The Workers' Advocate

WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE! 25¢

Volume 12, Number 1

VOICE OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF THE USA

January 5, 1982

[Front page:

Condemn the martial law of the Polish capitalist regime!;

NEW YEAR'S EDITORIAL--The Working Class Party and the Struggle Against Reaganite Reaction;

Reagan's Big Stick Cannot Stop the Popular Revolt in Central America;

The UAW bureaucrats jump to reopen the auto contracts--NO TO CONCESSIONS!]

IN THIS ISSUE

Condemn the martial law of the Polish capitalist regime!

NEW YEAR'S EDITORIAL

The Working Class Party and the Struggle Against Reaganite Reaction

Reagan's Big Stick Cannot Stop the Popular Revolt in Central America

The UAW bureaucrats jump to reopen the auto contracts

NO TO CONCESSIONS!

AFL-CIO convention -- a 'love feast' with the Democratic Party

Strikebreakers of the Fight Against Reaganism

Sharpening the axe of the wage-cutting offensive in basic steel

Down with the ENA no-strike pact!

The workers at our mill are fed up

Contracting out and compulsory seven-day weeks while 3,000 workers are laid off

GE workers look at the 'Detroit lesson':

Fight against GE's productivity drive and layoffs!

600 Construction Workers Protest Gerald Ford's Visit to Louisville

Republicans and Democrats -- Twin Parties of Capitalist Reaction

Fight the Reaganite Offensive of Chicago's Mayor Byrne

An outrage against the black people!

Courts refuse to try the '22 caliber killer'

No to the Persecution of the Haitian Refugees!

CPSG Holds 3rd Annual Calypso and Cultural Tent

Message to the MLP from the 1st National Conference of the Communist Party of Labor, Dominican Republic

Reagan threatens aggression abroad and imposes police-state measures at home

The case of the Invisible 'Libyan hit men'

In Western Europe:

Massive Demonstrations Against Imperialist War Preparations Continue

U.S. Defense Secretary Weinberger Visits Turkey

Washington Blesses the Turkish Martial Law Regime

An ugly result of the liquidationist and Maoist deviations of the leadership of the Communist Party of Canada (M-L)

Militant Celebrations in Solidarity with Socialist Albania

We Mourn the Death of Comrade Mehmet Shehu

Condemn the martial law of the Polish capitalist regime!

On Sunday, December 13, martial law was imposed on Poland. Even the military regime admits that at least seven workers have been killed and hundreds more injured in clashes with troops and police. Thousands of workers have courageously resisted the draconian measures of military rule by carrying out strikes, demonstrations, factory occupations and slowdowns. The Polish revisionist-capitalist tyrants will clearly not find it easy to crush the workers. The Workers' Advocate applauds the spirit of resistance of the Polish workers and condemns the Polish rulers and their Soviet social-imperialist backers for this latest crime against the working class.

Today the Polish workers find themselves in a difficult situation. The Polish revisionists have crowned their long history of betrayal of the workers since the mid-50's by this latest brutal assault on the people. But the other leadership which has come to the head of the workers' movement, composed of the Solidarity leaders such as Walesa and co., is no less treacherous. A section of this leadership has been reported to be calling on the workers to surrender before the authorities. Others, meanwhile, are in Western Europe and North America loudly proclaiming Western imperialism as the true friend of the Polish workers. They shout loudly against the present Soviet-backed regime only to pave the way to deliver Poland into the hands of the Western imperialists. The Polish workers thus face the task of freeing themselves from the influences of such class traitors and building their own revolutionary leadership. Only this can carry their struggle forward.

Once again, the crisis in Poland is being used to throw up a great cloud of confusion by the Soviet revisionists as well as by the U.S. and other Western imperialists.

The revisionist propaganda mills of Warsaw, Moscow, Prague, East Berlin and elsewhere are churning out a steady stream of lies claiming that the military crackdown in Poland is "defending socialism.'' What nonsense! Poland, just like all the countries where the revisionist traitors rule, is a capitalist country where socialism was betrayed long ago. The military rule there is an act of suppression of the working class by the armed forces of the ruling caste of privileged bureaucrats and millionaire businessmen.

Meanwhile, the U.S. and other Western imperialists are acting oh-so concerned about the rights of the Polish workers. They have stepped up their own propaganda barrage about how Poland proves the failure of socialism and how it is capitalism which offers the workers a real paradise. What liars! Suddenly, the U.S. imperialists, who organized the bloody coup in Chile in 1973 which caused the deaths of tens of thousands of workers, have become the loudest champions of workers' rights. Those who support and back dozens of brutal military regimes around the world have now become the great opponents of martial law! Indeed!

Clearly, both these two sets of capitalist tyrants are a bunch of liars and hypocrites. Neither do the Soviet revisionists defend socialism, nor does Washington and co. care a whit about democracy and workers' rights. At the heart of their lies is their own imperialist interests. Brezhnev applauds martial law in Poland because it is aimed to keep Poland within the orbit of Soviet domination, while the U.S. imperialists pretend to be the Polish workers' truest friend in order to be able to sink their claws even further into that country.

The road of emancipation of the Polish working class lies in freeing themselves from the clutches and intrigues of all the imperialist vultures. It is the road of overthrowing the ' capitalist rulers of Poland and establishing genuine socialism.

War Against the Workers Is Not A "Defense of Socialism"

The military rule in Poland is a sharp exposure of the phony character of the socialism which exists in Poland, the Soviet Union, etc. Socialism is the rule of the working class. But in Poland, General Jaruzelski has declared a "state of war,'' which is clearly aimed against the working class.

The regime has unleashed a massive wave of repression against the people. Meetings, demonstrations, distribution of publications without prior approval, etc., have all been banned. Censorship of mail and other communications has been instituted. Arrests have been ordered of anyone whose loyalty to the state is under "justifiable suspicion.'' Accordingly, thousands have been put in jail.

About a hundred and fifty key industries have been militarized, which means workers there can face court martial for disobeying orders. The penalty for such insubordination ranges from two years in prison to the death sentence. For all the workers, the six-day workweek has been restored.

A nighttime curfew remains in effect, travel and communications have been severely restricted, and armed troops patrol the streets everywhere.

In brief, Poland is today under naked military rule. A military junta of 21 high ranking officers, the Military Council for National Salvation, has become the supreme authority. The civil institutions, including the revisionist party, the so-called Polish United Workers Party (PUWP), have all been relegated to the sidelines, while last year the official trade unions were abandoned by the vast masses of workers. The shunting aside of the PUWP and the civil institutions is an admission that these institutions, which claim to be the organs for "people's rule,'' have become completely discredited among the masses. By having to declare naked military rule, the Polish revisionists admit that they are opposed by the bulk of the working class.

It is interesting to note that the declarations of the military regime in Poland are similar to those made by military coups d'etat in scores of capitalist-landlord regimes. In all these cases, there are statements about how the military had to step in to save the situation, and promises about "restoration of democracy'' are very common. Similarly in Poland one can also today hear the code words of fascist slave driving -- that "law and order'' must prevail, and the workers must get down to the business of "production." Thus, Jaruzelski's script could have been quite easily borrowed from the fascist military rulers of Turkey, Chile, Argentina, and so forth. Clearly, this is no "defense of socialism," but on the contrary, a fascist clamp- down by a capitalist regime.

The Crisis in Poland Is a Crisis of Revisionism, Not Socialism

The Polish revisionists, like other revisionists in power, have always used socialist rhetoric to disguise their capitalist rule. Today they are cloaking their martial law with the same lies. Meanwhile, the U.S. imperialists and all the enemies of Marxism-Leninism find this situation useful in order to try to discredit socialism. But this cannot serve to disgrace true socialism, no more than Hitler's "national socialism" could. What one must examine is not the words on the surface, but the underlying reality.

After the defeat of the Nazis in World War II, Poland had indeed set out on the road towards socialism. But in the mid-1950's, revisionist traitors came to the head of the workers' party and returned the country to the capitalist course. In this they had the help of the Khrushchovite revisionists who were themselves restoring capitalism in the Soviet Union. Today, not a shred of socialism remains in Poland, the Soviet Union or any of the countries under the Soviet Union's sway. In fact, in the present-day world, genuine socialism exists only in socialist Albania, where it is being built according to the ideas of scientific socialism, the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin.

As a result of the revisionist betrayal, Polish society today exhibits all the hallmarks of a decaying, crisis-ridden capitalist society.

A socialist society is one in which the working class is the master of the economy, which is run in the interests not of profit but of the maximum' satisfaction of the material and cultural needs of the people. But in Poland this is not the case at all. Although the state owns a large section of the economy, this is run on a capitalist, profit- making basis, where the workers' labor goes towards enriching the managers and bureaucrats of the revisionist party and state. As well, large sections of agriculture, trade, and even industry, are found directly in the hands of businessmen and rich farmers. Even the capitalist press cannot hide this reality of Poland. For example, a recent article in the New York Times of December 14 pointed out that "There are two routes to wealth and privilege in Poland today. One is through the party.... A second is through the 'private initiative' sector." The article described one Polish millionaire of this latter kind: "He owns several greenhouses,..., a fox farm, a mink farm and more than one house. Everybody in the area, it seems, works for him in one capacity or another." The article also indicated the life style of top bureaucrats by pointing out that many of them owned villas, some of which were "adorned with oriental gardens, small waterfalls, swimming pools, saunas, and even their own small power stations."

Clearly, the businessmen and bureaucrats live high off the hog, while the workers go hungry.

A socialist society is ruled by the working class. But in Poland it is not the workers but the class of bureaucrats, businessmen and rich farmers who are clearly in control of the state. The workers, on the other hand, are deprived of any real rights.

A socialist society is also free of foreign imperialist domination. But again in Poland, this is not the case. The Polish regime has subordinated the country to foreign imperialism. Soviet social-imperialism dominates the country economically and militarily. This is well known. But Western imperialism also has huge interests there. Poland is in $27 billion debt to the bankers and governments of the West, especially the West German and U.S. imperialists. Much of this debt was incurred in the 1970's when the regime went all out to import factories with foreign loans. Moreover, these factories are dependent on spare parts and raw materials from the West.

It is inevitable that a capitalist society like Poland, heavily dependent on imperialism, will be gripped by crisis. Indeed, Poland has been wracked with deep crisis. Faced with worsening economic conditions and deprived of rights, the workers of Poland have revolted over and over again. In 1970, 1976 and 1980, they rose up in wide-scale upsurges. This class conflict in Poland between the working class and the revisionist capitalist rulers is a powerful indictment of Poland as a capitalist society, divided into exploiters and exploited just like any other capitalist country around the world.

Military Rule Is a Desperate Response to the Worsening Crisis of the Revisionist System

In face of growing economic crisis and the protest of the workers, the revisionist regime has been desperately looking for a way out. Over the years, it has met the workers' struggles with a combination of repression and empty promises. Each time, the bourgeoisie has tried to carry on its rule by changing horses in the government and pinning all the blame on the previous administration. Thus in 1970, Gomulka was replaced by Gierek, and in 1980-81, Gierek had to go in favor of, first, Kania, and more recently, General Jaruzelski. Each time, a thousand promises have been made about "renewal" and "progress."

But such measures have worn thin in the eyes of the masses. The economic situation, meanwhile, has gone from bad to catastrophic. The debt has piled up so high that Poland has reached a situation where half of Poland's export earnings now goes to repay the interest on the foreign debt, thus leaving very little for food imports or to buy raw materials and spare parts to keep industry going. Thus industrial production declined 20% in 1980. The Polish economy has come to a state of collapse, and the working masses are faced with massive shortages of food, fuel, etc. Thus the past year saw widespread protests by the working masses against the starvation conditions which they face.

In this situation, the Western imperialists have been active in trying to drive their claws deeper into Poland. Not only have the Western bankers been getting their pound of flesh in the form, of interest payments, but they have also increased their political influence in Poland. The Western imperialists seek to force the Polish regime out of the orbit of Soviet social-imperialism into their own sphere of domination. In this regard, their instruments are especially the Catholic Church and the closely associated leadership of the Solidarity trade union.

The tragedy of the Polish workers' struggle has been that while they have fought heroically, the leadership which has come to the head of their struggle, composed of Lech Walesa and others, is a bunch of traitors to the working class. They are saboteurs of the workers' struggle. These traitors do not fight the capitalist order. Their self-proclaimed program is a call for a "joint social council" to run the economy, in other words, they seek a share in administering the capitalist economy and the sellout of the country to imperialism. They also seek to increase the power of the private capitalists in exploiting the workers. Thus recently the New York Times pointed out that "one new law adopted as part of the economic changes made in response to Solidarity, allows as many as 50 employees in a private business." (December 14, 1981) Moreover, the Solidarity leaders do not say one word against the fleecing of the country by the Western bankers. On the contrary, the Solidarity leaders call for greater dependence on the West and flaunt their love for Western imperialism. Thus, just after Reagan's election, Walesa declared that this was "a very good sign for the world and Poland, because he is a strong and consistent leader who will make things better for the world." What shameless admiration for Reagan who is hated worldwide for being a notorious enemy of the workers, a racist and a rabid warmonger!

Much has been made in the bourgeois press about the "moderates" and "radicals" in the Solidarity leadership. Both factions, in fact, have common aims. They differ only in tactics. Those like Walesa, prefer for the moment an accommodation with the ruling regime; the others seek immediately to try to have the country taken over by themselves and the Church. Neither section, however, seeks to establish working class rule in Poland; both have a common program of administering a capitalist Poland, enslaved by Western imperialism.

Thus, Poland has found itself in a very complex situation. Over the last year and a half, the country has also been the focus of rivalry between the Soviet social-imperialists and the U.S. The Soviet Union has made it clear that it wants the workers crushed, as well as a stop put to the attempts by the Solidarity leaders to take Poland out of its domination into the Western sphere. Thus, it has repeatedly rattled its sabers, carried out many threatening military exercises on Poland's borders, directed the Polish revisionist regime to "get tough" and "restore stability," and threatened outright invasion.

The imposition of martial law in Poland indicates that, finally the Polish regime has decided to act along this course. The martial law clearly has the backing of the Soviet Union. This can be seen in the glee with which the Soviet Union has met the crackdown.

Western Imperialism Offers No Salvation to the Polish Workers

The Western imperialists, for their part, are trying to soak the present Polish crisis for everything they can. Above all else, they have unleashed a massive propaganda barrage against socialism and Marxism-Leninism. From all the capitals of the West -- from Washington, London, Bonn, Paris, etc. -- each of the imperialist powers is shedding crocodile tears for the Polish workers. The capitalist press is running off pages and pages on how Poland allegedly proves the failure of socialism and Marxism-Leninism.

This is quite a curious situation. When it comes to Poland, Reagan and his cronies are suddenly great champions of workers' rights and fiery lovers of freedom. But when it comes to El Salvador the U.S. government props up a most brutal military junta with Marines, helicopters, and more. His Defense Secretary Weinberger was only recently in Turkey blessing the hangmen and torturers of the military regime there for upholding "law and order." As for Reagan's love for the workers, this was amply seen when he fired 13,000 air traffic controllers for striking against the government.

It is no different in Europe. For example, Thatcher in Britain has become a loud defender of the oppressed Polish people. But this is the same Thatcher who administers the colonial military occupation of Northern Ireland and only last year was denouncing Irish hunger strikers in British prisons as "criminals." Meanwhile, the Pope who is silent in the face of massacres of "his" Catholic subjects by the Catholic military juntas in El Salvador, Guatemala, and elsewhere in Latin America, has suddenly become a mighty defender of "his" subjects in Poland.

Clearly the Western imperialists are a bunch of liars and hypocrites. They have no concern for the rights of the workers, freedom or any other decent values. Each and every one of them is a hangman and bloodsucker in their own right. They have no tears when it comes to oppression of people in their own sphere of influence. It is only when it comes to peoples of countries they covet for their own they the tears start rolling. In the case of Poland, they seek to portray themselves as friends of the people simply in order to sink their claws even deeper.

On one hand all the Western imperialists are making as much propaganda mileage as they can out of Poland. On the other hand, seeing that the time is not ready to tear Poland out of the Soviet bloc for fear of a Soviet invasion, they are shrewdly keeping their fingers crossed that martial law in Poland might be the best bet for the moment to stabilize the situation there. After all, strikes and protests of the workers only obstruct production and are thus not conductive at all to having the interest payments rolling in smoothly out of Poland to the vaults of the Western banks. And greater instability only carries with it the threat of Poland defaulting on its debts, which is likely to set off a grave financial crisis.

Thus, right after martial law was declared, Canada's Prime Minister Trudeau, for example, was quoted as saying that "I can't say it is bad" if martial law prevents civil war. What the Western capitalist rulers have in mind at the present time was revealed by many of the Western bankers. The New York Times reported on December 15 that "European bankers were quoted in European papers today as expressing relief at the crackdown in the hope that the Poles will now be pressed to improve their work habits, produce more, and pay off their debts to the West." This is a sharp exposure of the shameless two-facedness of the Western imperialists: crocodile tears over the fate of the Polish workers for show, while, above all else, seeking to make sure that the Polish workers are squeezed to the wall in order to "pay off their debts to the West."

This exposure of the real predatory ambitions of Western imperialism underscores the importance of exposing and fighting the treachery of the Solidarity leadership. Having come to the head of the workers' movement, these elements are leading the workers to the Western imperialist slaughterhouse. This is a grave crime against the working class.

The Polish workers face a difficult situation ahead of them. The military rulers are trying to crush their spirit through repression today. But they know they cannot rule simply in this way forever. Even today they are plotting feverishly to give their discredited political system a new paint job to see if they can fool the people. Meanwhile, further measures are planned to shift the burden of the economic crisis even more onto the backs of the workers. In the background, the Soviet social-imperialists wait, to see if the present measures restore "law and order," or whether they should move in with their own tanks and troops.

On the other hand, the Solidarity leaders offer no solution to the workers either. The road of emancipation of the Polish workers lies not in surrendering and accommodating with the revisionist regime, nor in opening the path to full Western imperialist domination. Instead it lies in class struggle leading to socialist revolution. The working class must work to overthrow the capitalist regime and end all foreign domination. This requires that the working class must reconstruct a genuine Marxist-Leninist party. Only such a party can defend the interests of the working class struggle from the traitors in their midst, and lead them through all twists and turns of the struggle, towards the socialist revolution.

[Cartoon.]

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NEW YEAR'S EDITORIAL

The Working Class Party and the Struggle Against Reaganite Reaction

January 1 this year comes during a period of economic depression and growing capitalist reaction. It finds the working masses concerned over their livelihood, over the threat of imperialist war, over racial discrimination, and over the million other horrors of the capitalist hell. And it finds the indignation, outrage and determination to struggle growing in the hearts and minds of the working masses.

This lends even more importance to the fact that January 1 is also the second anniversary of the founding of the Marxist-Leninist Party. Building revolutionary organization is the only way out for the working class and progressive masses. It is only through organization that the working masses can develop the class struggle against the exploiters and defend themselves from the capitalist offensive of hunger, fascism and war. It is only through organization that the workers can develop the strength necessary to rise up in socialist revolution to end the living hell of capitalism altogether. As Lenin teaches:

"In its struggle for power, the proletariat has no other weapon but organization. Disunited by the rule of anarchic competition in the bourgeois world, ground down by forced labor for capital, constantly thrust back to the 'lower depths' of utter destitution, savagery and degeneration, the proletariat can become, and inevitably will become, an invincible force only when its ideological unification by the principles of Marxism is consolidated by the material unity of an organization which will weld millions of toilers into an army of the working class." (One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, from the last paragraph of section R)

January 1, 1982 marks two years of the building of the Marxist-Leninist Party. On this anniversary it is time to review the progress of the Party and to examine the perspective and the tasks for the coming year. This builds confidence in the victory of the proletariat, which has never lost faith in communism and which has reestablished its own party. It lends orientation for the big class battles that lie ahead. The working class, despite the miseries of the present society, greets the future with optimism, knowing that this future holds in store the overthrow of the old and the building of the new.

In the Thick of the Mass Struggle

A proletarian party is built in the thick of the struggle. The Marxist-Leninist Party and its predecessors, since the founding of the American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist) twelve and a half years ago in May 1969, always fought in the front ranks of the revolutionary mass movement. In accordance with this fighting tradition, in 1981 the Marxist-Leninist Party threw itself into the mass struggle against Reaganite reaction.

1981 was the first year of the Reagan administration. Reagan was chosen by the millionaire moneybags as the best hangman to head up the capitalist offensive of hunger, fascism and war. Right from the start, Reagan's presidency was met with the fierce hatred of the masses. The Marxist-Leninist Party used this mass hatred of Reagan as a powerful factor for the development of the class struggle against the entire capitalist offensive.

Thus the banner of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism waved proudly in the demonstrations and actions of 1981. The Marxist-Leninist Party worked hard to push forward the struggle against U.S. intervention in El Salvador, against the reintroduction of the draft, against the nuclear program, and against imperialist aggression and war preparations. The Party fought tirelessly against the capitalist "reindustrialization" and productivity programs, against wage cuts, cutbacks, concessions and the fascist labor discipline programs. The Party vigorously opposed the savage oppression of the immigrants and the minority nationalities. In these and other struggles, the Party made extensive links with, and its work gained the respect of, rank and file activists and the masses awakening to political life and consciousness.

