3 February 1978:~: XS1J_ 191

WfJRltERS ,,1N'(JI1R'25¢No.

~gm, Sadat Summoned to Washington

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hostile demonstrations of Zionists fromthe Sinai settlements and their support­ers, including Gush Emunim, theZionist clerical-fascist group that is thespearhead of many settlements in theoccupied territories and an importantcomponent of Begin's right-wing Likudcoalition.

For Begin's electoral constituency thesettlements are a highly emotional issue.They have been sold to the Israeli publicnot only as an assertion of Biblical rightand Zionist fulfillment, but also as amilitary necessity. An opinion polltaken by the Hebrew University inJerusalem showed 72 percent opposedto the return of northern Sinai settle­ments to Egyptian sovereignty. Toappease his right-wing supporters Beginordered bulldozers into northern Sinaito prepare the ground either for expand­ing existing settlements or buildingadditional ones. An angered Sadatresponded to the presence of Zionistbulldozers on "his" land with: "I do notagree to the presence of a single Jewishsettlement on my land. Let them destroythem."

Instead, in order to outflank Beginand woo his right-wing base, the evenmore right-wing Likud minister ofagriculture Ariel Sharon (whose minis­try has jurisdiction over the "colonies")called for four new civilian settlementsand 20 military Iagricultural posts.known as nahaL~, in the Rafiah district.A general who earned his rank bycarrying out terrorist commando "retal-

continued on page 10

Zionist Settlements in the Sinai

But no matter how little Sadat thinkshe is asking for, up to now it is muchmore than the fanatical Zionist expan­sionist prime minister is willing to give.When Begin returned the Egyptian ra;s'Jerusalem visit, even a vague agreementover "principles" could not be reached.Instead the Sinai, where Israel appearsto be more "flexible," was separatedfrom the more thorny question of a totalNear East settlement including thePalestinians. A "military committee"composed of Egyptian and Israeli mili­tary brass was formed to discuss theSinai and scheduled to meet in Cairo. A"political committee" of Egyptian andIsraeli foreign ministers and the U.S.secretary of state was scheduled inJerusalem to deal with the "principles"of a total settlement.

Even though Begin pledged to returnthe entire Sinai to Egyptian "sovereign­ty." he insisted that the existing settle­ments in the Sinai must remain intactunder Israeli administration and mili­tary protection! Nonetheless upon hisreturn from Egypt Begin was greeted by

linked in some federated arrangement toJordan. Sadat told the Jerusalem Postreporter David Landau that he wouldaccept Begin's plan for West Bank "self­rule" under continued Israeli militaryoccupation and Zionist land expropria­tions if Israel would only promise thatthe Palestinians would "eventually" begranted the right to self-determination(Washington Post, 14 January).

unanimously voted to suspend the Cairotalks.

On the eve of the Jerusalem "politicalcommittee" talks, Sadat moaned aboutthe intransigence of his erstwhile friend,Israeli prime minister Menahem Begin:"Begin gave me nothing. It was I whogave him everything. I gave him securityand legitimacy and got nothing inreturn." As the negotiations dragged onfrom one fiasco to the next, it becameclear that what the Egyptian presidentwanted from Begin would ultimatelyprove to be very little indeed: a phased,though ultimately complete, withdrawalfrom the Sinai Peninsula including thedismantling of Israeli military installa­tions and military/agricultural settle­ments. In addition Sadat asked theZionists to at least pay lip service to"Palestinian self-determination" andwithdraw from the occupied West Bankand Gaza Strip. The latter point wasnecessary in order that Sadat mighthave a fig leaf to hide behind against theaccusation of negotiating a separatepeace at the expense of the Palestiniansand other Arab countries which havelost territory to Israel.

Sadat is as much opposed to anindependent Palestinian state, even ifrestricted to the remnants of the formerBritish Palestine mandate in the WestBank and Gaza, as is Begin, and for thatmatter the U.S. and Jordan. ThereforeSadat, the U.S. and Jordan wouldprobably be satisfied if Israel agreed toend its military occupation of the WestBank and Gaza in favor of having them

Begin and Sadat at Christmas meeting in Ismailia.

More than two months after his spec­tacular pilgrimage to the capital of hisZionist enemy, Egyptian president An­war Sadat's widely proclaimed "peaceinitiative" has yielded only a series ofstalemated and acrimonious meetingsand conferences-plaUQrQU t~~IiPGed ...ural haggling. diplomatic snubs andinsults, intransigent posturing andbeJlicose rhetoric-culminating in therecently aborted "political committee"meeting of foreign ministers in Jerusa­lem. Nevertheless under American pres­sure another round of talks is to takeplace.

On Thursday January 26 U.S.government officials announced thatIsrael and Egypt were close to anagreement on a declaration of principles"for a comprehensive Near East settle­ment." The following day State Depart­ment officials announced that Sadatwould visit U.S. president Carter inWashington on the weekend of 4-5February with Begin to follow in amonth or two. And on Sunday January29 the Israeli cabinet voted unanimouslyto resume participation in the Egyptian­Israeli "military committee" in Cairo,exactly one week after the cabinet had

Bertolucci's"1900"

by Charles Burroughs

FILM REVIEW

SEE PAGE SIX

For the Right to Self­Determination of

Palestinian Arabs andHebrew-Speaking People!

For a Socialist Federation ofthe Near East!

No Reliance on Coleman Young!

Detroit LaborMust Drive Outfoscistsl

WVPhotoSpartaclst League contingent at demonstration against opening of Nazi"bookstore" In DetroIt.

DETROIT--Fascists have been holedup in a bunker on Detroit's Southwestside now for over a month. Seeking afoothold in one of the U.S.'s mostheavily proletarian and black cities, theNational Socialist Movement (NSM)has stocked its "bookstore" with reamsof race hate literature and an arms cacheto fend off mounting demands that theybe driven out. The "White Power"headquarters has been the scene ofnumerous picket line protests sponsoredby various left groups and neighbor­hood residents and the owner of thestorefront is attempting to evict theHitler-loving terrorists. But the failureof Detroit's huge labor unions, princi­pally the United Auto Workers'(UAW),and black organizations to organizemassive and direct actions to kick theNazis out has so far allowed them toremaIn.

Most union leaders have been com­pletely silent about the Nazi headquar­ters since it opened December 17. De­troit NAACP head LawrenceWashington leading a coalition ofClencal groups, deCrIes the presence otthe right-wing terrorists but is con­cerned about their "right" to "freespeech." Washington is advocatingmerely that the schools develop classesto educate children "to understand thehorrors of what the Nazis did" (Michi­gan Chronicle, 21 January). A leadingspokesman of the Detroit ACL U said ina December TV interview that he alsodefends the Nazis' "rights" and thinksthe office is a "useful reminder" of thefascist terror that took millions of lives.Many "community leaders" simply dis­miss the present-day Nazis as a laugh­able lunatic fringe unworthy of seriousattention.

But the fascist killers are no joke.Though they are currently only a smallvile sect. not immediately useful to abourgeoisie which can still exercise itsrule through the mechanism of capitalist"democracy," the stormtroopers seekthe "legitimacy" of a public presence.They want to capitalize on and exacer­bate mounting racial tensions to attackblacks, Jews and union militants and,

WfJ/iKE/IS"6filJ,/l1)Marxist Working-Class Weeklyof the Spartacist League of the U.S.

EDITOR: Jan Norden

PRODUCTION MANAGER Karen Allen

CIRCULATION MANAGER: Mike Beech

EDITORIAL BOARD Jon Brule, CharlesBurroughs, George Foster, Liz Gordon,James Robertson. Joseph Seymour, MichaelWeinstein

Published weekly, except bi-weekly In Augustand December, by the Spartacist PublishingCo., 260 West Broadway, New York, NY 10013Telephone 966-6841 (Editorial), 925-5665(Business). Address all correspondence to:Box 1377, G'p'O, New York, N.Y 10001Domestic 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

ultimately. to carry out genocide.In Chicago, another Nazi outfit has

inflamed racists in Marquette Park.where vicious attacks on black passers­by have made the area a whites-onlylaager. In Detroit, the Nazis openlyproclaim that their office is mainly avehicle to enhance recruitment to theirmurderous plans. In the cracks andcrevices of racist America, faced withthe reality of economic decline, theNazis and Klansmen are sinking theroots today for mass terror in the future,As Spartacist League spokesman JeffWallace explained on the WRIF radioshow "Insight" on January 22, "If thelabor movement lets the fascists getaway with it [maintaining their "book­store"] they will only get bolder andbolder."

Labor Must Act

In the late 1930's and 1940's, UAWlocals and their Flying Squadrons ranfascist groups like the Silver Shirts andstrikebreaking Black Legion out of1v\;ch;ly,n. But today. UAW leadersgrown complacent and legalistic havenot lifted a finger to dislodge the Naziprovocateurs. In some UAW locals,however, pressure against the do­nothing policy is mounting.

The union's largest local, 30,000­member Local 600. is concentrated atFord's River Rouge plant, only a mileaway from the Nazi headquarters.Perhaps it is this proximity whichcompelled Local 600 president MikeRinaldi to denounce the fascist presencein his report to the January meeting ofthe Local's general council. This body,composed of delegates from each of themany plants in the Rouge complex,approved Rinaldi's report calling forunion action against the fascists. Asubcommittee of the Local's Communi­ty Action Program was subsequentlyempowered to decide on further steps.

Militants at Local 600's Tool and Dieand Maintenance and Constructionunits also submitted motions at Januarymembership meetings demandingunion-organized mass demonstrationsto drive the Nazis from their lair. Asimilar call came from members of the7,OOO-strong UAW Local 140 at Chrys­ler's Dodge Truck plant. A motion wassubmitted at Local 140's 8 Januarymembership meeting demanding thatthe local go on record to "smash theNazi threat" and that "the ExecutiveBoard of Local 140 immediately contactSolidarity House and all UAWandother union locals in the Detroit area tomobilize their support in building amass rally and demonstration of labor.left and black. Jewish and other minori­ty organizations within two weeks onthat slogan."

Union members who were at theLocal 140 meeting told WV that Localofficials. reluctant to openly oppose anaction aimed at the despised fascists buteven more reluctant to endorse suchaction. maneuvered to table the motionto the executive board. Local 140members are reportedly organizingagainst the .attempt to let their motion

die in the cobwebbed confines of somebureaucrat's office.

While UAW militants are demandingthat the union mobilize the membershipin decisive action against the Nazis. theUAW hierarchy continues to evade sucha course. Even the committee alreadyestablished in Local 600, which hascalled a public meeting for earlyFebruary endorsed by several UAWlocal officials and community organiza­tions, seems likely to offer little exceptdiversions from the militant fightnecessary to eliminate the Nazi filth.

The general council pledged moneyfor attorneys to pursue legal channelsand Paul Boatin, acting chairman of thecommittee, wants to concentrate on"educating" the community on the evilsof fascism. Boatin is also determined tosquash any attempts to mount moredirect action. In an interview with WV,Boatin highhandedly declared, "I getphone calls by the dozens about am Igoing to propose. as the number oneissue, the picket line. No, I'm not. Ifanybody gets up and makes thatproposal, I'll rule him out of order. Verybluntly and definitely, I'll smash him!"Bureaucrats and their lackeys reservetheir "smashing" for union militants,not the fascist trash.

What Strategy to Fight Fascism?Since the opening of the Detroit

fascist headquarters last month, theSpartacist League has been unique inchampioning the perspective of a broadunited front centered on labor, blackand minority organizations to crush thefascist threat. But most of the left,despairing of the possibility of fightingthe union misleaders in order to involvethe mass working-class organizations inthe anti-fascist fight. look either to thegood graces of the bourgeois state or totheir own meagre forces as a substitutefor such a mass mobilization.

With classic reformist faith in theability of the capitalist state to playa"progressive" role, the Stalinists tradi­tionally appeal to the state to combatand ban the fascists. Thus the Commu­nist Party (CP). which has played norole in any of the anti-Nazi protestmeetings or demonstrations, hailed thecommittee established in Local 600.uncritically reporting that its "maintactical thrust will be through the courtsusing legal redress" (Dai~l' World. 17January).

The Communist Labor Party (CLP),increasingly in the orbit of the CP's pro­Moscow reformism, also calls on thegovernment to "Outlaw the Nazis." Themain activity of the CLP and the DetroitEqual Rights Committee (ERC) whichit dominates has been to circulate apetition urging Mayor Coleman Youngand the Detroit City Council to ban theNazis. But it is Coleman Young, whomthe CLP supported in the last municipalelection, who is maintaining round-the­clock police patrols protecting thefascist lair.

The CLP cynically explains away thecity government's defense of the racistthugs. At a meeting of the ERC onJanuary 9, one CLP spokesman said,

"We know the city council won't doanything, but people have a lot ofillusions." Yet calling on the state to banthe fascists only heightens these illu­sions. Furthermore, government banson "extremists" have always been usedfirst and foremost to attack the left, notrightist groups who, particularly intimes of social turmoil, enjoy theprotection of the bosses and their state.

The CLP may well see its appeals toYoung backfire in its face. At hisinaugural' address earlier this month,Young haughtily responded to demon­strators who were chantirig repeatedly"What about the NazisT': "If you don'tshut up," replied the "progressive" may­or "we'll run you out of Detroit!"

