WfJ/iIlE/iS ",1N(JO,1" 25¢No. 290 :"':;:'~ X-523 9 October 1981

World Ca~italist Economies in Trouble

a ree

the sun. The means: tear down the"welfare state," revive the "magic" offree-market capitalism squeeze themoney supply to choke off inflation and

continued on page 8

Blue Monday, 28 September 1981.For a moment everyone feared anotherBlack Thursday, 24 October 1929, theGreat Crash which ushered in the worlddepression. The panicky selling onworld stock exchanges followed the sun.The trading day opened in Tokyo on atruly blue note as the Nikkei Dow Jonesindex plunged 300 points, the largest fallin its history. A two-week slide in theLondon market turned into a full-scalerout, the third largest decline in itshistory. Stock prices in Zurich hit a six­year low. The Paris bourse and Frank­furt exchange likewise suffered severedeclines. "The markets in the West arelike a snowball rolling downhill," saidone French hroker of the day's dealings( ~Va/l Srreer Journal, 29 September).

Everyone's eyes turned to the giantl':ew York Stock Exchange, which onFriday had closed at a 16-month low.(Prices on the Big Board had fallenalmost 200 points since June.) Stockmarket tipster Joseph Granville waspredicting prices would fall rightthrough the floor. And when the BigBoard opened, it looked as if Granvillewas dead on target. Prices fell 14 pointsin the first hour. "There is panic in theStreet. The market looks as if it is havinga free fall with 'no end in sight,"exclaimed one broker (New YorkTimes, 29 September). But as it turned

out the fall was checked and reversed.Late in the trading day the big institu­tional investors, insurance companiesand pension funds, stepped in to buystocks at now bargain-basement prices.So Blue Monday did not become BlackThursday ... this time.

While the panicky selling from Tokyoto New York was something of a chainreaction, investors were also reacting tothe specific economic and politicalconditions of their respective countries.And these conditions are, each in theirown way, bad. For months Wall Streethas been saying that Reagan's policy offinancing a massive arms buildup byreducing taxes is just plain crazy. It willruin the economy. After unsuccessfullytrying to bully the moneymen intolowering interest rates, the tough-guypresident made an effort to appeasethem by red ucing the budget deficit. OnThursdai September 24, Reagan an­nounced an additiogal$J I billion ofbUdget cuts In Medicare, Medicaid.welfare, food stamps, veteran's benefits,government employee pensions, subsi­dized housing and student loans. WallStreet's verdict was: not enough! OnFriday stock prices fell to a new low andon Monday a crash was averted only atthe eleventh hour.

The most depressed of the world'sdepressed stock markets is naturally

ber Spiegel

Panicky traders on Wall Street. The Big Board has dropped nearly 200 pointssince June.London, financial capital of the sickman of the imperialist West. Two yearsago Margaret Thatcher came to office asright-wing crusader, much like Reagan,vowing to restore Britain to its place in

"State Department Socialists"Provide NYC Office

SL ProtestsSolidarnoscCounterrevolution

t

WV Photo

New York, September 24: "Reagan busts American union PATCO, lovesSolidarnosc...

. S L9REAGAN ;a:. -~_~

zabif - ail POLISH, ,~y Un~ PAT~O,~~~.. AGjNT~.ER- K.ochCV, ,(RT, COuNTER-

~k~lIl~g~d.R~.1A~;;;JI~.~.·~.R..S~~O'fl!~&.14'1 \);;lff'" 1U1.",~5, '-Blii-~~"~~} rH~J~"I1f!'::;";'lau.~""> {~t_;AIswered. Outside on the street there was a

demonstration by the Spartacist League(SL) which proclaimed, "Polish Soli­darnosc Agents of Counterrevolution."The 50 protesters carried placards andchanted "No Rollback! No CapitalistRestoration in Eastern Europe!" and"Social Democrats, AFL-CIO Front forCIA in Poland, Too!"

An SL press release pointed out it wasno accident the Solidarnosc office wassponsored by UFT president AlbertShanker, a leader of Social Democrats,USA (SDUSA), a gang of super ColdWarriors. It also noted that LechWalesa had invited AFL-CIO "Euro­pean representative" Irving Brown to

continued on page 7

When Polish Solidarnosc opened anoffice in New York's United Federationof Teachers (UFT) headquarters Sep­tember 24, it was a significant step intheir link-up with Western imperialism.That was recognized by all sides,including capitalist propagandists whotry to cover this up with their "freeworld" rhetoric. The inaugural "Soli­darity" press conference was jammedwith representatives from every NYCnewspaper, TV network and major newsweckly, plus government mouthpieceslike Voice of America and Radio FreeEurope. a handful of East Europeannews agencies. and Workers Vanguard..But the o,minous declaration of intent bypro-imperialist labor fakers was an-

Labor Must Shut Down the Air~orts!

Militant PATCO Pickets Stop Trafficat S.F. AirportSAN FRANCISCO, 25 September­Today the largest Bay Area airportdemonstration yet in support of the airtraffic controllers strike got out of thehands of the AFL-CiO officials whocalled it. Some 600 to 800 picketersfrom PATCO (the air controllers'union), the International Associationof Machinists (lAM) and a score ofother unions surged into the streets,blocking all traffic into San FranciscoInternational Airport for an hour and20 minutes.

Picketers first surrounded a carwhich broke down in the passengerpickup lane and began chanting, "Onstrike! Shut it down!" Then theyfanned out across all lanes of traffic,defying orders from California AFL­CIO secretary John Henning and JeffPector, head of the AFL-CIO's SFAirport Coalition, to uselessly restrictpicketing to the central terminal. TVcoverage from helicopters showedfreeway traffic backed up for milesaround the airport. Many air travelersmissed their flights. But had thesemilitant pickets been led in 'masspicketing of airport employee en­trances at shift change, there wouldhave been no departing flights to ,.geton. Such a strategy of solidarity strikesto shut the airports down would havewon the PATCO strike eight weeksago.

Faced with hundreds of workers inthe street, Pector pleaded with thecrowd on his bullhorn: "You can all gohome now. The demonstration isover." This appeal was met with jeersand the chant, "Hell no, we won't go!"Despite his protest that "it's not mydemonstration," Pector was ordered

Air controllersand Machinists

defy bureaucrats,chant "Hell no, we

won't go'"

by the cops to clear the street.Wringing his hands, Pector asked agroup of lAM stewards for help, butthey just laughed at him. The IAMersmstead joined with other militants toprotect the demonstration fromwould-be thugs and hit-and-run driv­ers. One such driver cooled down in ahurry when a burly trade unionistsuggested the picketers "flip the fuckeron its side." Unfortunately, anotherhostile driver escaped after ramming apicketer, throwing him across thehood of his car.

When the lAM stewards refused todo Pector's bidding, Steve Bryant ofthe small Revolutionary WorkersLeague (RWL) stepped into the

breach. "You heard him!" yelledBryant, unsuccessfully trying to herddemonstrators back to the curb. Butno one listened to Bryant either. Suchopportunist shenanigans expose theR WL's paper position-plagiarizedfrom Workers Vanguard-for labor to"shut down the airports" as so muchhot air. According to the RWL, suchaction should take place only with"international union sanction," i.e.,never. The RWL's real program is totail bureaucrats like Henning whooccasionally blow smoke about form­ing a "labor party." At an earlier SFairport demonstration on August 21,Bryant paid his dues to such fakers byhanding out a Central Labor Council

WV Photo

leaflet calling on unionists to "writeyour congressman"! To do what-shutdown the airports? When Henningraised the same call to "write yourcongressman" at today's demonstra­tion he was loudly booed, but not bythe likes of Bryant.

Tying up passenger traffic into theairports won't win the PATCO strike.But even such action is too militant forHenning, who fears it will lead to moreeffective tactics. Those 800 demonstra­tors who came out today should havebeen led in mass picketing at theairport worker entrances. As the signcarried by a militant warehousemansaid: "Bust Union Buster Reagan!Shut Down the Airports!"

CIA International Terrorism Ex~osed

How U.S. Arms Afghan Counterrevolutionaries

W'liKEliSVANtiIJAiiI)

In the first days of 1980, James EarlCarter fired the opening shots of ColdWar II. The American president dema­gogically whipped up popular anti­Soviet frenzy over Russian interventionagainst counterrevolutionary Islamicguerrillas in Afghanistan. And the bulkof the left soon fell into line, from

Marxist Working-Class Biweeklyof the Spartacist League of the U.S.EDITOR: Jan Norden

ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Charles Burroughs

PRODUCTION: Darlene Kamiura (Manager).Noah Wilner

CIRCULATION MANAGER: Karen Wyatt

EDITORIAL BOARD: George Foster. LizGordon, Mark Kellermann. James Robertson,Reuben Samuels. Joseph Seymour. MarjorieStamberg

Workers Vanguard (USPS 098-770) publishedbiweekly, skipping an issue in August and aweek in December. by the Spartacist PublishingCo.. 41 Warren Street. New York. NY 10007.Telephone: 732-7862 (Editorial). 732-7861(Business). Address all correspondence to: Box1377. GPO, New York, NY 10116. Domesticsubscriptions: $5.00/24 issues. Second-classpostage paid at New York, NY.

Opinions expressed in signed articles or lettersdo not necessarily express the editorialviewpoint.

2

No. 290 9 October 1981

Eurocommunist renegades from Mos­cow to pseudo-Trotskyists whose "anti­Stalinism" has more in common withAmnesty International than with thefounders of the Communist Interna­tional. While the British IMG initiallyheadlined "Soviet Troops Out of Af­ghanistan!" its comrades of the mis­named "United Secretariat of theFourth International" (USec) hesitatedto take up the imperialist refrain soblatantly. But now the USec is echoingthe imperialists' anti-Soviet "humanrights" crusade, demanding "End SovietOccupation of Afghanistan!" The inter­national Spartacist tendency (iSt) hasstood alone in defending proletarianinternationalism with our battle cry,"Hail Red Army in Afghanistan!" (seeSpartacist No. 27-28, Winter 1979-80).

An integral part of the imperialistpropaganda barrage has been to coverup massive U.S. military backing for theAfghan reactionaries. Even frequentlyperceptive leftist observers have beentaken in, as for example Fred Hallidaywho wrote that "the Russian claimabout direct foreign interference inAfghanistan is wide of the mark: thefighting against the central governmentis being done by rebel Afghan tribesmenand there is no serious evidence of directparticipation in the fighting by any

foreign personnel" (In These Times, 16­22 January 1980). Recently, however,investigative reporter Carl Bernstein ofWatergate fame has lifted the veil onimperialist intervention in Afghanistan.Bernstein's article for the New Republicdetails the CIA's intriCate gunrunningoperation, part of a war drive aimed atoverturning the historic social gains ofthe Russian October Revolution:

"A year and a half after Soviet troopsmarched into Afghanistan. the U.S.Central Intelligence Agency is coordi­nating a complex, far-flung program,involving five countries and more than$100 million, to provide the Afghanresistance with the weaponry of modernguerrilla warfare. The result is anemerging anti-Soviet alliance-theUnited States, China, Pakistan. Egyptand Saudi Arabia ...."Shortlv after the invasion of December1979, there were scattered newspaperreports that the United States intendedto supply arms to the Afghan resistancefighters .... In fact, the American role inAfghanistan~as described by seniorofficials of the Carter and Reaganadministrations-is far more extensivethan any of those initial reports~uggest­ed. For the United States the stakes areespecially high. This is the first time thatweapons supplied with American helphave been used to kill regular troops ofthe Soviet armv.. "

-reprinted in the Manche.\(erGuardian Week II'.9 August .

Operation Afghanistan, reports Bern­stein, was "personally ordered byPresident Carter and carried out underthe direct supervision of his nationalsecurity adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski,and his CIA director, Stansfield Tur­ner." So the "captured Soviet AK-4T'with which Brzezinski posed at theKhyber Pass, the weapons used togun down "Communist schoolteachers"who taught young girls to read andwrite, are supplied by the "free world."But appearances had to be kept up:"I ncreased American assistance, thePresident told his aides, should donothing to disturb the impression thatthe Afghan struggle was an Islamicstruggle." Rather than being run as astraight-out CIA setup, this operationwas played through counterpart intelli­gence agencies of friend ly Arab coun­tries. With this cover, the article notes,not a single objection was raised to thesecret American gunrunning conspira­cy in the Congressional "OversightCommittee" then headed by liberalDemocrat Birch Bayh-unlike 1975,when the Senate cut off funds to SouthAfrican-linked, CIA-backed guerrillasin Angola.

The Afghanistan network waselaborate. Washington coordinated, the

continued on page 9

WORKERS VANGUARD

Silver/City on a Hill Miller/SF Progress

Reagan's Pup~ Tours US. for "Negotiations by Death"

S.F. COPS Assault Anti-Duarte Protest

Make payable/mall to: Spartacist PU'blishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, New York 10116

SUBSCRIBE NOW!'--,- ....~.- -,._- ._-- -,._.._-~----'--_.--~-~-.--.-'---'~"-----_._-----_._._-

0$2/4 issues ofWomen and Revolution

0$2/10 introductory issues ofWorkers Vanguard(includes Spartacist)

Reagan-style. In San Francisco suchdangerous illusions are met with policeclubs. In EI Salvador they are met withthe reactionaries' machetes and bullets.From EI Salvador to Angola to Poland,U.S. imperialism is waging an anti­Soviet war drive that threatens all ofhumanity. Popular fronts, at home andabroad, are. at:ecipe J()LgIQ,Qqy .d.~.The key to viCiory is the forging ofc1ass­struggle workers parties-for the re­birth of the Fourth International!.