Against the Capitalist Parties

In its participation in the mass movement, the Party did not simply follow what was fashionable or trust to spontaneity. On the contrary, the Party put forth the militant revolutionary program of the proletariat in the midst of the mass actions. It gave orientation and direction to the struggle so that each of the various currents of protest and revolt would play its role in building up the revolutionary movement.

To do this, the Party fought not only the Republicans, but also carried on a relentless exposure of the Democratic Party and the labor bureaucrats. The Party worked to build up the independent movement of the proletariat, that is, independent of the exploiters and their parties. This is essential for ensuring a real fight against Reaganite reaction, for Reaganism is nothing but the bipartisan program of all the capitalist moneybags. Indeed, 1981 was notable for showing the Tweedledee and Tweedledum nature of the two big parties of capitalist reaction, the Democrats and the Republicans. It was the year of the Democratic Party "honeymoon" with Reagan, when they went all out to prove to the millionaires that they would not "obstruct" Reagan's program in the slightest.

The special role the capitalists have assigned the Democratic Party is to deceive the masses, to paint themselves up as the party of "labor and the minorities," and to win the anti-Reagan masses over to concealed Reaganism. The social-democrats are the handmaidens of the Democratic Party and the trade union bureaucrats, and they shamelessly present the Democratic Party in "socialist" colors. The Democratic Party and the social-democrats played an especially disruptive role in the mass movement, liquidating in 1981, as far as they could, the demonstrations and actions against the draft, against U.S. aggression in El Salvador and against the nuclear program. Meanwhile the labor bureaucrats spent their time devising new ways to impose concessions upon the workers and to increase the profits of the corporations.

The Marxist-Leninist Party carried out all-round work against the Democratic Party and the social-democrats and their sabotage of the mass movement. The Party carried the program of all-out struggle against Reaganism and of breaking with the capitalist parties right into the mass actions under the influence of the Democratic Party and the labor bureaucrats. Especial mention should also be given to the patient, detailed work with the rank and file activists at the demonstrations and conferences throughout 1981. The Party organized as well its own actions against the draft, against U.S. imperialist aggression against El Salvador, and for May Day. The Party also perseveringly exposed the labor bureaucrats in the course of the struggle against the concessions being shoved down the workers' throats by the millionaires.

Against Liquidationism

1981 was also a year of sharp struggle against revisionism. The revisionist circles in the U.S. present themselves as communists, but only in order to paint the policy of unity with the Democratic Party in Marxist colors. The Marxist-Leninist Party has the task of demonstrating to the activists and class conscious proletarians that the revisionists are fake communists and real servants of the capitalists, that they are betrayers of the noble ideals of communism.

In 1981 the Marxist-Leninist Party won a series of victories over the revisionists. It denounced the rise of open liquidationism. The Party showed that the pro-Chinese and Maoist circles had degenerated into open liquidators who were mocking at the party principle and the very idea of independent organization of the proletariat and openly renouncing the most basic principles of Marxism-Leninism. A number of the pro-Chinese sects have dissolved their organizations, either openly or in all but name, and collapsed into a fit of the blues. In abandoning the revolutionary struggle, they are going along the road pioneered long before them by Gus Hall's "Communist" Party, USA, the official pro-Soviet party in the U.S. In fact, liquidationism is the common feature binding together all the revisionist and trotskyite circles.

The Marxist-Leninist Party showed the close connection between liquidationism and social-democracy. Both the social-democrats and the liquidators are sycophants of the Democratic Party and, together with the labor bureaucrats, they form its yellow "left wing." The Party showed that renegacy and merger with social- democracy are in fact basic features of liquidationism. Liquidationism means abandoning the proletariat and merging with the labor bureaucracy, the social-democrats and the entire opportunist stratum sold out to the bourgeoisie. Without a stern struggle against both social-democracy and liquidationism, there can be no advance of the revolutionary movement.

Closely related to the struggle against liquidationism was the publication of The Truth About the Relations Between the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA and the Communist Party of Canada (M-L) and of other relevant material, such as that on the economist distortion by the leadership of CPC(M-L) of the "Make the Rich Pay" slogan. This polemic was a major victory for our Party. It deepened the criticism of Maoism and showed that the ideological basis for the blunders and hostile activity of the leadership of CPC(M-L) lay in their Maoist arid liquidationist deviations. This polemic not only defended the MLP against hostile wrecking activity but also enhanced the ideological clarity of the Party. Making this material public was a bold stand of the MLP, which did not fear to expose to the light of day the foul slanders made in abundance by the leadership of CPC (M-L).

The Party also continued to fight without letup against any prettification of Soviet revisionism. The Party's denunciation of the counter-revolutionary nature of the 26th Congress of the "Communist" Party of the Soviet Union stood in opposition to the reconciliationist waltz. As well, the Party stepped up the struggle against Trotskyism.

Thus the battle cry of the Marxist-Leninist Party against liquidationism played an important role in defending the banner of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism. It also showed that our Party is sensitive to the changes in the concrete situation facing the revolutionary activists. The Party correctly analyzed and took account of the fact that the period of the movement against social-chauvinism of 1976-1980 had passed over to a new period, that marked by the struggle of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism against liquidationism. Liquidationism amounts to abandoning the revolution in favor of liberal-labor politics and reconciliation with the bourgeoisie. All activists and class conscious workers should stand up and unite against the liquidationist and social-democratic danger.

Building Solid Organization

Building the independent movement of the proletariat requires not just actions, but also the building of solid organization. In 1981, the Party continued its tradition of laying stress on building up revolutionary organization.

The highest form of proletarian class organization is the party itself. The Marxist-Leninist Party paid close attention to the work of party-building and of imbuing the working class with the party spirit. Much attention was paid to questions of inner-party life and to carrying out all work in a party way. The First National Conference of the MLP, held in summer 1981, underlined the strong Marxist-Leninist organizational foundations of the Party. As well, 1981 saw a further development of the forms used to draw supporters of the Party into the party work. This was another way in which the Party strengthened its links with the masses.

The Party carried out particularly energetic work at the factories and work places. 1981 was a year with difficult economic conditions. Mass layoffs especially affected the more active section of workers, and in some cases plants closed down altogether. But the dedicated work of the Party comrades overcame these difficulties and succeeded in maintaining the Party's positions at the work places. This had special importance for maintaining the Party's ties with the proletariat.

As well, the Party encouraged the development of other forms of organization, such as anti-imperialist organizations and organizations of the oppressed nationalities.

A Contingent of the International Marxist-Leninist Movement

1981 also saw progress in the international work of the Marxist-Leninist Party. A major campaign was waged in solidarity with socialist Albania on the occasion of the 37th anniversary of the liberation of Albania which was the same month as the 8th Congress of the PLA and the 40th anniversary of its founding. Our Party brought the news of the victories of socialism in Albania to the American workers and progressive masses. This both helps orient the mass struggle in the U.S. and inspires feelings of internationalist support for Albania, the bright red beacon of socialism. Through this campaign and the overall coverage of the international Marxist-Leninist movement in The Workers' Advocate, the Party worked to imbue the proletariat with the sense of being one contingent of the international proletarian army.

The establishment of fraternal relations between the MLP and the Communist Party of Labor of the Dominican Republic was another manifestation of proletarian internationalism. It had all the more significance as it showed the development of fraternal collaboration between the Dominican proletariat, living in a country oppressed by "our own" U.S. imperialists, and the American proletariat, in the common struggle against U.S. imperialism, capitalist exploitation and reaction.

As well, the publication of The Truth About the Relations Between the MLP, USA and the CPC(M-L) was another part of the internationalist duty of our Party. Upholding Marxist-Leninist principles against the hostile wrecking activity of the leadership of CPC(M-L) is not only necessary for the defense of our Party, but is part of defending the international Marxist-Leninist movement from the international factional activities and the deviations of the leadership of CPC(M-L). Our Party's struggle is an important factor in favor of the militant union of the international movement.

The Perspective for 1982

Thus the work of the Party made progress on many fronts in 1981. The revolutionary Marxist-Leninists have every right to be proud of the accomplishments of their self-sacrificing work in the past year. The success of this work is another proof of the power of Marxism-Leninism.

At the same time, there must be a sober assessment of the present situation and the threat of growing capitalist reaction. The capitalist offensive will continue in the coming year.

On the economic front, the bourgeoisie has been stepping up its efforts to make the working masses pay for the economic crisis. The capitalists are implementing their "reindustrialization" program of wage cuts, productivity drives and so forth. The recent decision by the top bureaucrats of the United Auto Workers to renegotiate the auto contracts and give new concessions to the auto monopolies, without even waiting nine months to let the present contracts expire, shows with what eagerness the labor bureaucrats will collaborate with the millionaires and become their slave drivers in the coming year.

At the same time as the capitalists are frantically cutting wages, the federal, state and local governments are cutting back on the meager social programs that exist. Taxation on the rich and the corporations is being cut down to zero, while charges on the poor are escalating.

The bourgeoisie is also stepping up its warmongering and aggression. The military budget continues to grow at record levels. With its threats against Nicaragua and Libya, the Reagan regime is openly proclaiming that U.S. imperialism is the world policeman who should dominate the world and decide who lives and who dies. The Reagan administration has also set the course for intensifying the rivalry for world hegemony with the equally imperialist Soviet revisionists.

The bourgeoisie is also continuing the fascization of the country. Through draconic new laws, through measures against the immigrants, through increasing the secret police apparatus and giving it new powers, and through fostering the racist and fascist gangs, the bourgeoisie is building up its police state. Attacks on immigrants and the oppressed nationalities and hysteria about "crime" and "terrorism" are central points of this fascist campaign.

The deep all-round crisis facing the bourgeoisie is a sign of the moribund nature of capitalism. The monopoly capitalists are thrashing right and left and striking out at the masses in a desperate attempt to prolong the life of their rotten system. The deepening of the capitalist offensive also means that the mass struggle against this offensive will continue. Great class battles are in the making. A burning hatred against Reaganite reaction is growing deeper and deeper. The existence of this mass sentiment is undeniable; the only question is what orientation it will receive and whether it will be frittered away or utilized to build up the revolutionary organization of the masses.

In this situation, the path set down by the Founding Congress of the MLP and affirmed at the First National Conference of the MLP remains the true guide for revolutionary work. Among the particular tasks that this involves for the coming year are the following:

First, it is necessary to fight the capitalist offensive headed by the Reagan regime. All out against Reaganite reaction remains the order of the day. Great attention must be paid to the mass struggle. As well, attention must also be given to exposing the demagogy of the Reaganites. Despite the glaring contradictions of Reaganism and its absurdities that reach the level of idiocy, there can be no complacency before the ideological offensive of the bourgeoisie. Besides seeking to confuse the questions of the cause of the crisis and who benefits from it, the bourgeoisie is also making use of the fiasco of the Polish revisionists to create confusion concerning socialism among the masses.

Second, there must be vigilance against the Democratic Party, which will step up its sabotage of the mass movement. In the coming year, the Democratic Party will seek to present itself as the "alternative" to Reaganism for the congressional elections of 1982. It will unleash a barrage of demagogy to cover over its role of the "honeymoon" partner of Reagan. The recent AFL-CIO national convention has already declared that the elections will be "Solidarity Day II," that is, that they will do their utmost to support the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party, the labor bureaucrats, the official "respectable" traitors to the oppressed nationalities will do their best to stamp out the class struggle. In these conditions, the revolutionary stand of building the independent movement of the proletariat will acquire even greater significance.

Third, the Party will continue to press for the building of all types of independent organization of the masses. It is precisely organization that the masses need in order to carry out their struggle against Reaganite reaction.

In particular, the Party must continue to imbue the proletariat with the party spirit. The class conscious proletariat and revolutionary activists must be rallied around the party. It is precisely against the proletarian party and the revolutionary organization of the masses in general that both the capitalists and the liquidators aim their main blow. The party forms the driving motor for developing the independent movement of the working class, and the building of the party is a constant task.

Finally, 1982 will see the further development of the struggle against liquidationism and social-democracy. Social-democracy will step up its support of the Democratic Party and its activity as the Democratic Party itself launches its election campaign. The liquidators meanwhile are continuing to degenerate. Among the diverse fronts of struggle against liquidationism that will come into particular prominence in 1982 is upholding the Marxist-Leninist condemnation of Soviet revisionism. The liquidators, as they give up any opposition to liberal- labor politics in the U.S., have also lost any stomach for the fight against revisionism. Their renunciation of the struggle against Soviet social-imperialism does not come from any misguided impulse in the struggle against U.S. imperialism, but from their having given up the fight against the bourgeois ideology of U.S. imperialism as well. They wish to reconcile with the entire capitalist-revisionist world. If they can paint the Democratic Party as "socialist," then why not the revisionist parties as well?

The above four points outline some of the pressing tasks for the coming year. The perspective for 1982 is that of hard struggle. In the midst of the fight against Reaganite reaction and the capitalist offensive, the proletariat must develop its political independence from the bourgeoisie and organize itself as a class. It is a time when all class conscious workers, revolutionary activists and progressive people should rally around the Marxist-Leninist Party, the party of the revolutionary proletariat. It is a year that calls for determined efforts on the part of the Marxist-Leninist Party to strengthen the work of agitation, organization, and development of the class consciousness and ideological clarity of the proletariat. Forward under the banner of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism into the class battles of the coming year!

[Graphic.]

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Reagan's Big Stick Cannot Stop the Popular Revolt in Central America

Today the revolution is shaking the ground beneath the feet of U.S. imperialism and its fascist puppet regimes in Central America. The struggles of the oppressed masses in El Salvador, Guatemala and elsewhere are like hammer blows pounding away at the U.S. neo-colonial empire. Faced with this situation, the U.S. warmongers are desperately trying to crush the revolutionary peoples. Over the last two months, U.S. imperialism has undertaken another series of aggressive measures to intimidate and suppress the revolutionary movement.

More Troops for the Fascist Junta in El Salvador

In mid-December the Reagan administration announced that it will train about 1,600 soldiers for the fascist Duarte regime in El Salvador. The Duarte regime is the latest in a long line of military dictatorships installed by U.S. imperialism to suppress the Salvadorian people. This year alone, the junta has murdered some 10,000 people. The Salvadorian military junta's campaign of terror is backed to the hilt by the U.S. government. According to the Washington Post (November 10, 1981) the Reagan administration sent $63 million in military aid to the Salvadorian fascist regime this past year.

The training of the 1,600 troops is another desperate measure to help Duarte's military junta subdue the Salvadorian masses who are stepping up their heroic struggle against the regime. Recently the revolutionary forces have been successful in extending their armed actions across the country. The capitalist press admits that the revolutionary fighters are on the verge of cutting off all land access of the fascist troops to half the country by blowing up key bridges.

Bloodthirsty Threats to Overthrow the Nicaraguan Government

U.S. imperialism has never reconciled itself to the defeat it suffered when the Nicaraguan revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed fascist Somoza regime in 1979. On November 12, war dog Haig openly threatened to overthrow the government of Nicaragua. Asked by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, "Can you provide this committee and this Congress with an assurance that the United States is not and will not participate or encourage in any way, direct or indirect, efforts to overthrow or destabilize the current government of Nicaragua?,'' Haig answered: "No, I would not give you such an assurance.''

Moreover, the Reagan administration is busily taking measures to carry out this vile threat. It is organizing various of its lackey regimes in Latin America to take joint military actions and a blockade against Nicaragua. In the first week of November, the U.S. gathered the military commanders and intelligence officers of twenty reactionary Latin American regimes in Washington for the Conference of American Armies. Secretary of Defense Weinberger and his counterpart from El Salvador, Jose Guillermo Garcia, lectured this meeting on the need for "solidity'' against Nicaragua and "insurgency'' throughput the region. One month later, Haig again issued a call for "collective action'' against Nicaragua at the OAS (Organization of American States) meeting in St. Lucia. In addition, U.S. imperialism is planning economic sanctions against Nicaragua.

These measures aim at reversing the victorious revolution and restoring complete U.S. domination over Nicaragua. The Nicaraguan people's revolution, which overthrew the hated dictator Somoza, was a big blow to U.S. imperialism. U.S. imperialism originally established its outright domination in Nicaragua through military occupation of the country by U.S. marines. In 1937, shortly after this military occupation ended, the U.S. installed the Somoza family in power. Armed to the teeth by its U.S. masters, the Somoza regimes carried out the most brutal terror against the people. Nicaragua was considered a safe and secure bastion of U.S. neo-colonialism. The overthrow of the fascist Somoza therefore gave great encouragement to the other revolutionary struggles in the region.

Ever since Somoza's downfall, U.S. imperialism has sought revenge. It has sheltered Somoza's henchmen in the U.S. The U.S. authorities have helped these pro-Somoza forces set up military camps in Florida in order to organize a counter-revolutionary invasion of Nicaragua. Meanwhile, U.S. imperialism has been trying to pressure the present Nicaraguan government to capitulate to its wishes. Thus Haig has issued his fascist dictate that "the hours are growing rather short" for Nicaragua.

As an excuse for its plans to overthrow the Nicaraguan government, the Reagan administration is creating hysteria about the so-called "huge military structure" of Nicaragua. They are falsely claiming that Nicaragua is now a threat to "peace" and "freedom" and is responsible for "aggression" in Central America. What incredible imperialist logic! It is U.S. imperialism's huge armed forces which threaten the peace and freedom of the region and which have time after time invaded countries and propped up dictators and oligarchies. As well, from the day that Somoza fell, U.S. imperialism has actively been organizing to topple the Nicaraguan government. Therefore, right from the start, the Nicaraguan government has had to develop its armed forces to defend itself from U.S. aggression. When the Nicaraguan people seek to defend themselves from U.S. aggression, they are then labeled aggressors!

Furthermore, the Reagan administration is brazenly demanding that Nicaragua reduce its armed forces by over one-half. Lovely, is it not? U.S. imperialism sends its marines and Huey helicopters to the fascist Duarte in El Salvador and will soon train 1,600 more of his troops. Just yesterday, U.S. imperialism was sending Somoza war planes from the Panama Canal Zone to carry out genocidal bombing runs on the Nicaraguan people. And now the Reagan administration, these self-appointed sheriffs of Central America, have the nerve to order the Nicaraguan people to disarm so that the U.S. jackboot can trample over Nicaragua unopposed.

The Reagan administration is also demanding that Nicaragua stop sympathizing with the revolutionary movements in Central America. Meanwhile, the U.S. government gives itself the right to support reactionary movements throughout the region. It organizes the pro-Somoza exiles for an invasion of Nicaragua and it is actively collaborating with the anti-Castro, pro- U.S. imperialist Cuban exiles. This is just unbridled arrogance!

The Nicaraguan government has rejected these dictates from Washington. But U.S. imperialism wants to make the law in Nicaragua just as it did in the past with its marines and its puppet Somoza. This is the bloodthirsty plot that is behind the administration's lies about the Nicaraguan "threat."

Another Round of Anti-Cuba Hysteria to Justify U.S. Aggression

The Reagan administration is accompanying its threats against Nicaragua with threats of a blockade and military action against Cuba. This warmongering is being justified by a new wave of anti-Cuba hysteria including a new government document purporting to show Cuban activities throughout Central America. The theme of this anti-Cuban crusade was spelled out by Haig as follows: "What is at stake is the radicalization of the Western Hemisphere by foreign powers and by interests that are being manipulated from Moscow through Cuba." Haig falsely attributes ' 'the radicalization of the Western Hemisphere" to Cuba and Russia. But it is not Cuba and Russia who have created the revolutionary struggle in Central America. The true causes of the revolution can be found in the system of U.S. neo-colonial domination and the rule of the domestic exploiters. This anti-Cuba hysteria is an old, tired-out theme which U.S. imperialism repeats like a broken record in order to have a pretext for stepped-up measures against the revolutionary struggles of the oppressed masses. In 1979 Carter ranted and raved about "new evidence" of a "Soviet brigade in Cuba," a brigade known to exist by the U.S. government since 1962. Under this cover he established a new Caribbean Joint Task Force Headquarter in Key West, Florida to direct U.S. counterinsurgency in the region. The Reagan administration has justified each new round of aid to the fascist Salvadorian junta with anti- Cuba hysteria. And now, with this latest anti-Cuba hysteria comes a new wave of warmongering against the liberation struggles.

The hysteria against Cuba is also part of U.S. imperialism's efforts to prepare conditions to reconquer its lost paradise in Cuba. U.S. imperialism first subjugated Cuba at the turn of the century during the U.S. military occupation following the Spanish- American War. U.S. domination lasted until the end of the 1950's during which time Cuba was ruthlessly plundered by the U.S. multinationals and Havana turned into a playground and brothel for American businessmen. In 1959, however, the Cuban revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed tyrant Batista and delivered a powerful blow against U.S. imperialist domination. In 1961, the U.S. government launched its notorious Bay of Pigs invasion, and to this day has not reconciled itself to its defeat in Cuba.

Although the Cuban people won a great victory over U.S. imperialism, Castro soon began to tie Cuba to the coattails of the pro-imperialist policies of the Khrushchovite revisionists. The Khrushchovites were transforming the Soviet Union from the once proud bastion of socialism into an imperialist superpower. By hitching Cuba's fate to the Khrushchovites, Castro's policy led to the transformation of Cuba into a neo-colony of Soviet social-imperialism.

The bankrupt path of Castroism has led to betrayal of the revolution and a great tragedy for the Cuban people. In recent years Soviet social-imperialism has even sent Cuban troops to occupy Angola and fight against the Eritrean revolution. Thus the Cuban people now face the task of rising up in revolution, this time in order to free themselves from the yoke of the reactionary Castro government and its Soviet social-imperialist masters. In this just struggle against the Castroite government however, there is no place for U.S. imperialism. U.S. imperialism opposes Castro because it wants to restore its own domination in Cuba.