The flip side of this reliance on thestate is the attempt of many left groupsto organize their own demonstrations,divorced from the labor movement andblack masses. Though all of thesegroups have at least some supporters inthe Detroit unions, virtually none ofthem has.fought from within the labormovement against the passivity of thelabor leaders. It is, of course, easier tosimply call a series of small demonstra­tions on the sidewalk outside the Nazioffice than to fight the bureaucrats'stranglehold on the unions. But thisstrategy proves itself ineffective. Ratherthan a strong show of working classpower capable of intimidating theNazis, repeated small protests willembolden the fascists in their determi­nation not to be removed. WhileSpartacist League contingents haveparticipated in several of the largerprotest pickets, we insist that only thepower of the organized labor move­ment, linked to the black and minorityorganizations, can successfully crushthe Nazi pestilence.

Accompanying the substitutionalismof these demonstrations' sponsors istheir sectarianism. Each of the groupsthat has called demonstrations seemsintent on boosting its own anti-fascistcredentials at the expense of a realunited front. The News and Lettersgroup, followers of Raya Dunayevska­ya's "humanism," has organized severalprotests outside the Nazi storefront. TheRevolutionary Communist Party's(RCP) front group, the National UnitedWorkers Organization, then called itsown picket line January 5, drawingabout 50 people. Not wanting to beupstaged, the RCP's arch-rival, theCommunist Party (Marxist-Leninist)and its creature, theJobsorlncomeNowCoalition, staged two even smallerdemonstrations on January 7 and 14.The International Socialists (I.S.) hascalled its own demonstration for earlyFebruary, endorsed by a few of the LS.'friends in the unions.

Bv far the most idiotic exertions havecom'e from the increasingly hystericalRevolutionary Socialist League (RSL).Grasping for a reason for continuedexistence. it has held two demonstra­tions at the Nazi headquarters, where,with a few supporters, RSLers puffedthemselves up and with all their might

continued on paxe II

WORKERS VANGUARD

claim the authority of revolutionarytradition for its reformist policy. In anarticle last 'spring the SWP attackedthose who call for socialist revolution inSouth Africa. claiming that Lenin hadrefuted them in opposing the slogan"Down with the Tsar." Referring to aChicago demonstration against apart­heid terror. the 15 April 1977 Militantcomplained that "a couple of smallgroups with big red banners" thoughtthat the slogan "Black majority rulenow" was "inadequate," instead de­manding: "South Africa must be free -­overthrow the bourgeoisie."

To buttress its arguments againstthese supposed "ultralefts," the articlecited Lenin's famous "April Theses."Writing after the February 1917 revolu­tion. the Bolshevik leader maintained:

'The slogan. 'Down with the War.' iscorrect. to be sure. but it does not takeinto account the peculiarity of the tasksof the moment, the necessity to ap­proach the masses in a different way. Itreminds me of another slogan, 'Downwith the Tsar.' with which an inexperi­enced agitator of the 'good old days'went directly and simply to the village-­to be beaten up."

--"The Tasks of the Proletariat inOur Revolution." April 1917

The Jfilitant concludes that, "Leninbelieved the slogans were correct--thatis. formally true but so what? Theywpre also useless."

So the SWP would have us believethat Lenin considered the slogan "Downwith the War" ultraleft. This is afalsification worthy of the Staliniststhemselves. Lenin did not object to thisvague demand in order to replace it witha treacherous. reformist "Russia OutNow"-or to simply ignore the questionof the war in favor of "specific demands"that the masses "understand and agreewith." He was quite clear that the maintask was the revolutionary overthrow ofthe new, "democratic" regime: "It mustbe made clear that the 'people' can stopthe war or change its character only bychanging the class character of thegovernment," he wrote in "Notes for anArticle or Speech in Defense of theApril Theses" (April 1917). The samebrief outline is even more specific inrefuting the SWP's distortion:

"We must ably, carefully, clear people'sminds and lead the proletariat and poorpeasantry forward, away from 'dualpower' IOwards the full pm';er of theSoviets of Workers' Deputies...."The question is not whether theworkers are prepared, but how and forwhat they should be prepared."

In the wake of the February uprisingwhich overthrew the tsar. the masses

continued on page I I

WV Photo

Newsweek

In opposing the demand "Down withthe Shah" the SWP argues for "draw­[ing] the masses into action against hisregime around specific demands thatthey understand and agree with." This isa bogus argument. Communists are themost determined fighters for the imme­diate demands of the exploited andoppressed, but in the words of theCommunist Manifesto they "disdain toconceal their views and aims." And it isnot as if the "Iranian Trotskyists" wereconcerned here about escaping repres­sion at the hands of the SAVAK (secretpolice) killers. We are talking aboutslogans raised in demonstrations in theU.S. and Europe against visits by thebloody monarchs. The SWP's realmotivation is to attract liberals whoshrink from anything as "bold" asdemanding the overthrow of the royalmurderers.

The SWP is not simply enamoredwith the Shahinshah. In fact, it tries to

Demonstration against November visit of Shah to the White House.

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Shah and family

"The way to bring down the Shah is todraw the masses into action against hisregime around specific demands thatthey understand and agree with....What is the key question inside Iran, asmillions of people see it. is that there areno basic civil and political liberties."

The SWP's perception of the Mao­ists-apologists for the bloody Shah,Richard Nixon, NATO and apartheidSouth Africa--as "ultraleftists" speaksvolumes about the degeneration of theseex-T rotskyists into social-democraticreformism. Our opposition to the Mao­Stalinists, even the "critical" Maoistswho oppose the Shah. is that theyembrace the Menshevik formula of"two-stage revolution"-in which theworking class is bound hand and foot tothe mythical "national bourgeoisie."Trotskyists fight for the program ofsocialist 'revolution in Iran. for aworkers and peasants government; theSWP thinks anything more "advanced"than civil liberties is "ultraleft."

In radical-chic circles these days it hasbecome fashionable to t5k-t5k thetorture and repression unleashed by theShah of Iran. The Village Voice last fallcarried an article called "The BeautifulButchers" debunking the debonair, jet­set image of the Shah and EmpressPahlavi. A few weeks later in a JulesFeiffer cartoon Jimmy Carter is por­trayed advocating "responsible humanrights" and concluding: "For verifica­tion please check with me. Cy Vance orthe Shah of Iran."

But while left-liberals are now feelinga little uneasy about attending swingingparties at the Iranian embassy, anumber of ostensibly socialist groupshave scandalously failed to call for theoverthrow of this bloody reactionarydictatorship. Most notorious are ofcourse the apologists for the Chinesebureaucracy, which has hailed thebutcher Shah as an anti-imperialistfighter because of his opposition to theUSSR. Thus the Communist PartyMarxist-Leninist (formerly OctoberLeague). loyal servant of Peking, rejectsthe slogan "Down with the Shah!" andsubstitutes the multi-purpose anti­Soviet demand "Superpowers out of___" (fill in the blank "Iran.""Angola." etc.).

Most recently the Socialist WorkersParty (S WP), too, has come out into theopen with its refusal to directly opposethe Peacock Throne. This had long beenapparent in demonstrations called bythe various Iranian Student Associa­tions (ISA). where SWPers appear onlyas- supporters for the Committee ofArtistic and Intellectual Freedom inIran (CAIFI). CAIFllimitsitsdemandsto calls for civil liberties in Iran. Theimplicit line is: consistent civillibertari­anism equals socialism. In reality, theSWP is well aware that its liberalslogans have nothing to do with social­ism; their concern is to entice left-liberalluminaries such as Kate Millett orArthur Miller (two participants in aseparate CAIFI picket line outside abanquet for Empress Farah January 12at the New York Hilton) by avoiding theleast hint of "socialism."

The 13 January edition of the SWP'sMilitant printed an interview with an"Iranian Trotskyist" which dots the i'sand crosses the t's: " ... the Maoists raisevery ultimatistic and ultraleft demands.They demand. for instance, that allshould unite on slogans like 'Down withthe Shah.. .'." Ultimatistic? Ultraleft?Feigning innocence, the Militant inter­viewer asks with mock incredulity,"What about the demand of'Down withthe Shah'? Certainly you want to bringdown the Shah's government." ItsIra nian supporter replies:

"Of course. but the question is how todo it. For the ultralefts. the question issettled by shouting 'Down with theShah.' and indulging in wishfulthinking.

"Downwith the·Shah"­SWPSays No

3 FEBRUARY 1978 3

Chicago USWA Local Debates Solidarity with Mine Strike

Toward a JointCoal/Steel Strike'

Steel Militants Demand:Hot- cargo SCab CoalThe/ol/owing resolution was presented to the January membership meetingof US WA Local 65 (U.s. Steel Southworks) in Chicago.

Whereas, the UMWA has become the target of a vicious assault by theBituminous Coal Operators Association (BCOA) aimed at eliminatingunion militancy in the coal fields; and

Whereas, if the BCOA, dominated by the oil and steel trusts, succeeds in itsunion-busting offensive, it will be a crushing defeat for the entire labormovement and threaten similar attacks against every union; and

Whereas, a coal strike can be effective only insofar as it threatens to shut downsteel, and the BCOA offensive relies heavily upon the expectation thatscab coal, augmented by imports, will be able to continuously replenishstockpiles in District 31 and elsewhere; and

Whereas, this fact demands that our union, as an elementary act of classsolidarity, hot-cargo all coal shipments into the mills, and furtherdemands that District 31, as a major steel district and the largest district inthe USW A. take the lead in implementing this policy; and

Whereas, our union has been the target of a massive job-slashing campaignand U.S. Steel has just recently announced plans for future plant closures,sharply posing the need to scrap the EN A and strike industry-wide againstlayoffs: and

Whereas. the close relationship between the steel and coal industry, the factthat the miners' key demand for the unrestricted contractual right to strikeis an urgent requirement for steelworkers chained by the ENA, and thefact that the USWA and UMWA are under attack bvacommonenemvallpoint to the tremendous potential and crucial nece~sity of joint USWAjU MWA strike action; therefore be it

Resolved. that USWA L.U. 65 calls on the District and the International toimmediately implement and enforce the hot-cargoing of all coal shipmentsto the mills, and that our union calls on the railroad, seamen andlongshore unions to halt the movement of coal; and be it further

Resolved. that the local call upon the International to sanction and organize ajoint strike with the UMWA to win the miners' demands and to win forsteelworkers:

a) the elimination of the EN A and all compulsory arbitrationprovisions from the contract-for the unlimited right to strike;

b) the immediate re-instatement of all laid-off steelworkers andthe re-opening of all closed plants, either by the steel companiesor through the nationalization of these plants withoutcompensation:

c) the 30 hour workweek at 40 hours pay with full cost of livingprotection.

Tom Knight. Damon Lewis

organized "opposition" grouping pres­ent opposed the resolution. ExecutiveBoard member Roberta Wood, aprominent supporter of the NationalSteelworkers Rank and File Commit­tee (NSRFC), which is politicallysupported by the reformist CommunistParty. and a supporter of the NSRFClash-up in Local65 called "SteelworkersOrganized for Solidarity" (SOS). rose tooppose the motion. Instead she pro­posed first "finding out what the minerswant steel workers to do in solidarity"!

Coal miners across the country haverepeatedly made clear by their picketingof barges, rail depots, power stationsand coke plants that they want militantsolidarity action to help them save theirunion. Who are the coal miners sisterWood wants to hear from? It can only bethe Miller bureaucracy (which sheuncritically supported in the lastUMWA elections). But Miller's scab­herding in the West and his attemptedsellout of the right to strike in thepresent negotiations have indicated alltoo clearly what he wants steel workersto do-nothing at all. .

When it became clear that very few ofthe "militants" present had the courageof their reformist convictions to openly

WV Photo

During the floor discussion of theKnight( Lewis motion, virtually every

nationalization of bankrupt factorieswithout compensation, smash EN A anddefend the right to strike for all workers.

"Militants" CapitUlate

coal miners go forwc,ird to victory andthe militant tactics which are needed:

"Scab coal. which today accounts for 50percent of the industry, must not beallowed to continually replenish theenormous stockpiles in District 31 andelsewhere. As the most elementarr actof class solidarity we must insist' thatour District and International immedi­ate~I' implement and enforce the hotcargoing of all coal shipments to themills.' The USWA must call on railwavworkers, seamen and longshoremen tojoin in this crucial action. " [emphasis inoriginal]

The pro-capitalist labor bureaucracywould be critically threatened by suchmilitant action. Since their very exis­tence rests on a program of conciliationwith the companies and reliance on thebourgeois state, they are incapable ofleading a determined struggle whichwould inevitably provoke the equallydetermined opposition of the bosses andtheir government. In steel especially,where the Abel/McBride leadership hascodified the no-strike pledge in its hatedExperimental Negotiating Agreement(E~A), solidarity with miners defendingthe right to strike is evidently impossiblewithout exposing and defeating bothwings of the USWA bureaucracy.