Total Quota %

Ann Arbor 76 80 95%Berk./Oak. 309 630 49%Boston 454 450 101%Champaign 55 80 69%Chicago 316 500 63%

( I Cleveland 166 260 64%Detroit 117 200 59%,LA 261 400 65%Madison 76 80 95%New York 595 910 65%SF 253 470 54%

TOTAL 2678 4100 65%-----

WorkersVanguard

• at 65%Iveeeks to Go

----,

, Phone (

State I Zi P 290City

0$5/24 issues of Workers Vanguard(i ncl udes Spartacist)o New 0 Renewal

Name __ ,__

Address ._

o $2/9 issues of Young Spartacus

against the demonstration last Sundaywere not just aimed at the SpartacistLeague or Eimil's alleged "agitators."They were above all intended to dispersethe protest.

The massive police presence andassaults at the anti-Duarte demonstra­tion occurred because Ronald Reagandid not want his murderous puppetDuarte to be'ernbarrassed. CISPES andthe reformists who call for a "negotiatedsettlement" got a taste of "negotiations"

LeaguejSpartacus Youth League (SLjSYL) under the banner, "MilitaryVictory to the Leftist Insurgents! StopAll U.S. Aid to the Salvadoran Junta!U.S.jOAS Hands Off Central America!Defense of Cuba and USSR Begins in EISalvador!" These demands sharplycontrasted with those of the officialsponsors, CIS PES (Committee in Soli­darity with the People of EI Salvador),which opposes socialist revolution andcalls for a "political solution" with thejunta. Many demonstrators picked upSL picket signs and spread our chant upand down the line: "I, 2, 3, 4-LeftistRebels Win the War! 5,6,7, 8-Nothingto Negotiate!" An official CIS PESsound truck picked up and broadcastour slogan, "Down with the junta­workers to power!" until a CIS PESmarshal stopped the announcer.

SF Board of Supervisors memberNancy Walker was at the demonstrationand witnessed the brutal cop assault. Ata Board of Supervisors meeting the nextday, she said the protest turned violentonly after police moved to drive out thecrowd without warning. In response,deputy police chief George Eimil deniedthe cops had rioted and blamed it all onleft groups:

..... such as the Revolutionary Commu­nist Party, the Spartacus Group andseveral others who were there Sunday tocause trouble, and their purpose was tobe violent and cause violence."

-San Francisco Examiner, 29September

Two days later, the SF police commis­sion brazenly "declined to watch a mini­version of a videotape of the purportedriot at Sunday's demonstration againstthe visit of the president of EI Salvador"(Examiner, I October). Once againEimil tried to blame the police brutalityon the left. All lies, attempting to turnthe liberals' complaints against thevictims of the cop assault, to scapegoatthe Spartacist League.

This was a clear case of unprovokedcop brutality. There was indeed provo­cation on September 27. But theprovocateurs were the ultra-right-wingcult followers of Sun Myung Moon, whostaged a pro-Duarte provocation thatwas protected and given encouragementby the cops. The real violence camefromthe San Francisco police. By raising hisfalse and slanderous accusations, Eimilis trying to get the skull-cracking copsoff the hook by blaming the demonstra­tors themselves for the violence. Therepeated charges by mounted police

On September 27, club-wielding SanFrancisco police, on foot and onhorseback, repeatedly charged into apicket line of more than 6,000 demon­strators ringing the Jack Tar Hotelwhere EI Salvador's junta presidentJose Napoleon Duarte and NationalGuard commander Colonel Casanovawere being wined and dined by Salva­doran reactionaries. Inside the hotel,members of Hotel Workers Local 2refused to serve Duarte's banquet; twowaitresses joined the picket line. Out­side, the cops injured picketers andbystanders alike: 15 were treated on thescene and two were taken to hospitals.

The scene was bloody. About 2:00p.m. a phalanx of helmeted riot policeflooded Van Ness Avenue and chargedthe crowd, driving protesters away fromthe hotel. Freely swinging their billyclubs, cops struck, kicked and pulleddemonstrators by the hair if they did notretreat fast enough. People waiting at abus stop were knocked to the groundduring the charge. Even as the protestersattempted to depart from the hotel for arally site at St. Mary's Cathedral, policecharged them once more, driving theremaining demonstrators from thescene.

Since Ronald Reagan's inauguration,he has put out the word: his administra­tion stands by it butchers. Duarte wason a shopping trip for arms in the U.S.,and he received VIP service in SanFrancisco: massive police protectionand a 55-room wing of the hotel blockedoff and guarded for his entourage.Duarte's opponents got the billy club.San Francisco is home to many bigcoffee company families-among themHills Brothers and Folgers-but thejunta president said he came here "to benear the Salvadoran community."Indeed there are an estimated 50,000Salvadorans living in the Bay Area, butmany of them are refugees from thejunta's bloody terror. His claim topopular support was given the lie bythousands of demonstrators chanting"Duarte asesino! Duarte asesino!" Aspecial sense of outrage was provokedby the presence of National Guard chiefCasanova, whose troops and deathsquads have murdered over 20,000workers and peasants in the last twoyears.

The largest organized contingent inthe demonstration was the 100-plusmilitants organized by the Spartacist

9 OCTOBER 1981 3

See No Russia, Hear No Russia,j~eak No Russia

n-;::::'~:::;, ---- - ---~- --- - - ..

III SH'ilM~~AIlPOOS'i' ;:' ~ .

, ' "" MHI 1ffl-I n -~I "",. c--, l -

I I; -- .-

land says: "As our brothers and sisters inPoland have shown the world, [solidari­ty] is a quality of the human spirit thatcan never be defeated." Solidarnoscleaders have shown what kind of"action" they are interested, in byinviting to their congress U.S. imperial­ism's top anti-Soviet labor lieutenant,Kirkland, and "M r. AFL-CIA" himself,the sinister Irving Brown, who has beendisappearing "reds" and busting unionsin West Europe with CIA bucks sincethe end of World War II. At the SanFrancisco "Solidarity Day" rally, for­mer Democratic vice president WalterMondale launched into an anti­Communist diatribe over Poland culmi­nating with "Show me a nation with freeunions. and I will show you a nation thatis free"-at which point he was shouteddown by workers chanting "PATCO,PATCO, PATCO~" But the RWL onlyechoes the Kirklands and the Mondales.

At least Workers Struggle is consis­tent here. An article on the recent Frenchelections (in which Mitterrand is mis­spelled throughout) notes that Reagan

"said he was surprised by Mitterand's[sic] 'resoluteness with regard to theSoviet threat'." And what does theRWL think of this alleged "Sovietthreat"? What about the imperialistthreat to the Soviet Union? NATO?

continued on page 11

I -.r$J,i.i-·._worke.~~.~uiile~-.l:-..

-IJ~~~~'~~

Accept no centristsubstitute forWorkers Vanguard

UnchainLabo~1

won't do, it is swim against the stream ofbourgeois public opinion. Poland iswhere the Russian question is posedpointblank today. Workers Strugglesays: "As workers of Poland havealready done, we must turn solidarityfrom a word into action." Lane Kirk-

by emphasizing as No. I among its"areas of agreement" with labor theirbacking for a "strong defense." In fact,the Meanyite misleaders were super­hawks when Ronald Reagan was stillmaking movies. They are in the fore­front of the bipartisan war drive againstthe Soviet Union. And the Sollenberger­ites are bringing up the rear.

For if there's one thing the RWL

r;~~61t_.-·f,_'R__i.-"AN~flA''t~- -----------------

!!:!.!I§..!!!' 1Jre.rn!,

&:

I En

Francisco International Airport forover an hour, labor bureaucrats triedunsuccessfully to herd demonstratorsback onto the curb while RWLer (ex­SL-DC) Steve Bryant tagged alongshouting, "You heard him." "Keep theairports open" is the RWL's line inpractice.

There's an ocean separating the wordsand deeds of Sollenberger's cult. as wehave pointed out before (see "Centristsin Quicksand," liT No. 287, 14 Au­gust). But there's something missingaltogether in the first issue of WorkersStruggle which gives the measure of thisbunch: any defense of the Soviet Unionagainst imperialism. The Russian ques­tion is the touchstone for any tendencyclaiming to be Trotskyist, but in thecontext of Carter/Reagan's Cold Warthe RWL tries to duck the decisivequestion of our day. Their lead articledirected at the AFL-CIO "SolidarityDay" march, spread over four pages,has not one word about the anti-Sovietwar drive, much less anything aboutwhich side they're on. In the laundry listof demands at the end there is a vaguereference to "war preparations"­against whom? The only mention of theUSSR is a non-eommittal reference to"the rise of the military power of theSoviet Union" as one of the factors thathave "undermined the foundations ofthe 'Pax Americana'."

General Haig could agree with that ...or the AFL-CIO executive council,which began its latest statement bysaying it was "steadfast in its support fora strong national defense" against"totalitarian expansionism." The RWLtalks about breaking the Americanunion movement from the capitalistparties, yet it does not challenge theanti-Sovietism which defines the subser­vience of the labor bureaucracy to U.S.imperialism at least since Cold War I.On September 19 the Reagan adminis­tration tried to strike a conciliatory pose

The latest addition to the U.S. leftpress calls itself Workers Struggle,heralding the latest incarnation of PeterSollenberger's Revolutionary WorkersLeague (RWL, formerly R WG / BLT /BLG/CDU/OCC/CLSG) after swal­lowing Steve Bryant's minuscule So­cialist League Democratic-Centralist(SL-DC). Replacing the RWL's previ­ous Fighting Worker (known to WVreaders as the "Flinching Scab" for itsvociferous defense of picket-line cross­ing) and the SL-DC's wbor News, thisnew Sollenberger product bears acurious and deliberate resemblance toWorkers Vanguard. A banner front­page headline borrows the SpartacistLeague (SL) slogan "Break with theDemocrats and Republicans: Build aWorkers Party." The back page on theair controllers strike copies WV fromthe headline, "Shut Down the Air­ports." to the photo of PATCO leadersin chains. In this case, however, imita­tion is not meant as the sincerest form offlattery, for every mention of the SL iscoupled with the adjective "sectarian,"the epithet centrists always reserve forrevolutionaries.

There's a difference, all right: Work­ers Vanguard has teeth; the RWL'simitation doesn't. As Leon Trotskypointed out in "Centrism and theFourth International," centrists areparasites who borrow their argumentsagainst the Marxists from the reformistsand their arguments against the rightfrom the Marxists, "dulling however thesharp edge of criticism, avoiding practi­cal conclusions, thereby rendering theircriticism meaningless." This fits theRWL to a T. Look at the air controllersstrike. Shut down the airports? At a BayArea PATCO strike-support meeting inAugust, the RWL called for a one-dayairport shutdown ... but opposed thedemand by union militants and the SLto set a date. And last week when angryunionists blocked traffic into San

HWL: Swimming withthe Anti-Soviet Stream

RWL's United FraudAgainst Fascism?

Workers Struggle "introduces" itselfwith the claim that "in all its articles,Workers Struggle will do more thanjust report the facts." The problem isthat the RWL paper does considerablyless. It lies, distorts and slanders.

Consider Workers Struggle's front­page claim of "victory" for its so-called"labor/black united front" against theNazis in Detroit August 22-a "victo­ry" in which the cops protected theKlan/Nazis, charged the crowd, beatup protesters and arrested nine. TheR WL claims the SL "refused to workwithin the united fronL"

What are the facts?Fact: When the SL and worker

militants at Ford's River Rougeinitiated the 10 November 1979 mobi­lization of 500 in Detroit's KennedySquare, in response to the Klan'sthreat to celebrate its Greensboromassacre there, the RWL (then theRWG) dismissed the mobilization as a"fraud" and "media hype."

Fact: The Spartacist League helped

organize a broad, labor-eenteredmobilization of more than 1,200 whichstopped the Nazis from "celebratingHitler's birthday" in San Francisco on19 April 1980. Twenty-two unionsparticipated along with leftists andcommunity groups, but the RWLdenounced this protest as "sectarian"and chose to participate in a muchsmaller splinter raliy of Democratsand Maoists meant to pressure theCity Council while avoiding a "con­frontation" with the Nazis.

Question: So why are these largermobilizations that reach out to laborand blacks-and actually stop thefascists!-"sectarian" while an R WLdemonstration where the cops beat upthe leftists is a "victory"?

Answer: The RWL is a lot lessinterested in stopping the fascistterrorists than they are in building aslander campaign against the SL.Regarding the August 22 demonstra­tion, the RWL participated in a"conspiracy of silence" not much

different from that of the Detroit CityCouncil, which issued a march permitto the Nazis and kept that fact a secret.

The RWL, which "borrows" SLslogans and pins them to its ownstrategy of opportunism, did not wantthe SL involved in the August 22protest. So it held a secret "unitedfront" meeting with a few other smallleft organizations and decided to keepthe SL out, while borrowing the SL'sslogans and even the graphics from theSan Francisco protest posters. NowWorkers Struggle claims the SL"refused" to participate. In fact, theRWL leafleted the River Rouge plant(where the RWL even has somesupporters) only as a token gesture atthe eleventh hour. Was the RWLafraid to raise their demo amongworkers? Were they politically op­posed to appealing for working-classsupport? Or were they afraid ofalerting SL supporters in the plant tothe demonstration?