The Criminal Plots of U.S. Imperialism Will Never Stop the Revolution

The Reagan administration has unleashed a vicious warmongering program against the peoples of Central America and the Caribbean. It is training more troops to slaughter the Salvadorian people. It is openly boasting about its plans to invade Nicaragua. In addition, U.S. imperialism has taken numerous other measures to fight the revolutionary movement. While the U.S. warmongers were trying to bully Nicaragua, the U.S. Navy conducted large-scale war exercises in the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. These maneuvers included some 38 warships and 200 planes. The Reagan administration has also strengthened Carter's Caribbean Joint Task Force Headquarters and rechristened it the U.S. Forces Caribbean Command. The new command combines the forces in Carter's task force with new forces from the Antilles Defense Command in Puerto Rico and units of each branch of the armed forces. The new command serves the purpose of consolidating U.S. counterinsurgency operations in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Coast of Central America.

The policy of the Reagan administration in regard to the peoples of Central America and the Caribbean was aptly summed up in Haig's statement: "...it serves no constructive purpose to draw fences around the limits of American policy when nations are proceeding to push against our fundamental values." (Statement on ABC TV's "This Week With David Brinkley," November 22, 1981) In simple terms, this means that the Reagan administration is not ruling out direct U.S. military actions in the region. As far as the U.S. government's "fundamental values," Haig is talking about the values of the capitalist billionaires, the relentless pursuit of ever-greater profits. Haig called attention to these values in a recent interview. Asked"why is the administration so concerned about current developments in Central America?," Haig replied that Central America "is of such strategic significance because of its proximity, Central American oil resources and the Panama Canal." Thus Haig has declared that Central America is U.S. imperialism's private preserve of plunder and profit which will be defended even through U.S. military invasions.

U.S. imperialism is leaving no stone unturned in its efforts to stop the revolution. But just as in the past, such plots will fail to stop the peoples' struggles. The "hours are growing rather short" not for the revolution, but for the U.S. imperialist warmongers.

[Photo: Demonstration organized by the revolutionary forces in El Salvador.]

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The UAW bureaucrats jump to reopen the auto contracts

NO TO CONCESSIONS!

In July the UAW executive board promised that it would never reopen the contracts with the auto monopolies. But on December 9, less than five months later, this gang of sellouts voted to throw open the contracts to force further concessions down the workers' throats. While announcing this treacherous decision, the chief UAW belly -crawler, Doug Fraser, sermonized on the "deterioration in the economy," on the plants that "are hard hit" and the jobs that are "threatened." But instead of calling on the workers to fight to defend themselves in this difficult situation, Fraser demanded that they must have "increased sensitivity" to the outrageous concession demands of the auto billionaires. Doug Fraser, who is himself a member of the Chrysler Board of Directors, whose own salary matches that of most other auto executives, is demanding that the workers take wage cuts, speedup and other sacrifices so that the gold keeps flowing into the bank vaults of the auto giants.

The auto fat cats are howling with delight at this new prospect of robbing hundreds of millions of dollars from the workers' pay. International Harvester is demanding at least $100 million in concessions. AMC wants $150 million from its workers. Lee Iacocca has already pocketed $700 million from the Chrysler workers and is clamoring for more. Poor, GM, "struggling" to finance its $40 billion modernization program, has so far left its demands open ended, speaking only in general terms about wage cuts of $8 or more. While Ford, fresh from a round of plant by plant concessions, is calling for across the board cuts as well. Their aims are typified by the demand for a 50% cut in wages and benefits from the workers at the Ford aluminum casting plant in Sheffield, Alabama. The greed of these capitalist parasites knows no limits.

Auto workers, the reopening of the contracts marks a new and even more ferocious round of the capitalist wage-cutting offensive. But the workers have already suffered enough. It is time to organize for struggle. It is time to give these capitalist slave drivers the answer they deserve -- No concessions to the auto billionaires!

Fleecing the Workers to Make the U.S. Billionaires "Competitive"

The auto monopolies, the Reagan government, and along with them the sellout leadership of the UAW are clamoring that the workers must give concessions to help the U.S. auto industry become "competitive" with the Japanese. Indeed it is claimed that because the American workers are supposedly "over paid," the very survival of the U.S. auto industry is threatened by the "Japanese auto invasion." Claiming that "the question is one of survival," Reagan's special U.S. trade envoy, William Brock, recently demanded that the UAW and the auto companies must negotiate cost cutting measures. Even GM, the world's second wealthiest corporation, is pleading poverty. And to prove it, GM has spent thousands of dollars to produce a series of films called "The Road to Survival."

At the center of this noisy propaganda is the hoax of the $8 per hour wage gap between the U.S. and Japanese workers. For years the U.S. auto monopolies have complained that the "greedy" American workers have given the Japanese a cost advantage. For a while this wage gap was supposed to be around $3. But as the monopolies' appetite for concessions grew so have their lies, until today they claim that American workers make $8 an hour more than the Japanese workers. While it is true that the Japanese workers, like their American counterparts, are grossly underpaid, the claims about an enormous wage gap are nothing but a monstrous fraud. Once not only wages but also "hidden benefits" such as transportation, housing and other allowances are taken into account, the standard of living of the American and Japanese auto workers is very close. Comparing the earnings of Japanese and American industrial workers, Rikuma Ito, a Japanese-American economist and business executive, explained, "There are so many hidden fringe benefits in cost of Japanese labor that it is difficult to compare with the United States -- they are like apples and oranges." Ito admitted that such benefits "are not figured in the comparisons" and that the earnings of American and Japanese workers are "pretty much the same now." (Detroit Free Press, October 23,1981, page 12C)

The $8 an hour wage gap is a big lie. But even if it were true it would be no reason for the workers to accept wage cuts. Are the American workers to compete with the workers of Japan over who can achieve the lowest pay, over who can work the longest hours at the fastest pace, over who can be the most exploited and oppressed? No! The American and Japanese workers should support each other and fight for every cent they can wring from the capitalist exploiters.

The "patriotic" hysteria being created by the U.S. auto giants against their monopoly capitalist competitors in Japan is aimed at splitting the workers, at making the workers compete. The American workers are supposed to side with their "own" exploiters, to sacrifice so that the U.S. monopolies can rule the roost. But this benefits neither the American auto workers nor their class brothers in Japan. It benefits only the capitalists who reap greater profits from the additional exploitation of the workers.

Concessions Won't Save Jobs

The auto billionaires are also threatening the workers with more plant closings and additional layoffs if the workers don't concede to the capitalists' wage-cutting schemes. In the last two years of deepening economic crisis the monopolies have closed 20 auto plants for good, wiping out over 50,000 jobs. Two hundred thousand auto workers have been thrown into the streets on permanent layoff, and many of them have exhausted their meager unemployment and SUB benefits, have lost their homes and are virtually penniless. And now, like a sword dangling over the workers' heads, the auto monopolies have hung the promise that if the workers will grant them concessions then their jobs will be saved.

But this lying promise has been made before. Just ask a Chrysler worker. Since the time the Chrysler workers were saddled with concessions totaling $17,000 per man, they have seen six plants close permanently while 50,000 workers remain laid off. The concession money was used not to bring back laid off workers or even to save existing jobs, but instead to buy robots, computers and to pay the enormous interest charges of the banks.

The new concessions being engineered by the auto monopolies and Fraser's gang of thieves is likewise for financing the auto monopolies' "reindustrialization" and productivity drive. Far from saving jobs, it means increasing automation and job elimination.

But in case there is still some lingering thought that the Chrysler story will play out differently at Ford, GM and the other monopolies, just listen to what the auto executives say for themselves. The chairman of GM, Roger Smith, after citing statistics on the plant closings and job loss over the last two years, declared, "That's only the beginning." (Detroit News, December 6, 1981, p. 1A) Giving the same view, but in greater depth, Ford's president, Donald Peterson, was reported in the November 2 Detroit News to admit that "Ford Motor Co.'s blue collar workforce will continue to shrink even if the UAW agrees to concessions that lower the company's hourly labor costs, company president Donald E. Peterson says.... 'We are going to have far fewer labor hours per car produced,' he said, 'That is a forecast of all forms of labor, salary as well as hourly, direct as well as indirect. Every type of labor is going to be reduced.' ...Trimming the work force even more, Peterson said, is part of Ford's efforts to cut costs wherever possible.... 'We have made remarkable progress so far,' he added. 'I don't want to be interpreted to mean I think we have our costs in line. We have a long way to go yet."' Yes, this slave driver would like to go a long way -- back to 1863, before slavery was abolished.

Who Will Pay for the Crisis -- Workers or Billionaires?

The current difficulties in the auto industry are a manifestation of the deepening economic crisis which is afflicting the entire capitalist world. After decades of reaping fabulous profits from the workers' sweat, the auto monopolies are caught in the grips of an overproduction crisis. While the biggest loot is being grabbed by the major banks and oil monopolies, the auto giants cannot even sell the cars they produce. After record losses in 1980, the U.S. auto companies have continued to have serious problems, registering $1 billion in losses over the third quarter of 1981 alone. Faced with this deep crisis, the auto monopolies are scrambling to squeeze the workers to the maximum to pay for the crisis.

In the cutthroat competition among the auto monopolies, even some of the biggest corporations are staring bankruptcy in the face. For example, International Harvester and Chrysler threaten to join Studebaker, Hudson and Packard as casualties of the capitalist economic jungle. But the workers should not think that wage cuts and other sacrifices can save these corporations from collapse. It is well known that the monopoly capitalists will use a business to squeeze every drop of profit from the most exhausting overwork and impoverishment of the workers. And once the workers are ruined, the monopoly capitalists will simply close the business and throw out the workers to starve in the street. This has happened in numerous bankruptcies and plant closings in the last number of years. The workers must not give concessions to the billionaires, but turn their energies to a fight against them. Only by organizing mass struggle against the capitalists can the workers have any hope of defending their jobs against the monopoly capitalists' plant closings and layoffs.

Instead of calling on the workers to fight, Doug Fraser has raised the white flag of surrender. He implies that it may be all right to struggle when the capitalists are making big profits, but in hard times the workers must pitch in to save their exploiters. But with such nonsense as this, Fraser is spitting at the whole militant history of the auto workers. It was in the depths of the great depression of the 1930's that the auto workers first rose up to organize themselves, fighting pitched battles against the auto capitalists. In 1933, despite massive layoffs and the extreme poverty from several years of wage cutting, 16,000 Detroit auto workers waged a militant strike which inspired workers in industries all across the country to also rise against the capitalist offensive. By 1936, with the sit-down strikes in Flint, Michigan and elsewhere, the auto monopolies were forced to give way to the workers' demands, increasing wages and recognizing the workers' union. Had Fraser's view of surrender and begging for a few crumbs prevailed then, the auto workers would never have pulled themselves up from the dire poverty and degradation they suffered. Today when the capitalists seek to drive the workers back into those conditions the same lesson applies. Hard times call not for surrender to the rich exploiters, but an all-out fight against them.

Fraser's prescription of concessions instead of struggle is not his own peculiar idea. Rather it is an echo of the program of the Reagan government and the notorious "trickle down theory" which is being pushed by the entire capitalist class at this time. Hand over billions to the monopolies, give them massive tax breaks, give them wage cuts, give them whatever they want, and then eventually, after millions of workers have been thrown into the streets without jobs, after thousands have been overworked into an early grave and many more retired without a penny to show for the decades of sweating for the capitalist, after this then perhaps a few crumbs will trickle down to the people. Fraser is loyally following this Reaganite formula. And when he pleads that no, he is against Reagan because he will allow no concessions unless the workers get something in return, he is only bargaining for another seat on the auto companies' boards of directors so that he may help administer the wage cutting properly.

Forward on the Path of Mass Struggle

There once was a time when the capitalists had to do their own wage cutting. But nowadays they have a whole stratum of handmaidens, the top labor bureaucrats, to do their dirty work for them. Fraser and co. have thrown open the contracts at the worst possible time for the workers, in the dead of winter, at a time when the maximum number of plants are closed for an extended winter shutdown, and when layoffs are at their highest. With the workers thus dispersed it is even more difficult for them to organize themselves for a fight. Having abandoned any idea of striking against the capitalists, Fraser is now even siphoning money from the workers' record $350 million strike fund to pay for flashy TV advertisements which promote the "patriotic" greatness of the U.S. auto monopolies and how the UAW will do anything to help them out. What a sordid love affair Fraser has with the auto billionaires.

The workers are disgusted with the belly-crawling antics of Fraser and co. They don't want more concessions, but to fight. In spite of all the treachery by the top UAW bureaucrats, and in the face of a very difficult situation, over the last half-year the workers have begun to mount resistance. The Chrysler workers have been the hardest hit with cuts in pay, plant closings and layoffs. Nevertheless wildcat strikes and demonstrations have broken out among the Chrysler workers at the Belvidere, Illinois assembly plant; Vernor Tool and Die in Detroit; the engine assembly plant in Windsor, Canada; the Chrysler Tank Plant in Warren, Michigan; and the stamping plant in Twinsburg, Ohio. Besides these actions, the auto workers in a number of other plants have refused to go along with the monopolies' concession demands. It is notable that the workers at Ford's aluminum casting plant in Sheffield, Alabama overwhelmingly opposed the demand that they take a 50% wage cut even though Ford has ordered that the plant is to be closed down. Likewise, in Brampton,.Ontario, AMC workers voted 1,100 to 1 against granting concessions to finance American Motors' modernization program. These and other struggles show that among the auto workers there is a growing mood to resist the concession dictates of the auto billionaires.

The collusion of the top UAW hacks with the monopolies and their disorganizing tactics are serious obstacles to the workers' struggles. But the workers have no other choice than to take matters into their own hands, to organize themselves for struggle. Now is the time to start the fight against the railroading of concessions. Expose the lies of Fraser and the monopolies. Confront the top UAW hacks and denounce their sellout to all the workers. Work with the MLP to distribute leaflets and organize discussions to draw more workers into the fight. Build networks of the workers to prepare for slowdowns, demonstrations and other actions to fight the arrogant concession demands of the auto billionaires. To beat back the wage-cutting offensive, mass struggle is the only sure course.

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AFL-CIO convention -- a 'love feast' with the Democratic Party

Strikebreakers of the Fight Against Reaganism

The AFL-CIO held its 100th anniversary convention in New York City from November 16-20. At this meeting, the top trade union chieftains huffed and puffed a great deal against Reagan's economic policies. But the proceedings of the convention clearly showed once again that the AFL-CIO bureaucrats have no interest in mounting a serious fight against Reagan. Instead they are out to sabotage the growing struggle of the masses against Reagan. The labor bureaucrats seek to channel the discontent among the workers towards support for the Democratic Party, which is nothing but a reactionary twin of the Reaganite Republican Party.

The AFL-CIO convention proved that this is indeed the real aim of the bureaucrats. At this meeting the AFL- CIO leaders decided to follow up the September 19 Solidarity Day demonstrations with plans for Solidarity Day II. This has been scheduled for November 2, 1982, that is, the date of the mid-term congressional elections. For this occasion, the labor bureaucrats are not advocating another round of mass demonstrations or any other kind of mass action. Oh no. The convention resolution on Solidarity Day II calls on the "labor movement and its allies'' to "march to the polls in unprecedented numbers to elect a Congress that will reverse the disastrous policies of the Reagan administration and restore humane government to the American people."

The convention made it quite clear as to who the AFL-CIO bosses expect to "restore humane government to the American people." The most notable feature of this convention was the ardent embraces between the trade union hacks and the Democratic Party politicians. The Democratic Party big shots, Tip O'Neill, Kennedy and Mon- dale, were the prominent speakers at the gathering. Indeed, in order to boost the Democrats, the AFL-CIO leaders even broke with their own rotten, servile tradition and refused to invite the President, the Vice-President or the Secretary of Labor. The love of the AFL-CIO hacks for the Democrats was so fervent that the Washington Post described the convention as a "love feast" with the Democrats.

Both the Democratic Party politicians and the labor bureaucrats went wild with their avid declarations of love for one another. Lane Kirkland, the AFL-CIO president, praised Tip O'Neill as "chief antagonist" of the Reaganite cutbacks in social welfare programs. Imagine that! Tip O'Neill, the leader of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives, was prominent among those Democratic Party leaders who called for and gave Reagan a "honeymoon" after his election. He can hardly be said to have put up a fight against Reagan's program of cutbacks. Under his leadership, the Democratic-controlled House passed the entire Reagan program. And after Reagan got his budget passed through Congress, Tip O'Neill was among the first to call up Reagan and congratulate him! Now this same O'Neill is promoted by Kirkland as Reagan's "chief antagonist." What a fraud! This only goes to show what kind of "antagonism" the trade union hacks themselves have with Reagan.

The Democratic Party leaders also gushed with enthusiasm over the labor bureaucrats. O'Neill declared: "It's great to be back together again. Some of you are old enough to remember the 1930's and when, together, we made America great. Together, the Democrats and labor made a middle-class America. We put together 30 of the greatest, fruitful and beneficial years that a democracy ever had. We did it together, labor and the Democrats working together. I say I welcome you to the fold."

This was the theme song of the AFL- CIO convention, that the alliance of the labor bureaucrats and the Democrats has given the American people the "greatest, fruitful and beneficial years that a democracy ever had." Thus, voting for the Democrats in 1982 is the way to "restore humane government to the American people."

Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. The Democratic Party is the twin of the Republicans. It is a monopoly capitalist party, a party of exploitation and subjugation of the working masses. Just examine its recent record. With Carter it recently had four years in power. And what did it bring to the workers? It increased energy prices through the roof, allowing the oil billionaires to pocket huge profits. It imposed wage controls on the workers, and used Taft-Hartley to break the coal miners' struggle. It fostered racist and fascist gangs. It stepped up the war budget immensely and reintroduced draft registration. On all questions, it laid down the foundations for the policies which Reagan is carrying forward today.

As well, since Reagan got into the White House the record of the Democratic Party has been just as reactionary. Whether it has been the question of war preparations, more police-state measures, starving the masses, or giving big handouts to the rich, the Democrats have been in basic agreement with Reagan on all fronts. Their disagreements have been of the most minor sort. In essence, the Democrats have shown themselves to be Reaganites. This is because the Reaganite program is the common policy of monopoly capital.

The difference between the Democrats and Republicans is that while the Republicans are openly the party of the rich, the Democrats are the capitalists' main party to deceive the working masses. Thus it parades itself as the "party of the common man and woman," the "party of labor and the minorities," etc. It is able to parade itself this way to a large part because of the support given to it by the trade union chieftains of the AFL-CIO. What this past year has shown is that the labor bureaucrats are stepping up their treacherous activity of boosting the Democratic Party as the party of the working masses. Indeed, when Tip O'Neill "welcomes" the AFL-CIO "to the fold," he is praising them for this increased attachment to the Democratic Party today.

In 1981 the AFL-CIO bureaucrats took a series of steps to integrate themselves further into the Democratic Party apparatus and strengthen it. There are now 15 AFL-CIO representatives on the Democratic National Committee, and five others on the Executive Committee. The Democratic National Committee has also decided to establish a formal labor committee with two AFL-CIO members as its co-chairmen.

The AFL-CIO convention took another step in bolstering the Democratic Party. It approved a 42% increase in dues from its affiliated trade unions, amounting to an increase of $14 million. Much of this additional money is to go to the AFL-CIO's Committee on Political Education, which is being expanded. In other words, this money will go to the strengthening and support of the Democratic Party.

The AFL-CIO "Opposition" to Reagan Is a Fraud

The ardent love for the Reaganite Democratic Party by the trade union chieftains shows that there is no substance to their pretension of opposing Reagan. Indeed, the AFL-CIO stand on a whole range of questions, affirmed at the recent convention, proves that the labor bureaucrats, too, are essentially Reaganites.

Look at Reagan's militarism and warmongering, for instance. The AFL- CIO bureaucrats are in complete harmony with Reagan on this question. In fact, it is from this angle of supporting Reagan's militarism that the AFL- CIO leaders disagree with Reagan's cutbacks in social programs. The AFL- CIO Executive Council's report to the Convention thus stated, "Popular support for a strong defense and foreign policy cannot be sustained by unjust social and economic policies which generate social tension and political polarization."

The convention reaffirmed the AFL-CIO bureaucrats' support for U.S. imperialist aggression against the oppressed peoples of the world. It reiterated its support for the U.S.-backed fascist junta in El Salvador by calling for continued support for the pro-junta trade unions there and the junta's so- called "land reform" program. This program is in reality a terrorist, Viet Nam-style rural pacification program aimed against the struggle of the toilers of the countryside..The convention also echoed the Reagan administration's warmongering threats of aggression against Nicaragua. Repeating the Reaganites' propaganda line of a "totalitarian trend" in that country, the convention called for "appropriate action at the international level to reverse this disturbing trend."

The AFL-CIO bureaucrats' main claim to fame is that they are fighting Reagan's economic policies. But here too their opposition to Reagan is a fraud. For example, the labor hacks correctly criticize Reagan's tax policies for giving handouts to the rich. But what do they advocate instead? As the convention reiterated, the AFL-CIO hacks want "targeted" tax cuts to the capitalist industries for "reindustrialization." But whether "targeted" or otherwise, these tax cuts remain handouts to the billionaires just the same.