For steel workers the UM WA strikeprovides an opportunity to fight againstthe general capitalist offensive whichaffects them directly. in addition todemonstrating solidarity with the min­ers. As the Knight/ Lewis leaflet noted:

.. As the BCOA and the steel trustsprepare a crushing assault against theUMWA, our union remains the targetof a vicious job-slashing campaignwhich has left 60,000 steel workerspermanently unemployed and threat­ened entire communities with virtualdestruction in the wake of plantclosures.... Our union and the UMWAare under attack, and the kev tosmashing this offensive is a joint strikeuntil the demands of both our unionsare won.... Railroad workers. whosecontract just expired and who face aprolonged and government-delayedbattle against a management intent onseverely reducing crew sizes, would be apowerful ally in this fight. If we turn ourbacks on this tremendous potential andallow the trade union bureaucracy tocontinue its policy of conciliation andbetrayal, the entire labor movement willpay."

The leaflet pointed to key demands forsuch ajoint struggle: an end to all layoffsand rehiring of laid-off workers througha shorter workweek at no loss in pay,

l~

In a leaflet accompanying the motionKnight and Lewis noted the centralposition of the steel workers in helping

"Hot Cargo All Coal Shipmentsto the Mills!"

WV Photo

John Chico, Local 65 president atSouthworks.

USWA Local 65 (U.S. Steel South­works mill) a resolution calling for c1ass­struggle actions in solidarity with theminers' strike and for a nationwidestrike in steel against layoffs waspresented by Local 65 members TomKnight and Damon Lewis (see box).The resolution was defeated by theLocal bureaucracy with the willing helpof local fake-militant "oppositionists."

CHICAGO~The brutal union-bustingonslaught of the Bituminous CoalOperators Association (BCOA) whichseeks to deprive 160,000 soft coal minersof the United Mine Workers of America(U MWA) of the right to strike has beenanswered by a militant counteroffensiveon the part of the union ranks. FromUtah to the Appalachians miners haveorganized actions to shut down unor­ganized mines and to prevent themovement of scab coal. This has beenwidely successful despite the betrayalsof the Arnold Miller leadership, whichhas even alldwed'UMWA mines in theWest to remain open, thus orderingunion members to scab on their ownstrike!

The elementary duty of Americanorganized labor is to demonstratesolidarity with the U M WA strike byrefusing to handle scab coal in order tobring pressure to bear on the coaloperators. This task falls particularly onsteel workers and on transport workers.Predictably the pro-company bureau­crats of the United Steelworkers ofAmerica (USWA), Teamsters, NationalMaritime Union and other unions in astrategic position to aid the embattledminers have answered the clear appealof the UMWA ranks for militant aidwith stony silence.

However, in the USW A the cowardlystalling of both the Balanoff/Sadlow­ski and Abel/ McBride wings of thebureaucracy has not gone unchallenged.At a recent membership meeting here of

4 WORKERS VANGUARD

....

Unions Fight for Their Lives in Michig~

Shut Down the Oaldand Pressl

! (

fe, l

JAp

picket lines and shut down the presses.A number of strikers pointed out to WVthat the biggest difference between theirstrike and that of the Washington Postis the greater strength of the labormovement in the Detroit area. TheUAW alone has 30,000 members inPontiac and nearly 300,000 in theDetroit area. But so far the UA Wleadership has only called on its mem­bership to participate cn a boycott of thePress and to cancel their subscriptions.Guild and Pressmen leaders have beencalling for a boycott since last Septem­ber, when their contracts ran out. Butthus far, circulation has decreased byless than 20 percent.

The boycott is precisely the strategythat failed so miserably during the Poststrike. Labor is weakest as dispersed,atomized consumers. Boycotts aresometimes useful as secondary tactics toback up strikes and win sympatheticpublic support. But the real power of theworking class is at the point of produc­tion and on the picket line. With the helpof a few hundred auto workers a day, the

continued on page f f

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Spartacus Youth League Forum

Coal Strike in Danger­What Strategy for Victory?Speaker:

MARK LANCEWorkers Vanguard correspondent in WestVirginia and Stearns, Kentucky

Wednesday, February 8 at 7:30 p.m.GSU Room 315Boston UniversityBOSTONThursday, February 9 at 7:30 p.m.Emerson Room 305Harvard UniversityCAMBRIDGE

manding that they respect picket lines orface disciplinary actions ranging fromfines to expulsion from the union. So farno action has been taken, but it is ofcritical importance that the scabs beexpelled at once from the Teamsters andthe UA W to demonstrate to the waver­ing that strikebreaking will not betolerated in the labor movement. Any­one who does not obey the first rule ofthe trade-union movement, "picket linesmean you don't cross," does not belongin a union.

Against the Press's show of force andwidespread scabbing, the only way tostop the union busting is the mobiliza­tion of labor solidarity to bolster the

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trucks. After one confrontation betweenstrikers and scabs earlier this month,police moved in to arrest seven unionistson charges ranging from feloniousassault to disorderly conduct. Local 13president Don Kummer told WV thatcharges against six of the strikers hadalready been dropped, making clear thatthe arrests were aimed at harassmentand intimidation.

Management has also takenadvantage of the division of the work­force into four small craft unions. Thebiggest obstacle facing the strikers is thecontinued scabbing of almost 200 otherPress employees, members of TeamstersLocal 372 and Local 512 of the Interna­tional Typographical Union. The Team­sters who deliver the papers are mostlypart-timers, many of them housewives.Some are United Auto Workers (UA W)members who distribute papers after ashift in an auto plant. The Teamstershave been scabbing despite the insist­ence of the Local 372 leadership to re­spect the picket line.

Last week the Teamsters Union sentcertified letters to its members de-

UPI

Striking pressmen and reporters of Oakland Prell In Pontiac, Michigan.

eliminated. Rejecting any compromises,the company refuses to budge from itsoriginal take-it-or-Ieave-it "offers,"spurning the unions' proposal ofbindingarbitration and sending letters to allstrikers notifying them that they will befired if they do not return to workimmediately.

The Press's Wackenhut goons backedup by county police have insuredcontinued production of the paper byusing strongarm methods against thepicket line. The guards form humanwedges to shove strikers aside, lettingdelivery trucks and scabs across the line.On several occasions, determined pick­ets have been knocked down by scab

DETROIT-In Pontiac. Michigan twonewspaper unions are fighting for theirlives. Sixty members of Pressmen'sLocal 13 and Newspaper Guild Local22have been on strike for a month againstthe Oakland Press, the Detroit-Pontiacmetropolitan area's third largest daily,which has launched a union-bustingoffensive explicitly patterned on thestrikebreaking tactics of the notoriousWashington Post. Working withoutcontracts for over a year and a half,members of the two unions walked outDecember 29 when the pressmen re­fused to train five non-union employeesbrought in to replace them at their jobs.

The conflict at the Press has beenbrewing since the unions' contractsexpired in September 1976. Manage­ment was determined to drive the unionsout by offering outrageous proposalsthat would have destroyed long­standing union gains. The companydemanded the elimination of job classi­fications and cost-of-living wage in­creases. that workers pay all medicalinsurance increases, a rollback of sickleave benefits, and a reduction inmanning of the presses. Wage increasesof 2 to 3 percent a year would not evenhave matched inflation and manage­ment demanded the unlimited, ungriev­able right to judge the "competency" ofGuild members.

Knowing full well that the unionscould not accept these terms, theOakland Press bosses prepared for thestrike long in advance. One picketer toldWV that management had been recruit­ing non-union reporters, installingshatter-proof windows and televisionsurveillance systems in the pressroom,issuing special identification badges toemployees, erecting barbed-wire fencesaround the company parking lot andstockpiling newsprint. As soon as thestrike began, nearly 100 security guardswere shipped in from the infamousscabherding Wackenhut Corporation,more than the number of strikersinvolved, and scabs were imported fromnon-union newspapers in Kansas Cityand Fort Worth. Texas. For thenegotiations, the Nashville law firm ofKing and Ballow was hired, whosespokesmen at the bargaining sessionsbrag that they have succeeded inbreaking several newspaper unions inthe South.

The ruthless strategy of the Pressmanagement is openly based on theWashington Post strike of 1976. whereseveral unions were literally shattered.Three weeks before the strike began.publisher Bruce Mcintyre distributedan article to department heads on thePost strike along with a memo saying,"We probably will end up with somekind of agreement with the remainingunions where they will simply get firedand walk away .... If the Post experi­ence says anything, maybe it's this:being a so-called union-busting paperdoesn't interfere with greatness." JohnCoots, an associate editor, told one free­lance reporter he was trying to recruit asa scab, "We're out to break the union.They did it at the Post and we're going todo it here" (Detroit Free Press, 8January). The strikers' bulletin quotedCoots in the fourth week of the walkout,"I feel great. We're going to replaceeveryone of them."

The Oakland Press is backed up in itsunion-busting determination by itsparent corporation, Capital CitiesCommunications. which owns seventelevision stations, 12 trade publicationsand six newspapers. Capital Cities ownsboth the Kansas City Star and the FortWorth Star- Telegram at which thenewspaper unions have already been

justify their opposition to the Knight/Lewis resolution, Local 65 presidentJohn Chico cracked the whip to prod hisreluctant "left-wing" houseboys tospeak up. Rising in response to Chico'sappeal, Simon Kent, a supporter of"Breakout," a grouping in the USWApolitically supported by the disintegrat­ing Maoist Revolutionary CommunistParty, opposed the motion, calling onthe executive board to figure out ways ofsupporting the mine strikers. Since theexecutive board's opposition to theresolution was based on the fact that itchallenges Taft-Hartley, the extent oftheir "fightback" is clear to anyone whowants to see.

Only one organized grouping in Local65 bestirred itself to support the class­struggle policies of the Knight/Lewismotion-the tiny Revolutionary Steel­workers Caucus (RSC), politicallysupported by the Shachtmanite centristsof the increasingly phantom-like Revo­lutionary Socialist League. The RSCsupporters had appeared at the meetingwith a resolution of their own whosecowering legalism was clearly designedto garner the support of everyone from"Breakout" to Chico himself. The RSCresolution called only for a statement ofsolidarity with the mine strike, acontribution to the strike fund, ademand that arrested miners be freed,and similar token expressions from thedistrict and International. Refusal tohandle scab coal, calls for solidaritystrike action to bolster the UMWA­this they opposed.

George Meany could support thisweak-kneed attempt at "support." In theleaflet accompanying its resolution, theRSC motivated its refusal to call for alabor boycott of coal with classicminimum-maximum arguments bor­rowed from the reformists: "If we werestrong enough, we would refuse tohandle any coal until the miners wintheir strike. We can't do this yet. We canbuild our strength and give immediateaid to the miners by organizing for othermeasures." Thus these "revolutionaries"refuse to take on the bureaucracy-thereal obstacle to a powerful solidaritystrike-by using the classic excuse of allopportunists: the "lack of strength" ofthe working class.

In response a supporter of theKnight/Lewis resolution pointed to themassive strength of 1.4 million steelworkers to halt production and bringboth the steel companies and the BCOAto their knees. The RSC supporters wereforced to abandon their argument ofweakness and, to their credit, voted forthe motion in the end.

Bureaucratic Gag Rule

The Knight/Lewis motion onlyreached the floor by a circuitous path,after having first been scrutinized by theLocal executive board, which reportedit to the meeting with a recommendationto reject. At a previous Local 65meeting, president Chico rammedthrough a rule change which requires allresolutions to be screened by the Localexecutive board before being intro­duced for a vote of the membership.

Chico reportedly motivated thispatently undemocratic procedure byciting motions which had been raised inthe Local which called for the union totake actions which violate the USWAconstitution, the contract and the law. Itis not accidental that Chico chooses tosmear such militant tactics as masspicketing, hot cargoing, sympathystrikes, plant occupations-even theright to strike itself-as "illegal," for it isprecisely such weapons of the classstruggle which can spell victory over thecompanies and thus threaten the bu­reaucracy's commitment to "laborpeace."

This gag rule comes only a fewmonths after the Chico leadershipsigned a rotten Local contract withouthaving first submitted it to the member­ship for ratification. The increasinglyfrequent violation of elementary demo-

continued on page 9

3 FEBRUARY 1978 5

Artistic Integrity vs. the Historic Compromise

BERTOLuccrs "1900":POETRY OF THE CLASS STRUGGLEby Charles Burroughs

1900 and "The HistoricAmbiguity"

The film unfolds an intricatelydesigned tapestry of the interwovenlives of two families of the Emiliaregion-the landowners and the peas­ants. The families are represented in thefirst generation by two patriarchs,played with passion by Burt Lancasteras the landowner and with lofty reserveby Sterling Hayden as the peasant.Natural leaders, they confront eachother over an unbreachable social gulf.But as mythic fathers they can drinkfrom the same wine bottle to celebratethe births of their grandsons.

historic narrative of 1900 presents thatmoment in World War II when theworkers and peasants hand back theirweapons to the bourgeoisie under thedirection of the Communist Party. It isa painfully familiar scene from thehistory of popular frontism and Stalin­ist betrayal. But why would Bertolucci,a loyal member of the PCI, offer such ascene? In this case Bertolucci's integrityas an artist outstrips his Stalinistpolitical viewpoint, catching him up ina historical truth he does not intend totell.

