WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE! Special Issue for the September 19th Demonstrations
Volume 11, Number 11
VOICE OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF THE USA
September 19, 1981
Fight the Capitalist Offensive of Hunger, Fascism and War!
Solidarity with the Striking Air Controllers!
The AFL-CIO/Democratic Party 'Opposition' Is No Opposition at All
Socialism--The Alternative to Capitalist Exploitation
U.S. Imperialism, Get Out of El Salvador!
The capitalists are on an offensive against the working masses. The Reagan administration is nothing but the latest bunch of butchers delegated by the monopoly capitalist exploiters to carry out their savage program of hunger, fascism and war. In its short period in office, the Reagan regime has already made itself a world symbol of reaction, warmongering, racism and capitalist slave driving.
On the economic front, Reagan is carrying out the brutal capitalist program of "revitalization" of industry. "Revitalization" means man-eating productivity drives, the slashing of wages, and massive layoffs. "Reaganomics" and the Reagan budget mean fabulous subsidies for the rich combined with an all-out war on the poverty stricken. The Reagan economic policy is nothing but flagrant strikebreaking and a system of driving the masses to the wall for the benefit of the monopolies.
On the international front, the Reagan administration is U.S. imperialism personified. He has already proven himself a dangerous warmonger and diehard militarist. The Reagan regime is a regime of arming to the teeth to prepare for aggression and war; a regime that wants to arm and arm again so that nuclear world war will be "thinkable" and "winnable"; a regime that coolly contemplates throwing hundreds of millions of people to their death for the sake of redividing spheres of influence with its equally imperialist rivals, the Soviet social-imperialists. It is a regime that has stepped up arms shipments and political support to every bloodstained fascist and reactionary around the world; a regime which flaunts its love for the notorious South African racists and the bloody Chilean hangmen; a regime which has already found its own Viet Nam-style adventure in El Salvador.
As well, the Reagan government is an administration of casehardened racists and fascists. It is a government dedicated to terrorizing the oppressed nationalities and unleashing the most savage attacks on them, a government elected on a program which was endorsed by the racist Klan as one that "reads as if it were written by a Klansman." It is an administration of the police state; a regime dedicated to the police truncheon and the spying agencies; a regime that, while it resents every penny spent on schools, pensions and meager welfare payments, is advocating increased federal spending to help the states build yet more prisons and penitentiaries.
A Storm of Struggle Is Arising Against Reaganite Reaction
The working masses and all progressive people are boiling with anger against the Reaganite reactionaries. The first demonstration against Reagan's administration occurred on the very night of the national elections in November 1980 and since then one protest has taken place after another.
Thus today's demonstration in Washington, D.C. is only one of a whole series. On March 9, 8,000 coal miners denounced Reagan's cuts in black lung medical benefits. On April 29, 20,000 railway workers protested Reagan's cutbacks in rail funds. On July 21, 10,000 workers demonstrated against Social Security cutbacks. On May 3, 100,000 people denounced not only the profit-grubbing "Reaganomics," but also Reagan's feverish war preparations and especially the U.S. intervention in El Salvador. Indeed, not just in Washington, D.C. but all across the country, there has been one demonstration after another against Reaganomics and against U.S. aggression against the Salvadorian people.
The movement against Reaganite reaction is already a countrywide phenomenon. His economic policies and his warmongering have been repeatedly denounced. Large sections of the masses, including workers, youth and students, retired workers and the unemployed are being drawn into the struggle. Meanwhile the struggle against racist attacks is ready to blow up into a major upsurge, as racial discrimination deepens, police murders escalate and the racist and fascist gangs run a- round under police protection. The widespread demonstrations and deepening ferment show that the masses are burning to fight the Reaganite reaction. What is the path that this fight must take?
Reagan's Program Is the Bipartisan Program of Monopoly Capital
The fight against Reaganite reaction must target both the big capitalist parties, both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. The truth is that the fascist policy of the Reagan regime is nothing but the bipartisan policy of monopoly capital. The Republican Reagan administration is following in the path laid out by the Democratic Carter administration before it. Reagan is the relay runner taking up the baton from Carter before him.