Today the workers are the target of a vicious takeback offensive from the capitalist employers. In industry after industry, the capitalists are demanding wage cuts, increased productivity drives, etc. Amazingly enough, the convention did not even address this issue. The reason for this is quite clear -- the labor bureaucrats are kneeling down in the face of this offensive. They are working hand in hand with the capitalists in forcing contract concessions down the workers' throats. And they have been actively sabotaging the workers' strike movement.

This was demonstrated sharply in the case of the air traffic controllers' strike. What did the AFL-CIO leaders do in the face of Reagan's savage attack on this strike? They stabbed the air controllers in the back, while uttering a few hypocritical words of "support." They complained, as Doug Fraser of the UAW put it, that the strike "could do massive damage to the labor movement." They refused to organize any effective sympathy action in support of the strike. This treacherous stand was again demonstrated at the AFL-CIO convention; A proposal for even such a minimal action as a day of national support for the air controllers was soundly voted down. Instead, the AFL-CIO Executive Council decided to beg Reagan to rehire the controllers on their hands and knees.

Clearly then, on one question after another, the AFL-CIO's "opposition" to Reagan is fraudulent. Indeed, even their decision not to invite Reagan to speak at their convention this year was only for show. Just two weeks later, on December 2, the AFL-CIO Executive Council, including Kirkland and Fraser, dutifully trooped down to the White House where they had been invited by Reagan for consultations on how to develop the relations between the administration and the labor bureaucracy. At this meeting the AFL- CIO leaders begged Reagan to rehire the striking air controllers, to withdraw his nomination of the chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, and to give the labor bureaucrats more regular access to the administration. Reagan rejected the first two requests but agreed to have more frequent consultations with the union bosses, with which they were pleased. The labor bureaucrats want a greater share in administering the capitalist offensive against the workers. Reagan has been reluctant to give them a big enough share of this, which has been a major factor in the union bosses' unhappiness with him. On the other hand, the Democrats promise the bureaucrats a much bigger role, with which the labor chieftains are ecstatic.

For a Real Fight Against Reagan

The workers have shown that they want a real fight against the Reaganite capitalist offensive. But a fight against Reagan is not what the labor bureaucrats have in mind.

Such a fight cannot be carried out either through greater consultations and dialogue with Reagan or through boosting the Democratic Party as the so-called party of the working masses. The struggle against the capitalist offensive calls for breaking with the Democratic Party as well as the Republicans. It calls for building the independent movement of the working class.

The AFL-CIO convention demonstrates once again that the trade union bosses are strikebreakers of the fight against Reagan. The independent movement of the working class can only be built by sternly opposing these labor lieutenants of the capitalist class.

[Photo: AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland, UAW President Douglas Fraser and President of the Laborers' Union, Angelo Fosco, obediently troop down to the White House to pay their respects to arch-strikebreaker Reagan.]

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Sharpening the axe of the wage-cutting offensive in basic steel

Down with the ENA no-strike pact!

(The following article is based on a leaflet issued by the Chicago Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, November 23, 1981.)

The national wage-cutting offensive, initiated against the auto workers in 1979, has been taken up with a vengeance by the steel capitalists, with the active assistance of their labor lieutenants of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA). They have been whittling away at the wages of workers at the smaller fabricating plants and mills for some time, using blackmail (that is, the threat of plant closings) to try to force concessions on the workers. The steel barons are now launching an all-out attack on the workers in Basic Steel to cut their wages and benefits wholesale.

In an ad run in newspapers across the country in August, U.S. Steel declared, "No basic industry will long survive with wage costs almost double those of its leading international competitors. Labor's bargaining and political muscle has been used relentlessly in these industries 'to increase wages faster than output per man-hour -- and it is now being paid for with plant closings. Unless our major labor unions act to moderate their excessive advantage over all comparable workers, they will inevitably undermine the other efforts to restore America's industrial base." Thomas Graham, president of J&L Steel, showed the steel capitalists' aim to drive down the workers' standard of living to the starvation level when he said, "The gap in wages here as compared to overseas will be a long-term thing. Until American steel workers are enthusiastic about a diet of fish heads and rice, there's going to be a gap." (Chicago Sun-Times, August 17, 1981)

Negotiations to Strengthen the ENA

To sharpen the axe for wage cuts in Basic Steel negotiations have begun between the big nine steel monopolies and the USWA officials to renew the no-strike pact in steel -- the Experimental Negotiating Agreement (EISA). The steel barons and their labor flunkeys are trying to put a deal into place before the '83 contract negotiations in the hopes of preventing any struggle from developing against their wage-cutting schemes.

The ENA has been in effect since 1974 in Basic Steel. The original justification for establishing a no-strike pact was to "stabilize" the "boom-bust cycles," that is, the extreme overwork and then mass layoffs which were allegedly required to prepare against possible strikes. Thus, the ENA was supposedly necessary to protect job security. But it is clear that this was nothing but a fraudulent excuse to impose a no-strike agreement on steel workers. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, the Basic Steel work force has decreased by over 100,000 steel workers since 1974 alone. Reindustrialization and the capitalist economic crisis have caused these massive layoffs and loss of jobs in steel. The ENA has been of no assistance in defending the workers against layoffs and plant closings. On the contrary, the ENA has been a major roadblock to the workers organizing mass struggle to resist the steel capitalists' attacks.

Now the steel billionaires want to further strengthen the ENA by cutting its meager wage and COLA "guarantees." Currently, the provisions of the ENA include, in "return" for outlawing national strikes, "guaranteed" COLA payments of 1 cent for every 0.3 rise in the Consumer Price Index (CPI); a $150 bonus each contract; and an annual wage increase of no less than 3%. Of course these "guarantees" are not worth the paper they are written on. In the last contract the workers did not even receive these minimum wage increases because the May 1980 COLA pay of 33 cents per hour was permanently stolen from the workers' wages to pay for pension increases. Still, to make wage cutting easier, the steel capitalists want to cut down the "guarantees" of wage increases that are presently included in the ENA provisions.

As well, the steel capitalists want to strengthen the ENA's anti-strike provisions. The existing ENA allows strikes over local issues. However, the steel capitalists are insisting on redefining "local issues" so as to prevent a repeat of a strike such as the iron ore miners' strike of 1977, which, although technically over local issues, in fact became a national iron ore miners' strike and succeeded in winning the workers' main demand. The capitalists are also frightened by the possibility of a plant, such as Inland Steel whose entire steel production is in one mill, being crippled by a local strike.

The Steel monopolists are well aware that if they try to cut workers' wages and further undermine their working conditions they will be subject to an outbreak of struggle on the part of the workers. Thus they want to bind the workers' hands and feet with an even more stringent no-strike pact before the '83 contract negotiations begin.

USWA Bureaucrats Support Concessions to the Capitalists

The attitude of the USWA labor bureaucrats is to help the steel capitalists. They declare that they must cooperate with the steel capitalists and grant them all sorts of concessions in wages and benefits in order to pull them out of their predicament. In a speech reported in Steelabor (September, 1981) McBride stated, "We will bring to the bargaining table a good- faith approach, with recognition of the problems of both industry and its work force." Another unnamed union official, quoted in the Chicago Sun Times (August 17, 1981), said, "I'm not sure we want to go to war with the steel industry. We know they have problems, and we know they need concessions on costs.,We're just going to have to look for creative solutions." (!!) That is, how to "creatively" cut wages!

McBride indicated what "creative solutions" they had in mind when he spoke at the UAW's Chrysler Council. In the words of Steelabor, he "paid tribute to the bargaining history and strength of the auto workers and declared that the 'eyes of industrial management' are upon the UAW as it 'comes to bat' in bargaining next year." McBride is clearly expressing his shameless admiration for Fraser's disgusting sellout of the Chrysler workers and showing his intention of carrying out the same in steel.

Labor Bureaucrats Promote ENA Under the Hoax of Protecting Wage Increases

The USWA labor traitors are now working hard to pull off such a deal with the steel capitalists, using the ENA to prepare the grounds for it. They have unleashed a barrage of demagogy claiming that the ENA must be saved in order to defend the steel workers' wage gains. For example, these labor hacks claim that it is the ENA which has "protected" the workers' COLA. But this is a brazen lie. If the labor hacks were so concerned to protect steel workers' wages they would expose the ENA and assist the steel workers to wage their mass struggle. Instead they are working to tie the workers' hands and feet to the steel barons' schemes. Their only real concern is for the "plight" of the steel capitalists and their "need" for concessions from the workers.

It is clear that the labor traitors are actively trying to muzzle the steel workers nationally and particularly in District 31 on the question of the ENA. The workers of District 31 (Chicago- Gary area) historically were a center of militancy against the ENA. Recently, Jack Parton, McBride's loyal flunkey and director of District 31, rushed through a straw vote in the district concerning the renewal of the ENA. This "poll" was sprung on the workers with almost no notice and no chance for discussion of the issue. Furthermore, the ballot was worded very deceptively. The labor bureaucrats combined the two issues of a no-strike pact and the maintenance of wage and COLA guarantees in order to get approval for renewing the no-strike pact. Thus, when the workers voted to maintain their COLA and wage increases, the labor hacks promoted this as a vote for continuation of a no-strike agreement. Though only one-third of the 56,000 workers in the district voted, the USWA labor traitors have lauded the "results" of this "poll" in Steelabor, setting it up as an "example" of steel workers' sentiments nationally.

Fight the Concession Drive of the Steel Monopolies

The fascist ENA no-strike pact was developed by the steel barons and the former USWA labor misleaders under I.W. Abel in an attempt to impose "class peace" on the steel workers. As can be seen, seven years of this ENA- imposed "class peace" has led to massive unemployment and devastation for the workers. Yet today Lloyd McBride and his cronies are fighting like hell not only to renew this treacherous agreement but to make it even more severe.

To defend their jobs and livelihood the workers must take matters into their own hands and develop their mass struggle against the savage attacks of the steel billionaires. The strike weapon is a powerful means of defense for the workers against the attacks of capital. Time and again workers have shown that only by developing their mass struggle have they been able to defend their livelihood and limit the ability of the capitalists to erode their wages and working conditions.

The coal miners, for example, have learned through their hard and bitter struggles that it is only by exercising their strike weapon and developing other forms of mass struggle that they can defend and protect their very lives and limbs. Another example is the eight-month strike struggle of the NIPSCO workers in Indiana in 1980 which was victorious in smashing nearly all the cuts in their wages and benefits and resisting the tightening of work rules which had been demanded by the public utility capitalists. And the resolute 1977 strike of the iron ore miners won their main demand of incentive pay, and proved that the workers do not have to go down on their knees and peacefully accept the dictates of the steel capitalists.

The workers can and must take matters into their own hands. They must blow up the treacherous "class peace" dictated by the fascist ENA. They must rise up against the class betrayal of McBride and the USWA bureaucrats and develop their mass struggle against the steel capitalists' wage- cutting offensive.

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The workers at our mill are fed up

Contracting out and compulsory seven-day weeks while 3,000 workers are laid off

(The following article is taken from a leaflet issued by a branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA on December 2, 1981.)

The capitalists have launched another outrageous attack upon the steel workers. As part of their ongoing "productivity" and "cost-cutting" programs, the capitalist moneybags have brought outside contractors to do the work normally done by several hundred regular mill workers. Along with this, hundreds and hundreds of workers have been put on forced overtime working six and seven-day weeks. These outrages are taking place at a time when more than 3,000 workers are on long-term layoff and when many of these workers have exhausted all of their unemployment benefits including Supplemental Unemployment Benefits (SUB) and extended benefits.

The capitalist productivity drive has the support and collaboration of top trade union bureaucrats who have sold out lock, stock and barrel. One such traitor is USWA President Lloyd McBride. Time and time again, McBride and co. have endorsed the steel billionaires' "reindustrialization" programs to "modernize" the steel industry and make it more "competitive." In the 1980 sellout national steel contract, McBride and co. paved the way for the steel billionaires to step up job elimination through the contracting out of jobs (just look at the fruits of this at this mill). The USWA hacks have also pushed the hated ENA upon the steel workers under the hoax that it will "save jobs." But no amount of hot air from Lloyd McBride and co. can cover over the fact that their collaboration with the steel barons has not saved a single job. This betrayal has led to the elimination of some 100,000jobs since 1974. This everyday experience of the steel workers shows that they cannot rely on the sold-out USWA hacks to fight against the steel industry's productivity and cost-cutting schemes.

The workers at our mill are fed up. Last year, hundreds of workers poured into union meetings to denounce the company's schemes of job elimination, forced overtime and fascist harassment. At the same time, the workers vigorously condemned the USWA bureaucrats who openly collaborated with the company to sabotage the workers' struggle. Today the workers in various departments are organizing work slowdowns and other resistance against the job replacement and forced overtime programs. These actions by the workers are absolutely correct. The workers must continue on this path and get better organized to wage the mass struggle against the attacks of the rich.

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GE workers look at the 'Detroit lesson':

Fight against GE's productivity drive and layoffs!

[The Louisville Worker masthead.]

(The following article is taken from an article in The Louisville Worker, newspaper of the Louisville Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA, Vol. 3, No. 1, November 6, 1981.)

Where will GE's Louisville plant be in two years? How many more thousands will be laid off next month? Will the "cash cow" ever give milk again? Tune in each week for the next serial in this heart-throbbing drama. This soap opera even has a theme song. It's an updated version of an old country and western favorite: "Stand by Your (Boss) Man." Richard Donegan and other GE spokesmen have been performing in this theatrical production for over a month. The main theme is that times are hard, we should all work together, put our shoulders to the wheel, tighten our belts, and don't complain.

For GE, as for all monopoly capitalists in the U.S., Japan, Italy, USSR, etc., the aim of production is to maximize profits. GE invests in whatever branch of the economy that will increase their capital the greatest a- mount in the shortest amount of time. The appliance section of GE used to be such a branch, a "cash cow" for GE. Today this is less and less the case.

The collapse of the housing market means that fewer appliances are bought for new homes. Because of a I sinking standard of living, fewer people are able to replace appliances in old homes. This leaves GE, Whirlpool, Sanyo, etc., with a shrinking market to fight over. GE is in competition with these other capitalists for a bigger share of this shrinking market. For the monopoly capitalists it is a case of the big fish swallowing the smaller fish. GE wants to enlist the workers' aid in this contention between monopolies.

The "Detroit Lesson" Is That the Workers Have Nothing to Gain From Concessions to Their "Own" Capitalists

What is at stake for the workers? Is it the case that if GE workers, Westinghouse workers, Sanyo workers, etc., each separately support their "own" capitalists that things will improve for the working class? The answer is no. What happened at Chrysler is a clear answer to this question. This issue was raised by GE when it discussed "The Detroit Lesson" in its October 23 issue of the Appliance Park News.

Let's look at the "Detroit lesson." Chrysler asked for, and got, loan guarantees and other financial assistance from the government. Chrysler asked for, and got, wage and benefit cuts from the workers (with the assistance of labor traitor Doug Fraser).

The Chrysler capitalists have gone to the workers three times demanding concessions "to save jobs." Each time the workers have suffered severe cuts which together amount to $1.1 billion robbed from the Chrysler workers. These cuts will mean that each worker will have had $17,000 stolen from his wages and benefits by the end of the three-year contract.

But did this save jobs? Of course not! Tens of thousands of Chrysler workers haven't worked a day in two years. More than 40,000 are still on permanent layoff. Six big plants have shut down for good and five others are running with skeleton crews and are "guaranteed" to stay open only until the end of the 1982 model year.

These are the bitter fruits of the sacrifices imposed on the Chrysler workers. They have not saved a single job but one -- Fraser's on the Chrysler Board of Directors! Concessions to "save jobs" at Ford and GM will be no different.

What is costing the auto workers their jobs is not the lack of profits for the auto billionaires. Rather it is the capitalist crisis and the massive job- cutting productivity drive. So what is the "Detroit lesson"? The lesson is that the workers have nothing to gain and much to lose when the policy of "stand by your billionaire" is imposed on them by the capitalists and the labor traitors.

Who Should Pay for the Economic Crisis?

The issue raised by the economic crisis is: which class is going to bear the burden of the crisis, the monopoly capitalist class or the working class? GE's aim is clearly that the workers should bear the burden (and thank the rich for giving it to us).

GE has a program: make the workers pay for the crisis! This includes layoffs, plant modernization/job elimination, line rebalances to intensify the labor of those not laid off, buying cheaper materials while demanding "higher quality" (making jobs even harder), buying more parts from outside suppliers (laying off more workers), and eliminating "extra" workers (such as replacement operators and repairmen).

To carry out this program in the face of workers' resistance, GE is conducting a twofold campaign. One part is to step up its attempt to make GE a concentration camp. No newspapers, no radios, no coffee, don't get sick and miss work, don't get caught out of your work area, don't miss a unit just because the parts have been rejected twice by the inspector, "don't look up and don't look down, you don't dare make the big boss frown."

The other part is to conduct a propaganda campaign to say "We all need to work together" to help GE make the workers pay for the crisis while GE fights its competitors for domination of the market. To do so a picture of gloom and doom is painted, with GE singing the blues about hard times and raising an alarm about an "invasion."

The Hysteria About Competition and Imports Is Raised to Split the Working Class

The Appliance Park News of October 23, 1981, carried a clear example of the "invasion" alarm. In the section entitled "The Detroit Lesson":

"When the auto makers ignored the changing focus of the consumer, the Japanese moved in. That same situation is starting to occur in the appliance industry right now.

"Sanyo has a refrigeration plant in San Diego, California and other major Japanese manufacturers, such as Matsushita, Sharp and Toshiba, are considering U.S. markets. The Japanese aren't the only ones either. Two Italian companies have facilities in New York and Virginia.". (emphasis added)

GE doesn't have this national prejudice when it comes to buying parts or selling products, it operates internationally. GE doesn't cry "the Japanese are coming" when it buys gears from Japan, nor does it cry "the Yanks are coming" when it ships parts to Europe. This national chauvinist garbage is aimed at the workers. It is the same lies that the capitalists and their flunkeys have been pushing for years -- the ideas that foreign workers or the workers of "our" competitors are the enemy and "our own" capitalists are our friends. Fraser of the UAW has been peddling this for years, with the view that the workers should pressure the government to help the U.S. billionaires become richer. At the same time, Fraser sells out the auto workers and acts as the auto companies' fireman, attempting to smother the flames of resistance whenever they arise.

Wage Mass Resistance to GE's Productivity Drive

The capitalists are in crisis; competing with each other for markets and planning how best to shift their crisis onto the workers. The GE moneybags are attempting to enlist the workers' aid in their competition with other capitalists by promoting the U.S. government as a friend of the workers, and by promoting national chauvinism to split the working class movement. At the same time GE is shifting the crisis onto the workers through mass layoffs, line rebalances and overwork. In order to stop resistance to this vicious program, GE is attacking the workers with fascist labor discipline and a slick propaganda campaign of gloom and doom to demoralize the workers.

The workers must answer this capitalist offensive. It is absolutely correct and necessary for the workers to continue developing their resistance against GE's layoffs and productivity drives. Workers are already seething against the nazi concentration camp conditions. They are beginning to denounce the company's gloom and doom propaganda and the fraud that "we all need to work together." This militant sentiment should be encouraged and used to organize the workers into a powerful force. Mass struggle is the right reply to GE's attacks on the workers.

Resist the capitalist productivity drives and mass layoffs!

Oppose the attempts to turn the factories into concentration camps!

Denounce the lie that the workers should line up behind their "own" exploiters!

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600 Construction Workers Protest Gerald Ford's Visit to Louisville

On Tuesday December 15, former president Gerald R. Ford got a surprise welcome while promoting a scab- labor training program in Louisville, Kentucky. As Ford addressed a $175.00-a-plate dinner at Louisville's Galt Hotel, outside 600 angry construction workers shouted "Ford go home!" and blocked traffic as they marched around the building.

The Louisville Branch of the MLP sent a contingent which vigorously participated in the demonstration, and the workers were very interested in what the Marxist-Leninists had to say. The comrades distributed over 330 pieces of literature including copies of a recent special issue of The Workers' Advocate which denounced the Reagan administration for its strikebreaking offensive, as well as copies of the Branch's local paper, The Louisville Worker.

Under the plan Ford was pushing -- called the "Wheels of Learning" program -- non-union and open shop contractors receive money from a central fund set up by the national headquarters of the Association of Builders and Contractors. The money goes to train non-union workers in 20 different crafts as an alternative to hiring workers trained in union programs. Considering that non-union construction workers are often paid one-half or less than what union workers are paid, this program is very profitable for the employers. The employers hope this program will turn out a steady stream of non-union skilled workers which they can use as scabs against the unionized workers. Inspired by Reagan's example with the air traffic controllers' union, the contractors association is hoping to eventually break the building trades unions altogether. As matters stand today, about 60% of all U.S. contracting is reportedly non-union.

This scab-labor training program which the rabid Republican Ford is pushing is just one more in a stream of similar wage-cutting and strikebreaking schemes being energetically developed as part of the Reaganite capitalist offensive. The construction workers in Louisville are quite right to take this plan seriously and to come out against it.

[Photo.]

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Republicans and Democrats -- Twin Parties of Capitalist Reaction

Fight the Reaganite Offensive of Chicago's Mayor Byrne

(The following article is based on a leaflet issued in December 1981 by the Chicago Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA.)

The capitalists are on an offensive against the working masses. The Reagan administration has been delegated by the monopoly capitalist exploiters to carry out their savage anti-working class program. In its short period of office, the Reagan regime has already made itself a symbol of reaction, warmongering, racism and capitalist slave driving in the eyes of the working masses.