It is always risky business to insistthat an artist creates an object contraryto his stated intentions, particularlywith an artist like Bertolucci who statesthese intentions so often and soarticulately. But in 1900 we have aStalinist who intends to make a filmwhich expresses the politics of the PCI.And we have the artist impelled to filma truth about life and politics. It is notonly a film of exquisite richness andbeauty, but also one that should beexamined critically for the truth itreveals about both revolutionary poli- !

tics and art.

.... #"

Heroic resistance in 1900: peasant women turn back strikebreaking army by lying in their path. Paramount Pictures-------. ------- -----------1----_·_----- ----------..--- -------~------- -------

The central focus of the film is the the earth." Naturally more aggressive,political/ personal relationship- the young Olmo embodies the powerrivalry, friendship and betrayal-of the and the violence of an oppressedtwo grandsons, born on the same day. class. The point of the fight as play isAlfredo Berlinghieri, the inheritor of that it is practice for the possibility ofthe land played diffidently by a sadly lethal hostility as adults. But as play it ismiscast Robert DiNiro, becomes the also a fundamentally collaborative act.padrone who rules with the aid of It is mutual trust in the form offascist thugs. Olmo Daleo, the son of struggle.the land played by the .talented French It is worth noting that Bertolucci,actor Ger~~d Depardleu, becomes a who speaks of "finding a dialecticalpeasant militant and eventually a PCI union between Marx and Freud" hasorganizer. The fi!m's recu.rrent image is cast this relationship with distinctthat of the fnendly fight betwe.en homosexual undertones. When OlmoAlfredo and Olmo, the class enemies returns home after participation inwho are frie~ds. For Ber.tolucci this is World War I, the heroes as young men~.h~ sY.n;?ohc expressIOn of the greet each other by wrestling in thedla!.ectlc _: _ grain loft that had been the place of

.The fdm IS base~ on what I see as the their early masturbatory fantasies. It isImmediate dialectiC between Olmoand. .Alfredo, the protagonists, born the the fight between an enlisted man andsame day_ ... The dialectic between an "officer" who stayed at home; Olmothese two characters is an obvious, rips the officer's insignia from Alfredo'snatura~ and elementar~ symbol of class uniform. But mainly it is a fightdialectiCS, the dialectiC between the i b d f' h .peasant and the ruling class." I et~~en goo nends w ose SOCial

-Interview in Cineaste, Winter I pOSitIOns make the embrace too un-1976-77 i comfortable. Rolling in the loft, Alfre-

Bertolucci fleshes out the "dialectic" I do cuts the tension saying, "Kiss me,of his main characters in a study of their ! my hero."growth from childhood. Sexual and I The conflict continues intensely onclass tension pervade their earliest I the political plane as Olmo becomes aencounters; sexual jealousy and I peasant rebel and Alfredo finds hiscompetition continue through their ! social place as a padrone who uses theadult lives. Some of the best scenes in I fascists as his "watchdog." Alfredo's1900 d~velop the early childhood i personal weakness finds its perversefriendship of the two boys. The i compensation in the sadistic bravadosensitivity and complexity of these i of his fascist foreman Atila, played withscenes put to shame the soft-focus i fangs showing by Donald Sutherland.sentim~ntality of the adolescent flash- I The fascist. mo~eme~t has its. fitti?gbacks In the more popular Julia. representatives In Atlla and hiS Wife

Olmo, the bastard, the fatherless [' Regina, Alfredo's poor relation (Berto­"natural son," seems to grow directly lucci describes the couple as "a provin­out of the fertile landscape, Lice- [' cia I Macbeth and Lady Macbeth"),ridden, expert catcher of frogs (wading who in brutal scenes of twisted violencein the swamp to provide delicacies for and sadism destroy a helpless animal,the master's table), he teaches tph~ I an old lady and a child.weaker, sheltered boy how to "scr~ In the political world Alfredo's I

"April 25, 1945, Liberation Day"flashes across the screen. On theBerlinghieri estate in the northernItalian province of Emilia the fascistsare on the run, but they cannot escapethe debt of blood owed the peasantswho bring them down with rifle,pitchfork, club and fists. On this day ofreckoning old scores, the camera tracksa young partisan no more than ten oreleven years old as he approaches thebig house, wipes his feet carefully andenters. He lines up the Padrone Berlin-

"The usefulness of awork of art is verymysterious."

-Bernardo Bertolucci

ghieri in his rifle sights and in triumphdeclares: "Long live Stalin!" The

I Padrone, sitting alone at a long tablecovered with starched white linen,remains calm. A shot whizzes over theMaster's head. The Padrone looks overhis shoulder where the bullet has founda family painting; he then turns, smiles,gives himself up to his child-captor andwith as much irony as resignationrepeats, "Long live Stalin."

With this scene of ironic tribute to"the party of the anti-fascist struggle"and the Supreme Leader of the "Social­ist Fatherland," Bernardo Bertolucci's1900 begins. And it is scenes such as thisone which make this moving and lyricalpolitical film one of the most con­troversial to be released in recent years.

The controversy began even before1900 premiered at the Cannes filmfestival in 1976. Some critics assailedBertolucci as a dogmatic Communist;others attacked him for selling out tothe Hollywood movie industry which(after the success of Last Tango inParis) financed 1900. By the time thefilm was finally released in the U.S., anhour and fifteen minutes shorter thanits five-hour, twenty-minute two-partEuropean version, the critics' anti­Communist assault had been hardenedand honed. As an instrument ofcriticism it was wielded with theprecision and taste of a middle-browaxe-murderer by the New York Times'sVincent Canby, who sneered at 1900's"politicized peasants," "poster-likesequences" and "nasty fascists" (8October 1977). "Characters," saysCanby, "become points of view"; "MrBertolucci's political purposes overtakethe film."

Canby is quite wrong, For what ismost interesting politically and artisti­cally about 1900 is that Bertolucci'sfilm art overtakes his political pur­poses. Bertolucci the PCI apologistintends to present the class struggle inItaly according to Stalinist myth, fromthe turn of the century through the end

. of the "patriotic war against fascism.", He intends to celebrate class collabora­

tion. but by the end of the film 45 years(and nearly four hours) later, hisCommunist Party hero appears as abetrayer of the agricultural workers' Istruggles. I

The climactic scene which frames the___.. ... --J.

6 WORKERS VANGUARD

"Long live Stalin," says a young partisan as he captures the Padrone.

Paramount Pictures

Gerard Depardieu and Robert DeNiro as Olmo and Alfredo.

All of the political action andpictorial history of 1900 moves towardthe scene on Liberation Day 1945 whenthe peasants take over the estate of themaster. Padrone Berlinghieri. It is alsothe obligatory confrontation betweenthe protagonists whose social antago­nism and lasting friendship the film hastraced from childhood. By 1945 Alfre­do the padrone and Olmo the Commu­nist, the heroes who have been theempathetic subjects for most of thefilm, are pushed into the backgroundby the farm laborers. The style of thisscene shifts to a Brechtian "problemplay" in which the "alienated audience"is asked to make political judgementson the dramatic action. Bertolucci saysthat this scene is "where the key to thewhole film is. for me." It is "that crucialmoment when the peasants take poweron that famous April 25th ... take overpowcr in the film itself."

The pcasants fiercely humiliatc theirfascist tormentors and executc theccntral fascist charactcr. Atila. Undcrthe dircction of Olmo. who has re­turned to the village as a heroic PCIpartisan. they put Alfredo on trial. Ahuge patchwork of red flags andhanners is dug up and unfurled for theoccasion. fo.rming an enormous ca nop~for the outdoor "court.·· The bandstrikes up "Bandiera Rossa" and ajoyous dance is held beneath thctluttcring red sky of hammers andSickles.

At the trial the peasants presentAlfredo with a litam of the humancostof exploitation. One man holds up hishand. fingcrs missing; a toothless old\\oman shrieks. "The padrone still hasall his teeth. He can munch with themall day long." When Alfredo answersthe charges from a wen of sancti.moni.­ous solipsism. "AlII can say is I\c neverhurt anyone." he is met with bitter hoots Iof outrage. However. Alfredoissavedby ihis lifelong friend and prosecutor. Olmo. Iwho tells the peasa nts: I

"Thc Padrone is a dead man .... The IPadronc is dead. but Alfrcdo Berling- I

hieri is aliv.e and we mustn't kill hi~bccause he's thc living proof that thePadronc's dead."

Glmo's important political act.howevCf. is not merely to rescue anindividual memher of the ruling classan action which. depending on thecircumstances. might be trivial or evenlaudahlc. Rather. the crucial role of thePCI functionary is to participate in hisparty's rescue of the Italian bourgeoisiefrom the masses' revolutionary fury.Olmo's task is to get the peasants todisarm.

Immediately after the conclusion ofthe trial. the representatives of theCommittee of 1\'ational Liberation(CL1\') arrive on thc scene. Announcingthcy will "maintain law and order."they demand the peasants turn overtheir weapons. The peasants refuse toturn in their guns. They say they havehcard such demands before and theyarc "bullshit." But Olma intervenes:

"Comrades. thc moment of trutharrncs. Evcnonc must gct sober.put head and heart undcr the faucct.Remember if there's cvidencc topersuade us that the Padrone's stillthere wc must sa\'. 'no: am way.Because wc know. w'c sawall of us. ~'Cknow the truth: the Padrone's dcad."

At the end of this speech Olmo emptieshis ritle in the air and throws it onto theCL1\' truck, a gesture imitated by thepeasants.

But the youth. Leonida. who cap­tured the padrone. does not offer hisweapon to the CL1\'. For his reluctancehe is cuffed bv a CLN carabinieri andhas his rifle t;ken away. He cries. AndAlfredo. who understands what hasjust happened. says. "The Padrone isstill alive." Indeed he is. Only the sign

cOfllinued un page 8

authority / could sweat/figuring out myquotas for the vear."

Treachery Under the BandieraRossa

Paramount Pictures

Silber complains that Bertoluccidoes what Bertolucci does best: submitthe decadence of the bourgeoisie tovisual examination. Silber finds himtoo "fascinated" with "the moral rot ofcapitalism." and wants him to insteadfilm "the new mode of morality beingborn among the revolutionary masses."H is preference for "socialist realism"and cinematic naturalism is not just amatter of taste. but represents a longingfor the "good old days" when, asMayakovsky said. "the State Planning

Atila the fascist at first timidly and thenaggressively picks up the priest'scollection basket, gripping both theChurch and the bourgeoisie.

With the rise of fascism, summer ispushed from the screen. Gone are thedays when the fathers could know oneanother and the children easily crossedthe barriers of social class in play. Thefog rolls across the screen; storm cloudsgather. It is Italy's winter of sufferingand death.

The symbolic structure and stylizedpeasant tableaux looking like Breughelpaintings repel those whose ideologydemands "socialist realism." IrwinSilber, for instance, reviewing 1900 forthe Maoist Guardian (7 December1977), complains that while "1900 takesa firm class stand,"... "it is notcompletely satisfying." This Stalinisthack is uneasy because the film is notsufficiently realistic: the peasants are

not dirty enough; they do not workhard enough; they are not hungryenough. Those not constrained by"socialist realist" blinders, however,will not fail to appreciate Bertolucci'sportrayal of the peasants' miserythrough his evocative techniques-forinstance. the scene in which a peasantfather. unable to put food on the table,tries to feed his children with melodyplayed on his homemade flute.

second generation, and the proletarian­ization of the peasantry. Myth givesway to class confrontation.

As the protagonists reach maturityand grow into their social roles. theclass conflict ripens and the classes theyrepresent become more politicallyconscious. When the peasants' wagesare cut in half after a bad harvest, theystrike. In a stirring sequence of resist­ance. the peasant women-led by Anitaand armed with little more thancourage and song -turn back thetroops.

In response to the growing organiza­tion of the peasants and workers, thelandowners. including Alfredo's father.decide to back the fascist movement. Inone of the film's most penetratingpolitical scenes. the land­owners meet in an ornate cathedral toinitiate the fascist movement with theirfinancial backing. One of the landown­ers offers a "sermon," saying that"Bolsheviks are semi-Asiatics." And

Class-Struggle Opera

1900 must be a disappointment toany audience expecting a film ofsociological realism. From the opening

~----------- - - -~---,

I

personal weakness becomes personal scene of the year 1900, when the deathbetrayal. Always jealous of Olmo, of Verdi is proclaimed by a character inAlfredo stands aside while the fascist ! motley named Rigoletto, to the playinggang nearly beats his best friend to I of the "Internationale" as a funeraldeath. The personal and political dirge with the victory of fascism, thetension of the relationship is compact- costumed choreography and broaded into this crucial scene where Alfredo dramatic style of 1900 put it closer to alets the fascists do the fighting for him. class-struggle Italian opera than to

Here Bertolucci presents the person- slice-of-life neo-realism.al analogue of the weakness of the In narrative structure 1900 is divideddecaying bourgeoisie which steps aside into two parts. The first is open, bright,(or more often backs up the fascists). fluid, epic; the second is darker,But while this is a personal betrayal of constricted, a narrative form closer toOlmo by Alfredo, it is not a betrayal of the psychological' novel. The film'sthe padrone's class. Bertolucci's evident symbolic architecture supports itsambiguity on this point stems from his political themes. The peasants harvest aStalinist view of the "progressive" largely symbolic landscape. The goldenbourgeoisie as the natural fighters summer days of Emilia are not only theagainst fascism, together with the summer of childhood, but also theworkers in a popular front. Therefore summer of the class struggle. Theto Bertolucci, Alfredo has committed a mythic resist the forces of moderniza-political betrayal as well, a sentiment tion, but neither can stop the capitaliza-which would probably be shared by tion of the estate carried on by themany in the audience.