What was the Carter administration anyway? It was an administration of strikebreakers who imposed the fascist Taft-Hartley Act against the coal miners. It was the political voice of the monopoly capitalist exploiters; an administration which instituted the capitalist "reindustrialization" program of productivity drives, wage cuts and layoffs; an administration which championed an energy policy of squeezing the whole country for the benefit of the oil billionaires. It was a rabid imperialist administration which escalated military spending to then-record levels which reintroduced registration for the draft, and which carried forward the enslaving and neo-colonialist aims of U.S. imperialism through its hypocritical "human rights" policy. It was a racist administration which fostered the development of racist and fascist gangs.
And what is the Democratic Party today? It is the party of the "honeymoon" with Reagan. It is a party falling all over itself in its rush to support "Mr. President" and prove itself ready to militarize just as much if not more than the Reaganites, to give just as much if not more tax breaks to the rich, and to use the lash against the masses just as much if not more than the Reaganites. The Democratic and Republican Parties are just two peas in a pod. Reagan's Social Security cutbacks are nothing but what was recommended by the commission on Social Security appointed by the Carter administration. Reagan's reactionary police-state measures are nothing but the continuation of such efforts of the Democratic Party as those of Kennedy and company to enact the fascist Bill S-l. Reagan's slogan of "revitalization" of industry is the same as that of the Carter administration and the exact equivalent of the "reindustrialization" schemes of the labor bureaucrats and the Democratic Party "left wing." And Reagan's fascist and chauvinist war on the immigrants is nothing but the continuation of Carter's efforts to enact his "Aliens" Bill for slave labor and deportations.
Build the Independent Movement of the Working Class
Thus the fight against the Reaganite reaction must be oriented along the path of breaking from the capitalist parties and instead building the independent movement of the working class. The struggle against Reaganite reaction is a class struggle, a struggle of the working masses against the capitalist exploiters. Reagan is the chief of the monopoly capitalist class. The struggle against the Reaganite reaction must be waged not by appealing to the moderation or reasonableness of the exploiters, but by stepping up the struggle of class against class.
This is why the mass struggle is of such great importance. It is the millions upon millions of working masses that are the iron bastion against the Reaganite program. The working class must continue the mass struggle against hunger, fascism and war. It must fight against the wage cuts, the wholesale layoffs, plant closings and unemployment, against the cutbacks in social benefits and against the war on the poverty stricken. It must fight the capitalists, the trade union bureaucrats and the repressive anti-worker laws.
Moreover the working class must step forward to fight not only the economic exploitation, but also all the other aspects of the Reaganite reaction. It must take its place in the center of the struggle against U.S. imperialism and militarism. It must give its reply to the racists and fascists. It must support all progressive struggles against the common monopoly capitalist enemy. In this way, the working class can and will come forward to lead and orient the struggle of all the working and oppressed people.
But only an organized struggle is at all durable. Thus it is necessary to get organized. In the heat of the class struggle, revolutionary groups should be formed in factories, in communities, among the youth and in the schools. The workers must pay special attention to building and supporting their own political party, the Marxist-Leninist Party, for the genuine communist party is the highest form of class organization of the proletariat. Only such a party is capable of leading and uniting all the various currents of protest into one coordinated revolutionary onslaught.
As well, it is essential to develop the class consciousness of the workers. This requires the reading and distribution of revolutionary literature, literature that tells the truth about the oppression and misery of this crisis-ridden capitalist society, literature that tells the truth about the treachery of the Democratic Party bigwigs and the labor bureaucrats, literature that shows the way out for the working and exploited masses. Marxism-Leninism is the only scientific theory of the revolution, and the study and dissemination of Marxism-Leninism must have a special place in the distribution of revolutionary literature. For as Leninism teaches: Without a revolutionary theory, there is no revolutionary movement.
The Reaganite reactionaries have thrown the masses an arrogant challenge. Through the class struggle, the working class will give its powerful reply.
Socialism -- The Goal of the Revolutionary Struggle
The sharpening of the class struggle and the sight of mass demonstrations of workers and the oppressed always brings the idea of socialism to the minds of the masses. The deepening economic crisis, the heartless offensive of the capitalists and the complete insanity of a system where super-abundance goes hand-in-hand with starvation all show the necessity for a radical change, for a social revolution, for the overthrow of the existing system.
