalls.... However, university offi­cials have expressed doubt that coali­tion members can handle a largedemonstration including outsiders andhave warned against bringing largenumbers of supporters to join theprotest when removal begins."

In a leaflet distributed on the campusJuly )0 the SYL denounced the incredi­ble hypocrisy of Kent State presidentOlds and the Akron Beacon Journalwho attempt to scapegoat the SYL whilethemselves preparing at that verymoment to mount an attack against thestudents. The SYL leaflet said:

"The real provocateurs are those con­spiring to mount an attack (what theycall 'removal') against Kent Statestudents protesting the adminstration'sattempts to bury the memory of the1970 shootings. It is the police and theNational Guard who are the perpetra­tors of violence; the armed force of thebourgeois state which slaughtered theVietnamese workers and peasants,aided and abetted Pinochet's seizure ofpower in Chile and murdered BlackPanther leaders Fred Hampton andMark Clark in their beds...."But the attempt to smear the SYL byraising the spectre of indiscriminateterror and violence will not work. TheSYL and the SL have a long anddocumented history of opposing provo­cation and self-defeating adventurism."

Initially a number of the more naivestudents were taken in by the AkronBeacon Journal slanders which were,moreover, picked up by RevolutionaryStudent Brigade (RSB) members in theCoalition who were looking to fuel theirown campaign of cop-baiting the SYL.But by the very next day the entire May4th Coalition (the RSB grudginglyincluded) had been won to the need todefend the SYL when a second Akron

. Beacon Journal article July 7 accusedthe whole Coalition of "violence"because it had shouted down presidentOlds earlier in the day when he tried toco-opt a demonstration in front of hisoffice..

By late last week the University wasrapidly escalating its tactics. On Thurs­day, July 7, three Coalition l11emberswere first savagely beaten, then arrestedfor "trespassing" by the campus cops.On Saturday the Administration issuedits first warning on the tent city andprepared to seek an injunction againstit. On Monday, July II, the injunctionfor an 8 a.m. July 12 deadline wasissued.

At a mass meeting Monday evening,the protesters debated whether or not toget busted. While the RSB claimed thatcourting arrest was a continuation of its"offensivp" t:wtics, the SYL insisted that

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this gesture was instead the culminationof the defeatist overall strategy of TentCity. While the SYL has been among thehardest fighters in the campaign to stopconstruction of the gym, it has insistedthat the masses of Kent State students,teachers and campus workers be mobil­ized to force the ROTC and militaryrecruiters off campus.

But the protesters votedoverwhelmingly to get arrested and by 8a.m. Tuesday there were 200 peoplewaiting on the site to be arrested.Nearby 400 others -including the SYL,members of other groups, independents,faculty members and clergymenprotested the impending round-up. Thepolice meticulously moved in, arrestingfirst the parents of the martyred students(who have been active in the campaign tostop the gym), then. 35 individualprotesters, then the bulk of the groupwho stood with arms interlocked in apassive-resistance stance. As they werecarried out they chanted, "The PeopleUnited Will Never be Defeated," "LongLive the Spirit of Kent and JacksonState," and "Four People Dead,Rhoades Goes Free, That's What theRich Call Democracy." The SYLstarted

. up the chants "Cops Off Campus" and"Jail the Killers ofJackson and Kent"­two slogans which were soon widelypicked up.

After the arrests, mounted policecame up in a show of force and orderedthe group of protesters to leave. Thecrowd initially refused until one of theCoalition lawyers got them to leave bythe incredible argument that if theystayed he would also have to stay anddefend them, which would prevent himfrom getting the arrested out of jail!

Much of the crowd then left, but laterabout 60 people, including the SYL,went down to the Court House where apicket line was set up. Here the SYLchanted "Free the 194, Drop AllCharges Now," and "Cops OffCampus,Move the Gym." At press time a massmeeting has being held to decide uponfurther action.•

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Dockers...(continued from page 3)attack on the whole union, as the"Longshore Militant" notes:

"PMA provoked this strike as part of itsdivide and conquer strategy. It aims torip the fLWU apart piece by piece.Encouraged by the umon leadership'sactive collaboration in slipping supple­ment 3 [which invokes LWOP and theforced transfer provisions] through,PMA is now extending its attacks onthe Longshore Division beyond S.F. toL.A. (and to Portland). By divertingL.A. cargo to S.F., the employers aretesting the solidarity between the portsin hopes of splitting the coast. We can'tlet the bosses break coast-wide unity!"