Alfredo's positIOn as a "reluctant"backer of the fascists is contrastednecessarily to the "anti-fascist bour­geoisie," presented through the charac­ters of Alfredo's aesthetic wife Ada I

(played by Dominique Sanda) and hishomosexual, dilettante, expatriateUncle Ottavio. They too are charactersof bourgeois weakness, but of adifferent sort. They are repelled by thefascists but, unlike Alfredo, have nosocial role to play and cannot harnesssocial power. With brilliant strokesBertolucci paints their decadent escap­ism and helpless personal decency. Thepoint is that in the social reality ofM ussolini's Italy they simply don'tcount. Like hallucinations out of one oftheir cocaine fantasies, they barely existat all, riding in on a fairy-tale whitehorse and then fading out of an uglypolitical world.

Because she is a woman, Ada haseven less social power than Ottavio.She is repelled by fascism for largelyaesthetic reasons, and plays an imma­ture game of escape in which she refusesto recognize the fascists before her eyes.Although Bertolucci relentlessly ex­poses the decadence of the bourgeoisie,he makes it clear that Ada is also avictim whose only course is escape. Heplaces the responsibility for the miseryof her life upon Alfredo; as shedescends into alcoholism, he makes hera virtual prisoner in his house.

Ada is contrasted to Olmo's wifeAnita (played by Stephania Sandrelli),who is the revolutionary heroine of thefilm and leads the peasants' resistanceuntil her early death in childbirth. It isworth noting that the Socialist Work­ers Party's review of 1900 by JonHillson (Militant, 20 January) sees thiscontrast as a basis for praise forBertolucci. But he misses altogether thevictimization of Ada (whose beauty is"skin det!p")-not to mention thepolitics of the film. Concentrating onthe sociology of the "treatment ofwomen," Hillson explains that with1900 Bertolucci may have vindicatedhimself somewhat with feminists whosaw Last Tango in Paris as exhibiting"contempt for women." "This film," hetells us. "leaves much less margin forcriticism." Nevertheless Hillson isimpelled to write in the margins: "Butdespite Bertolucci's efforts to fullypicture the lives of the women in hisfilm, it remains the men who dominatein J900-as in the story it tells." Howshocking--a world full of men! Thisbasis for critical evaluation of art rivalsthe old Stalinist school of "socialistrealism" for philistinism. In its effortsto please the feminist taste, the SWPmay have invented "feminist realism."

Decadence and Powerlessness

3 FEBRUARY 1978 7

1900...(continued/roln page 7)

that reads "Berlinghieri" has beentoppled as the youthful peasants rushfrom the screen under the tent of redflags they carry in the wind. The camerapulls away from the scene until theaudience is presented with the perspec­tive of vast empty space at the center ofwhich are two men haggling andfighting. Or are they embracing')

Bertolucci ys. Bertolucci?

This scene builds enormous politicalsympathy for the militant impulses ofthe peasants who have undergone suchsuffering and who do not want to let goof their guns at the moment of victory. Itis at least ambiguous in the depiction ofthe political role of 01mo. The sophistryof his speeches is exposed by an oldpeasant woman who counters his"explanation" of how the Padrone isboth alive and "dead":

"01 mo. vou learned how to think betterthan a peasant. But you should explainwith simple talk. That educated talk canplay tricks."

Alfredo's line, "The Padrone is stillalive." is charged with political mean­ing. And the humiliation of youngLeonida seems calculated to emphasizethe loss of revolutionary will by the"mature" Olmo, the PCI organizer.

Here, then. is the contradicitonbetween Bertolucci's political line andhis artistic integrity. The entire scene isone of Olmo's betrayal. Yet this is nothow Bertolucci the PCI member intendsor understands the scene:

"I tried to show the 25th of April as amoment of victorv and also a momentin the peasants' dream. On LiberationDay. the peasants enact the utopia ofrevolution."

Far from being a betrayal of any realrevolutionary opportunity. Bertolucciargues. the PCI-dominated CLl\ andOlmo represent political reality; thepeasants stand for an unrealizablepolitical "utopia." He identifies the"utopianism" as the peasants' failure tograsp the Stalinist view of the "reality"of World War II: that it was not an inter­imperialist war but simply an "anti­fascist" war. The enemy was not thebourgeoisie but fascism. he explains. Inthat context. ideas about revolution areillusions:

"I n the last half hour there is the illusionof revolution. and I think it is the bestpart of the movie. The peasants believethat instead of having won the waragainst the fascists. they have won thewar against capitalism. We arrive at aconclusion which lasts as long as the lifeof a butterfly. one day-it ends in theevening when the CLl'.' asks for all theweapons back."

To the reformist, the revolution cannever be more than a beautiful idea. asephemeral as the life of a butterfly. ForBertolucci. it is necessary to standpolitically with "teality." And this"reality" is defined by the Stalinisttradition of class collaboration and thepopular front. In 1945 it was the"patriotic war against fascism"; today itis the "Historic Compromise" throughwhich the PCI binds the proletariat tothe bourgeoisie. Asked point-blank."Are you in favor of the 'HistoricCompromise"?". Bertolucci replied:

"Yes. I believe in the Historic Compro­mise. Politicians do not want to acceptit but it already exists. as you can see."

Bertolucci elaborated his politicalintentions in 1900 most explicitly in aninterview in Film Comment magazine('member-December 1977):

"Extremists to the left of the PC I savthat Togliatti who was the leader of thePCI at that time sold the people in thesense that in 1945 it was possible to havethe revolution to take power. It's true.but it would have lasted three days. andthen the PCI which had suffered somuch and had suffered so many lossesduring the war would have disappearedfor another 50 years. So Togliattidecided to return the arms. And Olmowho disappeared for several years. youdon't know where he's gone. he's almosta party functionary when he returns.He's changed. And he does two thingswhich are apparently contradictory, but

8

Bernardo Bertolucci

really aren·t. He tells the peasants theyhave to put the Padrone. the landowneron trial·· which is a utopian perspec­tive. but also revolutionarv-and thepeasants experience a re-awakening ofconsciousness. they understand some­thing new. On the other hand thepeasants don't want to surrender theirarms. And Olmo speaking with thecharisma of the leader makes them do it.These two things seem contradictorybut I don't think thev are. It's the line ofTogliatti which . continues downthrough Berlinguer. going ahead with­out giving in to any extremist tendencieswhich could jeopardize the gainsmade."

Class collaboration and class betrayalare indeed the line of the PCI fromT ogliatti through Berlinguer.

History Imitates Art

As a work of art 1900 directed byBertolucci the filmmaker is at war withpolitics as perceived by Bertolucci theStalinist. For although he argues thatthe revolutionary impulses of theworkers have no place in the real world.he cannot hide the significant historicaltruth of how those impulses werebetrayed by the Communist Party,represented by Olmo. Bertolucci payshomage to the entrenched Stalinisttradition that revolution against capital­ism was not on the order of the day inWorld War II. But by vividly portrayingthe confrontation between the PCI andits base on the day of "Liberation," hecomes close to the real political dramaof history.

It I\'as with bands and music and redflags that the PCI convinced the massesto turn in their guns. thus sacrificing therevolutioanry opportunities that laypalpably in their hands.

What did happen on "LiberationDay." 25 April 1945? What were the realhistoric possibilities? Did the PCI's linerepresent a strategic appreciation ofpolitical reality. as Bertolucci claims. orwas Stalinism guilty of a monumentalbetrayal. not only of the peasants'dreams but of the revolutionary possi­bilities of life itself?

Was it a utopian dream to think thatthe capitalists could be defeated by theforces of the Italian proletariafl By 1943it was clear that the fascists would bedefeated. Who was to rule Italy?M ussolini was replaced in 1943 by theFascist Grand Council. the officercorps and assorted monarchists led byMarshal Badoglio with King VictorEmanuel in tow. But this governmenthad almost no support among themasses of Italians.

The Resistance in Italy is estimated tohave had over 180.000 armed partisansin the field. Its political arm, theCommittee of National Liberation, hadthe support of the workers and peasants.The CLlI,J was a political coalitionbetween the workers organizations and

the "anti-fascist bourgeoisie." includingthe monarchists. and under its program.Although the PCI was the best financedand best organized force in the CU\.and in the proletarian North also anumerical majority. the Stalinists werethe best supporters of this monarchistgovernment.

The British and Americans, vyingbetween themselves for control of Italy,did not think that the overthrow ofcapitalism was a "utopian dream." Theywere quite worried about Italy "becom­ing another Yugoslavia or Greece" andthey knew that the fascist collaboratorBadoglio could not be maintained inpower. Roosevelt was prepared to dumphim. But Stalin came to Badoglio'srescue.

On 7 December 1944 the Protocols ofRome were signed, promising that theResistance would hand over politicalpower to the Allied Military Commandand remain under its command evenafter "Liberation." With this shamefulpolicy the Americans gained a crucialinstrument of influence in Italy, and theItalian bourgeoisie got a new lease onlife.

But a problem remained, and it wasfrightening to the U.S. imperialists: theItalian proletariat was armed. It was onething to make promises and another todisarm an entire population. This taskcould not have been accomplishedwithout the active collaboration of thePCI.

When Allied forces marched into

CORRECTIONSThe article "French Popular Front on

the Rocks?" ( WV No. 176, 7 October1977) states that the slogan of the"fighting popular front" was centrally"associated with the centrists around thePSOP of Marceau Pivert." While thisslogan was indeecJJinked to Piver!. atthe time it gained currency (in late 1935and 1936) he was still within theSocialist Party. having formed the"Revolutionarv Left" in order to blockthe growth ;f the Trotskyists. ThePSOP was formed only after Pivert andhis cohorts were expelled from theSocialist Party in 1938.

"Jury Declares Bennie LenardInnocent" (WV No. 179, 28 October1977) incorrectly referred to a motion byUAW Local6 for a demonstration at thetrial opening. Instead a leaflet calling fora demonstration was approved by theLocal 6 Fair Employment PracticesCommittee. And rather than a spokes­man for the Local 6 Bennie LenardDefense Committee attempting tosuppress SL and Partisan DefenseCommittee chants at the demonstra­tion. it was a leader of the unofficialChicago-Area Bennie Lenard DefenseCommittee.

In "Chicago U. of Illinois ArrestsSYL Spokesman" (WV No. 184. 2December 1977) we mistakenly listedthe American Federation of TeachersLocal 3500 as an endorser of the defenseof Sandor John. The endorser wasFrederick Blum. vice president of AFTLocal 3500. whose endorsement of theAd Hoc Committee to Stop Adminis­tration Harassment at the ChicagoCircle campus should list his organiza­tion for identification purposes only.

The article "Miller Selling OutMiners' Right to Strike" (WV No. 186.23 December 1977) refers to a "six-day"extension of the western strip miners'1974 contract. The extension was for 60days.

In WVNo. 187 (6 January 1978) thefund appeal for Philip Allen mistakenlyreported Allen as "a third year lawstudent." He is a third year undergradu­ate student at Santa Barbara (U niversityof California). studying law. In the sameissue a photograph identified as AlexeiRyko\ inthearticle"The Final Split withthe Mensheviks" was in fact a picture of I.Impazmin, an aide to Trotsky.

Rome in 1944 they were greeted by anarmed populace in red shirts, waving redarmbands, who had already set up localadministrative organizations. The Alli­ed Command knew that the problemthey faced in Rome was only a palereflection of what might be expectedfrom the centers of leftist partisanfighters in the North. In Emilia, theprovince that is the setting for 1900, thepeasants were in their mass supportersof the PCI partisan groups. "In Emilia,"writes Charles Delzell in Mussolini'sEnemies, "civilians competed in gather­ing clothing and equipment" for thepartisans in the nearby mountains. Forthese concrete acts of support to the"Red Star" partisans, this area becamethe target of some of the worst massa­cres by the fascists of the entirecampaign. While this was not EasternEurope, where fascism brought thegenocide of whole populations, Delzellestimates that more than 1,800 civilianswere slaughtered by the fascists inreprisal.

What really struck fear into the heartsof the bourgeoisie were the organizedarmed workers in the industrial centersof the North. And they had good reasonto be afraid. In Milan 60,000 workerstook control of the city on April 24.They set up workers councils andbrought the fascists and many collabo­rators to swift justice. Turin wassimilarly taken over and thousands offascists were executed. According toGabriel 1C0iko (The Politics of War),"Throughout Northern Italy the Resist­ance was in control everywhere ... and inpower." Yet by the first week in June theResistance had dissolved itself and theAllied Military Command could reportwith obvious delight: "The CLNAI[CLN of Northern Italy] has lived up tothe agreements made prior to occupa­tion and has cooperated insofar aspossible" (Coles and Weinberg, CivilAffairs).