Thus the struggle against the exploiters, the fierce battle against Reaganite reaction, is not simply one interminable struggle, bound to go on forever and ever, but it has a definite goal. It does not aim at minor tinkering with the system or for replacing one capitalist party, the Republican reactionaries, with another capitalist party, the hypocritical Democratic reactionaries, but has the objective of destroying the whole system of exploitation of man by man and of instituting a new, just society.
That new society is socialism. Socialism is the rule of the working class. It is the elimination of the exploitation of the overwhelming majority of the people for the benefit of a handful of millionaires and parasites. It is the political system of working class rule which brings in its wake the social ownership of all means of production.
Socialism is not a faraway dream. For decades it was a brilliant reality in the Soviet Union of Lenin and Stalin until the great betrayal by the Khrushchovites and Brezhnevites. And today it is a shining reality in socialist Albania. The goal of socialism inspires the working masses and gives them determination and courage in the harsh class battles of today. The goal of organizing the working class as a class so that it will be able to carry out the socialist revolution provides the insight into how the struggle against Reaganite reaction should be carried out today. The building of the independent movement of the working class, independent of the exploiters and their political parties, is an indispensable step on this path.
All out against Reagan, chieftain of capitalist reaction! Defend the livelihood of the working masses! To hell with the Democrats and Republicans, parties of the capitalist offensive! Wage mass revolutionary struggle against hunger, fascism and war!
[Cartoon.]
Since August 3, the air traffic controllers have been on strike against the Federal Aviation Administration. They are fighting a just struggle against the government's merciless productivity campaign which drives nine out of ten controllers to an early retirement. This productivity campaign is part of the overall program of capitalist "revitalization" of industry, which is turning the work places everywhere into hellholes of speedup, overwork and murderous "accidents,"
Reagan has unleashed a series of fascist measures to break the controllers' strike. Controllers have been arrested and even put in chains and leg-irons. Millions of dollars in fines have been imposed on the controllers and the government is seeking to smash their union entirely. Reagan has even gone so far as to fire all the striking controllers. Through such actions, Reagan is declaring that this is the way all the public sector workers should be dealt with. This brutal repression is part of the wage- cutting and strikebreaking offensive aimed at all the workers.
The controllers have stood firm in the face of this ferocious assault. They have shown strong unity and determination to carry their struggle through. This courageous stand against Reagan's strikebreaking has won them wide respect from the workers all over. Many workers have shown their support for the strike by joining the picket lines, attending solidarity rallies, etc. Air traffic controllers in several other countries have also organized actions in solidarity with the U.S. controllers.
But while the workers are supporting the fighting stand of the controllers, the trade union bureaucrats of the AFL-CIO are stabbing the controllers in the back.
To be sure, the labor bureaucrats have made various token gestures such as issuing statements of "support" and getting themselves photographed on the picket lines. But all this has been nothing but the grossest hypocrisy because behind their fine words of "support," the AFL- CIO leaders have repeatedly stated that the controllers were wrong to go on strike. Instead they should presumably have begged the Reaganites for sympathy with their concerns. Take for instance the declarations of the AFL-CIO Executive Council which met in Chicago right after the strike began. The Council proclaimed its "support" for the controllers but Council member Doug Fraser of the United Auto Workers explained to the press that the real feeling of the Council was that the strike "could do massive damage to the labor movement." What nonsense! Really it is the treachery of the AFL-CIO which is doing "massive damage to the labor movement."
Moreover, the AFL-CIO leaders have also stated that the controllers were wrong to break the law. Their stand is that the laws of the capitalists, no matter how unjust they are, must be obeyed, the workers' interests be damned. In this way, the labor bigwigs are showing that they are in full agreement with Reagan that capitalist "law and order" is sacrosanct.
The AFL-CIO bureaucrats have also refused to lift a finger to organize any effective sympathy action in support of the strike or to organize a movement among the other unions to respect the controllers' picket lines. Especially noteworthy in this regard is the stand of Mr. Winpisinger of the IAM (machinists' union), a prominent personality of the Kennedyite wing of the Democratic Party who proclaims himself to be a "militant" labor chieftain. As head of the IAM, Winpisinger is in a strong position to lend a powerful hand to the controllers, since 90,000 airline mechanics are in his union. But would Winpisinger call on the mechanics to respect the controllers' strike and shut down the airports completely? No, Wimpy declared that he couldn't "put our guys' heads on the line." What craven capitulation before Reagan's threats by this "great" anti-Reagan warrior!