Jane Byrne, the mayor of Chicago, is a major figure of the Democratic Party. She places herself in the "left" wing of the Democrats, among the Kennedyite liberals. And she claims that she is an "independent" Democrat and a "friend of the workers and oppressed nationalities." Despite her claims, when Reagan came to power Mayor Byrne gave her enthusiastic support to Reagan's racist, anti-working class offensive. On behalf of all the mayors she asserted at that time, "We are preparing to cooperate with the Reagan transition team and look forward to presenting our view to President-elect Reagan when he assumes office in January." In Chicago, Mayor Byrne and her Democratic Party regime have been faithfully fulfilling this promise. They are actively cooperating with Reagan's anti-working class offensive to the letter. This shows that the Democrats and Republicans are like two peas in a pod, both parties of the capitalist class, both carrying out the bipartisan program of capitalist reaction. A brief comparison of Reagan's and Byrne's activities strikingly demonstrates this truth.

Strikebreaking and a Brutal War on the Poverty-Stricken

The Reagan government is carrying out brutal strikebreaking against the air traffic controllers as part of the wage-cutting and strikebreaking offensive aimed at all of the workers and as a special model for the treatment of the public sector workers. At the same time, Reagan's budget cuts represent an all-out war on the poverty-stricken.

Two years ago, just after she came to power, Mayor Byrne exposed that her administration too is a regime of attack on the working masses. Aiming her blows as well at the public sector workers, she launched a brutal offensive to impose wage cuts, savage productivity measures, and layoffs on the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) workers, the teachers and the firemen. She has accompanied these attacks on the public sector workers with increased CTA fares and cutbacks in service, a severely deteriorated school system, and huge increases in taxes imposed on the working class in the city. When the public sector workers fought against these attacks through developing their strike movement, the Byrne regime, just like her counterpart Reagan, issued court injunctions outlawing the workers' struggle. She imposed fines and arrests on the workers. She called for open scabbing on the strikes and sent the police to enforce this strikebreaking.

Reaganomics and the Reagan budget have meant an all-out war on the poverty-stricken, but for the banks and the monopolies it has meant fabulous subsidies, handouts and tax breaks. Likewise, it is the banks, the real estate brokers, along with other capitalist monopolies who are greatly benefiting from Byrne's attacks on the working people of Chicago. The banks have completely plundered and virtually destroyed the public school system. Two years ago, while the teachers went unpaid and the school system ceased to function, the banks continued to receive their payments on time. Through Byrne's intervention, the school system was allowed to operate once again only after the banks were given firm control over the system to guarantee their further enrichment. All this was done while the school system was cut back and many teachers were fired. While the CTA workers have had $84 million in wage and benefit cuts imposed on them by Byrne, and while the CTA riders have faced increased fares, cutbacks in service and tax increases; the private carriers of the Regional Transit Authority (RTA) continued to receive their subsidies, to have their capital costs paid by the government. They continue to reap huge profits either directly or by writing off their losses as huge tax write-offs on their other operations. Of course the real estate brokers and construction firms continue to reap fabulous profits off the CTA expansion.

Just like her counterpart in the White House, Byrne has tried to justify these attacks by blaming the fiscal crisis on the "mismanagement of the previous administration." But, the fact that a fiscal crisis is sweeping all the levels of the government on a national and local scale exposes this as utter nonsense aimed at covering up what is really going on. The fact is that both under the previous administrations and the present ones the banks and capitalist monopolies are plundering the taxes of the working masses. For over a decade now, through huge tax cuts to the rich in the form of subsidies and other handouts, corporate taxes have been reduced from 20% to a mere 14% of federal income tax revenues. While this has occurred on a national scale, locally the most regressive taxes designed to hit hardest at the working masses have greatly increased. The Byrne administration has presently increased taxes and fees on the working masses by almost $400 million annually. It is clear that this alleged "mismanagement" is calculated to ensure that the rich get richer while the working people pay for it all.

Case hardened Racists and Fascists

The Reagan administration is a government of casehardened racists and fascists. While carrying out an unprecedented military buildup to protect the U.S. multinational corporations abroad, it is advocating increased federal and local spending to build yet more prisons and to beef up the police forces. In the name of "fighting crime," the Reagan government is unleashing brutal terror against the oppressed nationalities and is strengthening the entire police-state apparatus against the rising resistance of the masses.

The Byrne administration has likewise created a huge "anti-crime" hysteria as a pretext for police attacks against the workers and oppressed nationalities, especially against the black, Puerto Rican, and Mexican nationality peoples. In one of the opening shots of her administration Byrne launched a brutal assault against the Puerto Rican and Mexican youth under the cover of fighting youth crime. In the wake of this, the residents of Cabrini-Green were terrorized by the same ploy. On the CTA, Byrne's "crime fighters" carried out the brutal murder of Richard Ramey for smoking a cigarette. In the police stations they have carried out the strip-searching of women for traffic violations. And, since 1979, Byrne's "crime fighters" have presided as judge, jury and executioner over the lynching of 23, mainly black, youth in the jails. Under Byrne's budget for 1982 the police are being increased by 200 men, while the police budget takes the largest share out of the workers' tax dollars. Out of each tax dollar, 29<t goes to the police or close to $441.6 million for the year. These real crimes brand the Byrne regime as nothing but a racist and fascist, anti-working class regime. It is convincing proof that the Democrats, like the Republicans, are a party of the Reaganite capitalist offensive.

All along, the Democrats in the Congress have endorsed and passed Reagan's programs. Teddy Kennedy the darling of the "left" wing of the Democrats, enthusiastically worked on the infamous offspring of the fascist S-l bill which further sets in place the police-state regime. Mayor Byrne has done nothing but actively cooperated with Reagan's offensive against the working masses. Clearly, Reagan's offensive is the bipartisan program of the Republican and Democratic Parties alike.

A real struggle against the Reaganite offensive must be oriented along the path of breaking with 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 workers against the capitalist exploiters. Reagan is the chief of the monopoly capitalist class and his program is the bipartisan program of the Republican and Democratic Parties alike. The struggle must be waged not by appealing to the moderation or reasonableness of the exploiters, but by stepping up the struggle of class against class.

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An outrage against the black people!

Courts refuse to try the '22 caliber killer'

Every day the racist U.S. government, headed up by that klansman without robes, Ronald Reagan, carries v out further outrages against the black people and other oppressed nationalities.

In mid-December, following Reagan's racist lead, the New York State Supreme Court ordered that the suspected "22-caliber killer," Joseph Christopher, could not be prosecuted. Christopher was supposed to be brought to trial for the vicious murder of tour black men in the Buffalo area and others in New York City. But Justice William J. Flynn ruled that Christopher is not mentally competent to stand trial. He was committed to state mental health authorities for care and treatment.

On this signal, the local government disbanded the task force which was responsible for investigating the racist murders. Thus, after over a year of promises to the black community, the government has completely abandoned even the pretense of attempts to find and bring to trial the racist criminals who carried out the gruesome assassination of seven black men in the Buffalo area in the fall of 1980.

This is an outrageous crime against the black masses! It is further proof that all along the biggest protector of the racist gangs and murderers of the black people has been the government. As well, it is a clear and unmistakeable message to all the racist thugs, telling them that they have a friend and protector in the government, telling them to go on and organize their terrorist attacks against the blacks knowing full well that the government will defend them. This act once again shows that to resist racist violence and terror the black people must organize themselves for struggle against the racist government which stands behind the KKK and other racist criminals.

(Based on an article in Buffalo Workers' Voice, newspaper of the Buffalo Branch of the MLP,USA, December 21, 1981.)

[Photo: On January 15 of last year, 5,000 people demonstrated in Buffalo's Lafayette Square to condemn the government's racist terror campaign against the black people.]

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No to the Persecution of the Haitian Refugees!

The Reagan administration has made the Haitian refugees a special target and example of the "stringent enforcement" measures of its immigration policy. The recent tragic drowning of 33 Haitian refugees just off the coast of Florida brings to light the terrible plight of these people who have been forced to risk their lives tn large numbers on the seas -- to face jailings, inhuman treatment and outrageous brutality in order to flee the bloody tyranny and unbearable misery under the fascist dictatorship of the U.S.-backed puppet, Baby Doc Duvalier.

The recent drowning has also served to focus attention on the fact that the Reagan regime is a regime of barbaric persecution, brutality, and inhuman exploitation of immigrants. This dark tragedy, while it tells a lot about what Reagan has in store for the immigrants, has fueled the anger and outrage of the Haitian and other working masses at the Reagan and Duvalier regimes. Thus, in response to the drownings, thousands of Haitians and supporters launched several militant actions denouncing Reagan and Duvalier.

On November 2, over 3,000 people took to the streets in New York City in a militant march and demonstration against the criminal treatment of the Haitian refugees. This was one of the largest such protests ever held in New York. The demonstrators stopped outside the Haitian Consulate and denounced the bloodthirsty Duvalier regime and the U.S. government, shouted slogans demanding "Freedom for the refugees!" and declared "Que 'est la solution? Revolution!" (What is the solution? Revolution!) And on October 28 and 29, immediately following the tragic drowning, hundreds of Haitians in the "Little Haiti" section of North Miami launched mass protests for two nights in succession. The demonstrators blocked city streets and rallied in front of the infamous Krome Avenue detention center where thousands of refugees are held in capitivity, treated like cattle, and await deportation.

U.S. Terrorism on the High Seas

The drowning of the 33 Haitians came less than one month after Reagan issued an executive order for the Coast Guard to intercept and turn back vessels that are even suspected of carrying Haitian refugees, returning them to the tender mercies of Baby Doc and his Ton-Ton Macoute cutthroats. Armed to the teeth, the Coast Guard has even been ordered to fire on "suspect" vessels that fail to stop and allow inspection. These actions authorized by the stroke of Reagan's pen are to be undertaken outside of U.S. territorial waters.

Reagan has coolly adopted this murderous pirate policy in close coordination with the Duvalier regime which has willingly opened up Haiti's ports to U.S. Coast Guard vessels. The U.S. Coast Guard is currently policing the Windward Passage between Haiti and Cuba, and just off Nassau, to halt and board any boats passing through the Bahamian Channel which are suspected of carrying Haitians. On the U.S. ships are Haitian military officers, assigned to act as "interpreters," to interrogate any Haitians aboard. U.S. imperialism, which is the protector of the brutal, despotic regime of Baby Doc, also gives itself the right to commit piracy on the high seas to crush the attempts of thousands of Haitians to escape the extreme misery and tyranny they face.

Reagan's executive order typifies the attitude of the U.S. imperialists toward the people of the Caribbean and the entire world. With this order, the Reagan government made the flight of the refugees from Haiti an even more perilous nightmare which is bound to result in one atrocity after another.

A Brutal Reception

Those refugees who manage to survive the voyage from Haiti when they arrive in Florida are quickly rounded up by the gestapo INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) agents and shipped to the Krome Avenue detention center to be imprisoned and processed. There, herded like cattle in pens, the Haitian refugees are denied sanitary and health care and are harassed and persecuted on a daily basis. They are processed through kangaroo courts like common criminals, denied proper legal advice and defense (Reagan is now calling for expediting this process faster) and are then dispersed to be incarcerated at detention centers throughout Florida and to civilian and military base prisons elsewhere in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, to await deportation to the shallow graves of the bloody dictator, Duvalier.

It is these barbaric and inhuman conditions and treatment meted out to the refugees that led to the revolt of over 1,000 Haitians at the overcrowded Krome Avenue detention center in September. The refugees were protesting these conditions and the transfer of large numbers of them to even more terrible conditions in a decrepit, abandoned naval base in Puerto Rico. This was a militant and powerful revolt of the Haitians, who shouted, "Liberty -- We are not slaves!" Approximately 100 temporarily escaped from the Krome concentration camp. Hundreds of Haitians from nearby communities came out in solidarity with their imprisoned brothers. The Reagan government responded to this just revolt of the Haitians with the full force of the reactionary state apparatus. Well-armed border patrols, INS police and prison officers were rushed in to savagely crush the refugees" revolt. The Haitians, though suffering under the clubs, gun butts and tear gas of Reagan's storm troopers, bravely gave tit for tat resistance with bottles, stones and their feet and fists before the rebellion was subdued.

Recently the Reagan government has unveiled its plans for the thousands of Haitian refugees who today are incarcerated in the southern states. These plans consist of transferring as many as 3,000 Haitian and Cuban refugees to Fort Drum, an isolated army base in frigid upstate New York which is to be turned into a massive concentration camp for the refugees. The obvious idea behind this cynical and inhuman proposal is that if the 40 degree below zero temperature and howling winds do not convince the Haitian and other refugees to "request" to go home, these refugees from the tropics will be simply frozen to death. (The Reagan administration had previously designated the abandoned Glasgow Air Force Base in northwestern Montana to be the concentration camp for the incoming refugees. Later it was decided to change the site to Fort Drum, New York. In mid-December it was reported that Reagan had again reversed himself and now wants to use the Glasgow, Montana base, which has the advantage that it is the colder and more isolated base of the two -- WA.)

What is needed is stern and resolute struggle against Reagan's fascist anti-immigrant plans and all the attacks on the immigrants. For such a struggle, the working class and people can only rely on their efforts. The Haitians cannot rely on Reagan, no more than they can rely on Baby Doc, and the people can never rely on the concealed fascists like Carter, the Democrats and their mouthpieces, no more than they can rely on the likes of Reagan and the Republicans. Confronting the racist and fascist onslaught against the immigrants is an important part of building the independent political movement of the working and oppressed masses.

(Based on an article from the December 1981 issue of The West Indian Voice, newspaper of the Caribbean Progressive Study Group.)

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CPSG Holds 3rd Annual Calypso and Cultural Tent

On October 24, over 100 workers, students and revolutionary activists attended the 3rd Annual Calypso and Cultural Tent in New York. Organized by the Caribbean Progressive Study Group, the Cultural Tent centered on the theme of "Solidarity With the Struggles for National Liberation in the West Indies" and raised the fighting slogans, No to U.S. imperialist domination of the Caribbean!, Wage mass struggle against government- organized racist attacks!, and Culture for the masses -- not the exploiters!

These themes were captured in the performance of over 20 revolutionary songs and two folk dances. Frequently using stinging satire, the music ridiculed the U.S. imperialist exploiters, brought to the fore lessons from the popular revolutionary movements in the West Indies, and gave a powerful revolutionary perspective for their development.

In the keynote speech a representative of the CPSG explained the slogans of the Cultural Tent in depth. As well,, the solidarity statements from the New York Metro Branch of the MLP,USA and from the Baldemiro Castro Committee (New York) of the Communist Party of Labor (Dominican Republic) concretely demonstrated the solidarity of the workers in the U.S. and the Caribbean in their struggles against the common U.S. imperialist oppressor.

The Cultural Tent was the high point of a several-weeks-long campaign by the CPSG in the West Indian community in New York. Posters were put up all over Brooklyn and a special issue of The West Indian Voice was circulated throughout the community, at colleges, factories and in demonstrations and other mass actions. In all, over 10,000 copies of The West Indian Voice were distributed.

The West Indian Voice elaborated the theme of solidarity with the struggles for national liberation in the West Indies. It pointed out that U.S. imperialism, headed up by the Reagan government, is working feverishly to strengthen its stranglehold over the countries of the region and is stepping up its plunder of the masses. The paper exposed that the local regimes are acting as the agencies for imperialist domination. And it showed how the current revolutionary ferment and mass stirrings in the region must be directed at liberating the countries from the imperialist yoke and overthrowing these lackey regimes. The paper strongly denounced the labor bureaucrats and revisionists as front men for imperialism and local reaction, who seek to befuddle the people's minds and hitch their struggles onto the U.S. imperialist or Soviet social- imperialist bandwagons.

The West Indian Voice also pointed out that socialist Albania shows that "the working people can build a new and better life without the exploiters,", and that "Marxism-Leninism illuminates the path of liberation and emancipation." The paper emphasized the perspective of revolutionary socialism as the goal of the working class movement in the West Indies and showed that this is the path which guarantees genuine and lasting independence.

As well, the paper showed how the mass movements of the American working class and people are striking at the heart of the U.S. imperialist monster. The West Indian Voice emphasized that solidarity with the revolutionary struggles in the West Indies calls for the most vigorous participation in the class struggle right here.

All of these assessments of the CPSG were well brought out at the Cultural Tent itself, through the revolutionary songs, the dances and speeches. It was a sharp rebuff to the decay and reaction fostered by imperialism in the sphere of culture; it was a revolutionary reply to the injection, by the imperialists, of reactionary anti-people content into the popular cultural forms and to their degeneration of the cultural forms themselves. The Cultural Tent was a display of people's culture, using the traditional popular forms to voice the call of the working masses for struggle against the enemies, to celebrate their past victories and their hope for future triumph over the exploiters and oppressors. The Cultural Tent was a great success, inspiring all who came with a burning conviction to step up the fight against U.S. imperialism, both in the West Indies and right here in the belly of the monster.

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Message to the MLP from the 1st National Conference of the Communist Party of Labor, Dominican Republic

The Communist Party of Labor (Partido Comunista del Trabajo, PCT) of the Dominican Republic recently held its First National Conference of Professional Cadre. This was an important event in the life of the PCT. This was the first conference of the PC? since the historic "Otto Morales" conference of July 1980 which adopted the decisions to change the name of the organization from the Dominican Popular Movement (MPD) to the new name, PCT, in accordance with the internal revolutionization and bolshevization which has placed the new Party on firm Marxist-Leninist lines. The August 1981 issue of Lucha, the Central Organ of the PCT, carried an article entitled "The Importance of Our First Conference" which pointed out that this conference was to address important questions of the further internal consolidation of the Party, along with tactical questions concerning the upcoming elections, forms of popular organization, and other matters. Below we are reprinting a message which the First National Conference of the PCT addressed to our Party. The Workers' Advocate is very pleased to reprint this internationalist communication from this important conference of our brother Party which stands at the head of the revolutionary movement of the Dominican working class and people.

Central Committee of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA

Dear Comrades,

The First National Conference of Professional Cadre of the Communist Party of Labor (Partido Comunista del Trabajo, PCT -- ed.), entitled "Amin Abel Hasbun" in memory of one of the martyrs of our organization, and which took place on the 18th and 19th of this [September, resolved to send this message of greetings and internationalist fraternity to the Marxist-Leninist Party of the United States of America.

This Conference learned with great joy of the message that the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA sent the PCT as a resolution of its First National Conference, seeing in this message the reiteration of the terms of friendship and camaraderie under which the internationalist relations between the two organizations have been established and maintained.

This First National Conference of Cadre of the PCT reciprocates this new show of friendship and reiterates once more the desire and resolve of the Dominican communists to strengthen every day the principled ties with the U.S. comrades united in their red detachment, the MLP.

The two organizations coincide in their assessments regarding the fundamental problems confronting the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement and in their resolve to struggle for the overthrow of the hated domination of capital and the establishment of socialism and communism in their respective countries and throughout the world, as well as in the necessity of sustaining a constant and growing struggle against reaction, today headed by the two superpowers and against Khrushchovite, Yugoslav, Eurocommunist, Chinese and all other varieties of revisionism.

This offers a solid basis for our two Parties to march, firmly united, in the struggle for the realization of the common objectives and aspirations.

The First National Conference of Professional Cadre of the Partido Comunista del Trabajo wishes the comrades of the MLP every success, which undoubtedly will contribute to the success of our own struggle and that of all the brother parties in the various countries.

Long live the friendship between the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA and the Communist Party of Labor (Dominican Republic)!

Long live Marxism-Leninism!

Long live proletarian internationalism!

First National Conference of Professional Cadre "Amin Abel Hasbun," of the Partido Comunista del Trabajo

[Photo: Carrying bright red banners the fraternal comrades of the Communist Party of Labor of the Dominican Republic militantly march through the streets of Santo Domingo on May 1,1981]

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Reagan threatens aggression abroad and imposes police-state measures at home

The case of the Invisible 'Libyan hit men'

In late November, the Reagan administration launched a massive hysteria campaign about an alleged plot by the government of Libya to assassinate Reagan and other top U.S. officials. During this campaign, the U.S. imperialists tried to paint themselves in "defensive" colors, as the target of aggression from wild-eyed Libyan hit men roaming the globe in pursuit of U.S. officials. What complete nonsense! Far from being mister nice guy being pushed around by foreign governments, U.S. imperialism seeks to make the law all over the globe, wields the big stick everywhere and openly threatens aggression against all those who refuse to submit to its dictate. This was again shown during the recent anti-Libyan hysteria by the rabid jingoism and threats of aggression against Libya displayed by the U.S. militarists.

Beginning with a few well-placed "leaks" to the press, within a few days the story of the alleged hit men grew to incredible proportions. Reagan and his cronies quickly confirmed the "leaked" reports and added their own lurid details about the alleged plot. Simultaneously, the front pages of the newspapers and TV screens began to be filled with all sorts of horror stories. One day it was terrorists infiltrating through the Canadian border; the next day, the hit team was in Mexico waiting to come in from the south. One day it was a single Libyan team; the next day it had grown to two, and one was being led by Carlos, the "notorious Venezuelan terrorist." There were even stories about terrorist plans to use Soviet-made SAM missiles to shoot down Air Force One or Reagan's helicopter. Indeed, with each passing day, the story became wilder and wilder. This whole affair may resemble paranoia, but there is method to this madness. Such chauvinist hysteria is part and parcel of U.S. imperialist policy.

