"Serve The People"
July 2, 1969
Vol. 1, No. 1
Official Organ Of The American Revolutionary Youth
P.O. #5221
[Cartoon with headline PEOPLE ORGANIZE AGAINST LOURDES ACADEMY.]
Also Inside: The Problem At Republic Steel And What To Do About It, p. 2
What Is The American Revolutionary south?, p. 3
Where It's At For Working Class Kids, p. 3
Statement of The Formation of The American Communist Movement (Marxist-Leninist) p. 4
The Real Enemy In The Vietnam War, p. 4
Workers Of The World, Unite To Kill The Vulture!, p. 5
Sickness Won't Stop Us, Struggle In The Hospital, p. 5
PEOPLE ORGANIZE AGAINST LOURDES ACADEMY
THE PROBLEM AT REPUBLIC STEEL AND WHAT TO DC ABOUT IT
WHAT IS THE AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY YOUTH?
STATEMENT OF THE FORMATION OF THE AMERICAN COMMUNIST MOVEMENT (MARXIST-LENINIST)
THE REAL ENEMY IN THE VIETNAM WAR
WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE TO KILL THE VULTURE!!
Lourdes Academy wants to expand, so the working people of the Near West Side are being pushed out of their homes. Who goes to Lourdes Academy? It's not the working class girls from the neighborhood. The majority of students at this private girls school come into the community from the suburbs. What Lourdes tries to do is to produce women who will go out and serve the interests of Big Business - as teachers, social workers, personell directors, etc. So clearly, Lourdes Academy does not serve the interests of the working people.
It is big business interests ( the monopoly capitalist ruling class) that Lourdes Academy does serve. Lourdes is working hand in hand with City Council who represent Big Business, to get rid of the community people. We found out that the expansion is especially important to some men in City Council because their daughters have gone to Lourdes. All the ruling class cares about is making money off the backs of workers, so when they decide they want all the land between W. 31st and Fulton, and from Woodbine to Franklin, workers are supposed to get the hell out of their homes (and that's only the beginning -- they plan to expand further than that in the next few years).
We decided to go talk to the people in the community to see what they were thinking about this problem. Who are we? We are members of the American Revolutionary Youth and the American Communist Movement - both part of a worker's movement where working class people are getting together to solve their common problems by fighting for their rights in the shops and community.
We talked to several hundred people in' the community. We found that some renters had not even been told about the expansion. Practically all of the people we spoke to did not want to move. Some of them have been living in the neighborhood for 10-20 years and have put many long hours of hard work and hard-earned money into their homes. A lot of people have friends in the community and don't want to move into a strange neighborhood. One woman we spoke to had just moved in 3 weeks ago, after spending 7 months looking for a place to live. She definitely does not want to move again. Even the people who said that they wouldn't mind moving, wanted to be absolutely guaranteed another place where they wouldn't have to pay a higher rent.
One of the biggest problems people raised, is that it is almost impossible to find a place to live when you have children. One man and woman with 8 kids were pretty upset and disgusted. They said that it's easier to find a place when you have a few dogs, than if you have children - that some landlords act like they were never children. Many people with children, had no idea where they could move to.
Most people saw the Lourdes Academy Expansion as just another way that the ruling class was screwing them up. People brought up other problems caused by Big Business: problems where they work, high taxes, and the high cost of living - food, clothing etc. A Few women said they were glad that their kids weren't old enough to go to school yet, because they just didn't have the money to afford clothes that their children wouldn't be embarrassed to go to school in.
We did run into one problem in the community. There were a few people, (misled by the agencies) who told us to get out of "their" community since we don't live in the immediate area where Lourdes plans to expand. We tried to explain to them, that even though Lourdes Academy is not trying to knock down our homes, that as workers we face the same kinds of problems that people in the area face, and that the only way we can solve these problems is for ALL working class people, where ever they live, to join together in our common struggle against the monopoly capitalist ruling class. These same few people were also disturbed that there were Communists in the neighborhood. However when one woman followed 2 members of the movement down Mable Court shouting, "They're Communists", a neighbor yelled back from a window, "So what"!
We think it is important that members of the American Revolutionary Youth, who are not all Communists but are strong fighters against Big Business, plainly tell the people that they are working with the American Communist Movement. We do not have anything to hide from the people. In this country?we are all taught by the ruling class that Communists are bogeymen - they are murderers who are out to hurt the people and not let them have any freedom. We are out to hurt some people -- the RICH people, who control the lives of the working people, and are the source of all the working man's problems. We want the working people to take away the property of the rich-the factories/mines and the government, and run them for the benefit of the people. The ruling class is afraid of Communists because they know they cannot buy them off, as they have done with many union leaders, who have betrayed the workers and sided with the companies. To protect their power and life, the rulers must spread lies about the Communists.