The RWL talks about "labor/blackmobilization" but their strategy is noless adventurist and despairing of thepossibility of such mobilization thanthat of the Revolutionary SocialistLeague, their "united front" partner.But unlike the RSL, the R WL lackseven the necessary street courage forthis "strategy." Nor do these centrists

take any responsibility for the protest­ers that get set up and hurt in the small­group confrontation.

At a recent RWL/RSL conference,the bloc partners' "anti-fascist unitedfront" strategy was exposed when anRSL speaker explained they did notapproach the powerful Detroit unionsbecause the workers aren't ready. AnSL spokesman who helped build theSan Francisco anti-Nazi protest ex­plained the difference between the SL'sstrategy of "labor/black mobilizationsagainst KKK/Nazi terror" and theRWL's use of the same words. It is thedifference between revolutionarieswhose program becomes action andcentrists whose words are borrowedfrom the revolutionaries, but whosedeeds are those of cowardice and_despair. The Spartacist speaker said:

"We didn't call a little group meetingof little left groups. We went to theunions in San Francisco, to thestrength of the labor movement. Wewent to the ILWU. we went to theUA W, we went to all of the majorunions. and we leafleted the plants.We got a united front of the labormovement and that stopped the Nazis.The Nazis were forced to cancel theirmarch. They were unable to showtheir faces .... Labor marched in SanFrancisco on Hitler's birthday. Hit­ler's birthday was no holiday in SanFrancisco. It was the labor movementthat won!"

4 WORKERS VANGUARD

Hands Off Philip-!gee, Covert Action!

Down with CIA Cover-Up Bill!

L.A. Black Football Star Beatento Death by Cops

The Reagan administration haslaunched a vendetta against anyonedaring to expose the crimes of its secretpolice and spies. This campaign torefurbish the reputation of imperial­ism's hated spy/assassination!tortureexperts in the CIA and elsewhere is partand parcel of the anti-Soviet war driveand is intended to intimidate and silenceCIA opponents. In an ominous newescalation of this campaign, the Houseof Representatives on September 23passed the "Intelligence Identities Pro­tection Act," which makes it a crime foranyone to reveal the name of anypresent or former U.S. intelligenceagent, whether or not that informationis already publicly available. In fact, this"official secrets act" would make itillegal not simply to name names ofgovernment provocateurs and infiltra­tors, but also to reveal anything whichcould identify the spooks. It is intendedto put a stop to any and all exposures ofthe spy agencies' dirty work.

Senator Jeremiah Denton, the MoralMajority of one, said that the purpose ofthe bill was to shut down Covert Action,the Washington-based journal commit­ted to uncovering CIA dirty work

LOS ANGELES-Chanting "Policekill in Signal Hill" and "Justice for RonSettles," several hundred mainly blackstudents from California State Universi­ty at Long Beach demonstrated Septem­ber 12 at the Signal Hill civic center.More than 100 armed sheriffs in full riotgear manned barricades to prevent thedemonstrators from marching on thepolice station, instead bottling them upin nearby Hinshaw Park. MeanwhileSWAT team sharpshooters stood onrooftops, police helicopters circledoverhead and undercover officersmingled in the crowd. No representativeof the police department would accept alist of ten demands from the demonstra­tors, who called for arrest of the copswho refused to testify before an inqueston charges of murder.

Ron Settles, a 21-year-old blackrunning back at Cal State Long Beach,was killed this summer in his jail cell inSignal Hill, a small town borderingLong Beach. On June 2, Settles wasstopped by the local cops, supposedlyfor speeding. He was handcuffed,brutally clubbed on the legs and headand hauled off to jail. Two hours later he

Spartacist League Forum

Smash U.S.lSouth AfricaAnti-Soviet Racist Axis!

• South Africa Out of Angola!• Military Victory to SWAPO!• For Workers Revolution in

Southern Africa!

Film: "Last Grave at Dimbaza"Speaker & Discussion

Saturday, Oct. 10, 7:30 p.m.Antioch School of LawRoom 2002633 16th Street NW.(between Euclid and Fuller. 1 block south ofColumbia Road)For more information: (212) 267-1025

WASHINGTON, D.C.

9 OCTOBER 1981

around the world. But even the liberalsare worried about this one. Majorbourgeois papers like the New YorkTimes instantly decried the new bill as"going too far"-every workingjournal­ist in the country is under threat ofcriminal penalties if the bill becomeslaw. Such exposes as the Watergateaffair (the original burglars includedformer CIA agents) or Seymour Hersh'sdetailed New York Times account of thebloody arms-dealing trail offormer CIAagents Edwin Wilson and Francis Terpilcould be forbidden in the future andtheir authors imprisoned. Editorialssimultaneously expressed pious hopesthat the bill could be declared unconsti­tutional after all, while ostentatiouslydissociating themselves as responsiblebourgeois patriotic journalists from the"Philip Agees of the world."

Already legal precedents for censor­ing critics of the CIA are in place. Evengung-ho pro-CIA Frank Snepp, w_hoseDecent Interval devastatingly exposedCIA incompetence in the last days of theVietnam War, has been slapped down,forced to turn over all profits from hisbook to the CIA and submit to CIAprior censorship. Even more dangerous

was dead. The cops said Settles hangedhimself in his cell. They then proceededto destroy all radio tapes and writtenrecords of the arrest to cover up theircrime. Settles' parents refuted the cop liethat their son was "suicidallydepressed"-the star athlete had alreadybeen contacted by the Dallas Cowboysand Seattle Seahawks in his junior year.On September 3, a coroner's jury ruled itwas murder; subsequently a grand juryinvestigation has been convened. Theonly real question was whether thepolice choked Settles to death or strunghim up alive.

Cop terror and murder are common­place in this deeply racist country, notleast in the Los Angeles area whereparamilitary police run roughshod overa large minority population includingan estimated one million "illegal aliens"who have no legal rights at all. The tiny30-man police force in the mean littletown of Signal Hill is a miniature modelof the nationally infamous LAPD. Theofficer who arrested Settles, Jerry LeeBrown, had been fired by the LAPD onmisconduct and drug charges-and was'then hired by Signal Hill. Six years agohe arrested one Ruben Carrillo, whowas so savagely beaten with repeatedblows to the head that he collapsed in acoma from severe brain damage twohours after being arrested. Carrilloremained comatose for two years, thendied. Again, just one week after theSettles murder a second man, JackBrown, was found dead in the SignalHill jail. And in neighboring LongBeach cops removed Keith Kouba froma common cell and put him in solitaryconfinement where he, too, died "fromhanging" on August 25.

After this spree by kill-crazy cops,and with Reagan racism in the WhiteHouse, the Settles murder has sparkedoutrage in the Los Angeles! Long Beachblack community. One thousand dem­onstrated July II, 300-plus on Septem-

was a Supreme Court decision on June29, in "Haig v. Agee," to uphold theState Department's lifting of PhilipAgee's passport, overturning the rulingsof lower federal courts. The top courtheld that he is a person deemed likely"to endanger national security." Agee,author of Inside the Company: A CIADiary and a member of Covert Action'sadvisory board, has been a thorn in theside of the vindictive spooks of Langley,Virginia, who have hounded him out ofcountry after country. Now they've gotthe Supreme Court on their side: anyU.S. citizen can have his passport takenaway without any criminal chargesagainst him, simply by administrativedecree. Anybody Haig or Reagan thinksis against them (and that's a lot ofpeople, these days) is now an open targetfor McCarthyite harassment.

The Reaganauts hope these new lawswill put an end to the "PentagonPapers/Watergate era" of widespreaddisgust with the CIA's Murder, Inc. andintimidate more active exposers likeCovert Action. Of course the CIA, FBI,NSA et al. intend to "refurbish" them­selves in any case, with or without thebenefit of protective legislation, as

ber 12, and further protests have beenannounced. The bourgeois press hasmade the case front-page news as theyhail the coroner's jury verdict and grand­jury investigation as proof that "thesystem works." Of course, the inquestverdict. is not binding on the districtattorney, who is closely tied to the policedepartment, and the DA announcedsome cops involved would be grantedimmunity in exchange for grand-jurytestimony. Meanwhile, none of thepolice are being prosecuted. Neverthe­less, the ever-so-respectable NAACPurged Long Beach State students to be"cautious" with their protests and waryof "outsider provocations." Accordingto the Long Beach Press Herald (9September), local NAACP presidentFrank Berry sent a letter to the SignalHill mayor and city council calling onlyfor the cops' temporary suspension (!)"until the case is considered closed bythe Los Angeles County District Attor­ney's office and the Central District ofCalifornia, U. S. Attorney's office."

Such faith in the workings of racist,capitalist Americanjustice is dangerous.Ron Settles' murder is no isolatedincident. One only has to recall theacquittal of the LA cop killers of blackgas station attendant Cornelius Tatumsand black housewife Eulia Love. ACLUfigures reported to a Congressionalinvestigating committee last yearshowed, that 123 people were-killed byLos Angeles police in a three-yearperiod, yet not one cop was convicted.The futility of attempts to "reform" therace-terrorists in blue was shown in thefa:nous LAPD shredding affair in whichthe department destroyed four and one­half tons of citizens' complaints underthe guise of disposing of "miscellaneousrecords"! The official thugs of thecapitalist state are only doing their jobwhen they terrorize black ghettos andbreak workers' strikes. The LA-areacops are particularly vicious because

Reagan seeks to clear the decks inpreparation for World War III. Butwhat the secret police and spies ofimperialism need most in order to carryout their deadly work is ... secrecy.What is most sinister about the new billis the general climate of repression andintimidation it is designed to enforce, inwhich the U.S. government and itshitmen can literally get away withmurder without anyone daring to raise avoice in protest.

This campaign to smear and silencecritics of the bloody American state and.its secretive, deadly agents must bestopped! Hands off Covert Action! Giveback Philip Agee's passport! Down withthe new witchhunters! It'll take proletar­ian revolution to put the CIA out ofbusiness! •

Jail killer cops of Ron SeUles!

Los Angeles is an open-shop town, atransplanted Southern industrial city. Astrong, militant labor movement andthis paramilitary police force could notlong coexist.

Race terror and union busting aremounting ominously in Reagan's Amer­ica. Like the anti-black, anti-laborbudget cuts-passed by a Democrat­controlled House of Representatives­these are the domestic face of thebipartisan anti-Soviet war drive. AndLos Angeles already has its blackDemocratic mayor. Demands for moreinvestigations, calls for civilian reviewboards, reliance on the liberals and thecourts cannot fight this climate ofgeneralized reaction. What's necessaryis to mobilize the power of labor, thesocial force which has the strength andinterest to sweep away racist capitalist"law and order," leading the blackmasses and all of the oppressed in astruggle for socialist revolution. That isthe only road to justice for the countlessthousands of victims of cop terror. Jailthe kilJers of Ron Settles!.

5

Wall Street JournalLoves Poland's Company Union

mouthpiece of the American ruling classhas in mind is not an exchange ofpolemics on Poland, but a governmentassault on the right of communists in thelabor movement to challenge the pro­capitalist line of the American laborbureaucracy. The article ends with anunmistakable threat: "Anyone seekingto delegitimize" the AFL-CIO's crusadefor "political freedom" "should beaware of just how serious an attack he islaunching."

The threat is no less ominous becauseit leaves implicit the mechanisms ofrepression envisioned by the editors. Isthe editorial's title, "Communists andthe AFL-CIO," intended to evoke anintensification of McCarthyite witch­hunting against communists in the tradeunions? Nor should anyone miss thesinister import of the Wall StreetJournal's suggestion that our demon­stration was inspired by the RussianStalinists. The notion of Trotskyists assome kind of Russian agents may beludicrous, but you can be sure the socialdemocrats will not be far behind theWall Street Journal in painting us assinister Stalinist spies, the better tocement their own united front with theCIA.

What is perhaps most interestingabout the editorial is that it makes noattempt to claim that the accusationsabout the "AFL-CIA" are anything buttrue. "How easy it is," says the WallStreet Journal. "to make lists of the CIAconnections: the parallel aims, theinstances of collaboration, the commu­nications and shared acquaintance­ships." And how easy it is! Irving Brownwas American imperialism's main manin Western Europe after World War 11,where he used CIA dollars to plantagents, buy officials and hire goons tosplit, smash and subdue combativeunions. And talk about "parallelaims"-Albert Shanker's outfit, "SocialD~mocrats, USA," was an una­shamed Vietnam hawk after even Nixongave it up as a lost cause; Shanker nQwjoins with Kirkland in the right-wingmilitarist "Committee on the PresentDanger," whose program is a nuclearfirst-strike against the USSR.

Simply put, the Wall Street Journal'sline is: CIA'! Sure, but so what? AlbertShanker, in his "Where We Stand"column in the October 4 Sunday Nev...York Times "Week in Review" section,takes the same tack. Shanker quotesRadio Moscow's charge that Shanker'sunion "annually receives $100,000 fromthe CIA for international contacts andactivities." "Totally false," says Shank­er, who goes on to boast of the money hegets from the Agency for International

continued on page 9

WV Photo

"State Department socialists" flank zipped-lip Solidarnosc spokesman.

imperialist drive to "roll back" Commu­nism throughout the world.