Furthermore, Local 63 has beensingled out because it has managed tobring new workers into the union at atime when most Locals are sufferingfrom PM A's job-slashing attacks.

The "Longshore Militant" has cor­rectly urged the formation of strikesolidarity committees to enforce the banon handling diverted cargo. In the eventthat company maneuvers make itimpossible to identify the divertedcargo, then a coast-wide shutdown mustbe declared to defend the isolated strike.Such a strike must necessarily take upthe issues facing the union as a whole:the struggle to smash LWOP-typeschemes and the fight for jobs. Centralto this is the demand for a shorterworkshift at no loss in pay, along withthe abolition of the steady mancategory-which is killing the ILWU'sdi~patching halls, a key union gain­and improved manning scales. These aredemands which the "Longshore Mili­tant" alone has been consistentlychampioning.•

SL Conference(continued from page 3)fake-left organizations and their frontgroups (e.g., the International Socialists'"Red Ride") recruit politically rawminority-group youth who sit on thesidelines ofthe party, passively acceptingthe dictates of the leadership or suspi­ciously. sniping at the program withguerrilla-warfare methods which canonly becloud the issues and corrode thedebates. We want to cohere a black cadrecomponent, fully integrated into theleadership of our party as into theranks. The National Conference, wheremany black comrades took an active rolein the documentary preparation and inthe debates, evidenced an increasedunderstanding on the part of the blackcomrades oftheir political responsibclityto their party.

Especially in this _period of relative"labor peace," a program based on theinsistence that the center of gravity ofsocial struggle must reside in the raciallyintegrated workers movement may beseen as abstract." Impulses to elevatework among black ghetto youth to astrategic substitute for a labor orienta­tion, fueled by impatience, can reinforceyoung black militants' subjective identi­fication with the sufferings of their"brothers" outside the organization. Buttrans-class black solidarity, understand­able as the spontaneous response of theblack masses to their most palpableoppression, can have no place inside theranks of an authentic communistvanguard. The sectoralist consciousnessinduced by capitalist society's divisiveinequities is directly counterposed tocommunist consciousness, which from acore of intransigent programmatic unityseeks to extend its tendrils into everylayer of the exploited and oppressed.

The discussion on the black questionat the Spartacist League's Fifth Nation­al Conference marked an important stepin the still incomplete and reversibleprocess of cohering a black cadrecomponent of the Trotskyist vanguardnucleus. Upon this vital process hingesthe SL's ability to root itself among theadvanced layers of the proletariat,particularly the black workers, a keyfuture motor force for socialistrevolution.•

LA. CountyWorkers ...(continued from page 5)

ed to bringing labor's enemies into theunions. County probation officers, forexample, are members of the SEIU. Noless than judges and cops, probationofficers are directly part of the repres­sive state apparatus which seeks topreserve the draconian "law and order"of a decaying capitalist system and mustbe expelled from the labor movement.

Only a vigorously fought strike canparry the blows being inflicted on the­county workers and bring thousands ofnew members into the unions. Butseveral would-be militants active in thecounty unions, including some support­ed by the reformists of the SocialistWorkers Party (SWP) and the Progres­sive Labor Party, have focused on thesingle demand for a county-wide massmeeting to vote on a strike. As in theirmotivation for support to Steelworkersout-bureaucrat Ed Sadlowski, the SWPsubstitutes vague talk of "democracy"for the class-struggle program necessaryto fight the bosses. In this case, the SWPavoids the elementary and criticalnecessity of demanding a strike todefend the interests of the countyworkers.

Militants must certainly fight for themost democratic measures necessary towage their struggle, including authori­tative mass meetings and elected strikecommittees. But the only way to win thestruggle for union democracy is to forgea class-struggle leadership capable ofousting the current pro-capitalist bu­reaucracy. -This necessary leadershipcannot be built by limiting appeals to"democracy" or bread-and-butter is­sues, but must also fight politically, bycalling for a workers party to defeat thebosses' Democrats and Republicansand establish a workers government.

Without such a leadership, the countyworkers, like public employeesthroughout the country, will continue tobe the victimized scapegoats of thecapitalists' fiscal crisis. The unrelentingcutbacks in social services and benefits,meanwhile, will continue to plunge thenation's cities into festering rot. •

CORRECTIONSIn the article "James Earl Ray: The

Unanswered Questions" ( WV No. 162,17 June), we incorrectly reported thatRay pleaded guilty to the murder ofMartin Luther King at the advice of hislawyer Arthur Hanes. While Hanes wasRay's original lawyer, he subsequentlyobtained a new lawyer, Percy Foreman,and it was at Foreman's advice that Rayentered a guilty plea.