Through such treachery, the AFL-CIO bureaucrats have only shown that they are nothing but strikebreakers. However, despite all obstacles, the controllers have persisted in their determined fight against Reagan.
Workers! Reagan seeks to use his suppression of the controllers' strike as an example to all the workers. The workers must give their proper reply to this fascist strikebreaking by rallying to the support of the air traffic controllers. Victory to the striking air controllers!
[Photo: Air controllers and supporters at Kennedy Airport, New York City, August 15.]
There has been a large-scale outpouring of support for the September 19 Solidarity Day demonstrations. This shows the deep hatred for Reaganite reaction that is welling up among the workers, the oppressed nationalities, the poor and downtrodden. It is a manifestation of the mass resistance that is arising against the capitalist offensive which today is headed up by the Reagan government.
The Marxist-Leninist Party is actively participating in this day of protest. Along with the MLP, the working masses who are demonstrating want a real fight against Reagan. But strange as it may seem, to carry forward this struggle, it is necessary to oppose the top AFL-CIO bureaucrats although they have called Solidarity Day.
These trade union bosses, under the pressure of the growing outrage of millions and millions of working men and women, are posturing as if they are the standard-bearers of opposition to Reagan. But what is their program of opposition? It boils down to nothing more than a rehash of the discredited program of Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party. The heads of the AFL-CIO, the UAW, the I AM, the UMW and so forth continue to praise the Democratic Party politicians as the alleged "friends pf labor." They are parading Teddy Kennedy, Tip O'Neil and other Democratic Party hacks across their platforms. In fact, AFL-CIO head Lane Kirkland admitted that the reason he called Solidarity Day is to prop up the Democratic Party, to "put a little iron in their backbone," so that in the next elections those "who share our values" will be put on Capitol Hill.
But to hitch the anti-Reagan struggle to the Democratic Party bandwagon is to condemn it to complete and utter impotency. The Democratic Party is Reagan's twin, another big party of capitalist reaction. It should never be forgotten that the government of the so- called "friend of labor" Jimmy Carter brought skyrocketing energy prices, wage controls and mass layoffs for the workers, reindustrialization giveaways to the big corporations, reintroduction of draft registration, an all-time high war budget, and one brutal outrage after another. It should never be forgotten that since Reagan took office the Democratic Party has passed one after another of his barbaric anti-worker measures with little more than a whimper. This Democratic Party honeymoon with Reagan is not a sign of "timidity" as the trade union bureaucrats would have us believe. No! It is proof positive that Reagan's program is the common program of the Democrats and Republicans alike, the bipartisan program of the entire capitalist class.
To tie the struggle against Reaganite reaction to the coattails of the gentlemen of the Democratic Party means to tone it down, to sabotage it, and to eventually liquidate it altogether. Take a look at some examples of what the Democratic Party and trade union bureaucrats' opposition to Reagan really means.
Trade Union Bureaucrats in League With Imperialist Warmongering
The trade union bosses' "opposition" to Reagan's rabid warmongering has consisted in their clamoring for an ever "stronger national defense system." Their anti-Reagan champion Teddy Kennedy, along with the rest of the Democratic Party, voted overwhelmingly in favor of Reagan's astronomical military budget without even blinking an eye. And recently Lane Kirkland has begun to worry out loud that Reagan's cuts in social benefit programs may "create new anti-defense constituencies among the elderly, the jobless, the working poor, the minorities, the sick and disabled." In short, Kirkland wants nothing to upset Reagan's plans for more bombs, jets, tanks, and missiles to prepare for new aggressive adventures against the working class and people of other countries.
In fact, the top AFL-CIO bureaucrats already have their own hands drenched in the blood of U.S. imperialist aggression against the people of El Salvador. The AFL-CIO's American Institute for Free Labor Development works with the fascist Duarte military junta to direct the infamous "land reform" program in El Salvador. This "land reform" is in reality a terrorist, Viet Nam-style rural pacification program which has resulted in the murder of untold numbers of peasant leaders, the gunning down of peasants who tried to seize the land, and the transformation of the countryside into an armed camp. With such direct participation in U.S. aggression it is little wonder that Kirkland admitted his underlying support for Reagan. "Whatever our differences with the President's policies," Kirkland said, "we have never doubted an overriding common purpose -- the good of our country." That is, Kirkland and co. share a common purpose with Reagan, the cause of aggression against and the plunder and enslavement of the people of other countries for the good of the U.S. monopoly corporations.