In this context, the opening of aSolidarnosc office in New York at theheadquarters of Albert Shanker's teach­ers' union on September 24 was agraphic symbol of Polish Solidarity's'application for membership in the "freeworld." And outside the press confer­ence which celebrated this event, theTrotskyists of the Spartacist Leaguedemonstrated against Solidarnosc'counterrevolutionary course, demand­ing "No 'Rollback'!-No CapitalistRestoration in Eastern Europe!" Ap­pealing to the socialist and internation­alist traditions of the Polish workersmovement of Rosa Luxemburg, theprotesters exposed the "solidarity"between Solidarnosc and theAFL-CIO tops as brokered by the CIA.For example, Lech Walesa extendedAFL-CIO chief Lane Kirkland aninvitation to visit Poland in the com­pany of the notorious Irving Brown,long-time creature of the CIA whosecredentials as "AFL-CIO Europeanrepresentative" furnish the "labor"cover for his decades-long career ofprovocation and gangsterism againstthe European labor movement.' TheSpartacist demonstrators carried pla­cards like "Reagan smashes PATCOAmerican Union, Loves Solidarnosc"and chanted "Kirkland/Shanker/Brown-CIA Stooges."

The protest was covered by a coupleof local TV stations but was blacked outby the networks and the newspapers.Then the Wall Street Journal devotedthe lead editorial in its 29 Septemberissue to a sharp attack on those whodare to expose the common threadlinking the American labor bureaucra­cy's political and financial support toSolidarnosc with the U.S. StateDepartment/CIA appetites for counter­revolution in Poland. After severalparagraphs dismissing an expose of CIAinvolvement in AFL-CIO "aid" tounions internationally which 'appearedin CounterSpy magazine more than sixmonths ago, the editorial says:

"Counterspy was not the last source tostrike this theme. Just a little while ago,broadcasts from the Soviet Union couldbe heard denouncing Solidarity's Amer­ican connection and cutely referring toLane Kirkland as among the 'chiefstockholders' in the Polish dissidentmovement. Over on this side of theocean, when Solidarity recently openedan office in New York, a respectably­sized group of demonstrators wasorganized to picket the opening inprotest against the American imperial­ism it allegedly represented."

The Wall Street Journal editorialwhich attacks ourdemonstration is morethan a political statement. What this

talist exploitation through bloodycounterrevolution.

It is no surprise that the anti­Communist AFL-CIO bureaucracy,forged in the 1950s McCarthy periodwhen "reds" and militants were forciblypurged from the labor movement, isdeeply involved in this enterprise. Witha zeal which recalls their ultra-hawkstance for U.S. imperialism's dirty waragainst Vietnam, the American uniontops are up to their necks in the U.S.government's schemes to manipulatethe Polish crisis as a spearhead of the

Counterspy was not .the last sourceto strike this theme. Just a little Whileago, broadcasts from the Soviet Unioncould be heard denouncing Solidarity'sAmerican connection and cutely refer­ring to Lane Kirkland as among the"chief stockholders" in the Polish dis­sident movement. Over on this side ofthe ocean, when Solidarity recentlyopened an office in New York, a re­spectably-sized group of demonstra­tors was organized to picket the open­ing in protest against the Americanimperialism it allegedly represented.

American labor is indeed aidingthe' Solidarity movement, openly andunashamedly. It has a long history offighting Communist domination of la­bor movements. It learned early in thegame that Communist parties andfree unions are natural mortal ene­mies, more violently so because freeunions, more than any other free insti­tution, threaten Communist claims tolegitimacy. When American laborgoes head to head with Communists,the obvious counterattack for theCommunists is to claim that Americanlabor is an arm of the American gov­ernment, manipulated by the, CIA.How easy it is to make lists of the CIA,connections: the parallel aims, the in­stances of collaboration, the communi­cations and shared acquaintanceships.How easy to use the list to try to dis­credit the AFL-ClO enterprise in Po­land, and more important, to try to ex­punge the colossal embarrassmentSolidarity represents to world-widecommunism.

This is a very dirty business we aredealing with. American-labor has beenactive on the international scene in or­der to further its own perfectly legiti­mate purposes. One result ants activi­ties has been to expose, time aftertime, the gulf between Communist in­terests and worker interests. This ex­posure has often worked to the benefitof eln activist U.S. foreign policy, andopponents of such a policy have rea­son to want to tarnish the whole con­nection.

But they should not be allowed todo so easily. While the American labormovement has at times in recentyears identified itself too closely withpolitical parties and administrationsfor our liking, on the whole it remainsa free and independent force pittingits weight against state power both inthe U.S. and abroad. Its efforts on be­half of political freedom are thus sig­nific'ant. Anyone seeking to delegitim­ize its performance in this realmshould be aware of just how serious anattack he is launching.

.. [.«TU. ,pm"" TL&"In:\y. SF:fYJ'EMBEH. :;9, 1981 P1a"'1:ro" J'fp J-.

Poland's Solidarity movement isholding the second stage of its nationalconvention in Gdansk without thepresence of one of its best known in­vited guests: Lane Kirkland, presidehtof the AFL-ClO. Mr. Kirkland had pre­pared a speech to deliver to the Soli­darity meeting, but at the last minutethe Communist government of PDlandrefused to grant visas to him and hisAFL-CIO delegation. This is no bigsurprise, really; American labor'ssupport for Solidarity has gravely em­barrassed Warsaw, and the Polishgovernment keeps trying to discreditthe effort. It is also sadly unsurprisingthat the Polish Communists are get­ting help here in the U.S.

You can get an idea of how the an­ti-AFL campaign is working by takinga look at a recent issue of Counterspy,a Washington-based magazine thatproclaims itself devoted to exposingthe nefarious work of the CIA and itsagents of American imperialism wher­ever they roam in the world. An arti­cle in the magazine is straightfor­wardly titled "AFL-ClO: Trojan Horsein Polish Unions. ", A special editorialintroduction to the article put the the­sis just as straightforwardly: In coun­try after country, "AFL-ClO aid hasinvariably had the ulterior motive ofestablishing, securing and expandingU.S. corporate and strategic inter­ests."

How do we know this is true? Forone thing, says Counterspy, we havebefore us the record of American la­bor's reactionary efforts in LatinAmerica. In Guatemala, GeorgeMeany worked with CIA-connected or­ganizations to undermine the properlyprogressive, truly, "labor-oriented"forces in the country., In the Domini­can Republic, the AFL-ClO set up anorganization that "ran propagandaunits as well as goon squads againstthe legitimate unions."

And, comrades, this is no accident.Counterspy tells us that AFL-ClO offi­cials have always denied working withthe CIA or taking CIA money for theiractivities, but these denials "ring hol­low." After all, do we not have the tes­timony of a former CIA official whosays he actually handed over bucks toan AFL representative? Do we notknow that the CIA read the mail ofhigh labor personnel "in order to mon­itor their handling of CIA money"?

So when we see American labor atwork in Poland, we should know thatwe're not viewing anything like an ex­pression of genuine solidarity amongthe working classes. Instead, whatwe've got is just another variation ona decades-old American capitalistplot.

Communists and the AFL-CIO

Western imperialism figures it has anunprecedented opening in Poland, achance to strike a blow against theUSSR deep in its own sphere. From thePentagon to the Common MarketCommission to the Vatican, the forcesof reaction are egging on Solidarnosc inits recent call for "free trade unions"throughout Eastern Europe. In themouths of these certified labor-haters,the call for "free trade unions," longthe fighting slogan of Cold Waranti-Communism, really means "freeenterprise": the .restoration of capi-

I~ ITHE WAL~.~~.~~~t JOURNAL.

6 WORKERS VANGU/;

Spartacist slogans (some in Polish and Russian) at september 24 demonstration:

No Rollback! No Capitalist Restoration in Eastern Europe!Polish SOlidarnosc-Agents of Counterrevolution

Social Democrats and the AFL-CIO Front for CIA in Poland, Too!Reagan Smashes PATCO American Union, Loves Solidarnosc!

Reagan and Haig: Hands Off Poland!For Class Struggle Workers Parties-In Poland and America!

Don't Sell Poland to the German Bankers!PolishSolidarnosc-Runnlng Dog of Imperialism

600,000 Red Army Soldiers Fell Liberating Poland from the German NazisFor Military Defense of the Soviet Bloc against Imperialism!

Death to Pilsudskilte Anti-Semites!Warynski, Not Wojtyla!

Long Live the Party of Luxemburg, Jogiches, Warskl, Walecki & Wera Kostrzewa!Stalinism Undermines the Workers'States-For Trotskyist Workers Parties to Power!

For Rebirth of the Trotskyist Fourth International!

J~, .~

U.S. imperialism has gone all out tobuild up Solidarnosc as a "democratic"opposition to Stalinism. With its "press"offices, its U.S. dollars funneledthrough the AFL-CIO, its echoing ofCold War propaganda, Polish "Solidar­ity" has become an instrument of thecapitalists' crusade, more than sixdecades old, to overturn the social andeconomic achievements won by theRussian October Revolution. And theydon't want any Western socialistsfouling up the works by exposing thecounterrevolutionary danger for what itis. Newsmen reported that, 'on morethan one occasion, references to theSpartacist demonstration in stories onthe opening of the NYC Solidarnoscoffice were cut out by the editors. Thiswas a blackout. That is, until five clayslater, when the Wall Street JOl!1l1alpublished its threatening edirora.:,"Communists and the AFL-CIO .­made it clear who the Americar01 Polish Solidarnosc are.•

stdewalk. Here was something to reportabout: socialists, in fact Trotskyists,protesting Polish "Solidarity." TheShachtmanite'ladies of the UFT appara­tus with their Solidarnosc buttonsstomped around complaining about thepress attention being given to the SLdemonstration. Several TV channelsshot film clips and statements weregiven to the New York Times, the Post,Daily News, UPI, Reuters and otheragencies, and several radio stations. Butfrom all this, virtually nothing about thedemonstration came out in print or onthe air. Outside the U.S. it was news: theToronto Globe and Mail printed twoparagraphs; the London Daily Mail alsocarried it. Inside the U.S., however,there were only a couple of lines inNewsday, a brief interview on a smallindependent NYC television channel.They obviously didn't get the word,because this story was spiked.

Polish emigres it is associated with. Torepeated questions about where themoney for his office was coming from,Przetakiewicz talked of the cheap $290­a-month rent from the UFT, madevague references to "student contribu­tions" and spoke of a "start-up loan"from the AFL-CIO. But as Peter Kihssnoted in the New York Times (25September), the Solidarnosc operationhere will cost about $15,000 to $18,000 amonth just for the telex communica­tions. All from "subscriptions"?

Przetakiewicz made a special point ofthanking a number of people for their"support and help and advice duringthese first difficult days in America." Hesingled out:

"Lane Kirkland, president of the AFL­CIO and his assistant, Tom Kahn;Albert Shanker, president of the UFT,and his wife Edie and secretary YettaBarsh; Susan Glass, UFT director ofpublic relations; Bayard Rustin.... "

It sounded like a "Who's Who" of thesocial-democratic Meanyite Cold Warbrain trust. If you don't know theplayers without a scorecard, Kirkland isalso a member of the anti-Sovietmilitarist Committee on the PresentDanger; Kahn is a top leader ofSDUSAand editor of the AFL-C10 Free TradeUnion News; and Yetta Barsh is thewidow of Max Shachtman, who brokewith the Trotskyist movement in 1940refusing to defend the Soviet degenerat­ed workers state against imperialismand ended up in the morass of "StateDepartment socialism." in the end,Przetakiewicz needed a good deal ofhelp from his "AFL-CIA" friends.Silver-tongued Rustin tried to smoothover the rough spots ("what Ziggymeant to say ... ") and chairman SueGlass repeatedly tried to end the fiasco,finally warning her Polish protege,"don't you dare" take another question.

As reporters streamed out of the non­conference there was commotion on the

Przetakiewicz: I don't know, but Imight ask, in your name, if you like.

When another reporter asked aboutPATCO, he too was rebuffed. Andwhen they did ask about the opening ofthe office, Przetakiewicz said it did notrepresent Solidarnosc, he himself wasnot a spokesman for Solidarnosc, thathe could make no comment on thePolish situation, nor could he talk aboutthe U.S.

The Solidarnosc non-representativehad good reason to be cagey, it turnsout. According to his statement, theNYC office will be a "wholly indepen­dent" "self-governing" non-profit corpo­ration called "The Friends of Poland'sIndependent Trade Union, 'Solidarity,'Inc." with Przetakiewicz as president.On its board are Bayard Rustin,chairman of the A. Philip RandolphInstitute, and Tadeusz Waldendowskiof the Poland Watch Center in Wash­ington, D.C. Rustin has long been aspokesman for Freedom House, a CIA­associated propaganda outlet for anti­Soviet liberals. As for the shadowy"Poland Watch," nobody seems toknow which nest of "captive nations"

,:,;~i;·~

~~>:4. ..... ~1.1J'.ls , ~1YtJ,.

7IWARYNSKr=~. NO" tu...~ The dem-'I 'I ~/ onstration the

·WO".TYL~l~··. Ii. bourgeois press" ~ , blacked out.r 0";if!

(continued/rom page J)

attend his congress in Gdansk. "It iswell-documented that Brown is anotorious CIA operator who has dis­rupted militant European unions withgangsterism and corruption since the1940s," said the release, adding:

"The Spartacist League warned thatSolidarnosc is making a bid for powerin Poland and offering itself as an agentof counterrevolution throughout EastEurope on the Cold War platform of'free elections' and 'free trade unions.'These are standard CIA propagandaploys under the guise of which the U.S.has crushed labor unions and over­thrown leftist governments from Chileto Indonesia."

The Spartacist demonstration caused astir among journalists arriving at UFTheadquarters. A Time magazine report­er shouted, "Long live the counterrevo­lution!" as she went in the door.Upstairs a group of Poles was buzzingabout "Trotskyists."