In WVNo. 161 (lOJune), therewasanomission due to faulty telephone trans­mission in the "Longshore Militant"leaflet printed under the title "ShutDown West Coast Longshore!"The lastparagraph should begin "The Interna­tional and Local leadership have con­stantly tried to trick us into'voluntarily'invoking Sup. 3 and cannot be relied onto run an effective strike. To insureeffective membership direction andcontrol, and a solid coastwide actionthere must be elected strike committeesin every port representing boards. gangs,etc.. and linked up coastwide." Theitalicized words were omitted in thearticle as printed.

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Stearns miners in trench outside union hall at Justus Mine.

"

StearnsStrike...(continued from page 12)

bolster the men on duty. Minersdiscussed both the terrible conditionswhich led them to strike and the vicioustactics Blue Diamond has emploved tocrush their walkout.

Chief among the demands of theStearns strikers, and a norm for UMWAmines, is the establishment of an electedunion safety committee with the powerto pull workers out of dangerous areas.Grim testimony to the importance ofthis demand was given the day before,when four miners were killed a mileunderground in St. Charles, Virginia.The rally observed a moment of silencefor the dead and their families, and, nodoubt miners thought of the twoStear~s miners who have been killed in"accidents" since 1969.

UMWA officials told WVthat the St.Charles deaths were caused by anexplosion of methane gas. The S~ea.rns

miners have good reason to fear similarcatastrophes in the gassy tunnels o.f theJustus Mine. In March 1976, 26 mmerswere killed in Blue Diamond's Scotiamine in a methane explosion.

Court suits filed by widows of theScotia miners have forced Blue Dia­mond's owner, Gordon Bonnyman, totestify on safety conditions in his mi.nes.Indicative of the powerful forces linedup against the miners, Blue Diamond'slawyer is the former governor ofKentucky. Bonnyman baldly stated:"The general organiz~tional str~ctu~e

and manner of conductmg operatIOns IS

the same for each of the coal miningoperations. The Scotia mine operationis typical of Blue Diamond's other co~l

mining operations ..." (quoted III

Mountain Life and Work, July 1977).Indeed, the Stearns mine superintend­ent has conceded that methane detectorson mine equipment are often discon­nected so that production can continueregardless of the danger.

Miners working for the callous BlueDiamond Co. who are not ripped apartin explosions face other deadly hazards.Strikers described having to jump onand off improperly grounded, electri­cally powered mine equipment, beingcareful to keep both feet together. Onefoot on the ground and one on themachine can result in instant electrocu­tion: Cables with 41,600 volts often sagbeneath the ceilings of the tunnels. Theseven-ton vehicles which carry person­nel and equipment are frequentlywithout brakes.

Several Stearns miners told of beingpresent when a federal safety inspectorasked to see the notoriously dangerousone-west section of the Justus pit. Themine superintendent, without blinkingan eye, denied knowing its location! Anumber of workers agreed that aUMWA member could tell that the

15 JULY 1977

Justus Mine was non-union with just aglance at mine conditions.

Gun Thugs, Cops andProvocations

Since last February, when BlueDiamond began importing gun-totinggoons from the Storm Security Service,the picketers have faced a hail of pistol,shotgun, rifle and semi-automatic gun­fire every night, and sometimes in broaddaylight. The small cabin which theminers erected on property they boughtadjacent to the picket line is riddled withhundreds of bullet holes. On June 23, astriker was shot as he walked to his carnear the picket line.

But the strikers are not about to beintimidated, and they know how todefend themselves. They dug trenches,built sandbag fortifications and ex­panded the defenses in recent weeks. Todate, four mine guards have been shot.The night before the Whitley City rally,mine guard Stanley Moore caught a slugin the chest. Miners said that just priorto the shooting they overheard Mooreon a radio telephone call (phone linesinto the mine site are severed and theminers monitor the thugs' calls on theirown radio), instigating his fellow guardsto "Shoot the dog shit out of them."Shortly afterwards, Moore was flat onthe ground and his friends were callingfor an ambulance.

The miners are also prepared to standup to the state police, who haveregularly escorted company officialsacross the picket lines while refusing to"notice" the hundreds of rounds pour­ing down on the picket line. "They're notgoing to run us off from here," oneworker at the site vowed, "There's notenough troopers in the state ofKentucky."