The PCI led political actions whichprovide a most remarkable correlationbetween the drama of history and thedrama of 1900. The PCl organized"stand down parades" on the directionof the Allies. These parades were carriedout to music under the waving red flagsof the PCI. These "celebrations," wherered flags waved in every city thatcontained significant forces of armedproletarian resistance, were climaxed bythe workers turning in their guns. TheU.S. 15th Army orders to the CLNcalled for the parade to be "replete withflags and bands at the end of which thepatriots should turn in their weapons.Such ceremonies should appear to bethe result of patriotic initiative" (Musso­lini's Enemies).

On April 25, Liberation Day, inBologna-the center of armed resist­ance nearest the farms that are thesetting for 1900-a "stand down par­ade" of 15,000 was held. In the reviewingstand, waiting to receive the arms, wasPrince Humbert and Generals Clarkand Hume. Doubtless the strains of"Bandiera Rossa" filled the air as theweapons were relinquished, much as in1900.

It is important to understand that thisact of betrayal by the PCI was nomomentary failure of nerve. Turning inthe weapons was the logical culminationof the policy of the popular front, inwhich the Stalinist bureaucrats led theworkers behind the political program ofthe bourgeoisie. Though this policy ofclass collaboration was most oftenpresented as necessary to fight fascism.the case of Italy shows the Stalinistsactually aiding the fascists in order topreserve their deal with the capitalistsand restore the capitalist order underthe flying red flags. In Italy as elsewherethe fight against fascism meant thestruggle for proletarian revolution-astruggle the Stalinists had no intentionof undertaking. The "great patriotic waragainst fascism" meant patriotism. thealliance with the bourgeoisie, the refur­bishing of discredited fascist collabora­tors, the bloc with the imperialistoccupation which stepped into the

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(continued from page 5)

cratic procedures by Chico is notsurprising. The Local 65 president isrunning scared. U.S. Steel Co. has madeclear that Southworks is a prime targetfor any future layoffs or shutdownsunless the plant begins to grind out moreprofits. Eager to collaborate withcompany measures to step up produc­tivity and improve "discipline," Chico'sbureaucratic measures are intended togive him enhanced powers to quash anyrebellion within the ranks against hishand-holding with U.S. Steel.

Chico was at least until recentlyclosely associated with the Sadlowski/Balanoff camp. These bureaucratic"reformers" chatter endlessly about"union democracy" when they run foroffice, but when in power they are just asruthless in suppressing the membershipas the Abels and McBrides. The Chicoregime in Local 65 is only a smallerversion of what a Sadlowski-run Inter­national would look like. Chico'sblatant attacks on union democracy area real embarrassment for the supportersof SOS, 1\SRFC and "Breakout." whoall climbed aboard his bandwagon aspart of their support to Sadlowski. Butwhile they today try to forget about thisbetrayal, their shameful behavior at theLocal meeting shows they can still becounted on to line up with the laborfakers against calls for militant action.

Victory to the UMWA strike' Hot cargoscab coal'

For a JointCoal/SteelStrike...

At every turn the trade union bureauc­racy has stood on the side of companyprofit, 'productivity' and labor peace inthe face of vicious attacks. UMWAPresident Arnold Miller-the Sadlow­ski of the coal fields-has made clear hiswillingness to betray the miners' de­mand for the right to strike. Thistreachery is but a continuation of hisrepeated efforts to crush the wildcats inthe mines....

For steel workers and mine workersalike. the struggle to replace these pro­capitalist labor fakers with a class­struggle leadership is a crucial necessity.The hallmark of such a leadership mustbe its commitment to internationallabor solidarity and its determination tobreak the labor movement from allreliance on the strikebreaking govern­ment and its Democratic and Republi­can parties. This government occupiedGarv to break the 1919 steel strike, andits police gunned down our brothers inthe Memorial Dav Massacre. In thetrench warfare o( Stearns, Kentuckywhere miners have been fighting forunion recognition, the government'spolicies have likewise been written inblood ....

For a USWA/UMWA joint strike tosmash the anti-labor offensive.'

For a Class-Struggle Opposition!

The record of Arnold Miller, leaderof the now defunct "M iners forDemocracy," is another glaring demon­stration that militants must place noconfidence in any wing of the bureauc- .racy to place the unions in the hands ofthe ranks. The central need of both mineworkers and steel workers is to forge anauthoritative oppositon on a solid class­struggle program instead of chasingafter every opportunist who mouths afew words like "democracy" or"fightback." The Knight/Lewis leafletpointed out:

would be severely restricted on pain ofan immediate revocation of parole andreturn to prison. They would effectivelybe muzzled.

The Wilmington 10 frame-up hasbeen a six-year vendetta against the civilrights activists. It began in 1971 whenthe state of North Carolina respondedto a series of black protests against thewave of cop and vigilante terror knownas the "siege of Wilmington." Duringthe assault, a white-owned grocery storeburned down. A full year later promi­nent black activist Rev. Ben Chavis andnine others were charged and convictedof conspiracy to commit arson. In thethree years prior to the 1972 trial, no lessthan 78 separate and phony charges hadbeen lodged against Chavis-all ofwhich were dropped-before the statefinally succeeded in railroading him intopnson.

North Carolina's legal persecution ofthe Wilmington 10 is one of the mostnotorious examples of the racist natureof capitalist class "justice." Unfortu­nately, the Communist Party­dominated National Alliance AgainstRacial and Political Repression(NAARPR) has tied its defense to theCP's reformist faith in the "progressive"bourgeoisie. In its efforts to appeal toliberals, it has even raised JimmyCarter's anti-Soviet "human rights"slogan as a political basis to join theWilmington 10 defense.

An activist campaign based onmobilizing labor and the black masseswould never have allowed the Wilming­ton 10 to spend five years in jail. Nowthat the growing protest has reachedworldwide proportions, they must notstay behind bars a minute longer. Freethe Wilmington 10 now!.

ist betrayal. But as an artlst his sympa­thy is not for what is, but for what can bein the revolutionary future. This sympa­thy he calls utopia, or dream, or illusion,or "the scent of revolution." Because hisfluid imagination stands with theimpulse for revolution, he gives his filmover to that impulse: to the armedpeasants, to the youth, to Leonida, whohas chosen the "partisan name" Olmo.

It is Leonida, the peasant youth underwhose rifle the padrone was arrested atthe beginning of the film, who is leftdisarmed and weeping at the end. He ishurt not by the slap he takes from thecarabiniere. but by the betrayal of hisnamesake and hero. The camera picksup Olmo's face in a painful instant ofself-doubt as he sees Leonida in tears.The boy's rough dignity recalls Olmo'syouth. If Leonida contains the naiveteof youth, he is also the spark of there\olution betrayed. Olmo the experi­enced PCl functionary has betrayed"Olmo" the boy who does not believethat revolution is one last tango underthe red flag. This is a moment of nearlyperfect ambiguity in a cycle of betrayalthat ends with the self. For Bertoluccithe artist of revolution and Bertoluccithe Stalinist apologist for class treason.there may ha\e been many such mo­ments making 1900 when Bertoluccilooking at Olmo looking at Olmo'syouth had to decide what was true. AsBertolucci the movie director said: "It'swhen you put yourself in front of realityand film it that you start to understandwhat you'd wanted to say, what youintuited but maybe hadn't understoodyet." And not yet. •

pessimism of intelligence. the optimismof will." But revolutionary will exists asan organized force in the real world; it isnot a dream.

The problem and also the interest of1900 is that as a work of art it is at warwith reality. The scenes of Olmo'sbetrayal carry great emotional impact.This makes the film nearly impenetrableto those who accept Bertolucci's statedview of historical necessity and politicalreality. If Olmo and the CLN did whatwas necessary, why is the emotionalimpact loaded against them? This is anunanswerable qtlestion if one hasBertolucei's politics, except to say thefilm is a failure.

Liberals and Stalinists who accept the"necessity" of the popular front inWorld War II agree with Bertolucci\pronouncements that proletarian revo­lution was impossible. The pervasiveassumption of class collaboration gen­erates a self-serving and fundamentallyfalse conception of historical necessity.hence of political reality. With popularfrontism as the frame of reference,revolution is utopian. But this is not the"pessimism of intelligence": it is thepractice of the "big lie" long endured.Bertolucci argues that his film repre­sents the inevitable popular-front reali­ty. but the film in its most powerfulscenes makes a different argument.

An artist who accepts this twistedview finds himself in a self-defeatingbind far more subtle than the crudemechanics of public mendacity projec­ted by 1984. Bertolucci accepts self­serving Stalinist myth as fact--a fact inlarge measure accomplished by reform-

North Carolina Governor JamesHunt responded January 23 to theinternational campaign demanding afull pardon for the Wilmington 10 byannouncing that these victims of a racistframe-up would remain locked up. Evenafter reviewing statements by the prose­cution's three key witnesses, who haveall admitted perjuring themselves, tes­tifying that their original statementsunder oath had been dictated andpurchased by the prosecuting attorney,Hunt "concluded that there was a fairtrial. .." (New York Times. 24 January1978).

The revelations last year detailing thebribery and perjury have so discreditedthe railroaded convictions of the Wil­mington 10 that even the liberal mediafeel constrained to pay lip senice totheir cause. A 21 May 1977 New YorkTimes editorial termed a state courtrefusal to grant the victimized civilrights activists a new trial "breathtak­ing" and demanded a U.S. JusticeDepartment investigation. Hunt's an­swer to the protests was a minimalreduction of the lengthy prison termsthe nine remaining jailed black activistsare serving, enabling them to becomeeligible for parole in periods rangingfrom four months to two years (one ofthe original defendants-the sole whitewoman-was recently paroled).

Hunt's whitewash of North Carolinaracist "justice" is outrageous. His tokengesture of "compassion" is insu'lt addedto injury. Even should the Wilmington10 be granted parole, it would notconstitute a victory. After parole, thepublic activities of these innocentvictims would be strictly circumscribed.Their rights to travel and, most impor­tantly, to engage in any political activity

Free Them Now!

N.C. Governor:More Jail forWilmington Ten

Zip --191Stille

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power \aCUUI1l when the fascists hadfled. It is this strategy of class collabo­ration which is carried forward in thepel's "Historic Compromise," the"Eurocommunisf' version of the selloutline which remains the same under itsmany names: the People's Front, theanti-monopoly coalition, the UnitedFront Against Fascism. It is thisassumption that only class collabora­tion is "realistic" that turns the workingpeople's pro-socialist militancy into theOeeting image of a butterfly forBertolucci.

Cycle of BetrayalBertolucci has "looked truth in the

eyes" at least imaginatively in presentingthe role of Olmo and the PCI. Butpolitically he must worship the accom­plished fact. He presents the classstruggle itself as something akin to theseasons elemental and eternal. Thespring of "Liberation Day" is the eternalrebirth of the revolution as an idea. ForBertolucci, the class struggle whichshapes and defines individual andcollective human history goes on for­ever. For Bertolucci. whose politicalvision is fogged by reformism, therevolution appears as a beautiful utopi­an idea in an essentially cyclical reality.But those who see the class struggle at itscritical junctures as the strugli1e forpOll'er, leading ultimately to the end ofclass society, have a clear view ofOlmo's betrayal.

The ambiguity of the friendly fightbetween Olmo and Alfredo can beunderstood only in the light of Bertoluc­ci's politics. The central political eventforms the basis for interpreting thecontinuous image of the two menfighting playfully from youth to old age.Having created these characters assymbols of opposing social classes,Bertolucci clearly sees their relationshipas a kind of friendly conflict down theroad of history, in which each saves theother. For Bertolucci, Olmo the PCIproletarian and Alfredo the bourgeoisform a kind of intricate allegory of theHistoric Compromise.

Understanding the "contradictory"character of the Liberation Day scene,Bertolucci has tacked on an epiloguewhich takes place thirty years later. Inthis scene, which begins with the two oldmen jostling and cuffing one another.Alfredo commits suicide by lying downon the railroad tracks which were thesite of a test of courage between the twoadolescent boys. The epilogue is clearlymeant to balance the scene of Olmo'sbetrayaL but it doesn't work. It is even abit ridiculous. Bertolucci explains:

"When Olmo takes him out of thefarmyard, we see that the two of themare haggling with each other. This is theclass struggle that continues even whenthev're old, until the moment when theboss understands that there's nothingelse he can do to change what's goingon. The bourgeoisie is self-destructive."

This is Bertolucci's pathetic excuse for arevolutionary perspective: the ancientfalsehood that the bourgeoisie willdestroy itself. Bertolucci is fond ofquoting Ciramsci's famous phrase. "the

3 FEBRUARY 1978 9

Arafat (left) and Sadat

Begin, Sadat...

National Liberation and SocialistRevolution in the Near East

SadatlBegin Peace TalksPrepare New War

Speaker: Reuben SamuelsSpartacist League

Saturday. February 11 7:30 pmLehman Auditorium. Barnard College116th and Broadway

NEW YORK CITYFor more information, call: (212) 925-5665Sponsored by Columbia/BarnardSpartacus Youth LeagueDonation $100

15 and F-16's the U.S. selIs to Israel. TheU.S. is using arms not to equip Egypt topresently fight a war with Israel but tocement a new client state relationshipand to bring pressure to bear on Israel.Additional pressure on the "Zionistfortress" is being brought to bear byarms sales to Saudi Arabia, since SaudiArabia appears to the U.S. to be astable ally and can pay hard cash orbarter much-needed oil.