This was a demo with a sharp, angularmessage: "Polish Solidarnosc­Running Dog of Imperialism" and"Reagan, Haig: Hands Off Poland!"Two slogans directed against Polishnationalism received particular atten­tion: "Death to Pilsudskiite Anti­Semites!" and "600,000 Red ArmySoldiers Fell Liberating Poland fromthe German Nazis!" Walesa & Co.would have opposed that historic Sovietvictory, which laid the basis for tremen­dous social and economic progress inpost-war Poland, as anti-Communistsdid at the time. Polish reporters notedthe sign, "Long Live the Party ofLuxemburg, Jogiches, Warski, Walecki& Wera Kostrzewa!" Luxemburg andJogiches, Polish internationalist leadersof the Communist Party in Germany,were murdered by the Social Democrat­ic government in the "Spartacus upris­ing" of 1919; the "three W's" were thefounders of the Communist Party ofPoland, later dissolved (and its leadersshot) by Stalin on charges of Trotsky­ism. Another placard read, "Warynski,Not Wojtyla"-for the father of the firstPolish socialist party, Proletariat, notthe present anti-Commuhist Polishpope. A sign in Polish said, "ReaganSmashes P ATCO American Union,Loves Solidarnosc." Another inRussian proclaimed: "For MilitaryDefense of the Soviet Bloc AgainstImperialism!"

At the press conference, SolidarnoscAmerican representative Zgmunt Prze­takiewicz quickly managed to alienatevirtually the entire NYC press corps byrefusing to answer any substantivequestions. WVasked for a comment onthe fact that:

WV: American socialists are demon­strating and saying that Solidarity iscounterrevolutionary.... How do youexplain Solidarity's close ties withknown CIA men in the labor movementlike Irving Brown?Przetakiewicz: I would like just aquestion concerning the opening of theoffice.WV: Reagan is attempting to break theAmerican air controllers unionPATCO ... for striking against thegovernment. Why has Solidarity beensilent on this')

SL ProtestsSolidarnosc...

OCT08, i'

~3¥" --~._-'

Wall Street...(continued/rom page 1)break the power of the trade unions. Theresult: a collapse in industrial produc­tion worse than the Great Depression ofthe 1930s. Last summer this hated Torygovernment was shaken as thousands ofjobless youth, black and white, battledwith cops and set impoverished neigh­borhoods aflame in almost every majorcity in England. Retreating into abunker mentality, Thatcher has sincepurged her cabinet of the so-called"wets," who want to relax the economicausterity and pump a little money intothe blighted neighborhoods. She is nowsetting out for a decisive showdown withthe labor movement and her legion ofenemies among the British people.Britain's capitalists are deeply pessimis­tic, not only fearing that Thatcher'sunrelenting monetarism will furtherdepress production, but that it willtrigger a social conflagration of whichthe burning of Liverpool 8 was but asmall prelude.

Across the Channel the Paris boursewas reacting to a ....ery different sort ofgovernment. Years of economic austeri­ty and ever-mounting unemploymentunder the haut bourgeois Giscardproduced a landslide victory last Mayfor social democrat Francois Mitter­rand, who promised Keynesian meas­ures to stimulate the economy and anambitious program of nationalizationsand other economic and social reforms.While no one questions Mitterrand'scommitment to capitalist rule and toNATQ anti-Sovietism (he's buildingnuclear weapons like a small-timeReagan), the French bourgeoisie believehis economic policies are highly infla­tionary and are displeased at the extentof the nationalizations. Thus, Frenchcapitalists are quite capable of going onstrike, i.e., not investing, under agovernment they regard as too radical.Shades of Allende's Chile.

While capitalists are for differentreasons unhappy with the right-wingcrusaders Reagan/Thatcher and thereformist Socialist Mitterrand, neitherare they happy with the Bonn govern­ment, long considered the most stable,pragmatic and effective government inthe Western world. For the past twelveyears the coalition led by Brandt/Schmidt's Social Democrats (SPD) hasoverseen the rise of West Germany asthe dominant country in capitalistEurope. But now a severe and pro­longed recession threatens to rip thecoalition apart. The small bourgeois­liberal Free Democratic Party wants toslash West Germany's relatively highsocial-welfare benefits '11 la ReaganjThatcher, while the SPD wants toincrease public spending to reduceunemployment, even if this meansraising taxes. The West German press isfull of anticipatory obituaries for theSchmidtjGenscher regime and specula­tions that the FOP will switch partnersto form a new government with theright-wing Christian Democrats on aprogram of economic austerity.

The respected bourgeois economistEdward Bernstein, one of the men whoin 1944 designed the Bretton Woodsinternational monetary accords, saw inthe panicky selling on the world stockmarkets "renewed fears of a worldwidedepression" (New York Times, 29September). Bernstein is surely rightabout that. The basic conditions whichproduced Blue Monday will not goaway-two years or so of stagflationand declining profit rates in WestEurope and the V.S. with no recovery insight, record-high interest rates devas­tating long-term capita~ investment,Washington's unrestrained militaryexpenditure destabilizing the entireworld economy. The capitalists are introuble.

"Highest Interest Rates SinceJesus Christ"

Reagan promised to restore militarysuperiority over the Russians, to cut

8

lI1come taxes by 30 percent, to donothing to hurt "the truly needy," toachieve full employment, to reduceinflation to a trickle and still balance thebudget by 1984. How was this miracle ofthe loaves and the fishes to be accom­plished? Some call it voodoo economics;Reagan calls it "supply-side" econom­ics. Cut taxes enough, he claim-ed, andthis would stimulate such a vast out­pouring of work effort and capitalinvestment that national income wouldincrease enough to restore the old totaltax revenue, even more.

John BranchSan Antonio Express-News

Of course, no banker in the worldbelieved this patent nonsense and (evenas they were praising the new "pro­business" president) interest rates onWall Street shot up anticipating thegreat "Reagan inflation" to come. Theserecord-high interest rates sucked inspeculative capital (e.g., Arab oil mon­ey) from financial markets throughoutthe world. Thus, Reaganomics pro­duced an excruciating dilemma for WestEuropean governments, one aggravatedby recessionary conditions on thecontinent. If they do not raise interestrates correspondingly, they will suffermassive capital flight, enormousbalance-of-payments deficits and arapidly depreciating currency which willgenerate domestic inflation. If they doraise interest rates to New York levelsmore or less, this will choke off newinvestment, none too robust in any case.

This dilemma is especially acute inWest Germany, which has a relativelylow rate of inflation by internationalstandards (about 6 percent over the pastyear). If the Bundesbank jacks upinterest rates high enough to prevent acapital outflow to New York, WestGerman industrialists and consumerswill be paying an extraordinary real cost(interest rates minus the rate of inflation)on borrowed funds. We now have "thehighest rates of interest in Germanysince the birth of Christ, as far as realinterest rates are concerned," exclaimedHelmut Schmidt in one of his numeroustirades against Reagan's policies (NewYork Times, 21 July).

The one-sided "interest rate war"quite dominated the international eco­nomic summit in Ottawa last July.Rel;lgan smiled prettily and basicallytold his European critics they wouldhave to eat it. The ritual summitdeclaration conceded that "interest ratesin one country can make stabilizationpolicies more difficult in other coun­tries," but didn't indicate the V. S. woulddo a damn thing about it. While Reagancould tell Thatcher, "I love you, Mag­gie" (and Schmidt, I don't love you,Helmut), back home Wall Street couldneither be charmed, bullied nor ignored.

The Wrath of Wall Street

One thing bankers understand verywell is that there is no such thing as a freelunch. As one of Reagan's more acerbic

Wall Street critics, Sam Nakagama, putit: "When you are trying to have amassive rearmament program and arefacing Social Security entitlements foran aging population, someone has topay for this" ( World Business Weekly,21 September).' Nakagama and hiscolleagues would be quite happy to seethe MX missiles and B-1 bombers paidfor by black school children goingwithout their lunches, but alas theghetto poor don't have enough moneyto be soaked. So America's capitalistsunderstand that one way or another

I

they're going to have to pay for part ofthis.

If the Federal Reserve keeps its foothard on the monetary brake, themassive government b~rrowing willcertainly "crowd out" corporate bondofferings, not to speak of mortgageloans. Reputable and profitable busi­nesses will have to pay interest ratestraditionally associated with Mafia loansharks. If, on the other hand, the Fedreverses its tight money policy (and thebetting is that it will), then the rate ofinflation will once more spiral uptoward Latin American banana­republic levels, devaluing money capi­tal. Small wonder the financial commu­nity has proved to be the strongestobstacle to Reagan's economic policies.

The Wall Street vs. White House feudhas some of the stu~f of political satire.Right-wing Republicans now sound likeWilliam Jennings Bryan-style populistsas they denounce Wall Street cabals andthreaten the big moneymen with puni­tive taxation. In turn, Democratic Partynational chairman Charles Mannattinvites the country's bankers and stockbrokers as the latest oppressed group tojoin the grand anti-Reagan coalition:"The nation's financial community hasjoined women, minority members,labor, and conservationists in beingjolted to the full implications of anunrestrained Reagan administration"(New York Times, 11 September)!

In their glee at finding Wall Streetdenouncing their arch-enemy, Reagan,many liberals (and even reformists)overlook the "small point" that thefinanciers are opposing the right-wingpresident from the right. In general,America's bankers and industrialistshave no quarrel with Reagan's drivetoward nuclear first-strike capacityagainst the Soviet Vnion, only with howit is to be financed. Chemical Bank vicepresident Thomas Johnson, for exam­ple, is calling for cuts in Social Securityprograms to balance the budget. TheCongressional Budget Office estimatesthat without further cuts, Reagan willrun a $160 billion deficit by 1984. WallStreet is talking in terms of trimmingmilitary expenditure around $30 billion.To balance the budget then will requirecutbacks in social-welfare programsapproximately three times the savagecuts Reagan has already made!

In just eight months Reagan hasmanaged to enrage everyone from theKremlin to the West German SocialDemocracy to the AFL-CIO to WallStreet and th~ National Association ofHome Builders. Not even Adolf Hitlerantagonized so many centers of power,domestic and foreign, in his first monthsin office.

A Return to the Gold Standard?

No one believes Reagan will balancethe budget ever, and everyone thinks theV.S. and world economy is set for a newsurge of inflation. But cultists andcon men are used to dealing with a lossof public credibility. The "supply-side"quacks, like Arthur Laffer, are nowpeddling a return to the gold standard asthe latest cure-all for the capitalistworld's economic ills. Reportedly Rea­gan, who seemingly learned his econom­ics in Disneyland, is sympathetic to areturn to gold.

What would the restoration of thegold standard, if it were possible (whichit isn't), mean? The primary conditionfor the pre-World War I gold standardwas a labor movement too weak to resistperiodic cuts in money wages. In thenineteenth century if Britain or Franceran a balance-of-payments deficit, thecentral bank lost gold. The central bankwould then automatically call in loans,contract the money supply, raise interestrates, etc. Some firms would have to cutback production, others would gobankrupt. In the absence of strong tradeunions, increasing unemployment oreven the threat of it forced workers toaccept a cut in money (and real) wages,in this way restoring the country'sinternational competitiveness and gold.That is how the gold standard worked.

World War I basically destroyed thegold standard not only because all thecombatants financed the unprecedentedmilitary expenditure by running theprinting presses, but also because theirworking classes. in part inspired by theRussian Revolution, emerged as acontender for power. Traditional defla­tionary wage slashing became toopolitically difficult and dangerous.Enumerating the main changes in theworld economy in the post-World War Iperiod the liberal American economistCharles Kindleberger singles out "anincreased reluctance by labor to acceptwage decreases after about 1921,making for an irreversibility of wageand price increases" (The World inDepression 1929-1939 [1973]). Since the1920s and especially since World War IIcapitalists have generally intensified therate of exptoitation by holding moneywage increases below the inflation rate.This, incidentally, is a key element in theso-called Keynesian revolution in bour­geois economic thinking._

A return to the gold standard couldwork only if it produced a depression sodeep and prolonged the trade unionswould not resist a large cut in moneywages, thus allowing a lower price level.The gold standard is one form-anextreme form-of deflationary mone­tarism. This is clearly understood by thehigh priest of right-wing monetarism,Milton Friedman, who dismisses thegold standard as irrelevant in the realworld:

"It may well be that in order to stabilizeprices you will have to go through arecession. That has been the experienceof most countries that have stoppedinflation. If it is not political~l'possibleto accept that cure without a goldstandard, it will not be politicallypossible to do it with a gold standard."[our emphasis]

-Business Week, 21 September

Milton Friedman's "Cure":Pinochet's Chile, Thatcher'sBritain

We can see what political conditionshe's talking about in that first livinglaboratory of Friedmanite economics,General Pinochet's Chile. Not long afterthe 1973 coup in which 30,000 workersand leftists were massacred and thelabor movement beheaded, Friedman

WORKERS VANGUARD

Poland'sCompanyUnion...(continued from page 6)

Development, frequently a conduit forCIA "counterinsurgency" which hasfinanced operations from Guatemala toThailand. For Shanker, there's nothingunholy about an alliance between theAmerican labor tops and the American

. When··Karll\1arx

urgedw()rkers to. unite, benever.dreaitled they'd

do it-againstcommunism.

,~:i

See "Specter Haunting Communism:Polish Workers" on

Ben Wattenberg At LargeFri., Oct. 2, 9:30 pm, Channel 13

\lade ('O~<'ihle In part by a grant from..