Some people brought up these old ideas about Communists, but they saw that here Communists and the ARY are in fact out to serve their interests as working people.
People clearly saw that we served their needs by fighting for peoples rights in a mass movement aimed at our common enemy, the corporation owners. If Communists and Revolutionary Youth do something wrong, we want the people to tell us what we have done wrong so we can correct our mistakes. Only the working people can judge if their needs are really being served.
We found that the majority of the hundreds of people we talked to are very excited and enthusiastic about getting together to discuss the problem of Lourdes Academy expansion and how to solve it. People feel militant about fighting for their right to keep their homes-"We shall not be moved!"
We are calling a meeting for Wednesday,
July 2, 7:30 P.M. 2610 Detroit Apt.# 2
Defeat Lourdes Academy administrators!
Defeat the corporation owners!
Fight for the peoples rights!
A movement of the people will not fail!
At first glance, the workers at Republic Steel have many problems, but one problem stands out from the rest--the low wages and weird hours created by the swing shift.
We work a family wrecking schedule for an average of $2.80-3.25 an hour. We work a week of days, a week of afternoons, a week or nights and then "crazy week", two days, two afternoons and a night. Anyone who can think straight, eat well, make plans and keep cool with his family or girlfriend on that kind of schedule is either kidding himself or he must be some kind of superman.
With the awing shift, the company gets away without paying time and a half for Saturday work (it pays straight time) or double time for Sunday work (it pays time and a quarter). If we got paid time and a half for Saturdays and double time for Sundays we would all be making $70 or $80 more a month. And everything Republic gets away with is that much more in-the pockets of the monopoly capitalists who own it and that much less in the pockets of the workers who actually make the steel.
There are other major problems in the plant--safety and ancient equipment in many places, bad air, discrimination against Black and other non-white workers (how many non-white skilled workers are there) understaffed, inferior cafeteria, no spell men for some areas, etc. But the low wages and weird hours on the swing shift are the worst!
What can be done about it?
We can form a new progressive union movement, made up completely of rank-and-file workers, to deal with the problem. We can stop this superexploitation. Since, when you come right down to it, the company (and the government) can't do a thing without us. We make the steel.
This new union movement is workers themselves, no bureaucrats. Its power is in the shop. It cannot be controlled from above or sold out, confused, abused or misused because it is based on the experience of the people in the shop, not on the false ideas of some "expert".
It has broken out of the old union bag of narrow issues and deals with all the problems the American big business Empire creates for us--one by one starting with this problem. And it will soon have to get together with all the people fighting against this enemy--the workers in other shops and in the communities, the Black people's movement, and progressive students.
To do this we will have to fight the bureaucracy of the union itself, but sincere people in the union structure, especially stewards and grievance men who work and know the problems, will join us and support an organization of by and for the rank-and-file.
How do we start?
Members of the American Revolutionary Youth have already started talking about it to our fellow workers in the departments.
You should do the same. Distribute this paper and discuss the article. We will be holding small meetings with the people we have contacted. You should do the same--and call us and invite one of us to come. (Call 631-0820) Also, write letters for the second issue of this paper, and start thinking of how we can put one out in the plant itself!
Build a progressive union movement!
Militantly put forward the peoples' experience!
WE WILL WIN!
The American Revolutionary Youth is an organization of workers and ex-students who have joined the working people. Together we serve the people and fight beside them.
What do we fight against? We fight the American Big Business Empire (U.S. Imperialism) and the problems it creates. We feel that this parasite has fed off us and oppressed, us for long enough, and that the time has come to deal with it. This system, also called Monopoly Capitalism, is the basic problem of the people and the cause of all other problems such as low wages, high prices, heavy draft calls - Wars where we fight against working people like ourselves: all these stem from the present system.
How do we fight this parasite? We are organizing in the shops and in working class schools and communities, and the student.movement supports us. We are building independent organizations of the masses of working people to fight against every way that we and the people of the world are oppressed by the parasite. We are publishing this paper to encourage workers everywhere to fight for their rights and join us in the struggle.
Our method of work seems almost too simple to serve the people as well as it does. We do investigation to find the real problems that face the workers. Then we go back to the people to collect their ideas for the action to be taken. From these ideas- we form a line. We argue for the line and if people agree with it, we all take action. If people disagree and show us where we're wrong, we change it. This way we are serving the people and testing our line in practice.