Right from the beginning, the whole campaign had a hollow ring to it. Despite the frenzied efforts of Reagan and the capitalist press, the attempt to whip up hysteria among the masses fell flat on its face. The Libyan government denounced the whole thing as a lie and demanded that the U.S. government produce the evidence which it claims to have. But not a shred of it has been forthcoming. Indeed, by the end of the third week of December, the Justice Department of the Reagan government itself hinted that there was perhaps reason to be skeptical about the accuracy of the sources of information on the alleged plot.

But the U.S. government used the hysteria campaign to the hilt to step up their threats and blackmail against Libya. Open threats have again been made about overthrowing the Libyan government. And on December 10, the U.S. government ordered all American citizens living in Libya to leave that country immediately. The 6th Fleet was also placed off the Libyan coast, ostensibly to help vacate the Americans out of the country. But in reality, this was nothing but a preparation to threaten Libya with a military invasion.

At the same time, the bogey of Libyan hit men has been used by the Reagan administration to justify the beefing up of the state's spying apparatus against the American people. Right in the middle of the hysteria campaign, the government announced the withdrawal of previous legal restrictions on the CIA and various other agencies that had allegedly prevented them from operating inside the U.S. and against American citizens. This order of course has nothing to do with fictional Libyan hit men but is in the first place directed at the growing ferment among the masses here in the U.S. against the reactionary policies of the capitalist rulers.

A Series of Aggressive Provocations Against Libya

The recent actions by Reagan against Libya are the latest step in a campaign against that country which U.S. imperialism has been conducting for some time now. In December 1979, the Carter regime suspended diplomatic relations with Libya and recalled American diplomats, using the pretext of the sacking of the U.S. embassy there by anti-imperialist demonstrators. The Reaganites have stepped up the anti-Libya campaign greatly. They have called the Libyan government every name imaginable, charging it with being a fomenter of revolution in 45 countries from Ireland to the Philippines, the number one "international terrorist" and so forth. Threats have been repeatedly made about the need to "fix that little man," as Alexander Haig put it some months ago in reference to Libyan head of state Muammar Qadhafi.

It is strange then that the Reaganites are accusing Libya of planning to kill Reagan when it is the U.S. rulers who are making bloodthirsty threats against Qadhafi. In July-August, Newsweek and the Washington Post indicated that the House Select Committee on Intelligence had had discussion about a CIA plan to overthrow, and perhaps assassinate, Qadhafi. Nor would this be the first time that the U.S. imperialists have made such plots. The CIA's plots to kill Cuba's Castro are well known. As well, the CIA has stood behind the overthrow and murder of many other foreign leaders, such as Lumumba of the Con- go-Kinshasa and Chile's Allende. Indeed, it is not Libya but the U.S., along with the other imperialist superpower, the Russian social-imperialists, who are the number one international terrorists.

It has been reported that the Reaganites launched their campaign against Libya almost the very day they took over the presidency. In August 1981, the Washington Post reported that the first "interdepartmental foreign policy study " ordered by the Reagan regime considered what the U.S. government should do "to oppose Libya and its militant...leader, Colonel Muammar Qadhafi." Within a few months, plains had been drawn up to "make life uncomfortable, at a minimum" for Qadhafi.

In May, the U.S. government unilaterally broke diplomatic relations with Libya, closed down the Libyan diplomatic mission and expelled all Libyan diplomats from the U.S. This was done on a completely arbitrary basis. Then, in mid-August, the U.S. 6th Fleet carried out massive naval maneuvers in the Mediterranean off the coast of Libya. This included maneuvers in the Gulf of Sidra, which Libya, quite justly, considers to be part of its territorial waters. As part of these maneuvers, the U.S. Navy shot down two Libyan fighter planes. This was a deliberate provocation against Libya, a typical example of U.S. imperialist gunboat diplomacy. Coincidentally, the U.S. maneuvers were carried out at the same time as Egyptian military exercises next to the Libyan border with Egypt.

In recent years, the U.S. imperialists have heavily armed all the pro- U.S. regimes in the Middle East and North Africa. As well, the Pentagon has been busy establishing its own direct military bases and footholds in the area. This general militarization has been organized for the purpose of preparing to crush the revolutionary struggles of the peoples of the Middle East, for, as the Iranian revolution showed, the area is volatile with revolutionary ferment. As well, this militarization is part of the U.S. rivalry with the Soviet imperialists over the region. Today, this militarization is being used to threaten Libya. There is regular talk of using some of these reactionary regimes, especially Egypt, as a springboard from which to invade Libya.

In November, the Pentagon organized Operation Bright Star, a large-scale military exercise in the region. These maneuvers involved 4,000 troops belonging to the U.S. Rapid Deployment Force, as well as troops from Egypt, Sudan, Somalia and Oman. This was an attempt to intimidate the oppressed peoples of the entire region into submission to U.S. hegemony. As well, in the present circumstances, it was used as yet another provocation against Libya.

Alongside these provocative actions, the American bourgeoisie has maintained a high-pitched propaganda campaign against Libya, blaming everything and anything it can on that country. For example, when Egyptian President Sadat was killed in October, the U.S. militarists blamed it on Libya. Recently when the U.S. Charge d'Affaires in Paris was the target of a terrorist attack, this too was immediately blamed on Libya. This entire hysterical chorus has been designed to create justification for toppling the Libyan government. Thus, an influential member of Reagan's cabinet was recently quoted as saying, "Qadhafi has got to be reined in. I'm not sure he's not like a cancer -- you can't cure it unless you cut it out." (U.S. News and World Report, December 21, 1981) Clearly the U.S. government has serious contradictions with the Libyan government.

The Libyan regime is not a revolutionary government of workers and peasants. It is a bourgeois nationalist regime, which remains connected with both Western imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism by a thousand threads. At the same time, it has several conflicts with U.S. imperialist policy. It is especially a vocal critic of zionist aggression against the Arab peoples and the subjugation of the Palestinian people. In particular, Libya has been opposed to the U.S.-sponsored Camp David policy of getting the Arab countries to reconcile and collaborate with the Israeli Zionists. It is interesting in this regard that Israel is one of the closest allies of Washington's anti-Libya crusade. On December 12, the Washington Post published reports that Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, has been the source for many of the wildest stories in the American press about the alleged Libyan plot to kill Reagan.

American imperialism has been infuriated by Libyan opposition to some of its policies in the region. It demands the complete capitulation of all the peoples and states in the area to its own hegemonic baton. This is the real reason behind its bullying and threats against the Libyan government. This is an example of Washington's naked and unbridled imperialism.

Unleashing the CIA Using the Bogey of Alleged Libyan Hit Men

The Reagan government is using the hysteria over alleged Libyan hit men as a pretext to clamp down on the masses inside the U.S. In recent years, the capitalist program of hunger, fascism and militarism have given rise to a broad ferment among the masses.

The 1980's will see great class battles. The capitalist rulers have not forgotten the storms of struggle which shook the U.S. in the 1960's. As the government did back then, they are again preparing all their weapons for repression to try to disrupt the mass movements and revolutionary organizations. This is what lies behind the order to unleash the CIA at home.

Ever since Reagan became president, he has repeatedly talked of removing all the obstacles which supposedly have been hobbling the work of the CIA and other intelligence agencies. Thus, in April he pardoned two former FBI men convicted of illegal break-ins and praised them as "men who acted on high principle."

On December 4, in the middle of the hysteria about Libyan hit men, Reagan issued an executive order removing previous legal restrictions on the CIA and several other intelligence agencies, including the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence, etc. Now these agencies have been given the legal authority to spy on American residents, both inside and outside the U.S. As well, they will be allowed to infiltrate domestic organizations for any one of a secret list of purposes to be prescribed by the attorney general. Besides these new policies, the anti-Libyan hysteria was also used by the government to extend Secret Service coverage of several other government officials, thus widening their scope of operations too. Among other things, this means more spying on and harassment of people throughout the country whenever these officials tour the country.

By 1973-74, U.S. imperialism faced a governmental crisis. Hence after Nixon's removal, the bourgeoisie took various measures to give the impression that the government had changed and that the period of "divisions" and big mass struggles was over. As a result of the war in Indochina, the Watergate affair, the revelations about the American imperialist involvement in the Chilean coup d'etat, the disclosures of the criminal role of the CIA and FBI in disrupting the black people's struggles, and so forth, the government faced massive distrust from the widest sections of the masses. Thus among the measures to "restore confidence" and overcome the governmental crisis, the government imposed restrictions of the mildest sort on the intelligence apparatus as a facade to give the impression that it was being "reformed." Of course, these restrictions were meant for show, and not to be enforced. Furthermore, the actual content of these restrictions was always kept secret anyway, just as are the details of Reagan's present decisions. Besides, the FBI and a host of other agencies have been operating inside the U.S. against the American people anyway.

Still, Reagan's latest decisions, which officially add yet another layer of intelligence agencies to those currently operating inside the U.S., signify a definite strengthening of the repressive apparatus. As well, they are a green light to all other police and spying agencies to step up their disruptive work among the masses. This is being done in preparation for the class battles that are shaping up between the masses and the capitalist exploiters.

The Reagan order unleashing the CIA pretends that the spying on and infiltration of domestic groups will be allowed only on the basis of suspicion about possessing "foreign intelligence." This is nothing but a fig leaf. Everyone knows how adept the government is in defining and redefining such things. It is well known that Reagan considers domestic opposition to the capitalist rulers to be nothing but a foreign-instigated "communist plot." For example, earlier this year, when demonstrations broke out across the U.S. against U.S. intervention in El Salvador, Reagan commented that it all looked like part of a fiendish international conspiracy. The proof he offered for this was that when he had visited Canada around that time, he had been greeted by demonstrators carrying signs which said the same thing as signs in demonstrations at home. (New York Daily News, March 15, 1981) Now, there's typical imperialist logic!

On these questions, just like others, the Democratic Party has stood with the Reaganites. For instance, leading Democratic politicians have endorsed Reagan's unleashing of the CIA at home. Both Senator Moynihan and Representative Ed Boland, the ranking Democrats of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, have been reported to be gratified by Reagan's directive because he has "retreated" from his earlier proposals which had been more sweeping. And the mild criticism that has been reported by one or two Democrats is that they don't think it's necessary to unleash the CIA at home since the FBI is doing a good job. Clearly, this is no opposition to Reagan at all.

Likewise, on the hysteria about Libya, the Democrats have been just as rabid as the Republicans. The Democrats in Congress have tried to place themselves at the head of efforts to tighten the vice against Libya. On December 8, for instance, it was the liberal Democratic Senator Gary Hart of Colorado who proposed a Senate resolution for economic actions against Libya.

The actions of U.S. imperialism during the hysteria campaign against Libya demonstrate that the whole scenario about the U.S. government being the target of Libyan aggression is a fraud from top to bottom. It turns truth on its head. The Reaganite hysteria about Libya has been in the timeworn U.S. imperialist tradition of concocting pretexts to justify aggression abroad and reaction at home. It is the U.S. militarists who have been shown to be the saber rattlers, the rabid chauvinist warmongers, who seek to force everyone else to submit to their dictate.

U.S. imperialism remains one of the most savage and aggressive powers on earth. And it will remain such so long as there is a single tooth left in its head. The powerful force which can destroy this fiendish beast lies in the revolutionary struggle of the American working class and people in solidarity with the revolutionary and liberation struggle of the people around the world.

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In Western Europe:

Massive Demonstrations Against Imperialist War Preparations Continue

Massive demonstrations against imperialist war preparations continue to sweep across Western Europe. In early November The Workers' Advocate reported that 1.5 million people had demonstrated during the months of September and October. Well over this number have once again poured into the streets during November and December. This total includes big demonstrations in Madrid, Athens, Amsterdam, Florence, Berne, Bonn and elsewhere. These massive protests show that the proletariat and peoples of Western Europe are firmly opposed to the aggressive war plans of imperialism.

On November 15th, 500,000 people demonstrated on the campus of the University of Madrid to oppose the plans of the Spanish government to join the warmongering NATO alliance. The demonstration also expressed the Spanish people's opposition to the neutron bomb and the new U.S. nuclear missiles being installed in Western Europe by NATO as well as opposition to Soviet social-imperialist nuclear war preparations. One of the banners carried in the demonstration was a satirical cartoon depicting the faces of Brezhnev and Reagan emerging from a nuclear mushroom cloud. This is but one of many demonstrations against NATO which have taken place in Spain recently.

Two weeks later a smaller anti- NATO demonstration of 4,000 people was viciously attacked by Spanish military police. According to bourgeois press accounts, the attack, led by a pistol-waving fascist officer, came as the demonstration was dispersing and was met by a hail of stones from the demonstrators, several of whom were arrested.

In Athens, Greece another huge demonstration, numbering upwards of 400,000 people also took place on November 15. Every year a big demonstration is held in Athens on this day to commemorate a student rebellion in November 1973. This year's demonstration reportedly took seven hours to march past the U.S. embassy in bitter cold, chanting: "Take your embassy and go," "Americans -- murderers of nations," and "NATO-CIA-Betrayal."

This demonstration expressed the deep hatred of the Greek people for the U.S./NATO alliance. The people demanded that the Greek government get out of NATO, that all U.S. imperialist bases in Greece be closed, and that all the U.S./NATO nuclear missiles stationed on Greek soil be removed.

One year ago Greece began the process of reintegration into NATO's military command after having left it in 1974. This move greatly outraged the people. In October the social-democratic government of Andreas Papandreou was elected on the basis of demagogic promises to quit NATO. However, Papandreou has not kept his promises to the Greek people and has made it amply clear that he is completely reconciled to working within NATO. His demagogic "anti-NATO" rhetoric has in fact proven to be only a maneuver to win a stronger position for Greece within the alliance. However, the Greek people are adamant that Papandreou must carry out his promises.

Thus, on December 6th, 50,000 people rallied once again in Athens, while many thousands more demonstrated in two other Greek cities. Three separate marches, one of them originating from the U.S. military base at Athens airport, converged on Constitution Square in Athens for the rally. The demands of December 6 were once again that Greece must quit NATO, against nuclear war preparations, etc.

The next big European demonstration against imperialist war preparations took place in Amsterdam, the Netherlands on November 21. According to police estimates at least 350,000 people demonstrated in "definitely the biggest demonstration in Dutch history." It took 3,200 buses and 17 extra trains on the Dutch railway to bring the demonstrators into the city. The demonstration, marching 20-30 abreast, took over three and a half hours to pass by, with the first demonstrators returning to the assembly point well before the entire demonstration could leave.

Several hundred Dutch soldiers were reported to have defied a ban issued by the government's defense minister and marched in uniform with the people. The demonstrators denounced the NATO plans to deploy the new U.S. missiles in Western Europe and demanded that all nuclear weapons be withdrawn from Europe. In particular the people denounced the Dutch government for its part in NATO's plan to deploy 48 cruise missiles in the Netherlands.

The Dutch bourgeoisie, despite its pretensions to the contrary, is a bunch of vicious imperialists and warmongers. In 1979, faced with a very big anti-missile movement, the government announced a two-year "delay" of its decision on whether to deploy the missiles. In 1981, the latest government again "postponed" its decision, this time with the excuse of waiting until the U.S.-Soviet arms limitation talks are concluded in Geneva. These delays are obviously a transparent attempt to deflect the wrath of the mass movement in the Netherlands and have not fooled the Dutch people.

On the same day as the Amsterdam demonstration, 20,000 people rallied in Dortmund, West Germany. The rally reportedly called for the West German imperialist government to reverse its decision to accept 96 cruise and 108 Pershing II intermediate- range nuclear missiles which are now scheduled for deployment by April 1984. And on November 28th, 150,000 people demonstrated in three piazzas in the city of Florence, Italy against nuclear war preparations. The people are opposed to the Italian government's plans to install 122 of the new U.S. cruise missiles in Italy.

Coinciding with the NATO defense ministers' meeting in Brussels, demonstrations were organized all across Europe on the weekend of December 5 and 6. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators came out in Denmark, Switzerland, Italy, West Germany and elsewhere against NATO's nuclear war preparations.

In the demonstration on the 5th in Berne, the capital city of Switzerland, 40,000 people marched through the streets. The route of the march passed by the country's parliament building. Afterwards a resolution was passed by the demonstration reportedly demanding that all nuclear weapons be banned from both Western and Eastern Europe and that a ban also be placed on stationing any new arms systems in Europe.

Many other demonstrations and actions of various types were held during the last two months. In Finland, for example, over 150,000 people marched simultaneously in 50 cities and towns all across the country in the beginning of November to protest the new NATO missiles.

As can be seen from the brief accounts given here, the mass movement in Western Europe against war preparations is taking on very broad proportions. This rising movement is causing the imperialist warmakers deep concern. This uneasiness was graphically demonstrated in a recent hysterical statement by the arch-imperialist fiend, Ronald Reagan, himself. "Oh, those demonstrations," Reagan said, "you could have used newsreels from the 60's in America. Those are all sponsored by a thing called the World Peace Council, which is bought and paid for by the Soviet Union." (New York Times, December 23,1981)

This statement reflects not only the fear that U.S. imperialism has for the rising movement, but it also reflects another severe problem facing Mr. Reagan personally -- the gradual onset of rigor mortis of the brain. The ordinary people, three, four, and five hundred thousand strong, in cities a- cross Western Europe are coming out on the streets to protest the war policies of U.S. imperialism and of their own governments, and of Soviet social-imperialism as well. But if we listen to our Neanderthal of a President we are supposed to believe that these people are not marching because they are deeply concerned about the imperialists' dangerous preparations for war, and are burning mad about the threats of imperialism to exterminate the people in a nuclear conflagration. Oh no! These millions of working and progressive people have simply been "bought and paid for by the Soviet Union." Of course, Mr. Reagan explains, just as the "newsreels from the 60's in America" showing millions upon millions in the streets of the U.S. from coast to coast demonstrating against the U.S. war of aggression in Indochina are but further evidence of the immense purchasing power of Soviet rubles. Or maybe the American people and the European people demonstrate for Russian caviar?

No, Mr. Reagan, your fossilized cold-war rhetoric just shows your decrepit impotence. In the days of the

Viet Nam war, the American people waged a powerful struggle which hit heavy blows against U.S. imperialism's war of genocide against the people of Indochina. Today, as the U.S. imperialists and the Soviet social-imperialists and their imperialist and reactionary allies are preparing for even more devastating wars of aggression and plunder, the people of Western Europe are raising their powerful voice against the criminal plans of Reagan, Brezhnev, Schmidt, Thatcher, Mitterrand and the other warmakers. The powerful development of this movement is a real nightmare for these warmongering fiends.

[Photo: Carrying the banner, "Struggle for peace, fight against imperialism," revolutionary students in Lisbon, Portugal denounce the nuclear war preparations of U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism.]

[Photo: On December 6, more than 50,000 people marched through the streets of Athens, Greece denouncing U.S. imperialist stationing of nuclear missiles in their country and calling for Greece to withdraw from the NATO military alliance.]

[Cartoon.]

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U.S. Defense Secretary Weinberger Visits Turkey

Washington Blesses the Turkish Martial Law Regime

In early December, U.S. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger visited Ankara, Turkey to meet the fascist generals who rule that country. During this visit, Weinberger praised the bloodstained Turkish regime in glowing colors and signed a new military agreement with it. The Workers' Advocate condemns the new plots hatched up by the hangmen of Washington and Ankara against the people of Turkey. We reaffirm our solidarity with the heroic revolutionary struggle of the Turkish masses.

The military deal struck in Ankara involves the establishment of a "high-level joint defense group" to "enlarge and improve defense cooperation" between the two NATO countries. Weinberger said that the U.S. was committing itself to the "modernization of the Turkish armed forces" and, citing this as an "expensive undertaking," announced $403 million in military aid to the regime for 1982. This is in addition to $300 million which he promised in economic aid to the generals.

U.S. imperialism is strengthening the Turkish military machine, above all, for the purpose of crushing the revolutionary struggle of the Turkish people. It is for this reason that the military regime was brought into power through a U.S. imperialist-backed coup d etat in September 1980. At that time, a high tide of revolutionary struggle of the workers, peasants, youth and oppressed nationalities was sweeping the country. It is the specter of these struggles breaking out again which haunts the capitalists and landlords of Turkey and their U.S. imperialist backers.

The Turkish military is also being bolstered to act as a strike force for U.S. imperialism against the oppressed peoples of the neighboring countries. Prior to the Iranian revolution of 1979, the fascist regime of the Shah acted as U.S. imperialism's number one policeman in the region. U.S. imperialism has been seeking to use the Turkish regime to take over a large part of the Shah's role in the Middle East region. As well, Turkey's strategic location serves the U.S. as an important outpost in its imperialist rivalry with the Soviet Union.

Weinberger Warmly Praises the Turkish Fascists

The signing of this new military pact between the U.S. government and Turkey was accompanied by statements in which Weinberger went to great lengths to prettify the fascist Turkish regime. He made the preposterous claim that this bloody regime is supposedly fighting for "human rights" and "democracy" in Turkey. Trying to justify these claims in the face of the well-known record of the regime, Weinberger said: "We feel that human rights can only flourish in the atmosphere in which law and order prevail and the admiration I expressed was for the ability of the Turkish Government to do so much to eliminate what was virtually a state of anarchy and the very widespread degree of terrorism."