Counterrevolutionary friends ofSolidarnosc.

government; it's a legitimate anti­Communist united front stretchingfrom the UFT office to Langley.Virginia and blessed by the Wall StreetJournal to boot.

American social democracy stands inthe front line of a broad counterrevolu­tionary chorus of Solidarnosc fans. Anintimate of Shanker's Social Demo­crats, USA, one Ben Wattenberg, hosted

himself visited Chile to explain hiseconomic "shock treatment" to its newleaders. Friedman counseled Pinochetto harden his heart to humanitarianconcern:

"Don't worry about your internationalimage any more, Mr. President. Justmake sure that the international corpo­rations find it profitable here, andnothing more."

Here is how the New York Times (21March 1976) described the Chileaneconomy after more than two yearsunder Friedman's cure:

"Last year the gross national productdeclined by more than 12 percent. ...Unemployment, which is climbingabove 16 percent, has reached its mostdramatic level in three decades. Malnu­trition is widespread in the urbanslums."

Even Business Week (12 January 1976),scarcely a voice of liberal protest,recognized that only a brutal militarydictatorship could fully impose theFriedmanite economic model: "Coun­tries that try the cold-turkey approachto inflation therefore tend, like Braziland Chile, to be regimes that use policepower to contain the social fallout ofthese economic policies."

STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP.i\I/1.'\AGBIE'\T AND ClR(TLATION

(Required by 39 LS.C. 3685)

I. I itle of Publication: ~turkerJ Vanguard.IA. Publicalil1n No. 098770.2. [Jate 01 filing: I October 19~ I.:l. !-requency of Issue: Bi-weekly (skipping an issue

in Augu;;,t and a week in December).:lA. No. of Issues Published Annually: 25..1 B. Annual Subscription Price: $5.00.4. Location of known office of publication: 41

Warren St.. New York. "iY 10007.5. Location of the head4uarters or general business

offices of the pUblishers: 41 Warren St., New York, NY10007.

6. Names and complete addresses of publisher.editor. and managing editor: Publisher-SpartacistPublishing Co.. 41 Warren St.. NY, NY 10007; Editor··.Ian Norden, 41 Warren St .. NY. NY 10007; ManagingEditor--- None.

9 OCTOBER 1981

an October 2 public television specialtitled "Specter Haunting Communism:Polish Workers." The ad for theprogram in the October 2 New YorkTimes gloated: "When Karl Marx urgedworkers to unite, he never dreamedthey'd do it against communism." Andwho paid for the TV show? DuPont'sConoco oil company, product of theworld's biggest capitalist merger. Thisfriend of Solidarnosc is, among otherthings, one of America's big coalcompanies. A comparison of its safetyrecord with that of the Polish coal minesshould explode any idea that Solidar­nose and its American patrons aresupporters of workers' rights!

The spectacle of the Wall StreetJournal, a main ideological voice of theU.S. bourgeoisie, posturing as a parti­san of a "free and independent" Ameri­can labor movement is certainly ob­scene. But no more obscene than aPolish "union" which looks for salva­tion to the U.S. imperialist-led "freeworld," the pope ... and now even theInternational Monetary Fund! Is there aunion leader anywhere else in the worldwho would dare to so openly makecommon cause with the internationalbankers' cartel? If the IMF ever gets achance to implement its program forPoland, it will surely begin by starvingmost of the Polish population. Ameri­can workers may not understand the tollin human suffering and death containedbeneath those initials, but workers allover the globe know what the IMFmeans. Pinochet's bloody coup in Chilewas for the purpose of making thecountry "safe" for the 1M F. If Conocoand the IMF ever get their hands onPoland, Polish miners will be lucky tolive long enough to get black lung. LechWalesa's affection for the IMF is theclearest possible demonstration ofSolidarnosc' real role as a companyunion for the CIA and the bankers.

The Spartacist League's defense ofthe workers movement demands themost vigorous protest against the pro­capitalist American labor tops' wittingcollusion in Solidarnosc' imperialist-

And what of the second livinglaboratory of Friedmanite economics,Thatcher's Britain? As in Chile, there isa collapse in industrial production andmass unemployment. In the past twoyears manufacturing output has fallen17 percent, a steeper fall than in theworst period of the 1930s. Over a millionmanufacturing jobs have been lost,almost one in seven of those employedand more than all the jobs lost in theprevious twenty years. What of thedeclared goal of Thatcher's great de­pression, to squeeze the inflationarypressure out of the economy? WhenThatcher took office in May 1979consumer prices had risen 14 percentover the previous year. Today, despitethe enormops unemployed productivecapacity, despite the bankrupting ofhundreds of firms, despite the impover­ishment of whole sections of thepopulation, the inflation rate is effec­tively unchanged at 12 percent (Econo­mist, 26 September).

But unlike Chile, the British tradeunions have not been broken throughmass terror. Unlike fellow FriedmanitePinochet, Thatcher (and Reagan) can-

7. Owner (If owned by a corporation. its name andaddress must be stated and also immediately thereun·der the name~ and addresses of stockhulders ov.ning orholding I percent or more of total amount of stock. Ifnot o\\.·oed by a corporation, the names and addressesof the Individual owners must be given. If owned by apartnership or other unincorporated firm, its name andaddress. as well as that of each indiVidual must begiven.): unincorporated association Spartacist Publish­ing Co.. 41 Warren St .. NY. NY 10007.

~. Known bondholders. mortgagees. and othersecunty holders owning or holding I percent or more oftotal amount of bonds. mortgages or other securities.(If there are none, so state.): None.

9. For completion by nonprofit organizationsauthorind to mail at speCial rates.

10. Extent and nature of circulation: Average no.copies each issue during preceding 12 months: A. Totalno. copies printed (net press run): 13.240; B. PaidCirculation: (I) Sales through dealers and carriers.

backed counterrevolutionary enter­prise. Our aim is not merely to exposethe unholy alliance between the U.S.government and the American laborofficialdom, but to break that alliancethrough the forging of a class-struggleunion leadership which will militantlyoppose U.S. imperialism's sinisterschemes to export counterrevolution.•

u.s. ArmsAfghans...(continuedfrom page 2)

U.S. and Saudi Arabia did most of thebankrolling. "The Egyptians have pro­vided training for the Afghan guerrillafighters and serve as the major source ofarms-supplying weapons obtainedfrom the Soviet Union during the yearsof Egyptian-Soviet friendship, and tonsof replicated Soviet armaments, turnedout in factories on the outskirts ofCairo." Pakistan, with the personalapproval of President Zia, allowed theweapons to be transshipped into Af­ghanistan. The role of China, in particu­lar, was hushed up. When Carter's warsecretary Harold Brown visited Peking,writes Bernstein, "the secret part of hisagenda dealt primarily with Afghani­stan .... 'We let it be known we weregoing to do certain things. They let it beknown they were going to do certainthings. There was an implicitagreement' .... The Chinese agreed topermit overflights of their territory forplanes carrying arms bound eventuallyfor Afghanistan. The Chinese alsowould help supply the SAM-7s [anti­aircraft missiles] and RPG anti-tankrockets."

"The Reagan administration hassince reviewed the clandestine operationand ordered it expanded," the articlereports. But no matter how fanatical thenuclear sabre-rattling of the Republi­cans, they inherited this operation fromthe previous Democratic administra-

not supplement monetary policy withthe executioner's bullet and the tortur­er's electric shock, much as they mightlike to. Here then is the critical differ­ence between the right-wing regime inChile and Britain or the U.S. ThoseBritish workers who have held their jobshave kept their money wage increasesroughly in line with inflation. At theshop floor level militants have prevent­ed speed-up, attacks on safety rules andother means of intensifying the rate ofexploitation. Between Thatcher's relent­less monetarism and a still-strong labormovement Britain's capitalists are in asorry condition indeed. ExcludingNorth Sea oil, the rate of return onBritish industrial and commercial capi­tal has been halved, from an anemic 6percent in 1978 to a marginal 3 percentin 1980 (Economist, 4 July). Given thispitiful rate of return, Britain's industri­alists would just as well spend theirmoney at the race track (as many do).

Socialism or BarbarismThatcher's Britain and Reagan's

America represent the dramatic decayof the capitalist system, which has

street vendors and counter sales: 8.146. (2) Mailsubscriptions: 2,670. C Total paid circulation fSum ofIOIlI and IOB2): 10.~16 D. Free distribution by mail,carrier or other means. samples, complimentary, andother free copies: 97. E. Total distribution (Sum of Cand DJ: IO.9IJ. F. Copies not distributed: (I) Officeuse. left over. unaccounted, spoiled after printing:2..127. (2) Returns from news agents: O. G. Total (Sumof E. F I and 2 should equal net press run shown in A):13,240

Actual no. copies of single issue published nearest tofilmg date: A. Total no. copies printed (net press run):17.000: B. Paid circulation: (I) Sales through dealersand carriers, street vendors and counter sales: 11.077;(2) Mail subscriptions: 2,455; C. Total paid circulation(Sum of lOBI and IOB2): 13,532; D. Free distributionby mail, carrier or other means. samples, complimen­tary. and other free copies: 0; E. Total distribution(Sum of C and D): IJ,532; F. Copies not distributed: (I)Office use, left over. unaccounted. spoiled after

tion. Carter/Brzezinski's role as a bridgebetween post-Vietnam imperialist par­alysis and Reagan/ Haig's wild anti­Soviet warmongerine was most clearlyexposed in Afghanistan like EI Salva­dor, points where the Cold War isrunning hottest. The Kremlin bureauc­racy, meanwhile, which still clings toillusions in "detente" with "peace­loving" imperialists, is reaping therewards of past betrayals. Arms squan­dered upon capitalist Egypt to buyAnwar Sadat's favor are now being usedto kill Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan.And the Chinese, similarly following thenationalist logic of Stalinism, havethrown themselves into an increasinglyovert anti-Soviet military alliance withWashington. This counterrevolutionaryaxis, which threatens the existence ofthe Chinese deformed workers state aswell, is engaging in provocations whichcould plunge the world into nuclearholocaust.

Today, General Haig again demandsa Soviet pullout from this region vital tothe defense of the USSR as the price fora "working relationship" with the West.In a recent speech he alleges that, "TheSoviet Union still prefers to promote abizarre theme: that the United States isunwilling to negotiate about questionsof critical international concern; thatthe U. S. wants a return to the Cold War;that the U.S. is the source of the troublein Afghanistan" (New York Times, 12August). Bizarre indeed! Slipping Ka­lashnikovs across mountain passes tomullah-led feudal clericalists in Afghan­istan is only part of the imperialists'drive to "roll back" social revolutionsthat have wrenched a third of the worldfrom the grip of capitalist exploitation.While the bulk of the left marched toCarter's tune, the iSt proclaimed that inthe military confrontation pitting Sovietsoldiers backing the left-nationalistregime in Kabul against imperialist­backed counterrevolutionaries, Marx­ists side with the Russian tanks. Nowmore than ever: Hail Red Army inAfghanistan! Smash Carter/Reagan'santi-Soviet W<ir drive! •

nothing to offer the working peopleexcept impoverishment, oppression andwar. The British working class hatesThatcher, as increasingly the Americanworking class hates Reagan. Thesedespised and isolated right-wing re­gimes can and must be brought down.But this will prove no real victory for theworking masses if they are only replacedby the same Labourite social democracyand Democratic Party liberalism whichpaved the way for the right-wingfanatics.

As capitalists throughout the worldtalk of a second Great Depression andthe_ imperialist powers, led by the UnitedStates, drive toward nuclear war againstthe Soviet Union, the words of LeonTrotsky in 1938 retain all oftheirforce:"Without a socialist revolution, in thenext period at that, a catastrophethreatens the whole culture of man­kind." What is needed for the victory'ofthat socialist revolution is the leadershipof a Leninist vanguard. Under revolu­tionary leadership the internationalworking class can sweep away theReagans, Thatchers and Pinochetsforever. •

printing: 3,468; (2) Returns from news agents: 0; G.Total (Sum of E. F' and 2·_· should equal net press runshown in A): 17.000.

'I. I certify that the statements made by me above arecorrect and complete.

(Signed).Ian Norden.

(editor)12. For completion by publishers mailing at the

regular rates (Section 132.121, Postal Service Manual).39 lJ.S.c. 3626 provides in pertinent part: "No personwho would have been entitled to mail matter underformer section 4359 of this title shall mail such matter atthe rates provided under this subsection unless he filesannually with the Postal Service a written request forpermission to mail matter at such rates."lnaccordancewith the provisions of this statute. 1 hereby requestpermission to mail the publication named in Item I atthe phased postage rates presently authorized by 39lJ.S,c. 3626. (Signed) Jan Norden, (editor).

9

•

Fremont GM Militants Say~

"We Need aSitdown!"

SPARTACIST LEAGUE LOCAL DIRECTORY

TROTSKYIST LEAGUE OF CANADA

Maoists Pimp OffUnemployment

* * * * *

Make payable/mail toSpartacist Publishing CoBox 1377 GPONew York, New York 10116

$15.00per volume

Now Available:

Workers VanguardBound Volumes

Vol. VI WV Nos. 139-1627 January-17 June 1977

Vol. VII WV Nos. 163-18624 June-23 December 1977

Also available: Vals. I-V

The brothers and sisters on layoffnow facing loss of their jobs wouldsupport the sitdown. They and thefamilies of all union members couldorganize mass picket lines outside theplant to defend and support the sit­down. The sitdown would inspire thesupport of thousands of UAW membersind ustry-wide across the country whoare themselves facing layoffs or alreadyon the street.