We recognize the leadership of the American Communist Movement (Marxist-Leninist). We see that they are the best servants of the working people and offer the only clear alternative to the present monopoly capitalist system -- that the working and oppressed people take the industries and government away from the rich and run them for the benefit of the people. We see that fear of Communism is only a bogeyman, created by the rich, because a serious movement among the working people is a threat to their power and profits.
Who can join us?
Any serious worker or ex-student (who has joined the working class), who sees that the American Big Business Empire is working against the people and is the root problem of all workingmen, and is willing to fight against it.
WHERE'S IT AT FOR WORKING CLASS KIDS?
The 13-17 year old working class kids either hang out on street, in front of the neighborhood delicatessant, or lean on cars. Most of the time they are bored stiff.
The 16-18 year old kids ride around in cars sometimes gathering at certain drive-in restaurants. Much of their time is spent repairing, improving, leaning on and being a slave to the car.
You call this living? Isolated into small groups without any direction, fighting each other senselessly, yet ignoring the only fight we have worth fighting.
Hell no this isn't living. This is death. Check it out.
Everyone says there's no where to go, nothing to do, except to get bombed, chase chicks, and fight one another.
Where does it get you?
Look where it got your folks. They're slaves! They work 8 hours a day making someone else rich, and when they come home they can either fight with each other or go out and get bombed. There isn't much for them to do either.
People say that it's always been this way. Fighting and going nowhere, getting drafted, working for someone and making them rich but getting little money ourselves. They say it can't be changed.
But is is changing. The capitalist wall that has kept us back for so long has a big crack in it. It can be pushed down by the people if we push together.
The American Revolutionary Youth put that crack in "the solid wall of capitalism".
We're fighters. We fight by helping to start independent movements to carry out the struggle in the shops, schools, in the community, and everywhere the worker is getting the shaft. We're helping change the world. Join us and struggle for freedom!
Recognising
That the American monopoly capitalist class is the number one enemy of the American People, in that it ruthlessly exploits and oppresses the working class, the racial and national minorities, and the laboring masses of the petty bourgeoisie.
That the monopoly capitalist class oppresses and exploits the black people of America, and other racial minorities, in an especially vicious manner, on the basis of race, in order to further its own class interests.
That U.S. imperialism is the main enemy of all the people of the world.
That U.C. imperialism, in its highest and most decadent stage is turning the majority of the world's people against it, igniting People's War everywhere, and heading for total collapse.
That in a last frantic effort to preserve its position of rule, the American monopoly capitalist class and the government it controls are unleashing the forces of fascism against the American people and the people of the world.
That it is the historic mission of the working class of America to lead in a class war, united with the racial and national minorities, revolutionary intellectuals and other oppressed peoples, for the final overthrow of the American monopoly capitalist class.
Therefore
We announce the formation of the American Communist Movement (Marxist-Leninist), whose main tasks are:
1) to build a Marxist-Leninist Party in the United States, which will serve the people by putting into practice the the thought of Chairman Mao Tse-tung, the Marxism-Leninism of our era. The American Communist Movement is the movement of the working class people against all exploiters and oppressors,and mobilises the working people to fight the racial oppression of Afro-Americans and other racial minorities.
2) to initiate and 1ead mass democratic, anti-imperialist movements in the shops, on the campuses and in the communities.
3) to lead the struggle to completely smash such decadent bourgeois ideology, culture and art, and anti-working class, anti-people ideas, fascism and fascist repression, wherever they appear.
4) to expose the reactionary, pro-imperialist lines of the modern Soviet Revisionists and the various social democratic trends, and to combat the confusion they cause among the American people.
5) to lead the American working class in its historic mission of overthrowing the American monopoly capitalist class through a revolutionary civil war, establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat, emancipating all other oppressed classes, and putting an end to the exploitation of man by man forever.
DEATH TO THE MONOPOLY CAPITALISTS!!
DEATH TO THE FASCISTS!!
SUPPORT THE HEROIC STRUGGLES OF THE AFRO-AMERICANS AND OTHER RACIAL AND NATIONAL MINORITIES!!
VICTORY TO THE AMERICAN WORKING CLASS AND TO THE AMERICAN COMMUNIST MOVEMENT!!
VICTORY TO THE LIBERATION STRUGGLES OF THE WORKING AND OPPRESSED PEOPLES OF THE ENTIRE WORLD!!
LONG LIVE CHAIRMAN MAO TSE-TUNG, LEADER OF THE WORKING AND OPPRESSED PEOPLE EVERYWHERE!!!