Weinberger thus openly praises the Turkish regime's "law and order" which he justifies in the name of the need to eliminate what he calls "anarchy" and "terrorism." These, of course, are nothing but euphemisms for the revolutionary struggle of the masses. As for the real terrorists in Turkey, they are none other than Weinberger's friends, the Turkish military, police, and police-organized fascist gangs, who have been terrorizing the Turkish people for many years.

So what is the "law and order" which Weinberger so admires? According to the regime's own official figures, almost 25,000 people are now in detention awaiting trial for political offenses, and 3,375 more are under house arrest or in custody as dangerous "suspects." A hundred revolutionaries and trade union militants are facing the death sentence. At least 20 have been executed, while another 1,800 have been sentenced to long prison terms.

But of course, these figures are grossly underestimated. In fact, as many as 50,000 were rounded up after the coup d'etat. The fascist troops are well known to simply shoot revolutionaries on the spot in the streets. Some 500 have died in this manner, while untold hundreds more Marxist-Leninists and other revolutionaries have gone to their deaths under most brutal tortures, refusing to the last to divulge any information demanded by the torturers about the revolutionary organizations of the people. And it is in this atmosphere of "law and order" that Weinberger claims "human rights" will prevail! What a farce!

Preparing a Face Lift for the Fascist Regime

Moreover, during his visit, Weinberger put his stamp of approval on further "human rights" measures that the regime is preparing. Realizing that the people cannot be ruled through terror alone, and to clean up its image somewhat, the Turkish generals have prepared themselves a face lift. They want to give the regime a phony "democratic" mask. A typical Weinberger statement about this was: "We feel Turkey first of all is embarked upon the course that will bring a democratic government.

"They have many of those principles in effect now and are working very diligently to secure a new constitution which will have these characteristics..."

The process towards a new constitution is another revealing example of Weinberger's "human rights." General Kenan Evren and his four cronies of the National Security Council, the fascist junta, have called together a "constituent assembly" to prepare a new constitution. Of the 160 members of this assembly, the generals directly pick the first 40, and then they pick the next 120 too, from lists that the local authorities of the regime draw up. Nevertheless, just to make 100% sure that even such a hand-picked assembly does not somehow commit any "liberal excesses," the role of this group will only be to advise, while the junta alone will decide on the final document's content.

The junta says that this constitution will bring about what it likes to call a "guided democracy." The "excesses" that this "guided democracy" will eliminate include the democratic rights which were guaranteed in words if not in actuality, in the 1961 constitution, such as the right to strike, freedom of the press, of association, etc. Only the two biggest political parties of the capitalists and landlords will be allowed any rights to function, and all revolutionary and progressive organizations will be banned. Only government-controlled trade unions will be tolerated, and so forth.

Clearly this "course that will bring a democratic government" is a complete fraud. In fact, it is nothing but a course towards the permanent institutionalization of fascist rule.

The fascist Turkish generals are also making a big fanfare about being the continuers of the traditions of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the leader of the anti-monarchist revolution which established the Republic in 1923. U.S. imperialism blesses this effort as well, as could be seen by Weinberger laying a wreath at Ataturk's tomb during his recent visit. So what are these traditions which the Turkish fascists are laying claim to when they harken back to Ataturk?

There are two things which Kemal Ataturk is best known for. First, the Kemalists fought the foreign imperialist domination of Turkey and abolished the monarchy and certain of the other forms of medievalism. And second, the Kemalist revolution is known for being a revolution of the top stratum which subsequently ruthlessly suppressed the awakened Turkish workers, peasants and communists.

"A Kemalist revolution," the great Marxist-Leninist theoretician, Joseph Stalin explained, "Is a revolution of the top stratum, a revolution of the national merchant bourgeoisie, arising in struggle against the foreign imperialists, and whose subsequent development is essentially directed against the peasants and workers, against the very possibility of an agrarian revolution. Stalin further pointed out that "in Turkey the struggle against imperialism (on the part of the Kemalists -- ed.)... end(ed) with a curtailed anti-imperialist revolution." (J.V. Stalin, "Talk With Students of the Sun Yat-sen University," May 13,1927, Works, Vol. 9, pp. 261, 262)

The present fascist Turkish generals, on the other hand, far from opposing imperialism, are straight up hatchet men of the U.S. and other imperialist powers. Hence, the only traditions which they can honestly claim as their own is the practice of brutal massacres against the workers, peasants, and Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries.

The Kemalist experience has taught the Turkish working class and people a profound lesson. What they need is not a revolt of the top stratum, but a real people's revolution. Only a revolution of the worker and peasant masses can liberate the long-suffering Turkish people.

Today the class conscious Turkish workers and revolutionary masses are shedding their blood for such a revolution. No matter what savagery or deceptive masks the junta of generals may resort to, they cannot keep down the valiant struggle of the workers and peasants. Since the coup d'etat, numerous struggles have unfolded against the regime. Even within the confines of the concentration camps and prisons, the struggle breaks out. Recently at the large Metris military prison in Istanbul, 2,000 prisoners went on a prolonged hunger strike against the terrible conditions they are forced to bear. According to reports, their tenacity has forced the authorities to agree to enter into negotiations on their demands.

The Workers' Advocate, on behalf of the working class of the United States, sends a red salute to the courageous anti-fascist fighters. We are confident that the Turkish workers and peasants, who have shown the power of their struggle many times in the past, will bring down this despised government of hangmen, throw out the imperialists and win liberation from all tyranny and exploitation.

[Photo: Turkish workers, in their tens of thousands show their international solidarity on May 1,1980.]

[Cartoon.]

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An ugly result of the liquidationist and Maoist deviations of the leadership of the Communist Party of Canada (M-L)

In Vancouver, British Columbia, on October 4 and then again on October 17, bloody fights took place between anti-racist demonstrators at rallies called to protest against the KKK. These fights took place between, on the one hand, the People's Front Against Racist and Fascist Violence which is associated with the Communist Party of Canada (M-L), and on the other hand, the British Columbia Organization to Fight Racism (BCOFR) which is associated with various opportunist groupings including pro-Soviet and Maoist revisionists as well as the New Democratic Party (NDP) social- democrats. The capitalist press across Canada and the U.S. gleefully reported on these events in Vancouver in order to discredit the anti-racist struggle and the progressive and Marxist-Leninist forces, and, at the same time, to promote the fascist gangsters of the KKK. In New York, the October 19 Daily News, with a distribution of a million copies, carried three big photos under the title "Anti-Racist Groups in a Brawl." Two of the photos showed anti-racist demonstrators savagely smashing each other over the head with 2x2 sticks. The third was a photo of the Klan's first cross burning in Vancouver in over three decades. With a similar message, these events were also covered by the Chicago Defender. The two Seattle dailies, the Times and the Post-Intelligencer, reported that in these incidents a number of demonstrators were hospitalized with severe lacerations, broken arms and skull fractures.

It is the assessment of The Workers Advocate that what took place in Vancouver on October 4 and 17 was in every way harmful. It played into the hands of the KKK fascists and the reactionary capitalist propaganda against the popular movements and the Marxist-Leninists, and it was a disservice to the anti-racist and anti-fascist struggle and the profound democratic sentiments of the Canadian working class and people. Moreover, to make matters worse and more complex, the responsibility for the harm done in Vancouver does not rest only with the opportunists, but also with the unprincipled and wrecking tactics of the CPC (M-L), a Marxist-Leninist party, but one whose leadership is in the grip of profound Maoist and liquidationist deviations.

The basis of the wrecking tactics used by the CPC(M-L), tactics which bear a great deal of the responsibility for the damaging events of October 4 and 17, does not lie in any excessive zeal on the part of the leadership of CPC(M-L) in fighting opportunism. On the contrary, the leadership of CPC(M-L) has over and over again reiterated its opposition to "ideological struggle," has called for building the People's Front without regard to politics or ideology, and has denounced our Party for its stand of carrying the struggle against Chinese revisionism and Maoism through to the end. Thus the serious damage done by the incidents in Vancouver shows that it is precisely denigration of the struggle against revisionism and opportunism that leads to sectarian head-bashing. Since the leadership of CPC(M-L) opposes the principled ideological struggle, it had no other way to solve the question of the different political trends in the anti-racist movement than through the use of highhandedness and force.

Our Party no longer has any relations with CPC(M-L) whatsoever. For a decade, from May 1969 to December 1979, our predecessors, the American Communist Workers Movement (M-L) and the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists, had close ties with the CPC(M-L). However, right from the start, these relations were never the comradely internationalist relations they could have and should have been. Problems existed in the relations, and were never resolved, because of the deviations of the CPC (M-L). Finally, in December 1979, the leadership of CPC (M-L), seeing that it could not subjugate our Party to its will and upset over our Party's profound struggle against Maoism and Chinese revisionism, unilaterally severed all relations between the two Parties and unleashed a savage war against us. Instead of sorting out the differences between the two Parties according to the norms established by Marxism-Leninism, they resorted to ugly wrecking activities.

In our Party's struggle against the wrecking activities organized by the leadership of CPC(M-L), we have put the issues of principle to the fore. As part of this, we have shown that CPC(M-L)'s unprincipled actions stem from its Maoist and liquidationist deviations. We have warned that these deviations are a danger to the CPC(M-L) itself. The events in Vancouver are a sad, if vivid, confirmation of the analysis of our Party on this question.

The Workers' Advocate has written this article with the aim of giving our assessment of the unprincipled wrecking activities pursued by the leadership of CPC(M-L) in relation to the events of October 4 and 17. The wrecking activities pursued in Vancouver were not the result of the misguided tactics of an individual unit of CPC(M-L) or the People's Front, but were given the closest attention from the Party center and have been enthusiastically applauded by a Central Committee plenum and by the central organ of the Party. Hence an examination of the recent events in Vancouver provides further insight into the ideological and political nature of the deviations afflicting the leadership of CPC(M-L).

The Course of Events

To begin it is first necessary to establish an outline of what actually took place on October 4 and 17 in Vancouver. The leadership of CPC(M-L) would like to smother any serious examination of its role in these events with emotional outcries about the "lies and slanders and distortions of events" in the capitalist news media and the revisionist and opportunist press. For this purpose it is once again making the bluff of threatening "lawsuits of malicious libel" against "as many as 300 individuals and institutions." (See People's Canada Daily News (PCDN) of October 27 and 28, 1981) Therefore, in order to clear the air of this smoke screen which has been created to cloud a serious examination of the tactics pursued by CPC(M-L), we will rely, in outlining the course of events, primarily on the account presented by the leadership of CPC(M-L) itself.

The Events of October 4

People's Canada Daily News, the central organ of the Central Committee of CPC(M-L) presents the following account of "What Took Place on October 4?":

"The 'BC Organization to Fight Racism' called a rally in Vancouver East on October 4. The People's Front mobilized members and supporters to participate in the rally, allegedly organized against racism and the Ku Klux Klan. The People's Front went to the rally under the slogan Unity in Action and the spokesman of the People's Front asked to speak at the rally. The spokesman of the People's Front was violently attacked by the organizers and they also attacked the other members and supporters of the People's Front. The People's Front members and supporters defended themselves and the organizers who could not carry on their violence had to retreat and run from the rally which they had themselves organized. The members and supporters of the the People's Front stayed at the place and engaged the broad masses of the people in discussions about the dastardly attack of the organizers of the rally and about the work of the People's Front. This is what happened on October 4." (PCDN, October 27,1981, emphasis added)

From this, it can be seen that there was no question about whether the People's Front could attend the rally, talk to the people there, and so forth. PCDN does not claim that any attempt was made to stop the People's Front from distributing literature, having placards, etc. This means that the People's Front had abundant opportunities to do political work at the rally and that such work would not have created any incidents.

According to PCDN, the fight took place only when a confrontation developed over whether the People's Front could speak at this rally, which was organized by the BCOFR, a group with which the People's Front has a sharp contradiction and which the People's Front calls "moderate fascists." The PCDN account cited above tries to give the impression that the representative of the People's Front was simply immediately attacked upon politely asking whether he could speak. In fact, the situation was not that simple, as is clear from other descriptions, in PCDN and elsewhere, of the events of October 4. The People's Front did not simply request permission to speak, but helped develop a tense and confrontation situation over this demand. As a Joint Statement of the People's Front and its affiliate, the East Indian Defence Committee, put it:

"We went there to listen and to speak, to give our opinions on the issue of racist and fascist violence.... The BCOFR not only tried to prevent us from presenting our opinions, they launched a physical attack against our speakers with baseball bats in a vain effort to suppress our views, and they were soundly put in their place." (PCDN, October 23, 1981)

The above reference in the Joint Statement to an "attack against our speakers," indicates that the People's Front actually attempted to speak despite the opposition of the rally organizers. In fact, according to the bourgeois press, both the People's Front and BCOFR speakers were "shouting into their megaphones." (See the Toronto Globe and Mail or the Seattle Times, October 5, 1981) This indicates that the People's Front speakers came equipped with megaphones and presumably used them when refused permission to address the rally. Anyone at all familiar with present-day political demonstrations is quite aware of what type of tense situation is created when one group attempts to take over control of who will speak at a demonstration organized by a rival group.

No matter how unjust the denial of the right to speak to the People's Front, this did not, in our opinion, relieve the People's Front of their obligation to bear in mind the overall interests of the proletariat and the revolutionary movement.

This is especially so because they had full opportunities to do political work at the demonstration despite the denial of a speaker. But it is clear that the People's Front made the question of whether they would speak into the main issue, the main significance, of the demonstration. Thus, in the Joint Statement, they stress that:

"...We utterly reject anyone who tries to prevent or stop democratic individuals from participating in public rallies, marches and demonstrations on matters of common concern and express their opinions. This is a fundamental democratic right and we will always defend this right as we did on October 17, 1981. (emphasis added)

As we shall see in a moment, with regard to the incident of October 17, PCDN does not deny that the People's Front struck first. So this statement amounts to an avowal that the People's Front regards the use of violence as justified whenever they are denied the right to speak at a rally. This is a prescription for a lot of head-bashing.

From the events of October 4 and the declarations above, it is hard to avoid the impression that the objective of the People's Front at the rally of October 4 was precisely to take over the leadership of the demonstration. PCDN triumphantly crowed that: "...The organizers...had to retreat and run from the rally which they themselves had organized." (PCDN, Oct. 27, 1981) It is notable that PCDN displayed little interest in the objectives of the demonstration. As we shall see later on in this article, CPC(M-L) in fact denigrates the struggle against the Klan, describes it as a "diversion," and has taken instead to organizing such activities as sports tournaments, which they claim will unite the people and prevent "Canadians...(from being) divided on the basis of nationality, race or region." It is also notable that while the People's Front makes a big fuss over whether they can speak from the speaker's platform, they remain silent on what differences in orientation for the struggle they would have put forward. It is precisely their participation in the creation of ugly scenes and disruptive activities at the demonstration, their putting above all else the question of who is presently in the leadership, combined with their lack of interest in the objectives of the demonstration, that marks the tactics of the People's Front at this demonstration as not only horribly misguided, but as even wrecking tactics.

The Events of October 17

Following the October 4 event, the People's Front and CPC(M-L) should not have gloated about their "victory." They should have seen what real harm this fight had caused. They should have seen that the tactics they were pursuing can only gladden the fascists of the Klan and their capitalist masters and can only damage the prestige of the anti-racist struggle and the Marxist-Leninists in the eyes of the masses.

When the BCOFR announced its plans to make another effort to hold its rally on October 17, it was the duty and responsibility of all concerned, including CPC(M-L), to do everything possible to prevent a repeat of October 4. Given the embittered situation, CPC(M-L) should have taken extraordinary measures to ensure that there would be no more head smashing and bloodshed which the bourgeoisie would inevitably use to discredit the anti-racist movement, create doubts about the motives of the Marxist-Leninists, and step up their propaganda for the Klan fascists.

But CPC(M-L) did the opposite. They immediately set about working for another "victory," a repeat of the debacle of October 4.

PCDN gives the following account:

"What Happened on October 17?

"A rally and march are again called by the same organizers but this time against the Ku Klux Klan and 'disruptors.' The People's Front again goes to the rally and march. The reactionaries come fully armed in riot squad formation and forcibly block the People Front members and supporters from joining the march. The People's Front members and supporters defend themselves. When this riot squad fails to split the march and it becomes abundantly clear that all the marchers will march in one formation, the police riot squad launches a vicious attack on the People's Front using their motorcycles, etc., to split the march. (PCDN, October 27,1981, emphasis added)

The People's Front-EIDC statement elaborates further:

"During the week preceding the October 17 rally, the People's Front and the East Indian Defense Committee released a public statement entitled 'Unite in Action Against the KKK and Racist and Fascist Violence' in which the attempt to physically deny us our right to speak by 'BCOFR' at the October 4 public rally was denounced....we called on everyone who was democratic-minded to attend the rally on October 17 and express their opposition to the KKK and racist and fascist violence. Over 10,000 of these statements were distributed in the days preceding October 17.

"The leaders of the 'BCOFR' did not respond to the call for united action against racist and fascist violence. Instead, in public statements on the TV and other media, they stated that they will never unite, and they issued arrogant and angry threats against us....

"Approximately 90 men confronted us in a goon squad....

"Despite the attempt by this self-appointed goon squad to try and split the demonstration and to prevent the People's Front contingent from even leaving the park, the People's Front aired their view at the park and successfully broke through the blockade of these helmeted thugs, joined the march, and proceeded down Fraser Street....

"The news media want to divert the issue by asking 'who struck the first blow' but none of them make the essential point -- the fight took place precisely because the 'BCOFR' self-appointed vigilante group physically tried to prevent the People's Front contingent from leaving the park to join the march.... Fighting occurred because the 'BCOFR' tried to deny the right of the People's Front to leave the park and proceed to march on the street as part of a publicly called demonstration on the streets against the KKK." (PCDN, October 23,1981)

What can be made of all this?

First of all it should be noted that the BCOFR announced well beforehand that they did not want a People's Front contingent in the march which they were organizing. They said so "in public statements on the TV and other media." In fact they made it clear that their march was aimed in part against the People's Front, i.e., what they called "disruptors." The People's Front then accepted the challenge and declared in 10,000 copies that it would be part of the BCOFR march no matter what the BCOFR said or did. In the embittered situation after October 4, this could only have been taken as the people's Front's declaration of intent to repeat the previous successful attempt to take over or disrupt the BCOFR event. At the march itself, the BCOFR had organized a large and well-equipped squad to keep the People's Front contingent out of their march. Nevertheless, the People's Front responded by proceeding to bash its way into the BCOFR column. Eventually the People's Front was separated from the rest of the march through the intervention of the police.

From its own account it is all too evident that CPC(M-L) took no measures whatsoever to avoid another clash. On the contrary, the People's Front smashed into the BCOFR column and "successfully broke through the blockade of these helmeted thugs" in complete disregard for the inevitable consequences -- another head-smashing brawl. PCDN does not even attempt to deny who struck first and instead says that to ask this question is "to divert the issue." Moreover, this precipitous action on the part of the People's Front could have had no other conceivable objective except to repeat the "victory" of October 4.

The CPC(M-L) account is generally corroborated by the descriptions in the capitalist press. However a couple of additional points of interest should be noted. According to the October 19 Vancouver Sun and other accounts and photographs of the event, the 400-450 people in the BCOFR march were heading south on Fraser Street when they were met by the 30-50 members of the People's Front who were marching north to confront the head of the BCOFR column. Before the two groups engaged, the BCOFR reversed direction and beat a retreat up Fraser Street. Hence the melee took place at what was then the rear of the BCOFR march.

This means that the People's Front actually attempted to "break through" the front of the BCOFR column and failed in this only because the march turned itself around. This further confirms that the People's Front was aiming not simply at joining the march, but was contesting its leadership.

CPC(M-L) hailed the October 4 and 17 fights as victories over the social-democrats and revisionists with PCDN carrying a headline "Splitters and wreckers defeated a- gain." A big campaign was begun in PCDN, with a series of statements coming in praising the actions of the People's Front on October 4 and 17, calling them "inspiring," and so forth. One statement even wished the People's Front "further victories." (PCDN, Nov. 25, 1981, p. 2, col. 4) But it was not the revisionists and social-democrats who were "defeated" in these melees. Quite the opposite. For the anti-racist demonstrators to be involved in brutal violent clashes among themselves in the face of the fascist propaganda and activity of the KKK against the people is a terrible thing. It is a despicable crime against the democratic sentiments of the Canadian people who despise the KKK and are deeply concerned about their activization by the bourgeoisie. These fights were defeats for the anti-racist movement and victories for the reactionary capitalist propaganda, including the promotion of the fascist cutthroats of the KKK. The violence in Vancouver is what provided the material for such gleeful headlines as "Anti-Racists in a Brawl" or "Riot Police Split Anti-Hate Groups." It is what made possible such news reports as those which quote Alex McQuirter, the Canadian "Grand Wizard" of the KKK, praising the anti-Klan demonstrators for "doing such a good job on each other " (Edmonton Journal, October 19, 1981); or the news story that reported this same "Grand Wizard" of fascist terrorism as saying that October 17 had been "a good day for the Klan." (Toronto Globe and Mail, October 19, 1981)

But CPC(M-L) does not even blink an eye at the harm that was done, let alone do they take any responsibility for it. Why did the People's Front not take responsible measures to avoid another confrontation? Why did the People's Front confront and attempt to "break through" the BCOFR column? For the leadership of CPC(M-L) these essential questions are irrelevant. After all, they proclaim, to ask "who struck the first blow" is merely an attempt to "divert the issue." Therefore so as to divert attention away from CPC(M-L)'s own responsibility for the violence, PCDN has simply resorted to loud shouting about all the crimes committed by the bourgeois press, the police, the courts, the opportunists, etc., etc., over the last decade.