The Local 1364 officials have alreadysaid such a strike would be "illegal" andthey oppose it. Let them say that to ourfaces at the Union meeting. They don'thave the right to give our jobs away.From [UAW president Doug] Fraserdown to [Local 1364 leaders] Mays,Scrempos, Nano, Martinez, Gus Billy,and the rest, all accept G M's "right" tomake a profit by laying us off. Interna­tional President Fraser sits on theChrysler Board of Directors and en­forces wage cuts and speedup forChrysler. Their job is to prevent unionaction and keep the membership "inline."

The clearest expression of this pro­company policy was revealed by theremarks of ex-vice president SamMarsh at the September 16 "flow"meeting. When people applauded theidea of a sitdown strike he said, "Itmight sound good, but it's not going towork." Instead, he said, we should"launch a voter registration drive andwork through political channels." Inother words, don't strike to save yourjobs-wait four more years and vote toput the Democrats back in. That meansto hell with our jobs now! The Demo­crats as well as the Republicans arestrikebreakers and unionbusters. Thispolicy of sacrificing the jobs andworking conditions of autoworkers tothe interests of the political parties of theauto companies is what has crippled theUAWand led to thousands of layoffswithout a fight.

We better fight now or we will befacing the same grim future as the UAWbrothers and sisters from the shut downGM Parts plant: lost homes, ruinedlives, minimum wages, welfare or worse.If we don't fight it's guaranteed we lose.But many UAW members learned thehard way what did not work in the fightto save the Parts plant: politicians didn'twork; concerned citizens didn't work;Fraser didn't work and the leadership ofLocal 1364 didn't work. The one thingthat will work to stop the truck line fromleaving GMAD Fremont is a sitdownstrike.

It is urgent that every member ofLocal 1364 show up at the Unionmeeting 12:00 noon, September 27, Callevery member you know, working orlaid off, tell them about the sitdownstrike and make sure they show up, Weknow the Local leadership is opposed tostrike action, but they are not the union,the membership is. If the membershipdecides to take action, no sabotage bythe officers can stop it. Be there!

UA W Militant Caucus

ING! All we've gotten is bullshit about"retraining" for "new careers" and howthe "flov/' will go from truck topassenger. Their position is whateverG M wants. G M gets. So since G M'sannouncement August 26 the "stunned"union officials have simply been actingin open collusion with the company. Asthe September 3 "retraining" meeting

was only a week later, it's hard to believethe union had no prior knowledge of theshutdown. With the local leadershipgroveling, G M is reported to be de­manding contractual take-aways onPPH's [paid personal holidays], 63Btransfers, absentee control, line speedand revisions of guidelines and forcedlayoffs for skilled trades. But all we'rebeing told is "tough luck"-Iearn basketweaving or go on welfare.

We have a union and we should use itto fight for our jobs. We need a sitdownstrike demanding that THE TRUCKLINE STAYS IN FREMONT! TheUAW was built by sitdown strikesduring the depression in 1936-37.Properly organized it has proved to bethe most effective strike tactic everdevised. Because the strikers are on theinside occupying the plant and themanagement and other usual strike­breakers are on the outside. Big stock­piles and low sales can weaken a regularstrike but not a sitdown. With thestrikers holding GM's sacred propertyhostage, all production, includingpassenger startup, comes to a halt. Withno production and the ensuing publicitywe could force GM to reverse itsdecision. They get their plant back whenwe get our jobs back.

post on a union committee, a spot ona bureaucratic slate or a column inthe local union newsletter. First theyjoined one longstanding faction inthe Local 1364 bureaucracy (theBrotherhood) and later the other(U nited Independents). Then in 1977when these same bureaucrats led arichly justified local strike for the firsttime ever, and GM fired them for it,Stanley said they should stay fired!When GM workers were threatenedwith mass layoffs, the Maoists'answer was the seniority-busting1974 women's lawsuit against theunion. When militants in the plantagitated for a sitdown that same year,Stanley and her friends opposed a sit­down strike and perversely dubbedthemselves the Stand Up caucus.

No doubt, for someone who hasdefended Stalin's anti-Bolshevikpurges and murders, Pol Pot'sgenocide in Cambodia and China'sinvasion of Vietnam, it is no sweat tostand before American auto workersand defend the UAW's refusal tofight layoffs. Liz Stanley may feelshe's got hers, but black auto workersknow what "future" awaits them inReagan's America where minorityyouth unemployment is more than 50percent. "Bullshit" was the responseof the angry Fremont UAW mem­bers to their careerist misleaders,who have proved themselves capableof doing just about anything exceptwhat's needed: hard class struggle.

San FranciscoBox 5712San Francisco, CA 94101(415) 863-6963

Los AngelesBox 26282Edendale StationLos Angeles. CA 90026(213) 662-1564

Madisonc/o SYLBox 2074Madison, WI 53701(608) 255-2342

New YorkBox 444Canal Street StationNew York, NY 10013(212) 267-1025

VancouverBox 26, Station AVancouver, B. C. V6C 2L8(604) 681-2422

OAKLAND-A few years ago pro­Peking Stalinist Liz Stanley used torepeat a Maoist saying, "The future isbright." She must have meant herown. She now heads a joint UnitedAuto Workers/community collegecommittee as well as the UAW Local1364 (Fremont GM) EducationCommittee and makes a career out of"educating" her fellow union mem­bers to go look for new "careers.""Your future in the auto industryisn't the best," chirped Stanley to 600auto workers at a union meeting,called to shepherd them out of theplant and onto the unemploymentlines. But as an article, "Angry AutoWorkers Confront Union Leaders,"in Oakland's East Bay Today (4September) reported, black autoworkers among the I,300 facingpermanent layoffs didn't much likeStanley's advice to find a new job:"Why weren't we notified?" about theshutdown of the truck assembly line,asked five-year G M employee DannyJackson at the meeting.

"'The company would not give usyour addresses,' Stanley replied.'The union has our addresses!'Jackson shouted. 'What are voutalking about?' Others joined him,accusing the union of collusion withthe company."

WV readers may recall some of theexploits of Liz Stanley, CharlotteCasey and supporters of the CP-ML/Call at the Fremont GM plant. Theywere endlessly willing to sell out for a

there, especially for banged up ex­autoworkers. Shop Committee Chair­man George Nano admitted this to theFremont Argus (September 17), "If theydon't sell cars, I think they're going toclose the plant."

So what is the union leadershipproposing to do about this? NOTH-

the 1,500 facing permanent unemploy­ment now, but for the remaining 3,900in passenger and skilled trades. We hadbetter understand that without truckproduction, Fremont becomes solelydependent on passenger car sales. Thatmeans total plant closure becomes a realpossibility. Fifteen years seniority willmean nothing. There are no jobs out

Champaignc/o SYLPO Box 2009Champaign, IL 61820(217) 356-1180

ChicagoBox 6441, Main P.OChicago. IL 60680(312) 427-0003

ClevelandBox 6765Cleveland, OH 44101(216) 621-5138

DetroitBox 32717Detroit, 11.11 48232(313) 868-9095

HoustonBox 26474Houston, TX 77207

TorontoBox 7198, Station AToronto, Ontario M5W 1X8(416) 593-4138

BostonBox 840, Central StationCambridge, MA 02139(617) 492-3928

Ann Arborc/o SYLPO Box 8364Ann Arbor. 11.11 48107(313) 662-2339

National OfficeBox 1377. GPONew York. NY 10116(212) 732-7860

Berkeley/OaklandPO Box 935Oakland, CA 94604(415) 835-1535

G M intends to throw 1,500 moreUAW members out on the streetOctober 2. Truck second shift wasalready laid off two years ago. Now G Msays it's going to rip out the entire truckline and ship it to St. Louis! Ifwe let thishappen it will be a disaster, not only for

We reprint below a September 24leaflet distributed by the MilitantCaucus and other members of UnitedAuto Workers (UAW) Local 1364calling for a sit-down strike to preventthe loss of 1,500 truck production jobsat the Fremont, California GeneralMotors plant.

In response to the massive permanentlayoff, Local 1364 officials organizedtwo "informational" meetings to pre­pare members for training in "newcareers" at local junior colleges. Over600 turned out in an angry mood for thefirst of these sessions (see "MaoistsPimp Off Unemployment" on thispage). At the September 16 meeting,members in attendance applauded andsolidarized with the call by a MilitantCaucus member to "hold the planthostage for our jobs!" The FremontArgus (17 September) reporting on themeeting said "union leaders were morereceptive" to a petition by the Maoists'Concerned Autoworkers Movement(CAM) "urging GM to establish an'inverse seniority' clause." This anti­union proposal would allow the com­pany to rip up the hard-won senioritysystem which provides a minimum ofprotection against arbitrary manage­ment victimization.

But union officials presented a solidfront against a sitdown at the "careers"meetings and effectively convinced thefrustrated members that their unionwould do nothing to defend their jobs. ALocal 1364 meeting three days beforethe layoff went into effect drew only 50or 60 members, with most of the shopcommittee and executive board boy­cotting the meeting. Of the officialspresent, some said vote Democrat,others said sitdowns were illegal, and allopposed a real fight against the layoffs.This time the Peking Stalinists rushed totheir aid with a substitute pr()posal to"fight" the layoffs by holding ademonstration ... after the layoffs wereto take place! You might call it theCAM-shaft.

While the organized efforts of Local1364 leaders and their Maoist juniorpartners succeeded in shepherdingunion members out of the plant withouta fight, the program raised by the sit­down militants remains the only way tofight layoffs and plant shutdowns inauto.

10 WORKERS VANGUARD

All-PeoplesCircus...(continued from page 12)

against feminists over abortion; gaysagainst Chicanos in SF's Castro district.Now Reagan has killed sectoralism: hehates everybody. What's needed iscertainly not a new sectoralist federa­tion but a Leninist vanguard party of theworking class, a tribune of the peopleleading the struggles of the oppressed.

The Cobo Hall confab is being run asa typical Stalinist front group. For theuninitiated it seems like a grab-bag ofwelfare rights groups, community or­ganizations, etc. One local union officialsaid he was assured that "no communistgroups" would be involved. But 10 andbehold, at the center of it all is Marcy'sWWP, which has developed a veritablewaterfall of cascading fronts (Y AWF/PAM/APC). Heaven forbid that any­one should openly espouse communistpolitics here instead of this elaboratecon game. And now Marcy has aproblem: Poland. It isn't going to be soeasy to tail the Kremlin bureaucrats, ashe has done for the past quarter­century, and also chase after virulentlyanti-Soviet American liberals and unionmisleaders. So the WWP tries to keepthe Cold War out of its hot appetites. EISalvador? Nothing to do with Cuba orthe USSR. Budget cuts? Nothing to dowith the anti-Soviet war drive. Poland?Marcy admits that Solidarnosc iscounterrevolutionary, but don't expectit to come up in Detroit.

Then there are the tagalongs­reformists and centrists like the CWP,RSL, R WL who tried to cash in on the

{WV Photo

Solidarity Day, 'September 19: APe feeds illusions in the Democrats.

fleeting popularity of Marcy's would-be some union endorsements, particularlypopular front. The CWP complained from Michigan AFSCME locals. Butthat El Salvador had been dropped as a what does the "All-Peoples Congress"focus and "national minorities" were offer labor? Among the Democraticslighted. (This is a cheap shot that the Party endorsers (John Conyers, Bellacynically "Third Worldist" Marcyites Abzug, Ron Dellums, etc.) is that ofrichly deserve.) The RWL complains Irma Henderson, president of theabout the lack of "democratic structures Detroit City Council and close ally ofand bylaws" so that they can fully Mayor Young. Coleman Young, inparticipate in this popular-frontist turn, is the black Democratic bosomscam. Perhaps there will be others buddy of Henry Ford II who welcomedpreaching slightly more militant policies Reagan's Republican Party conventionto prettify the WWP's sucker bait for the to town last year by busting anDemocratic Party, like the social- AFSCME city workers' strike. 'Somedemocratic IS used to do in the NPAC "ally"! Or take the crucial PATCOVietnam antiwar pop front a decade strike. The Spartacist League called onago. But the Trotskyists say no to labor to shut down the airports to beattreacherous popular-frontism: not class Reagan's union busting. The WWPcollaboration but class struggle! refused to call for solidarity strikes with

Marcy & Co. have reportedly secured the air controllers; their program was

the bureaucrats' September 19, as a firststep ... and the APC. Lots of good thatwill do PATCO strikers! This circus isan attempt to tie labor to the classenemy, not to win workers' struggles.Any unions that have endorsed the anti­peoples circus should withdraw now!

Reagan has declared war on allfronts. Along the way he has antagon­ized other elements of the ruling class,from the Democratic Party to sectionsof the Pentagon. Now the Marcyites(and other reformists) want to build apopular front extending from welfaremothers to Wall Street. The Marcyites'first attempt at an anti-Reagan popfront was the May 3 El Salvador marchon' the Pentagon. With Demo.cratsAbzug and O'Dwyer on the platformthey appealed for a "political solution,"brokered by the Kennedy liberals, withReagan's blood-drenched junta. Mean­while they used PAM "marshals" tokeep marchers from attending an Anti­Imperialist rally, spons-ored by theSpartacist League, which called formilitary victory to Salvadoran leftists.Then on June 6. when the SL demon­strated against Marcy's bloc with Bellaand Teddy, the WWP chose to seal itsalliance with the bourgeoisie in blood ...and got beat.