With such "enemies" as these, it is a wonder why Reagan needs friends.
"Human Rights'' Mask to Cover Up Racist Program
The trade union bureaucrats claim they oppose the Reagan government's vicious racist policies. But against the Klan's favorite candidate, Reagan, they are dredging up the tarnished program of the "racist chief," Jimmy Carter. "Human rights," "equality" and "justice" flowed like honey from Carter's lips, but under his presidency fascist gangs were unleashed across the country; the massacre of anti-Klan demonstrators in Greensboro, N.C. took place; police terror reached new highs with racist police murders like that of Arthur McDuffie in Miami; and when the black people rose in struggle in Miami and many other cities, it was the "human rights" preacher Jimmy Carter who presided over the savage police repression of them. To stand for Carter's "human rights" against Reagan's open reaction is to leave the black people and the other oppressed nationalities to the tender mercies of the police bullet and the nightriders' whip.
This is nowhere clearer than on the question of immigration. The AFL-CIO bureaucrats favor the policy which was advocated by Carter. This is a policy of stepped-up deportations, new laws that would prohibit and fine employers for knowingly hiring so-called "illegal aliens," the strengthening of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the border patrols, and an "amnesty" measure which will create a caste of immigrants who have no rights whatever, save to be obedient slaves for their capitalist employers. Reagan has adopted all of this and added to it a "guest worker" program. This is a return to the infamous bracero program. It will eventually import 500,000 Mexicans as essentially indentured servants to the capitalist sweatshops and agribusiness. The AFL-CIO bureaucrats oppose only this "guest worker" program, and this not because it means virtual slave labor, but because it allows too many immigrants into the country. The trade union bureaucrats run rabid racist propaganda that immigrants are the cause of unemployment and lower wages. Instead of fighting against the capitalists for jobs and higher wages for all workers, the bureaucrats want to run the immigrant workers out of the country. And this they call "human rights," "equality" and "justice." These labor bosses know no shame.
Labor Hacks Kneel Before Capitalist Takeback Offensive
Of course, the main claim to fame of the top hacks of the trade unions is that they are fighting for jobs and against Reagan's cuts in social benefit programs and his tax handouts to the rich. But, as on other matters, this opposition is a complete fraud.
Reagan says we must "revitalize" industry, and save jobs. The trade union bosses scream: No. We are against the "trickle down" theory. But they make sure to add: Of course we must "reindustrialize" and "revitalize" the economy just like Carter promised. But whether one "reindustrializes" a la Carter and the AFL-CIO or a la Reagan and the Republicans, it still amounts to the same program of speedup, automation, plant closings and massive layoffs.
Reagan says we must give across- the-board tax breaks and special incentives to the monopolists. This the trade union bosses correctly call "giving handouts to the rich." Instead, the top labor chiefs want "targeted" tax breaks and incentives to the rich, *"targeted", to those billionaires in the auto, steel and other industries which they call the "truly deserving needy." When these give-aways to the rich are "targeted," the labor hacks euphemistically dub them "saving jobs."
Reagan says Social Security is going bankrupt and he promptly adopts the cuts proposed by the Carter commission to "save the system." No, cry the labor hacks, we must carry out Carter's program to limit the cuts through "an infusion of general tax revenues" --that is limit the cuts by jacking up the workers' income taxes. Of course neither Reagan nor the trade union hacks would ever think of taxing the capitalists to guarantee the security of the retired workers.
So too, the labor bureaucrats decry the soaring inflation under the Reagan administration. But their solution is to impose wage-price controls. Just as they cooperated with Nixon's and Carter's wage controls before, today they wish to work with Reagan to let prices soar while the workers' wages are cut to the bone.