The Egyptian card alone is not enoughto produce an imperialist-imposedsettlement in the Near East. The U.S., atfirst non-plussed by the Sadat "peace"initiative, now seems to have decided toexploit it to attempt to build a reaction­ary alIiance with Egypt and the mon­archical regimes in the Near East: Iran,Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulfshiekdoms. Carter's recent globe­trotting in the Near East appf'ars to beaimed at recreating the Baghdad Pact-­its immediate object being to wooJordan's King Hussein into directnegotiations with Israel. But Husseinwhile unequalled as a faithful andreactionary servant of U.S. imperialismalso has learned certain lessons from thehistory of the region. His grandfatherAbdullah was assassinated by a Palesti­nian nationalist for conducting secretnegotiations with the Zionists in thevery mosque Sadat prayed at when hemade his hadj (pilgrimage) to Jerusa­lem. Hussein himself was almost over­thrown by.a coup when the British triedto drag him into the Baghdad Pact.Therefore he is cautious though notunwilIing to folIow in Sadat's footsteps.

According to the Washington Post of14 January, Jordanian officials fear thatif Sadat's "peace initiative" fails it wilIengender "upheavals and convulsionsthroughout the region, including the oil­producing countries. The U.S.'s newBaghdad Pact, like that of the 1950's, isstilI based on regimes that are as fragile asthey are reactionary, based on imperial­ist-imposed dynasties and a narrow"ruling class" literally restricted to asingle extepded family.

Sadat's diplomatic grand gesture invisiting Jerusalem indicated a desire fora separate peace with Israel, alI hisrhetoric about Palestinian nationalrights notwithstanding. However, Beginis taking a hard-line position not onlyformally on the Palestinian question,but even in regard to evacuating theSinai. Despite Sadat's evident willing­ness to make concessions, Begin hasgiven him almost no room to maneuver.Although Washington would undoubt­edly like to see a separate Egypt-Israelpeace agreement at this time, Carter isvery unlikely to impose the kind ofsanctions (such as a major cutback inmilitary aid) which could force theZionist rulers to make significantconcessions to Sadat.

However. a separate Egypt-Israelaccord would not bring peace to the."'ear East. Quite the contrary. it couldquickly lead to a clash between Israel.supported by U.S. imperialism, andSyria, a Soviet client state. Thusa Washington-arranged Sadat-Beginpact, though now unlikely, could wellprovoke an escalation into globalnuclear confrontation. Only the revolu­tionary intervention of the Arab andHebrew working class, united under thebanner of a reforged Fourth Interna­tional, can sweep aside the Begins,Sadats, Husseins and Assads, openingthe road to national justice for thePalestinians and social justice for theoppressed toilers of the Near East..

U.S. Policy: For the Rebirth of theBaghdad Pact?

Confronted with Begin's hypocriticaland diplomatically atrocious "toast"Sadat withdrew his foreign minister,aborting the Jerusalem talks. Sadat'saction administered another surprise tothe Carter administration and its secre­tary of state, who up to that point wasclaiming (as he usually does) "progress"towards a "declaration of principles."Now that the Jerusalem talks havebroken down U.S. officials are makingeven more optimistic reports about anEgyptian-Israeli agreement on such adeclaration. No doubt one reason Sadatis being summoned to Washington andthe presidential "retreat" at CampDavid is to discourage him fromconducting more "shock" diplomacy,especially when his shocks are adminis­tered to Egypt's sought-after patronsand connict with the pronouncementsof high U. S. government officials.

Harmonization of diplomatic strate­gy between the U.S. and its new client inCairo has its military side also. After thecollapse of the Jerusalem talks Vancehurried off to Cairo only to be solicitedby Sadat to be equipped by Washington"with every armament" that they hadbeen shipping to Israel. For now Carterdoes not intend to equip Egypt withevery armament given Israel. Neverthe­less Carter does want to arrange the firstU.S. jet fighter sale to Egypt. In order totest the waters a small number of jetfighters have already been sold toEgypt's ally. the Sudan. The fighterinvolved is far less advanced than the F-

with Nazi Germany's advocacy of self­determination for the SudetenGermans.

Begin, a political gangster, shareswith other criminals the nasty habit ofcalling their victims "thief." For it is theZionists, from the Likud to Mapam,from Sharon and Begin to Eliav, whohave misused the right to self­determination to carry out a policy ofexpanding Jewish lRbensraum throughforcible dispersal of the Palestinians. Ifthere has not yet been a genocidalholocaust against the Palestinians, it isonly because the Zionists have up tonow lacked the means.

right to self-determination." Since anend to the military occupation of landsconquered in the 1967 war and Palestini­an self-determination are precisely whatno Zionist is willing to give, especiallyhard-line right-wing Zionists like Begin,the Israeli leader was particularlymiffed.

At an elaborate dinner purportedly in"honor" of Egyptian and Americandelegations Begin accomplisheo in his"toast" what he was unable to do bysquabbling over the agenda. Referringto Kamel. who has 22 years of diplomat­ic experience in the Egyptian foreignservice. as a "young man" Begin lecturedhim on the misuse of "that wonderfulconcept of self-determination" whichled to World War II. Clearly implicitwas the analogy between Egypt's advo­cacy of Palestinian self-determination

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kingdoms located on the West Bank,contained within a purported agendapoint is the assertion that the West Bankis a histori~ part of the Jewish kingdomof Eretl. Israel (Greater Israel) in whichthe Palestinians are but an Arab­speaking minority.

Begin insisted upon this formulationknowing full well that it would berejected by the Egyptians, with perhapsthe desired results of aborting the"political committee" meeting andplacing the blame on Egypt. U.S.imperialism frowned upon this agendasquabble between its client Begin andits client-aspirant Sad at by delayingVance's departure to Jerusalem. Afterwhat must have been many hours ofabstruse haggling an agreement wasreached to refer. to the third agendapoint merely as the "West Bank andGal.a Strip" in every version of theagenda except the Hebrew where"Judea" and "Samaria" were retained.

But the agenda "war" was settled onlyto open the road to a propaganda war.Upon his arrival at Ben Gurion Interna­tional Airport Egyptian foreign ministerKamel immediately challenged theZionist rulers by announcing, "there canbe no peace with occupation of land.There can be no peace with the denial ofthe national rights of the Palestinianpeople, foremost among which is the

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tional rights calls into question thelegitimacy of the Zionist state. whichwas created through denial of thePalestinian right to self-determinationand the continued oppression of thePalestinian nation.

Two of the three agenda points for theJerusalem foreign ministers meeting, astatement of "principles" for furthernegotiations and "the nature of thepeace," were so vague as to cause noproblems. But the third agenda pointregarding the fate of the 1.1 millionPalestinians living in the West Bank andGaza produced a cold split. The Egyp­tians wanted this point listed simply asthe "Palestinian question," whereasBegin & Co. provocatively insisted upon"Palestinian Arabs in Judea, Samariaand the Gaza District." Since Judea andSamaria are biblical names for Jewish

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Zionist ultras from occupied Sinai demonstrate against Israeli withdrawal.

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Palestinian Arabs of "EretzIsrael"

If the "military committee" meetingscould get nowhere because of irreconcil­able differences over the Israeli settle­ments. an agenda could not even beagreed upon for the "political commit­tee" meetings scheduled to begin Janu­ary 16. As demonstrated by the battlesof the nags and name plates at the mid­December Cairo conference, even tokenacknowledgement of Palestinian na-

(continued from page 1)

iation" raids against civilian Arabpopulations in the 1950's, Sharon is alsoknown for his ambitions to settle 2million additional Jews in the occupiedterritories by the year 2000. As Jewishimmigration to Israel has already driedup and in some months is less thanemigration (a la Rhodesia) Sharon needsnew anti-Semitic atrocities to fulfill hisambitions. At a January 8 cabinetmeeting even Sharon's short-term plansran aground as his proposal was shelved.Howe\er. expansion of existing settle­ments was endorsed.

Settlements in the Sinai were plannedafter the 1967 war by Moshe Dayan forthe "Labor" government to fulfillmilitary functions as well as beingbridgeheads for Zionist expansion. Theconcentration of settlements in theRafiah serves to sever Gaza from therest of the Sinai as well as constituting afortification along what would be themost accessible invasion route fromEgypt into Israel. Other settlements inthe Sinai are scattered along the coast ofthe Gulf of Aqaba from Elath to Sharm­e1-Shelk and serve as a defense perime­ter to protect Israel's access to the RedSea. Succinctly summing up the expan­sionist character of these settlements,Golda Meir, when she was primeminister, stated: "The frontier is whereJews live, not where there is a line on amap."

The Rafiah settlements have a parti­cularly squalid history. "Thousands ofBedouins were evicted by force fromland occupied for many generations....The expropriation was accompanied byconsiderable brutality. Tents wereburned, wells closed, houses destroyedby bulldozers, orchards damaged"(Noam Chomsky, "The Interim SinaiAgreement," New Politics, Winter1976). This became public knowledgethrough the protests of a neighboringsettlement run by the "left-wing" ZionistMapam. But Mapam showed howthread bare its left-wing credentials areby continuing to advocate settlementson the confiscated lands for "legitimate"security reasons (see Odea Lifschitz,"Democracy Ends At Pithat Rafiah,"Nfl' Outlook, September 1975). Anoth­er so-called Israeli "left-winger" andZionist dove Arie Eliav, who heads alittle personality cult called the Inde­pendent Socialists, in his book Land OfThe Heart (1974) wrote that the Gazashould not have.a common border withEgypt and Israel should permanentlyoccupy northeastern Sinai.

10 WORKERS VANGUARD

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RCP Splits! - Part 1Workers Vanguard No. 190, 27 January 1978

Behind the RCP Split - Part 2Coming Soon!

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(continued from page 5)

strikers could shut down the OaklandPress tight.

A rally in defense of the strikeJanuary 5 brought out 500 supporters,proof that the strikers have significantbacking in the Pontiac area. The strikeand boycott have been endorsed by theUAW, Oakland County AFL-CIO, theNational Education Association,AFSCME, the CWA and the NAACP.But if the strike is to be won, the lessonsof the Washington Post defeat must belearned. Newspaper Guild local presi­dent Willard Hutch has said that hismembers are ready to "break therecord" of another Guild strike whichlasted six years. With the bureaucrats'boycott strategy, the strikers will bedefeated long before that.

Unionists from Pontiac and Detroitmust be mobilized for mass picketing toshut down the Oakland Press andprevent scab trucks from moving. In thewake of the Washington Post debacle,newspaper executives and unionistsalike look to every strike as a test ofwhether the newspaper unions willsurvive. Mass picketing must be imple­mented to bring victory to the OaklandPress strikers and to reverse the all-outassault that threatens to turn thenewspaper industry into a scab bastionof the "open shop.".

SPARTACIST LEAGUELOCAL DIRECTORYANN ARBOR (313) 663-9012

c/o SYL. Room 4316MiChigan Union. U of MichiganAnn Arbor. MI 48109

BERKELEY:OAKLAND. . .. (415) 835-1535

Box 23372Oakland. CA 94623

BOSTON. . .. (617) 492-3928Box 188M.I.T StationCambridge. MA 02139

CHICAGO ... (312) 427-0003Box 6441. Main POCh Icago. IL 60680

CLEVELAND. . .. (216) 566-7806Box 6765Cleveland. OH 44101

DETROIT. . .. (313) 868-9095Box 663A. General PODetrOit. MI 48232

HOUSTONBox 26474Houston. TX 77207

LOS ANGELES. .. (213) 662-1564Box 26282. Edendale StationLos Angeles. CA 90026

NEW YORK. (212) 925-2426Box 1377. GPONew York. NY 10001

SAN DIEGOPO Box 2034Chula Vista. CA 92012

SAN FRANCISCO (415) 863-6963Box 5712San FranCISco. CA 94101

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TROTSKYIST LEAGUEOF CANADA

OaklandPress...

slink out of the room before the meetingadjourned.

The opening of a Nazi office in De­troit is a provocation against theworking people and the black masses. Itis also a challenge to all groups on theleft, demanding a clear-headed strategyto defeat the goose-stepping killers. Allbut the Spartacist League have failedthat test.

But the leaders of Detroit's unionsand black organizations bear mainresponsibility for the failure to mount amilitant response. The narrow-mindedbusiness unionists who mislead nearly300,000 Detroit UAW members, whorun 143 AFL-CIO locals in the metro­politan area, who head some of thelargest Teamster locals in the country,have the resources and power to stop theNazis cold. Militant unionists must fightthe hidebound bureaucrats' paralyzinggrip in order to swing their organiza­tions into the fight to smash the DetroitNazi threat. •

DetroitFascists...(continued from page 2)

challenged the heavily armed Nazis tocome out: "Show your faces and we'llkick your asses!" In the 15 JanuaryTorch the RSL pays lip service tomobilizing the unions in the fightagainst the fascists. It calls on workersto join the "Revolutionary AutoworkersCommittee" to get the UAW involved.But this is only token and hypocriticalverbiage. Workers at Dodge Truck toldWV that when the anti-fascist motionwas put forward in the Local 140meeting, RAC supporters neither spokeon the motion nor peeped when it wastabled to the executive board. Leftistpretense withered into abysmal silence.