If you are for solidarity strikes withPATCO to shut down the airports; ifyou call for a break with the Democratsand Republicans, to build a workersparty; if you fight to oust the laborlieutenants of capital, for a class­struggle leadership of the unions; if youoppose the bi-partisan anti-Soviet wardrive and want to fight for socialistrevolution-the Marcyites' anti-peoplescircus is no place for you. The SpartacistLeague says bring down Reaganthrough labor action.'.

Make checks payable/mail to:Spartacist Publishing Co.Box 1377 GPONew York, NY 10116

South Africa ...(continued from page 12)

massive rearmament of u.s. imperial­ism and the Cold War drive that pavedthe way for Reagan/ Haig and the U.S./South Africa axis. It is only to retain alittle "human rights" hypocrisy thatrepresentatives of the party of JimmyCarter, Mayor Koch and KKKer TomMetzger are sponsoring this conference.

The conference call states:"We know that billions of dollarsinvested by U.S. multinational corpora­tions like IBM and General Motors inthe apartheid economy would be betterspent 011 improving the lives of U.S.citizens than on enhancing white privi­lege and reinforcing black oppression inSOllthern Africa."

Capitalism works for profits, notphilanthropy. Black workers in Detroitthrown onto the streets through plantclosures know that. Who really believesthat IBM profits made selling computersystems to the Pentagon will be spent on"improving the lives of U.S. citizens"except for those who own a piece of theFortune 500? This patriotic appeal toU.S. fina'nce capital to "improve lives"hcre is just as ludicrous as pretending itcould hav,. a "democratic" mission inAfrica.

Rather than pushing "divestment"schemes and appealing to the corpora­tions' "conscience," SL/ SYL supporters

$2.50MarxistBuUr!&e-

WHAT SJRATEGJF08 BLACIl1JBf.RA11ON?

TrotskyismV$.

IIlack Nationalism

"...",.,,,.----~ .• -,.:'",,<"'.• -,;-},. _., ,.',i(:

have fought, especially in the unions, forlabor action against apartheid terrorand to force multinationals to grant fullunion rights to black workers in SouthAfrica. Labor and its allies must bemobilized to give concrete aid to theSouth African black proletariat, themotor force for liberation in southernAfrica, to organize themselves to ex­propriate the tremendous wealth thatthey, not the imperialists, have created.

Just as the CP yearns for "people'sunity" with tiberal bourgeois politiciansat home to "ban the Klan," internation­ally their program is for alliances with"progressive" Third World capitalistregimes and "peace-loving"imperialists-the global popular front.But these days the reformists are hard­pressed to find any Democrats willingeven to pay lip service to "detente" withthe USSR. For the U.S./South Africaracist axis, like Reagan's onslaughtagainst leftist rebels in EI Salvador, ispart of the anti-Soviet war drive. Andwhile some liberal politicians mayprotest Reagan's open embracing of thedespised Botha regime, all support theglobal imperialist offensive to "rollback" Soviet power, beginning in

I Poland. This question can't be ducked.When threatened by imperialism,

Moscow will sometimes fight the forcesI of social reaction (Afghanistan, Viet­

nam). But in maneuvering to protect itsprivileged position, the bureaucracy isalso capable of ~upportinggenocide bytinpot dictators in Ethiopia or backingreactionary strongmen like the lateSadat of Egypt, who later turned to U.S.imperialism and now supply Russianarms to Afghan mullahs who use themto kill Soviet soldiers. The only way toprotect the gains of the October Revolu­tion. liberate the black masses ofsouthern Africa and put an end to raceterror in the U. S. is through powerfulclass strugglc.

Republicans and Democrats alike areenemies of workers and oppressedpeoples of the world: Reagan must bebrought down by labor action! SouthAfrican black workers: fight for prole­tarian revolution through smashingapartheid! Russian workers must oustthe burcaucracy, to restore Lenin's

soviet democracy so that the SovietUnion can once again become a beaconfor socialism! This is the program of theTrotskyists who fight for the rebirth ofthe Fourth "International, the party ofthe Russian October and world socialistrevolution.•

RWL...(continued from page 4)

They never heard of it. The article is alsovery resolute in not telling workers whatthey should have done in the Frenchpresidential elections. But their interna­tional mentors, who brokered theRWL/SL-DC fusion, Alan Thornett'sBritish' Workers Socialist League(WSL). called for a vote to Mitterrand'santi-Soviet popular-front candidacy inthe May elcctions. And shortly after, theWSL shut down its paper to gounderground in the social-democraticLabour Party, where they support anti­nuke pacifists (who attack "both super­powers") without ever raising defense ofthe Soviet bloc.

The RWL's silence on the Russianquestion in Workers Struggle is nooversight. When Jimmy Carterlaunched a Cold War blitz over Afghan­istan, the then-RWG couldn't decide if itwas for or against Soviet intervention tocrush CIA-armed Islamic reactionaries.(The SL proclaimed "Hail Red Army inAfghanistan!") Last fall the RWG co­sponsored a forum on Poland withShachtmanite groups who hold that theSovict bloc countries are "state capital­ist." Sollcnbcrger refused to upholdTrotsky's unconditional defense of thedeformed workers states against coun­terrevolution (see "Bloc for Anti-SovietPropaganda in Detroit," WV No. 264,19 September 1980). Over the May 3 ElSalvador march in Washington, theBryants' Labor News attacked the SL as"sectarian" for OUL slogan: "Defense ofCuba, USSR Begins in El Salvador!"And to announce their fusion, last Maythc RWL and SL-DC held ajoint forumwith a WSL speaker under the "ThirdCamp" titlc, 'The Fight Against Imperi-

alism and Stalinism." Again theyrefused to take on the Russian question,even when repeatedly challenged by SLsupporters.

As ReaganjHaig threaten to plungehumanity into a nuclear holocaust inorder to wipe out the social gains of theOctober Revolution, Trotskyists insistthat the call for workers politicalrevolution to oust the Stalinist usurpersis part of our program to unconditional­ly defend and extend those revolution­ary conquests. Today the Russianquestion is the central issue dividingrevolutionaries from reformists. TheRWL has long tried to present itself as ablurred carbon copy of the SL, but asthey come out into the open they arerapidly defining themselves as left socialdemocrats over the Soviet Union. It isno accident that on the eve of Reagan'sinauguration, the long-since ex­Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party(SWP) should repudiate any support-toSoviet intervention in Afghanistan. Andit is no coincidence that the RWL, whichseeks to carve out a niche between thedeeply reformist SWP and the Trotsky­ist Spartacist League, takes the fifthamendment on the Russian question.•

Spartacist Leaguel- Spartacus Youth League

Public Offices-MARXIST L1TERATURE-

Bay AreaFri.: 5:00-8:00 p.m. Sat .. 3:00-6:00 p.m.1634 Telegraph. 3rd Floor (near 17th Street)Oakland. California Phone: (415) 835-1535

ChicagoTues: 5:30-9:00 pm, Sal. 2:00-5:30 pm523 S Plymouth Court, 3rd FloorChicago, Illinois Phone (312) 427-0003

New York CityTues.: 6:00-9:00 pm .. Thurs .. 6:00-9:00 p.m.Sat.. 12:00-4:00 pm41 Warren St. (one block belowCh~mbersSt. near Church SI)New York, N.Y. Phone: (212) 267-1025

Trotskyist Leagueof Canada

TorontoSat· 1:00-500 p.m.299 Queen SI. W.. Suite 502Toronto, Ontario Phone: (416) 593-4138

9 OCTOBER 1981 11

WfJliNEliS IIIINfitJllli1JSmash Ap'artheid! Defend the Soviet Union!

Reagan's Cold War Axisin South Africa

Africa" in :',jew York this weekend. Thestated purpose of this conference is to"intensify pressure on the U.S. govern­ment and the corporate sector to endtheir relations with the apartheid re­gime." This is reminiscent of the CP'ssupport to the demand raised at aNational Anti-Klan Network confer­ence that Reagan "declare a state ofemergency concerning the rise of Klanand racist violence." To call on theracist. warmongering Reagan, electedwith KKK endorsement, to act againstthe South African apartheid racists or tostop American race terrorists is asgrotes4ue as calling on Hitler to save theJews from Holocaust!

The sponsors of this conference areattempting to create the illusion that theblood-drenched racist U.S. governmentcan be "pressured" to be a "~emocratic"

imperialism that fights racism at homeand abroad. That was the-mo1ivattunbehind the liberals' and reformists'appeals to Jimmy Carter's "HumanRights" campaign. But under thathypocritical slogan the U.S. brokeredthe bloody Duartejunta in El Salvador,launched the CIA intervention inAfghanistan, imposed a boycott on theMoscow Olympics and began the

continued on page 11

"r

,

•\.~

~;~r,~51iurf ...,llWi ~»(,~ TO SWAPO.

U1i'J ~Vlcr(j((r'.rQIC4 RASMASH ~jSaUrH Art'

COLD i~6R AX\S~

_eAR1At\Si lEAGUE/SYl

>NV Photo

Chicago, September 12-SLISYL said: Drive Springboks Out! Reformistsasked Reagan to cancel their visas.

to cancel are those for Soviet scientists Springboks games was their fear ofand artists, Salvadoran refugees fleeing militant protests.junta terror, Haitians fleeing Baby The CP, together with these sameDoc's savage repression and ravaged liberal forces and Democratic Partyeconomy. And the only reason racist politicians, is sponsoring a "Conferencepoliticians like New York mayor Koch in Solidarity with the Liberationand Chicago's mayor Byrne canceled Struggles of the Peoples of Southern

tr

For the first time ever theSpringboks-the rugby ambassadorsfor South African apartheid-recentlytour.ed the U.S. The tour came on theheels of the murderous South Africaninvasion of Angola and was followed bythe Senate's repeal of the Clark Amend­ment, intended to unleash the CIA againin Angola (and elsewhere). ApartheidSouth Africa is becoming a central partof the "free world." Reagan/ Haig wanta bloody showdown by proxy with theSoviet Union in Southern Africa, in thefirst place Angola. Here the SouthAfrican army is to play the role ofsurrogate for direct U.S. militaryintervention. The Springboks' tour was

. intended to build support for Washing­ton's Cold War alliance with thePretoria racists.

The Spartacist League and SpartacusYouth League actively participated inanti-apartheid protests against theSpringboks tour, demanding "DriveSpringboks Out! Military Victory forSWAPO! Independence for Namibia!Smash U.S./South Africa Cold WarAxis!" In contrast, various liberals andreformist lefts including the CommunistParty (CP) responded with the demand,"Wire Reagan: Cancel SpringboksVisas." The only visas Reagan is going

Sam Marcy Tries to Fool All the Peo~les All the Time

All-Peoples Circus:Front for the Democrats

The "All-Peoples Congress" to beheld this month in Detroit will be athree-ring circus of class collaboration.Every conceivable constituency andsingle-issue group is supposed to berepresented. Various left groups will viefor a say in running the show, which iscontrolled from behind the scenes bySam Marcy's Workers World Party(WWP). Above all, this "anti-peoplescircus" is a Democratic Party trap-anattempt to sucker radicals, labor andblack militants into bringing in a newJimmy Carter. But the last JimmyCarter set the stage for Ronald Reagan,through the Cold War drive against theSoviets, dismantling the busing pro­gram, and economic policies whichgutted workers' paychecks. Who needsanother one?

With a nakedly big business

administration in Washington thatviciously busts unions and tells ghettoschool children, "Let'em eat ketchup,"mass hatred of Reagan is escalatingdaily. Up to half a million, mainlyunionists, demonstrated in WashingtonSeptember 19 to express their outrage.But like the sellout union tops, Marcy &Co. want to channel this anger back intothe Democratic' Party of war andracism. This is a program for defeat. Thehundreds of thousands who marchedthrough the streets of the capital havethe power t(:) bring the capitalist govern­ment to its knees. To use it they mustbreak from the phony "friend of labor"Democrats, dump the pro-capitalistbureaucrats, and build a workers party.If the unions shut down the airports tosupport the PATCO strike, wherewould the Conyers and the Kennedys be

then? Or, fQr that matter, the Marcys?The program of the Marcyites'

"congress" is summed up in its slogan,"fight Reaganism." "Overturn the Rea­gan Program of Cutbacks, Racism, &War!" says their brochure. What thistranslates into in practice is "make theDemocrats fight." But the Carters andKennedys are no less strikebreakers,budget-cut killers and anti-Soviet war­mongers. The real program of the"APC" was stated in an official Septem­ber 19 placard: "Carter's Peanuts WereMore Nourishing Than Reagan's JellyBeans." No way. Capitalism is theproblem.

This "all-peoples" get-together is alame attempt to amalgamate a hundreddifferent sectors on the level of tradi­tional (bourgeois) constituency politics.There's supposed to be something for

;>tirmMARCY:

RUNNIN(DOG

FOR fiB2U~ KENNED)'i.

. >NVPh~o

New York City, June 6-Marcy'scl'ass treason in EI Salvador civil warexposed.

everyone. "The Congress is for womenwho don't want their lives endangeredby anti-abortion laws," for undocu­mented foreign workers, for Viet vets,for anti-nuke and anti-draft activists,for everyone from Dykes AgainstRacism Everywhere to the Grey Pan­thers. In the '70s. the heyday ofsectoralism. it was black nationalists

continued on page 11'

12 9 OCTOBER 1981