The capitalist press is indeed a lying vehicle of reactionary and racist propaganda, of promotion of the Klan fascists, and of poisonous slanders against the anti-racist and progressive movements. Likewise the police, which attacked and arrested several People's Front members, are indeed arbitrary and brutal instruments of capitalist violence. And the social-democrats and revisionists are indeed reformist lackeys of the bourgeoisie guilty of untold crimes against the revolutionary movement. But the crux of the matter is that the wrecking work of CPC(M-L) against the October 4 and 17 rallies did nothing to combat these forces. On the contrary, it provided "a good day for the Klan," fueled the fire of the racist and anti-communist propaganda, and served to disrupt the anti-racist movement. This is the essential point that the leadership of CPC(M-L) is avoiding like the plague.

Let us now turn to examine the ideological and political stands which lie behind these wrong and harmful tactics pursued by the leadership of CPC(M-L).

Sermons of the People's Front Against the Anti-Klan Struggle

One of the basic ideological and political features lying behind the CPC(M-L)'s wrecking tactics on October 4 and 17 is their denigration of the mass movement against the hated fascist Ku Klux Klan. As can be seen from the pages of PCDN, the People's Front and CPC(M-L) are quite detached from the movement against the Klan in Vancouver. Thus they do not advance any guidelines for how to strengthen this movement; moreover, they have taken up phrasemongering against it. This lack of concern for this movement is one of the features that give such a strong wrecking flavor to their insistence of being the leader of any demonstrations, even at the expense of ugly scenes. It is their disparagement of the anti-racist movement that is one of the basic ideological reasons why they display no consciousness of the great harm done by the incidents of October 4 and 17 and instead judge everything in accordance with the petty interests of the moment, in accordance with simply the rivalry between themselves and the BCOFR. They ignore the interests of the revolutionary mass movement and see only the question of their rivalry with the BCOFR for the leadership of this or that demonstration.

For example, following the events of October 4 and 17, CPC(M-L) spent a great deal of attention on them. The 11th plenum of the CC of CPC(M-L) met on October 19 and discussed these events. ( PCDN,October 20, 1981) A meeting was held in Vancouver setting forth a program for dealing with the situation. The program included a petition concerning these events, a plan for a "People's Investigative Commission," and the usual empty threats from CPC(M-L) to launch libel suits in the courts. As well, PCDN began carrying a series of statements hailing the actions of the People's Front.

In all this activity, it is rather striking that CPC(M-L) put forward no program to the masses on how to carry forward the struggle against the Klan. The basic issue they raise is only the defense of the wrecking tactics of the People's Front and the cursing of the opportunists. Yet one would have supposed that any group that felt that it was vital, even at the price of head-bashing, to contest the leadership of the demonstrations would have had some program to deal with the anti-Klan struggle, some differences concerning how the struggle was being carried out, that they felt justified such extreme measures. But no. PCDN showed no interest in the anti-Klan struggle. Their interest had been only defying the BCOFR at the demonstrations that the BCOFR had organized.

What PCDN and the People's Front showed interest in with regard to the anti-racist struggle were basically those activities that either they directly organized or that they had a direct stake in. As far as October 4 and 17, therefore, their interest in the demonstrations was simply that the BCOFR had organized them, and not in what significance such demonstrations had, despite their being called by the BCOFR, for the struggle against the Klan. Instead, what PCDN stressed all through the period leading up to the October 4 and 17 events, incredibly enough, was athletic or sports tournaments. They are still carried away by this enthusiasm for sports events.

Let us examine CPC(M-L)'s stand on the anti-Klan movement in some more detail. PCDN has carried a series of ideological arguments slighting the anti-racist struggle. One of them is the longstanding theme of the leadership of CPC(M-L) that to fight against "racist and fascist violence" is one thing, but to "fight racism" is entirely different. They bitterly denounce "fighting racism" as allegedly being the line of inciting race war, of "making race the issue." This sectarian word-chopping, this absurd quibbling, shows an utter disregard for the revolutionary mass movement.

A typical example of this denunciation of "fighting racism" occurred in the events leading up to the October incidents in Vancouver. Under the pretext of denouncing the opportunists, the People's Front actually denounced the anti-racist movement in shameful words that echo the bourgeois liberals. PCDN reports that the People's Front issued a press release. Part of its content follows:

"We also condemn the Vancouver Province for its role in promoting the moderate fascists, in its story of June 2, 1981, 'Racism fighters prepared to use firearms.' The press release notes that the moderate fascists are neither 'racism fighters' nor 'community leaders' as the bourgeois press alleges, but in fact they are a product of the mass media just as is the KKK itself. These so-called 'racism fighters' are racist themselves and have not only joined the KKK in making race the issue, but also in creating KKK hysteria over firearms. This is precisely the script whereby some further provocations will be used to stir up a race war." (PCDN, June 3, 1981, emphasis added)

How devastating! Only it does not strike at the bourgeois press or at the opportunists but can only succeed in estranging the People's Front from the mass movement. This statement, while raising no concrete features concerning what the opportunists are doing and hence striking instead at the general idea of fighting racism, denounces the struggle against racism as allegedly "join(ing) (with) the KKK in making race the issue." In a word, the People's Front is simply giving voice to the ordinary liberal sermons against the militant struggle against the racists. With this phrasemongering People's Front has simply condemned all the progressive masses who are seething against the Klan's racism and who consider that fighting against it is indeed a burning issue into one big reactionary heap with the "moderate fascists" and the KKK itself.

The People's Front then goes on to endorse what it itself describes as the hypocritical slogans of the provincial government. PCDN continues:

"The People's Front press release goes on to vigorously condemn the hypocritical role of the provincial government whose ministers have been spouting off that this is a 'time for cool heads to prevail.' The statement points out that while these are fine-sounding words, they are betrayed by the actions of the government." (Ibid., emphasis added)

Good grief! The masses are being confronted with the outright fascist terrorism of the Klan. The government is appealing to the population to not get hot about this and calls for "cool heads to prevail." So the People's Front replies that, while they agree with these "fine-sounding" words, unfortunately the government is being hypocritical and "betraying" its own call for "cool heads."

But the People's Front has not reached rock bottom yet. It goes further and not only pledges that it will carry out the government's program of "cool heads," but it also outlines a program to do so. PCDN continues:

" 'The People's Front,' the press release continues, 'has kept and will keep a cool head in the face of these racist provocations. The recent successful sports tournament for the high school youth in Surrey and Delta, organized by the People 's Front on May 23, proves once again that the ordinary youth hate racism, and are united in their desire to uphold the democratic ideal." (Ibid., emphasis added)

Finally, the press release of the People's Front concludes, according to PCDN, with the following appeal:

"'We call upon the masses of British Columbia to reject all this racist hysteria and to join with the People's Front in developing a mass popular democratic opposition to war and fascism such as the International Sports and Cultural Festival being organized in Vancouver from August 1 to 3, the demonstration against imperialism, racism, fascism and war on July 31 and other actions....' " (Ibid., emphasis added)

So here we see what is behind this echoing of the provincial government's calls to keep a "cool head." The People's Front puts forth the basic program for the anti-racist struggle, the real issue, the true path, as -- the holding of sports tournaments.

Such things resemble the ludicrous antics of confused bourgeois liberals infatuated with the philistine belief that sports tournaments were the best way to unite people in their "desire to uphold the democratic ideal." But when such things are said in the name of Marxism-Leninism, moreover as the alleged crushing refutation of opportunism, then this is a big liquidationist deviation.

Nor is this reference to sports tournaments a mere passing aberration, as the reader might hope. We see that the press release refers to an "international festival" that is to be organized by the People's Front. Moreover, PCDN is full of stories about sports tournaments organized by CPC(M-L) and their supporters and eulogies of the value of this activity. For example, let us consider further PCDN's description of the Surrey-Delta sports match. The PCDN of May 25, 1981 carries a headline: "Surrey-Delta Invitational Sports Tournament a resounding success/ The youth are a powerful reserve in defense of democratic rights, and against imperialism, racism, fascism and war." The headline itself shows what incredible nonsense is being made about sports.

This PCDN also has a Joint Statement of the Surrey-Delta Sports Committee, the People's Front, and the East Indian Defense Committee. This Joint Statement describes that in fighting against racist attacks at a high school, one of the basic proposals that was put forward was that "an athletic tournament be held to unite the students and put an end to the tense atmosphere and repressive scene at the school." The Statement goes on to describe how, overcoming obstacles, this was accomplished, giving rise to the tournament reported on in this PCDN. The article states that "In our opinion the efforts to make our tournament happen, as well as the event itself, will have made a small contribution [it was only a small tournament, unlike the big big "international" one scheduled for August, which the statement ascribes greater powers to -- ed.]. The youth have proved again, through their athletic activity and friendly spirit that they are not racist." The Joint Statement goes on to "salute the democratic sports-minded youth of Queen Elizabeth School and others in their determination to end racism in their school." The People's Front makes a big point of organizing independently of politics and ideology, but apparently has found a substitute, sports-mindedness.

The Statement ends by calling on people to engage in more sports activities. It says they should "...carry on this work. The People's Front and East Indian Defense Committee are organizing and hosting an International Sports and Cultural Festival from August 1 to 3. There will be the founding conference of Youth Against Imperialism, Racism, Fascism and War on August 2. [Right in the middle of a sports tournament! -- ed.] We invite anyone interested in helping to make this event a big action to show once again Canadians will never allow themselves to be divided on the basis of nationality, race or region, nor be used as cannon fodder in another imperialist war, to sign the volunteer lists being circulated at the invitation sports tournament today." Here indeed sports and cultural events are described as not only having the power to fight racism, but also to oppose imperialist war preparations.

Our Party does not, of course oppose sports activities. Properly organized, they are helpful for the people's health. Like other cultural activities, it may indeed be possible to use them in an auxiliary role in certain situations. But to place sports in the middle of the struggle against racist and fascist attacks is simply ludicrous. It shows how far CPC(M-L) has detached itself from the revolutionary mass movement.

CPC(M-L) defends this rightism with a dash of semi-anarchist phrasemongering. In our article "Economist Distortions of the 'Make the Rich Pay!' Slogan" (Part 5 of the series "Against Mao Zedong Thought!" in The Workers' Advocate, March 10, 1981), we showed that, while CPC (M-L) has moved to accentuate its rightist and even liquidationist theories, they still combine this rightism with semi-anarchist blunders. The liquidationism is flavored with semi-anarchist seasoning. And so it is, as well, with their negation of the anti-Klan movement.

While the People's Front concentrates a good deal of its activities on organizing sports tournaments, it justifies this with the semi-anarchist phrasemongering that the struggle against the Klan is a " diversion," presumably from the direct revolutionary struggle against the bourgeoisie and the state that is represented by sports tournaments. For example, writing of the All-Canada March, writes:

"The All-Canada March is aimed at further developing the struggle against the KKK and other racist and fascist groups, but this struggle is being waged by keeping firmly in mind the fact that the promotion of such groups is a diversion so that the people do not look at the bourgeoisie and the state as the real culprits, the real perpetrators and organizers of racist and fascist violence. Such diversions are being organized by the bourgeoisie not only in Canada, but throughout the world.... In fighting the KKK and other racist and fascist groups, the people must direct their main blows against the bourgeoisie and its state." (PCDN, July 27,1981, emphasis added)

What an inspiring perspective for the fight against the racist and fascist groups: you may fight, but with the consciousness that you fight a shadow, a mere creation of the bourgeois media of no real importance, and that you are avoiding the real battle. And what is the real battle, the way the people can direct their main blows against the bourgeoisie and its state? Well, the All-Canada March itself is a good example of that. Bear in mind that the All-Canada March has its grand finale in Vancouver and culminates in, yes, you guessed it, the International Sports and Cultural Festival. For that matter, the People's Front claims that the Surrey-Delta Sports Tournament was one of the "successes organized by the people by taking matters into their own hands and not relying on various government or trade union or school officials to 'protect' them, pose a big threat to the rich and their state." (PCDN, June 3, 1981, emphasis added)

Sports, you see, are one thing that, for the time being, CPC(M-L) stoutly maintains is not a diversion. They may and have attacked the ideological struggle, the struggle against national oppression, the struggle for trade union democracy, the struggle for a better contract, etc., as diversionary, but not sports festivals. This was clarified by the Chairman of CPC(M-L) in a speech he gave in Britain. In this speech, he issued CPC(M-L)'s standard condemnation of the opportunists for "promoting every kind of diversion." Among other things, he accused the opportunists of the "diversion" of labeling the International Sports and Cultural Festival in Vancouver as "a diversion from revolution." But, he explained, such sporting events are in reality "extremely important in the life of the people." (Workers Weekly, November 28, 1981) What a sick joke.

The basic ideological deviation behind this incessant cry of CPC(M-L) about "diversions" was explained in our article referred to above on CPC(M-L)'s economist distortion of the "Make the Rich Pay!" slogan as follows:

"Finally we take up the constant refrain from the crusaders that everything is a 'diversion.' No matter what the real world, the needs of the practical movement, calls for, the crusaders have a penchant for denouncing it all as a diversion. This too was strikingly revealed in their propaganda during the 1980 elections. They refused to deal with the actual policies put forward by the capitalist parties under the hoax that this was all 'diversionary.' They denounced the struggle for a shorter workweek as 'diversionary.' With respect to the struggle against national oppression, they declared:'To our estimation, the rich raise this question as a diversion.' On other occasions, they have declared all kinds of things -- such as the ideological struggle, the struggle against the trade union bureaucrats, the question of trade union democracy -- as 'diversions.' And any request to explain how to 'make the rich pay' has been denounced as the biggest diversion of all!

"What this amounts to is essentially anarchist mocking of the real world and the actual class struggle. Instead of dealing with the real world as it exists, the crusaders denounce the real world. They proclaim their fury at it because it won't fit their preconceived ideas. In this respect, it is not strange at all that they denounce our Party as the theoreticians of 'the movement.' This reveals in a concentrated form their disdain for the actual class movement of the proletariat. Instead of dealing with the actual class movement, the crusaders counterpose to it their particular shibboleth of the day, such as their distorted conceptions of 'Make the Rich Pay!'

In the case of the anti-racist movement, a further aspect of this semi-anarchism is apparent. The People's Front and CPC(M-L) directly organizes the sports festivals. They do not, however, have leadership of the mass actions in Vancouver. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this is part of the reason for their enthusiasm for the sports sphere of work and for their denigration of the anti-Klan struggle. Indeed, it must not be overlooked that in the sporting matches which they spend so much time and effort organizing, CPC (M-L) is able to exercise its undivided leadership over a wide field of events, including Kabbadi, volleyball, soccer, softball and more.

Thus CPC(M-L) denigrates the mass movement against the Klan, describes the anti-racist movement as,a "diversion," and is detached enough from the revolutionary mass movement to eulogize the organizing of sports tournaments. But for what principle, then, was the People's Front fighting when they took upon themselves a big part of the responsibility for the head-bashings of October 4 and 17? It is CPC(M-L)'s negation of the revolutionary mass movement, its closing its eyes to the existence of anything but their rivalry with the opportunist chieftains, that is one of the ideological bases of their wrecking tactics in October.

This article will be continued in a future issue of The Workers' Advocate. It will go into further questions, such as the CPC(M-L)'s use of the "unity in action" and "no unity in action" slogans. It will also further demonstrate that the head-bashings of October 4 and 17 had nothing to do with fighting against opportunism. On the contrary, sectarian head-bashing goes hand in hand with denigration of the ideological struggle and an attitude of pragmatic maneuvers with the opportunist chieftains.

[Photo: Above: One of three photographs in a display in the New York Daily News of October 19,1981. The leadership of CPC(M-L) bore a big part of the responsibility for the head-bashings of October 4 and 17 in Vancouver, Canada, which were propagated all over the U.S. and Canada by the bourgeoisie in order to discredit the anti-racist movement and isolate the Marxist-Leninists.]

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Militant Celebrations in Solidarity with Socialist Albania

Today the People's Socialist Republic of Albania is the only socialist country in the world, a bright red beacon of socialism inspiring the working class of every country. On November 29, the Albanian people celebrated the 37th anniversary of the complete victory of their heroic war of liberation from the Nazi-fascist occupiers. This victory began Albania's triumphant march on the road of socialism. This year too, on November 8, the Albanian people celebrated the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Party of Labor of Albania. And during the first week of November, the PLA held its 8th Congress.

These important events in the life and struggle of the Albanian working class and people were also the cause for celebrations in the U.S. During the first weeks of December, a series of meetings in solidarity with socialist Albania were organized by the Marxist-Leninist Party in cities across the country.

The meetings, held in New York, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, and the San Francisco Bay area, emphasized that the victories of socialist construction in Albania provide a magnificent perspective to inspire the class struggle of the workers in the U.S. The slogans Fight Reagan and the capitalist offensive! and Socialism is the goal of the workers' struggle! provided the militant theme for these celebrations.

The meetings also put stress on the valuable lessons to be learned from the 40 year history of the PLA. This history is a vivid, living textbook of Marxism- Leninism. It helps to orient the struggle of the working masses against the capitalist offensive which is headed up by the Reagan government. It also assists to tear the phony "Marxist" mask off the liquidators. Whether pro- Soviet, pro-Chinese or trotskyite, these liquidators are opposing the workers building their own vanguard party in the U.S. They are merging with social-democracy and mocking at the revolution and the basic revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism.

The meetings in all of the cities were marked with a militant spirit of enthusiasm for socialism. The speeches by the representatives of the MLP were frequently interrupted with enthusiastic applause. Revolutionary songs from Albania and the U.S. resounded through the meeting halls. In Chicago, a play based on Comrade Enver Hoxha's memoirs, The Khrushchevites, portrayed the heroic struggle waged by the PLA against the revisionists of the Soviet Union in the 1950's and early 1960's. In New York, the liberation war of the Albanian people was depicted through a reading from the Albanian novel, The Bronze Bust. As well, the solidarity messages from the Caribbean Progressive Study Group and the Baldemiro Castro Committee (New York) of the Communist Party of Labor (Dominican Republic) further brought out the international support of the workers for socialism in Albania.

As part of these celebrations, the December 10 issue of The Workers' Advocate was devoted to the 8th Congress of the PLA. It carried the MLP's salute to the 8th Congress and reprinted the summaries of Comrade Enver Hoxha's Report Submitted to the 8th Congress and the Report on the 7th Five-Year Plan, as well as other important news of the Congress events. As well, the complete Report Submitted to the 8th Congress was reprinted in the MLP's journal Proletarian Internationalism.

The meetings were the culmination of a vigorous campaign to spread the word of the socialist victories of Albania to the working masses in the U.S. Tens of thousands of copies of a special issue of The Workers' Advocate, dated November 29, were distributed in the factories, in the working class communities, at various schools and universities, and in the mass struggles of the workers and people. Everywhere the workers, the oppressed masses and youth greeted the news about socialism in Albania and lifted their heads with interest at the prospect that here in the U.S. too the vicious capitalist exploitation can be defeated and a happy and prosperous socialist life can be built.

The great sympathy which the workers showed for socialism in Albania and the militant meetings that were held are concrete manifestations that the beacon of socialism, Albania, is shining in the U.S.; irresistibly beckoning to the exploited and downtrodden; showing them the goal for which they fight; and inspiring them with the courage, the strength and determination to carry forward the class struggle to final victory.

[Photos: Militant meetings in solidarity with socialist Albania organized by the MLP in Chicago (1), December 12; Boston (2), December 12; Seattle (3), December 11; New York City (4), December 5; and San Francisco (5), December 13.]

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We Mourn the Death of Comrade Mehmet Shehu

On December 19, 1981 the Albanian Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin carried an announcement of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania, the Presidium of the People's Assembly of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania and the Council of Ministers of the PSRA. This stated that "In the night between December 17-18, at a moment of nervous breakdown, Comrade Mehmet Shehu, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, committed suicide."

Comrade Mehmet Shehu was born on January 10, 1913. In November 1937 he traveled to Spain where he participated in the struggle against fascism as a member of the 12th International Brigade. After fighting in Spain, in 1939 he was imprisoned by the fascists in a concentration camp in France. In August 1942 he returned to Albania, where he plunged into the anti-fascist struggle, joining the Communist Party of Albania.

Comrade Mehmet Shehu was a gifted commander and leader of the National Liberation War. After being first appointed as commander of a guerrilla unit in Malekastra, in August 1943 he was made Commander of the First Storm Brigade by the General Staff of the Albanian National Liberation Army. For a time after liberation, he carried out the functions of Chief of the General Staff of the Albanian army.

Comrade Mehmet Shehu was elected as a candidate member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Albania at the First National Conference in March 1943. At the First Congress of the Party in November 1948, he was elected to the CC and to its Political Bureau. He has been reelected to these posts at every subsequent Congress including the 8th Congress last year. From 1954 until his death he was Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Albanian government. According to press reports, in recent years Comrade Mehmet Shehu was in failing health and was receiving medical treatment.

Comrade Mehmet Shehu was not only an outstanding figure in the Albanian people's liberation war and socialist revolution, he was also an outstanding personality in the ranks of the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement. The Workers' Advocate deeply mourns the loss of Comrade Mehmet Shehu and sends our condolences to the Party of Labor of Albania and the Albanian people.

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