The fact is that the labor bureaucrats are kneeling down in the face of the capitalist takeback offensive headed up by the Reagan administration. They have been actively sabotaging the workers' strikes and forcing all manner of contract concessions down the workers' throats. When the Chrysler monopolists cried poverty and demanded hundreds of millions of dollars in concessions from the workers, Doug Fraser, head of the UAW and new member of the Chrysler board of directors, had but one question -- "How much do you want?" When a number of the capitalists in rubber, steel, railroads, and other industries demanded the reopening of hard-won contract settlements, the scabs and strikebreakers at the head of the trade unions tore up the old contracts and gave the capitalists the wage cuts and other concessions they desired.
The top leaders of the trade unions are working to replace the mass struggle to defend the livelihood and jobs of the workers with cozy schemes for labor-management cooperation. The AFL-CIO heads were completely ecstatic over Carter and the Democrats' proposal for a "reindustrialization board" -- a board composed of trade union hacks, big business, and government officials to direct the productivity drive and wage-cutting program against the workers. Kirkland couldn't even wait for Reagan to implement this program of Carter and has gone ahead to set up the "Labor-Management Group" with the richest of the rich heads of
Exxon, General Electric, General Motors and other multi-billionaires. With such labor-business cooperation the trade union bosses have hired themselves out to the capitalists as virtual slave drivers, whip hands in the employers' job-eliminating productivity schemes and wage-cutting onslaught.
The truth is that Carter promised to set up national labor-management committees so that Kirkland and co. could have a share in administering the capitalist offensive over the workers. Reagan, however, is reluctant to give the trade union bureaucrats a big enough share. This fact largely accounts for the union bosses' unhappiness with Reagan today.
For a Real Fight Against Reagan
Clearly the program of Carter and the Democratic Party which the union bureaucrats so tenaciously pursue means no opposition to Reagan at all. A real fight against Reaganite reaction requires breaking with the Democratic Party as well as with the Republicans, opposing their flunkies in the trade unions, and building the independent movement of the working class.
This is not a movement for labor-management cooperation and lying down before the capitalist offensive. No! The independent working class movement stands for the fight against the capitalists and their government and for the development of mass revolutionary struggle.
This is not a movement to tail behind the capitalist parties, to become a pressure group or special interest group trailing after the smooth-talking Democratic Party liberals. No! This is a movement of the class struggle, a movement to organize the working class as a class for itself, a class with its own revolutionary mission and goals.
The working class must come forward in its own right, rallying all of the poor and oppressed around itself, and leading them into battle against the capitalist offensive and its Reaganite mouthpiece.
Forward in the struggle against Reaganite reaction! Build the independent movement of the working class!
U.S. capitalist society is rotting alive, gripped in the clutches of an all-sided and devastating crisis. The working class and the downtrodden are the ones being made to suffer the burden of this crisis as the Reagan government heads up the capitalist offensive of hunger, fascism and war. It is growing increasingly clear to the working masses that the perpetuation of the monopoly capitalist system holds in store a very bleak and gloomy prospect, a prospect of yet deeper crises, of yet worse exploitation and more terrible oppression, and of yet more destructive wars.
But there is a genuine alternative to this capitalist darkness. The only way out is socialism -- the overthrow of capitalism and the building of a new socialist society. Today such a society is exemplified by the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, the only genuinely socialist country. Situated right in the middle of capitalist and revisionist Europe, socialist Albania shines forth as the red beacon of socialism. In Albania the working class and working people are successfully building a new socialist society, a society infinitely superior to crisis-ridden capitalism.
From the cradle to the grave the apologists of capital lecture the workers that a socialist society, a society without capitalist parasites and exploiters, while maybe a nice idea, is not possible to realize in practice. To back up this capitalist lie, every type of fake "socialism" is held up to prove the alleged "failure of socialism." Among these false "socialisms" there are the so-called "welfare states" such as in Scandinavia or Britain, countries which are in advanced stages of capitalist decay. Then there is also the revisionist new capitalism of today's Soviet Union where the Khrushchovite and now the Brezhnevite new tsars have re-enslaved the Soviet workers under capitalist and imperialist bondage, destroying completely the shining reality of socialism which existed in the days of Lenin and Stalin. There is also Castro's Cuba and a number of formerly socialist countries in Eastern Europe which have been reduced to capitalist neo-colonies of Soviet social-imperialism. As well there is revisionist China which is today ruled by a clique of revamped warlords who have entered into a warmongering alliance with U.S. imperialism.