The only major group on the left tocompletely abstain from the fightagainst the Detroit fascists has been theSocialist Workers Party (SWP). To­gether with the liberals of the ACLUand NAACP, the SWP stands for "freespeech" of the Nazis and, to date, hasnot even reported the opening of theNazi offices in the pages of its weeklynewspaper, the Militant! At the Janu­ary 9 ERC meeting, where all partici­pants, even the Southwest Side BetterBusinessmen's Association, proposed~ome -kind of action against the Nazis,two SWP supporters sat in total silencethroughout the meeting. As the Trot­skyists of the SL counterposed amilitant united-front labor mobilizationto the CLP's cringing reliance on thegovernment, the SWPers attempted to

(continued from page 3)

followed the petty-bourgeois phrase­mongers who told them the war wasnow being fought to defend the revolu­tion. It was for this reason that Leninconsidered the slogan "Down with theWar" inadequate. What he proposedinstead was ";-";0 support to the Provi­sional Government" and "Not a parlia­mentary republic ... but a republic ofSoviets of Workers', Agricultural La­bourers' and Peasants' Deputiesthroughout the country, from top tobottom" ("The Tasks of the Proletariatin the Present Revolution," April 1917).

What resemblance can there be be­tween this revolutionary insistence onthe need to pose directly the question ofproletarian revolution and the S WP'stoadying after bourgeois liberals whowould be put off by demanding "Downwith the Shah"? Where is the parallelbetween the "inexperienced agitator"who offended backward peasants andanti-Shah demonstrators today? In thisself-serving parable the SWP neglects tospecify the risk it would be taking bydenouncing the Shah. Perhaps they areafraid they would get fewer signatureson CAIFI petitions from liberal anti-

. communists such as Nat Hentoff.

The Spartacist League/SpartacusYouth League are the real successors tothe Bolshevik revolutionary tradition of1917. We not only join the Maoistdemonstrators in demanding "Downwith the Shah" but we specify the classcharacter of the revolution which mustsweep away the Iranian monarchy: nottwo-stage revolution, as the Stalinistsdemand, but "Down with the bloodyPahlevis-For a workers and peasantsgovernment in Iran!" (WV No. 181, IINovember 1977). The SWP's renuncia­tion of the slogan "Down with the Shah/Tsar" is a fitting encore to their embrac­ing of Jimmy Carter's anti-Soviet"human rights" crusade. Tothechargeofultraleftism we reply as Trotsky did in1935: "Coming from opportunists theaccusation of sectarianism is most oftena compliment.".

Down with theShah...

~

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opponents in last summer's presidentialelections, Harry Patrick or Lee RoyPatterson, has surfaced to help lead thepicketing efforts. Miners say that mostdistrict officials prove no better. A localpresident in Ohio's District 6, which hasbeen a center of many of the picketingexpeditions, told WV, "It kind of sticksin your craw when a guy is sitting upthere in the district making $27,000 andall he's doing is answering the damnphone."

The election of strike committeeswould be a critical step toward filling theglaring vacuum of leadership in theU M WA. These bodies could also be thevehicle for making authoritative appealsto the members of other unions to rallyto the miners' defense. With the strikersfacing threats of federal intervention,railroad. transport and steel workerscan play a crucial role by refusing tohandle coal for the duration of thestrike.

As the pressure on the UMWAmounts, miners must also be vigilantagainst attempts by Miller and his hand­picked negotiators to sell out at thebargaining table what the strikers aretrying to win on the picket lines.Through for the first time the BCOA hasoffered to "fully guarantee" medicalbenefits, the operators still insist on theunlimited right to fire roving pickets andassess heavy financial penalties onwildcatters. Earlier reports that Millerhad agreed to a similar betrayal of theminers' demand of the right to strike hadstirred such protests in the coal fieldsthat the UM WA president was forced toback off from his deal.

Miners must continue to demand thattheir right to strike, a life-and-deathissue in the nation's most dangerousindustry, not be traded off. The rapidlyexpanding and fantastically profitablecoal industry can easily satisfy theminers' demands for the restoration ofadequate health and pension funds.What the coal barons want is to crushthe miners' militancy. Neither federalgovernment threats, utility companyscreams nor Miller's most earnestprayers must deter the coal miners fromwinning the unlimited right to strike.•

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(colllinuecifrom page 12)

times as much as that from coal. Inaddition, companIes with millionsinvested in high-tension cable, pylonsand transformers fear the miners'possible response to such a move. As anEnergy Department official told theNell' York Times (January 21), "If Iwere a union miner who was verysuccessful stopping delivery trucks, I'dbe pretty upset if companies startedshipping coal by wire."

With the weather breaking in thecoal-mining areas, the caravans ofroving pickets which have been soprominent in the strike will set out againto keep scab coal off the roads and in theground. But with their strike finallybeginning to hit big coal customershard, the miners will be confronted withincreasing and violent assaults. Oneretired miner has already been killed bya company guard in a cold-bloodedpicket-line murder in east Kentucky.Another miner died in mysteriouscircumstances when he was shoved inthe path of an onrushing truck on aninterstate highway near Morgantown,West Virginia.

Though the White House is stillstymied as to how to effectively end thestrike, several federal agencies haveteamed up with state and local police toharass and attack the miners. ,FBIagents and Alcohol, Tobacco andFirearms Bureau cops are now prowlingthe coal fields, investigating allegedviolations of weapons and explosivesstatutes. Five West Virginia miners havebeen charged with dynamiting a rail­road track used for hauling stockpiledcoal, and the NLRB is investigatingcharges against pickets at the Norforkand Western railroad yard near Blue­field, West Virginia.

Hundreds of miners have alreadybeen arrested for picketing, and a flurryof court injunctions against masspickets has been descending in thoseareas where scab mines are trying to stayopen. Governor George Wallace hasordered state troopers to protect Alaba­ma's non-union mines. Thirty minerswere arrested and 500 dispersed withtear gas near Mentone, Alabama onJanuary 21. Harassment of miners byKentucky state troopers is so intenseand indiscriminate that strikers told WVa mass march on the state capitol isbeing discussed to demand that Gover­nor Julian Carroll call off his dogs.

As they begin to re-mobilize, a keytask for miners remains the election ofdistrict-wide strike committees to sys­tematize and extend their picketingefforts. So far, most of the masspicketing has been led by an informalnetwork of local UMWA officers andrespected militants, while most regionaland International officials keep out ofsight. One Ohio miner told WV,"Miller's acting like he doesn't wantnone of this scab coal shut down." Amilitant in West Virginia's District 17echoed these sentiments: "M iller doesn'twant pickets going into Kentucky toshut those scab mines."

Yet neither of Miller's bureaucratic

Coal Strike...

3 FEBRUARY 1978 11

WfJ/iNE/iS "N(}(J,/iIJ

Big Business Demands CarterStrongarm Coal Strikers

APUMWA members under arrest in Rockport, Indiana, January 7.

As we go to press, a 31 January UPI dispatch reports that atentative agreement has been reached between UMWA presidentArnold Miller and coal company bargainers on the key issue of"stability," i.e., stopping strikes in the coal fields, The agreementreportedly includes stiff financial penalties for miners who engage inwildcat strikes, to be paid into the Health and Retirement Fund.Moreover, the Arbitration Review Board last fall ruled that rovingpickets can be summarily fired. Miller has never challenged this ruling.

This amounts to the same seHout deal that miners forced Miller towithdraw earlier! Coal miners have been rebelling against thearbitration system and its pro-company decisions ever since the lastcontract was signed. In 1975 they were forced to strike for the right tostrike over grievances, in 1976 against injunctions by company courts,in 1977 against the gutting of the UMWA medical plan by theoperators. Now Miller and the companies want to penalize minersfighting for their own health and safety with fines, firings and jailsentences.

Coal mining is the most dangerous industrial occupation inAmerica. With the giant energy conglomerates and profit-gougingsmall-time operators ignoring safety hazards, working hand-in-glovewith federal inspectors to boost production at all costs, the right tostrike is a matter of life and death in the mines. The companies arebeginning to hurt-Don't give in now!

Miners must not sit by idly while Miller bargains away theirlivelihoods and lives. If the reports of a tentative settlement agreementon this de facto no-strike clause are confirmed, union headquartersmust be besieged with protests; demonstrations must be held to buildmilitant opposition to this sweetheart deal. Stop the UMWAbureaucracy from conniving with the coal bosses behind closed doors.

Defend the right to strike! Open up the negotiations-For district­wide elected strike committees! Build a class-struggle opposition tooust Miller & Co. and open the road to victory!

Another ploy being considered to bailout the utilities is for them to buy powerfrom northeastern companies with oil­burning plants. This plan howeverwould be enormously expensive, aselectricity generated by oil costs three

continued on page II

"no contract, no work" is so strong thatnobody really expects a Taft-Hartleyinjunction would be obeyed. Stoppingthe miners strike by force would alsodestroy whatever remaining credibilityCarter possesses with the labormovement.

nation-wide production has dropped bytwo-thirds.

A good part of the coal still beingmined is in the West, where the U MWAtops treacherously signed separateagreements and where many huge stripmines are non-union. But Western coalis neither easily shipped to Easternconsumers nor of high enough quality toreplace Appalachian coal.

Though the two fierce blizzards whichblanketed the Midwest since Christmashave hampered picketing efforts. icysnow-bound roads and the bitter coldalso kept most scab mines closed andstockpiles frozen. In addition frigidtemperatures drove up thermostats andthe drain on the utilities' suppliesworsened as a result. Many companiesare now down to little over a month'ssupply. Most states have regulationsrequiring power cutbacks of up to 25percent when stockpiles reach a 30-daylevel.

Feeling the squeeze, electric companyexecutives have scurried to Washingtondemanding strikebreaking action. TheDepartment of Energy has reportedlydeveloped contingency plans to ensurecontinued power in the event of apro.Jonged strike. These include forcedpower allocation plans. federal troopsto guard scab coal shipments, or a Taft­Hartley injunction to end the walkoutthrough an 80-day "cooling off" (andstockpiling) period.

Each of these measures entails suchenormous political hazards that theCarter administration. which seeks"stahility" in the coal fields as ardentlyas the BCOA to enhance its coal­oriented energy policy. is hesitant andnervous. The president. as well as theminers. knows that "you can't mine coalwith bayonets." The miners' tradition of

Shortly before contract negotiationsbetween the Bituminous Coal OperatorsAssociation (BCOA) and the UnitedMine Workers of America (UMWA)collapsed January 23 in Washington,union president Arnold Miller an­nounced that he would soon depart forthe coal fields.

Was his planned trip to Ohio. WestVirginia and Pennsylvania designed tobolster the ranks of the striking miners')Did he plan to give leadership to theroving pickets who have been trying toshut down scab mines') 1\0, Millerannounced that he was going to partici­pate in a ":\ational DaY of Praver" for- .an end to the coal strike!

The prayer days are being sponsoredby Wayne T. Alderson. former vice­president of Pittston Coal Company,the largest independent producer in thecountry. But while Miller was bendingknees with coal executives and beseech­ing the heavens for labor "peace," foesof the miners have begun appealing tomore substantial allies.

The breakdown of the talks in Wash­ington. for the second time in twomonths. guarantees that the miners'strike will be the longest, continuous,authorized UMWA walkout since the1920's. Coal stockpiles are alreadybeginning to run low at utility compan­ies, and the prospect of power cutbackscoupled with plant shutdowns hassparked a rising chorus from utilityexecutives and capitalist politiciansdemanding federal intervention to endthe strike.

Large utilities in Illinois, Ohio, Penn­sylvania and 1\ew York are crying thatthey could run out of coal in February.Stanley G. Schaffer. president of Pitts­burgh's Duquesne Light Co., says thecompany has less than a 40-day supplyof cmil left and has called for PresidentCarter to personally intervene in thecoal talks. Three other major Pennsyl­vama utilities called on GovernorMilton Shapp to order electricityconservation measures and to providepolice protection for scab coaldeliveries.

Meanwhile. next door in Ohio.Columbus and Southern Ohio Electrichas received no coal shipments since thestrike began and is now down to a 50­day supply. A week ago Ohio GovernorJames A. Rhodes sent a letter to Carterprophesying a "catastrophe" and de­mand ing "positive federal action" to endthe strike.

Before the strike began December 6coal-fired electric companies. whichpurchase O\er 70 percent of the nation'ssoft coaL had amassed stockpilesestimated to last from 80 to over 100days. The companies also expected to beable to augment these supplies fromscab mines. which produce nearly halfof U.S. coal.

But thousands of U M WA militantsh,l\e fanned out through the coal fields,shutting down many non-union opera­tions. The federal Department ofEnergy estimates that 40 percent of allscab mining has been stopped. and the'\ational Coal A'isociation concedes

12 3 FEBRUARY 1978

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