First Published: The Call, Vol. 2, No. 3, December 1973.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The movement for the impeachment of President Nixon is growing each day. The leadership of the most active sections of the labor movement, the minority struggles, students and the peace movement have committed themselves to the struggle to dump Nixon.
How should this struggle be carried out? Who are the forces to rely on? What tactics should we use? These are the most immediate questions that face us.
The call for impeachment, in and of itself, can do little to change the present situation which is characterized by economic and political crisis and efforts by the ruling class in this country to launch a fascist offensive. The impeachment call is being raised by some of the very same sections of the monopoly capitalist ruling class who put Nixon in office to begin with and in whose interest Nixon has carried out his aggression in Indochina and the Middle East. It is being raised by such demagogic union misleaders as George Meany, (who supported Nixon’s candidacy) on grounds that Nixon is “soft on communism” by establishing relations with the People’s Republic of China, and that Nixon is “crazy.”
Sections of the ruling class and their labor lieutenants are calling for impeachment to take the heat off of themselves and to cover up the real causes of war, corruption and the economic crisis.
While playing a leading role in the struggle to dump Nixon and stop the fascist offensive, the revolutionary forces have a special responsibility within this struggle. This responsibility is to fight for working class leadership and to raise the level of consciousness and fighting capacity of the masses of people.
Reactionary and opportunist forces are trying to use the impeachment movement to channel people’s discontent and keep the struggle within the halls of Congress. They have always been afraid that the people might actually be organized to take action against corruption, and would rather have them watch the whole thing on TV. Our tactics should be to rely on the people themselves, mobilizing them into action. If left to the senators and congressmen, dumping Nixon will remain simply the stuff that fills campaign speeches of politicians.
The issue must be broadened to show that the real question is not just Richard Nixon. The real issue is the stemming of the fascist offensive which Nixon has launched against the working and oppressed people as well as his own capitalist political opponents. While working people and minorities are being jailed and persecuted daily for going out on strike or for standing up for their democratic rights; while farm workers are filling the jails in Delano and the Coachella Valley, we cannot allow the real criminals like Nixon and Agnew to unleash these fascist attacks without punishment.
Of course, Nixon’s real crimes are not the petty ones of bribery and corruption which his fellow capitalists so hypocritically accuse him of. Our movement to dump Nixon must expose his real crimes against the people of Indochina, the Arab peoples and the people of Chile as well as the working and oppressed people here in the U.S. While these are not on Time Magazine’s or Senator Kennedy’s list of Nixon’s crimes, they must be added to our indictment of the Nixon government and the imperialist interests which he represents.
This is why we have raised the slogan, “Dump Nixon – Stop the Fascist Tide!” rather than calling for “New Elections” which the revisionist Communist Party, U.S.A. (CPUSA) has done. The opportunists of the CPUSA, like those who oppose Nixon within the Democratic and Republican parties and in the leadership of the AFL-CIO, are unable to see beyond the limits of elections. The CPUSA has consistently put forth the lie that socialism can come to the U.S. through the election of “good leaders” and “within the framework of the constitution.” This line has been proven bankrupt by the recent events in Chile as well as in the Watergate investigations themselves.
These events have also exposed the imperialists’ claim to be believers in “law and order,” and the constitution. These are things which the imperialists wave in the face of the working and oppressed people when they rebel against oppression and exploitation. For themselves however, they are simply vehicles to ride to power and wealth. Whenever their power is seriously challenged, they will abandon the constitution and resort to open fascist terror and violence.
The CPUSA, the main apologists for the imperialists within the movement, are trying to steer the impeachment struggle into working “within the electoral framework” with their call for new elections. In other words they are no different from Time Magazine and the capitalist politicians who are now willing to sacrifice Nixon and a few others in order to “save the system” (restore confidence in the government).
Rallies to dump Nixon and to oppose his fascist attacks should be organized on college campuses. Working people can struggle within their unions to make impeachment resolutions more than empty rhetoric, while in pro-Nixon unions and unorganized shops, workers can be organized independently of the leadership. In the process, the people will be able to learn the real lessons about how to change things. They will learn from their own experiences, from Nixon, their teacher by negative example, and from a growing conscious and revolutionary leadership in the front ranks of the struggle against imperialism and its policies of war and fascism.