These fake models of "socialism" however, do not show the "failure of socialism" but the betrayal of socialism. That is, they show the failure and crisis of revisionism and capitalism in these countries.
On the other hand, the brilliant reality of Albania shows the immense vitality of socialism. It proves that it is indeed possible to build a new world without exploitation of man by man and with the working class as the ruling class.
Let us briefly contrast a few of the striking features of crisis-ridden capitalism in the U.S. with the thriving socialist reality in Albania.
The U.S. economy remains in the depths of yet another recession. The economic crises and the industrial stagnation in recent years have produced millions of permanently unemployed who have been robbed of any means of a livelihood. The eight million unemployed and the over 50% unemployment level among black youth are a powerful indictment of the capitalist system.
In stark contrast, socialist Albania experiences no economic crises and the Albanian worker knows no unemployment whatsoever. Albania runs its planned socialist economy not to swell the profit margins of a handful of money- grubbers, but to meet the needs of the people and guarantee them a prosperous and happy life. Thus Albania, which was once the poorest country in Europe, is today building a modern socialist society with a steady and extremely rapid rate of growth, far outstripping the rate of any other country in Europe.
The standard of living of the workers in the U.S. is being ravaged by soaring inflation and a backbreaking tax burden. For the majority, real take-home pay declines with every passing year as prices skyrocket and taxes eat up as much as one-third of every paycheck.
In Albania on the other hand, there is no inflation, prices are stable and even go down. At the same time Albania is the only country in the world to abolish all taxes on the working people.
Presently Reagan is ruthlessly cutting back the already meager social services needed by the working masses. The growing inability of the poor to receive even minimal health care is a criminal scandal. Education is also deteriorating terribly and access to higher education is step by step being closed to all but the sons and daughters of the rich.
In stark contrast, in Albania the care of the health of the working people and the education of their youth receive the greatest attention. Every type of medical care, from a bandage to an extended stay in a hospital, is free of charge. Similarly a scientific and progressive education is free and available to all and a full one-third of the Albanian population is enrolled in school.
These are but a few of the countless examples of the immense superiority of socialism over capitalism. But here it might be asked, how is it that the Albanian working class has been able to accomplish these enormous achievements in building socialism? How is it that in Albania, surrounded by the bourgeois- revisionist world, genuine socialism, a life without rich and poor, without exploited or exploiters, is being successfully built?
The answer lies in the fact that Albania has stuck firmly to the road of building socialism according to the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin and has waged a bitter life and death struggle against all bourgeois and revisionist falsifiers of Marxism-Leninism and opponents of genuine socialism. The Albanian working class has accomplished miracles because it has as its vanguard a genuine Marxist-Leninist communist party, the heroic Party of Labor of Albania.
The working class of all countries, including the American working class, through arduous revolutionary struggle and armed with Marxism-Leninism and their Marxist-Leninist vanguard party, will also accomplish miracles in socialist revolution. This is the historic mission of the working class.
Step by step the Reagan government is escalating U.S. military intervention in El Salvador. Because of the massive outpouring of protest both at home and abroad, Reagan is trying to keep public opinion in the dark about the situation. Meanwhile, quietly but steadily, the Pentagon generals are committing ever more millions of dollars of military equipment, along with Green Berets and other military "advisors," to the bloodstained military junta in El Salvador. And, quietly but steadily, the Pentagon is escalating the U.S. military presence in the neighboring Central American countries of Guatemala and Honduras.
This intervention is a great crime. As well, with their ever expanding commitment the U.S. imperialists are sliding deeper and deeper into the quagmire of aggression against the Salvadorian and Central American peoples. One can hardly avoid the parallel with the early days of the hated U.S. war of aggression in Indochina. In fact, El Salvador shows that the warlike system of U.S. imperialism has not changed a bit since the genocidal "search and destroy missions" and "carpet bombings" of a decade past. On the contrary, U.S. imperialism remains committed to aggression. It remains committed to the most terrible crimes against the freedom-loving peoples of other countries, from the countless My Lai-type massacres which took place just yesterday to the indiscriminate beheadings, kidnappings and massacres of untold thousands which are taking place in El Salvador today.