The strikers have also had to put upwith innumerable instances of pettycompany harassment. Miners have hadtheir home phones called by companyprovocateurs every half hour all nightlong. A member of the Stearns Women'sClub, which is patterned on the. Brook­side Women's Club and which hasplayed a promirient role in demonstr~­tions at Blue Diamon<;l's headquarters III

Knoxville, Tennessee, also told WVthatthe company has sent prostitutes ~o thepicket line in an effort to cause dissen­sion in the miners' homes.

For a National Coal Strike!

For a year, the Stearns miners havestood their ground. But the leaders ofthe UMWA have left this fight isolated.At the rally, Harry Patrick pledged that"The United Mine Workers does com­mit all of its resources to this strike."Patrii;k's words were patent hogwash.The most powerful resource of theUMWA is the combativity and solidari­ty of the ranks. But Patrick, n? less.t~an

Miller or Patterson, opposes stnkmgthe coalfields, even when the miners'backs are to the wall.

Two weeks ago, 35,000 indignant

miners walked out over cutbacks in theHealth and Retirement Fund, caused bythe refusal of the employers' BituminousCoal Operators Association (BCOA) totransfer available cash and Miller'swilling compliance. In an attempt tohead off a renewal and expansion of thewildcat when the annual two-weekvacation shutdown ended, Miller hasdeclared the issue "national in scope"and called for re-opening the contract todiscuss the issue.

But Patrick exposed the real desire ofall the UMWA tops when he told WV, "Iwould urge the coal miners to work...."

WV Photo

Harry Patrick (left) being inter­viewed by Workers Vanguardreporter.

Instead of striking, Patrick vaguelysuggested, "There a.re other .ways tohandle this." Incredibly, Patnck evenopposes a strike, which is univ:rsal~y

predicted, when the contract expires III

December: "The union doesn't need astrike." Faced with mounting BCOAattacks on mine safety, the right to strikeover grievances and the ~i.ght to o~gan­

ize, the miners need a militant natIOnalstrike more now than ever. But none ofthe UMWA's bureaucratic contendersare willing or prepared to lead it.

When the vacation period ended,nearly 13,000 West Virginia minersresumed the strike against the benefitcutbacks. But all the UMWA leadershipcould think of was how to vilify thestrikers. Eighty out of 104 local presi­dents in District 17 met in Madison,West Virginia, on July 11 and ~on­

demned the Right to Strike Committee(RSC), which they charged had a handin instigating the renewed walkouts, as"agitators" and "communists." Thelocal officers, worked up into a fury ofred-baiting, mandated the IEB repre­sentative from District 17 to go toWashington to get the International toexpel the leaders of the RSC from t~e

union. Two RSC spokesmen, SkipDelano and Bruce Miller, just~meoffa

one-year suspension for previous wild­cat activity last May.

Miners must oppose this viciouswitchhunt attempt. The politics of theRSC are only a slightly spiced-Upversion of the business-unionist reform­ism of the now-defunct Miners forDemocracy, whose leaders includedMiller and Patrick. The Committee'sundeserved "radical" reputation is beingused as a scapegoat by the fracturedUMWA leadership lashing out at whatit really fears and has been unable tocontrol: the militancy which refuses todie down in the coal fields.

Failure to confront the BCOA'sescalating provocations only fuels thecoal operators' appetites to destroy theUMWA and saps the union's strength.John Cox, the union's director oforganizing, told WV that the cutback ofmedical benefits will further cripple theunion's attempt to organize non­UMWA mines, which account fornearly half the coal produced in the U.S.Three days after the cutbacks wereannounced, the union lost a represen.ta­tion vote in a District 30 mine whichorganizers had expected to win. If thecutbacks are not reversed, more organ­izing defeats can be expected.

The companies' eyes are now on theStearns strike. If the UMWA is beatenback, it will encourage other non-unioncoal companies to hardline it against theunion and reinforce sentiment in theBCOA to dissolve the national contractand bargain on a company-by-eomp~nybasis. The break-up ,of industry-Widebargaining and the UMWA's singlecontract for bituminous coal would be ahistoric defeat, threatening the verybackbone of the union.

UMWA organizers have raised thepossibility of expanding picke~ing ~o

Blue Diamond's other two milles III

southeast Kentucky. Harry Patricksuggested bringing 5,000 miners toStearns for a mass marih. But thesepressure tactics, even ~ implemented,are qualitatively insufficient to halt t~eBCOA offensive behind Blue Dia­mond's union-busting attempts. Anational strike is needed. The miners,repeatedly betrayed by their own "lead­ers " must elect strike committees fromthe'ir own ranks to wage this fight.Failure to forge a class-struggle leader­ship will squander the miners' v.:illi~g­

ness to fight and means the contlll~lllg

deterioration, and possible destructIOn,of the UMWA..