Last May 31, the peace movement held a peace march in Cleveland. As usual the march didn't attack the causes of the war or name the real enemy of the American people. The cause of the war is American big business (the monopoly capitalists) trying to get their greedy hands on the riches and the cheap labor of countries like Vietnam. The result is the working people of these countries rising up to get rid of foreign control of their land and the fruits of their labor. (Just like the Americans did to the British in 1776.)
When this happens the monopoly capitalists and their servants in government draft working-class kids to put down the working people of these countries. You never see a capitalist in the front lines.
We condemn the criminal use of American working-class youth against the just uprisings of the oppressed working people of other countries.
We support these uprisings wherever they occur.
The blood of the American youth is not on the hands of the working people of Vietnam or their Communist leadership. The Vietnamese are not our real enemy. The blood is on the lands of the parasite monopoly capitalists of the U.S. They are sucking the blood of working people everywhere. The blood of American youth will soon be avenged.
This is the spirit the American Communist Movement, the American Revolutionary Youth and the Case-Reserve Student Movement brought to the peace march. For the first time in years the Workers Red Flag was carried through he streets of Cleveland. The Red Flag stands or the martyrs who have shed their blood for the working class throughout the world, and specially in the U.S. where the worker's struggle has been especially long and violent, the Red Flag is rising again.
(tune same as "Oh, Christmas Tree")
The workers' flag is deepest red
It shrouded oft our martyred dead
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold
Their life blood dyed its every fold.
Chorus:
So raise the scarlet standard high
Beneath her folds we live and die.
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We'll keep the red flag flying here.
We, the people of the U.S., are in the belly a monstrous vulture which is the American Big Business Empire (U.S. Imperialism). This vulture's digestive juices drain off all the wealth we produce beyond that necessary for our bare survival. Some of his stomach acids are low wages, taxes, and rising prices. This vulture lives first of all by digesting the wealth produced by the working people of the U.S. Secondly he lives by chewing up the working people in other countries all around the world. He tries to feed off the weak.
However, the only way this vulture is able to chew up and digest the working people of the world is by cutting us up into little pieces. His stomach acids and his beak and talons are too weak to handle us when we are joined together. When we all get together we can rip up this monster's intestines, tear off its beak and talons, and destroy him forever. This monster vulture is on its last legs, is rotting with old age, it has hardening of the arteries, and its teeth are falling out. It can still put up a ferocious struggle but it's doomed and it knows it.
American Revolutionary Youth clearly sees how important it is for all the people being chewed up and digested by this decrepit monster, U.S. Imperialism, to unite. This is why we are joining with the American Communist Movement in sponsoring the Ohio Anti-Imperialist Conference, in solidarity with the working and oppressed peoples of the world. All around the world on the weekend of July 4-6, people will be holding demonstrations, rallies, conferences, and other actions against the vulture which is feeding off of them U.S. Imperialism.
Here in Cleveland the American Communist Movement and ARY have called a meeting of workers for Friday night July I4. Call 631-5784 for the time and place of this meeting. Saturday during the day there will be a mass meeting of all persons who want to fight imperialism; and Sunday, July 6, we will hold some kind of public action to show our opposition to this people-eating vulture and our solidarity with all of the people around the world it is feeding on.
In the meetings on Friday and Saturday we will discuss statements on the formation of the American Communist Movement and the American Revolutionary Youth. Also we plan to discuss resolutions on particular cases where the vulture is chewing up and digesting people now. The point of these statements and resolutions is to give a correct picture of what is happening to people now and what needs to be done about it. Therefore everyone at the meetings should check out what is said in relation to his own experiences. If he has experiences which support what was said he should tell about them, and if he knows things which disagree with what was said, he should talk about them. This is the only way we can find out what the true picture is. Also it is the only way people can be really united in a movement to destroy our enemy, the dying vulture U.S. imperialism.
People of the world, unite and defeat the U.S. aggressors and all their running dogs! People of the world, be courageous, dare to fight, defy difficulties and advance wave upon wave. Then the whole world will belong to the people. Monsters of all kinds shall be destroyed.
Chairman Mao Tsetung
by an ARY member
Last month I spent a week in Polyclinic Hospital for a possible kidney disease. Most of the patients were workers and I had many good political discussions with them and the hospital orderlies and nurse's aides.
One thing that is on everyone's mind is taxes. People felt the tax burden to be very heavy and pointed out how foundations, corporations and rich men are able to make millions and go tax-free while the people themselves pay one-fifth of their checks.