Reagan and Haig have resorted to the timeworn hoax that the U.S. military intervention in El Salvador is nothing but a response to alleged Soviet interference, to the influx of Cuban arms, and so forth and so on. Facts, however, are stubborn things. Like U.S. imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism is indeed a savage aggressor as witnessed by Brezhnev's own Viet Nam-style aggression in Afghanistan. But the whole world can see the actual cynical objectives of the U.S. intervention in El Salvador.
It is intervention to prop up the military junta and the fascist death squads who have murdered 23,000 Salvadorian workers, peasants and youth in the last 20 months alone. It is intervention to prop up at any cost the despotic rule of a handful of big capitalists, coffee plantation owners and corrupt military officers. And in the final analysis it is intervention to preserve U.S. imperialist domination over El Salvador and to protect the super-profits of the U.S. multinational corporations who suck the blood of the Salvadorian people.
The civil war in El Salvador is a conflict between the rich and the poor. The roots of this conflict lie in the very system which has turned El Salvador into a hell on earth for the poverty-stricken workers and peasants. On the one hand, a tiny oligarchy of some 14 families, along with foreign and mainly U.S. finance capital, controls the entire wealth of the country. And on the other hand, the workers in the cities earn $3 a day doing backbreaking labor for these exploiters, while the mostly landless and starving peasants earn some $120 a year toiling on the coffee and cotton plantations of the rich owners.
The Salvadorian workers and peasants have risen to their feet against this inhuman system of despotism and slavery. They are fighting for their liberation from the yoke of the military dictatorship, the clique of rich exploiters, and their Wall Street and Pentagon masters. In the face of the massive U.S. intervention and the unbridled savagery of the junta, the brave workers and peasants of El Salvador are landing heavy blows against the military junta and its "mighty" U.S. imperialist backers. The people's liberation fighters continue to hit hard at the junta's armed forces, and in several provinces the junta's armed forces only control the ground they stand on.
Today El Salvador is in flames. In 1979 the Nicaraguan people overthrew the notorious U.S.-backed Somoza dictatorship. And now the flames of anti- U.S. imperialist struggle are growing hotter and hotter in Guatemala and elsewhere through the region. In a desperate effort to stamp out the fire, Reagan and Haig are steadily escalating U.S. intervention, threatening to drag the American people into an expanded aggressive war against their Salvadorian and Central American brothers.
Indeed, as part of the preparations for aggressive wars around the world, the Justice Department is starting to prosecute those who have refused to register for the draft. This is but one more step towards drafting the youth to fight and die in Central America or the Persian Gulf or in some other distant land for the greater glory of the profits of the U.S. imperialist banks and corporations.
The American people remember well the criminal U.S. war in Viet Nam and they can see before their eyes how Carter and now Reagan have been escalating U.S. intervention in El Salvador in much the same way as Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon did in Indochina. Once again the U.S. imperialists are getting ready to send off the sons of the American workers to slaughter their class brothers for yet another unjust cause in yet another country. This has provoked a wave of indignation and outrage. Over the last several months, hundreds of thousands have participated in demonstrations and protests across the country against Reagan's intervention in El Salvador.
In the face of this massive opposition both at home and internationally, U.S. imperialism is trying to cover its bloody tracks. Imperialist politicians like Ted Kennedy and other Democratic Party hacks are trying to give the murderous military junta a "human rights" face lift. For example, they are proposing bills in Congress which would cut off military aid to the junta -- unless the junta promises "social reforms," etc., etc. These imperialist liberals want to reduce the movement in opposition to U.S. intervention into a pressure group to lobby Reagan to return to the Carterite policy, the hypocritical policy of swearing on a stack of bibles to "reforms," "political solutions," and "human rights," while simultaneously arming the bloodstained generals of the junta to the teeth in their murderous slaughter of the Salvadorian people. Therefore the movement in opposition to Reagan's growing intervention must take a clear-cut stand against any and all schemes to preserve U.S. domination and in solidarity with the heroic struggle of the Salvadorian masses.
Workers and all progressive people! We must never forget the lessons of the criminal U.S. war in Indochina. War dog Reagan must not be given a free hand in his criminal aggression in Central America. Victory to the brave Salvadorian workers and peasants! U.S. imperialism, get out of El Salvador!
[Photo: Scene from a powerful mass demonstration in San Salvador, January 22,1980.]