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WfJltNEItS "Ntil/'ltl)

Stearns strikers at sandbags, their protection from company gun thugs at the picket site.

WHITLEY CITY, Kentucky-Fivehundred coal miners, their families andunion supporters rallied here July 8 insolidarity with miners who have been onstrike for nearly a year at the JustusMine in nearby Stearns, Kentucky.After twelve months ofcompany provo­cations, court fines anc; trumped-upindictments, as well as nightly barragesof high-powered gunfire from the hiredthugs of the Blue Diamond CoalCompany, the spirited rally reinforcedthe 160 striking miners in their determi­nation to win a United Mine Workers ofAmerica (UMWA) contract.

Gathered at a wooded campground inlOO-degree weather, the unionistsapplauded solidarity messages andmountain music, sang traditional min­ers' songs updated to blast Blue Dia­mond and its officials and dined on anenormous pot-luck dinner. The firstspeaker was 73-year-old Minnie Luns­ford, a leader of the Brookside Women'sClub which faced down the Kentuckystilte police during the bitter 1973-74,13-month strike in Harlan County.Recalling the history of violent classwarfare in this region, Lunsford said, "Iremember bloody Harlan of the '30's,and Stearns is just like it."

A miner from the Tackett Creek localin eastern Kentucky promised moneyand militants for the Stearns struggle:"If you people here, you brothers, needmen, we got them at District 19. I thinkfor every state trooper they throw inthere, we can throw 25 union men inthere behind them." The InternationalExecutive Board (lEB) representativefrom District 6 in Ohio, Bill Lamb,

brought a $5,000 check for the StearnsRelief Fund, which has helped financial­ly sustain the strikers.

The rally also featured UMWAsecretary-treasurer Harry Patrick, whowas recently defeated in a bid for theunion presidency by incumbent ArnoldMiller in a three-way race which alsoincluded IEB member Lee Roy Patter­son. The possibility of an election rerunas a result of a Patterson protest to theanti-Miller IEB undoubtedly encour-

aged Patrick's presence.During the five-hour rally, hundreds

of issues of Workers Vanguard andSpartacist League solidarity leafletswere distributed and eagerly read by theminers and their families. The SL wasthe first left tendency to publicize theStearns strike; we have consistentlysupported the miners' fight and exposedthe bureaucratic squabbling at theunion's top that blocks effective, nation­wide solidarity strike action with the

Stearns miners. Miller, Patterson andPatrick-who are all equally anti­strike-have busied themselves withclawing and scratching for electoralposition, while the battle in Stearnsraged. Many miners came back for moreWV's and some took small bundles todistribute themselves.

After the rally SL supportersaccompanied about 40 strikers andUMWA backers to the picket line to

continued on page JJ

194 Dragged Off at Kent State

Drop the Charges'KENT, Ohio. July I2-At 8 a.m. thismorning 200 Kent State cops backed upwith a squadron of mounted police fromthe sheriffs office systematically beganto arrest the protesters at Kent StateUniversity's "Tent City." As approxi­mately 400 supporters and observerslooked on, the protesters were carriedoff one-by-one to buses waiting nearby.

In the space of two hours 194 peoplehad been arrested in this manner anddriven to the Portage County CourtHouse in Ravenna where many werekept in the buses for hours until each hadbeen individually taken into the court.charged with contempt, and had bail setat $250 apiece. At press time 125 hadrefused to post bail and are still in jail.

The round-up had been cynicallyprepared ever since the tent city tookshape two months ago. The camp wasan effort by the May 4th Coalition tostop the university from building agymnasium on the grassy hill where in1970 four students were gunned down in

12

cold blood by the National Guardduring a protest against the U.S.invasion of Cambodia.

Throughout recent weeks theuniversity administration adamantlyrefused to stop the construction of the$6-million gym which was clearlyintended to obliterate the memory of themartyred dead. Even while the adminis­tration was offering its phony "compro­mises," such as state "mediat~s" and"double" injunctions, all of which werevoted down by the protesters, it has beensystematically building for the assaultwhich came today.

On July 7 the campus cops attacked.beat up and arrested three Coalitionmembers including Ron Kovic, aparaplegic Vietnam veteran who was ina wheelchair at the time! And even whileit was preparing once again to set uponthe protesters, just as it had shot downthe four students before, the bourgeoisiewas attempting fo smear the left for the

continued on page J0

• WV Photo

Spartacus Youth League contingent at June demonstration on Kent Statecampus.

15 JULY 1977