WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!

The Workers' Advocate

Vol. 18, No. 2

VOICE OF THE MARXIST-LENINST PARTY OF THE USA

25¢ February 1, 1988

[Front Page:

Spying on the anti-war movement--FBI = America's political police;

Shame on the Israeli occupiers! Palestinian youth fight on;

REPORT FROM KURDISTAN]

IN THIS ISSUE

Spying on the anti-war movement

FBI = America's political police

Shame on the Israeli occupiers!

Palestinian youth fight on

REPORT FROM KURDISTAN

'88 Elections

Why the ruling class worries about 'what follows Reagan?'

Orrin Hatch cares-but not much

AFL-CIO politicking flops again

Jesse Jackson preaches against class struggle to IP strikers

Why the contragate hearings were a dud:

Democrats say no 'Reagan bashing'

Strikes and workplace news

• While layoffs mount: UAW and GM bosses meet to 'cut costs'
• Northwest dockers walk out against union busting
• Cannery workers show solidarity
• Farm workers from Mexico join strike in California
• Judge orders striking L.A. nurses back to work
• Nurses at Oakland hospital stage sickout
• N. Dakota miners' strike gains support
• Auto crisis and socialism

The homeless fight back

DOWN WITH RACISM!

• Anti-racists take to the streets of New York
• Day of Outrage II
• Anti-racist protests on ML King day
• Anti-racist sit-in at U. of Michigan
• Police killing of black truck driver protested in Texas

FBI spying and the people's rights

Revolutionary Kurdistan-- background notes

U.S. imperialism, get out of Central America!

• Navy's death train sues its victim
• Confessions of an Arias plan supporter
• The peace plan and 'death squad' democracy in Honduras
• Fig leaf for American bayonet
  Central American summit
• A tale of two drug dealers
• Not a penny for the contras!

What's holding back the solidarity movement with Palestine?

U.S. activists support Palestinian youth

Arab governments fear Palestinian struggle

The World in Struggle

• Chilean miners in combative mood
• General strike hits Peru
• Outrage against killings by dictator in Bangladesh
• Steelworkers protest plant closings in W. Germany
• Condemn the long prison terms for Portuguese anti-fascists
• New issue of 'Red Dawn' from Sweden

Chilean miners in combative mood

General strike hits Peru

Outrage against killings by dictator in Bangladesh

Steelworkers protest plant closings in W. Germany

Condemn the long prison terms for Portuguese anti-fascists

New issue of 'Red Dawn' from Sweden

Spying on the anti-war movement

FBI = America's political police

The FBI has been conducting massive spying against opponents of U.S. intervention in Central America. At the end of January the huge scope of this spy operation was partially revealed. Over 150 organizations had been targeted by the FBI, including left-wing groups, religious groups, and university groups. The project has proceeded for about the entire length of Reagan's presidency.

Wire Taps, Mail Opening, and an Army of Paid Informers

The FBI made use of paid informers, undercover agents (spies), wire taps, break-ins of offices, and interception of mail. It can be recalled that undercover agents and infiltrators from the FBI, INS and other agencies were used to prosecute the sanctuary activists who sheltered refugees from U.S.-backed death squad regimes in Central America.

The FBI carried out spying operations all across the country. According to the chairman of the House subcommittee on civil and constitutional rights, every single field office of the FBI was involved.

The FBI pretends that this operation was to find evidence of "foreign intelligence-terrorism.'' On the contrary. The FBI operation itself was political terrorism against the movement.

The FBI Protects the Real Terrorists

If the FBI wanted to find violent terrorism in the U.S., it could file charges against the contra training camps in Florida and against their gunrunning and drug dealing. But the FBI only shrugs. Or the FBI could deal with the bombing of abortion clinics. But the FBI usually says it has no jurisdiction. And when it comes to racism, the FBI itself is racist to the core. It was recently revealed that the Omaha and Chicago FBI offices took part in persecuting one of the FBI's own agents simply for being black.

FBI--Tool of Right-Wing Politics

In reality, the FBI protects the real terrorists, such as the contras. It is investigating the anti-war movement in order to destroy the opposition to the contras. Whether under Democratic Presidents during the war in Viet Nam or under Reagan in the wars against the Nicaraguan people and the Salvadoran insurgents, the FBI is a political police force. It carries out its crimes in secrecy under the shield of "national security."

American Freedom-- for Capitalists Only

And the FBI is only one of the many police agencies operating against the workers and the progressive movement. The American capitalists boast of the alleged "freedom" in the U.S. Oh yes, you can vote for Bush or Kemp, Hart or Gephardt. But when it comes to opposing imperialist war, the FBI's undercover agents go into action and the Navy orders trains to plow through demonstrators. When it is a question of going on strike, the police are as thick as flies all over the picket lines, and the National Guard was even sent in to suppress the Hormel strikers.

It's democracy only so long as the workers agree to support one capitalist or another. As soon as the working class stands up for its own interests, the talk of democracy ceases and the talk of "national security" and suppressing "terrorism" takes over.

The activists and working class movement can have no illusions in capitalist legality or the police. The government and police are not above the class struggle, but serve the exploiters. The militant working class must have nothing but contempt for America's political police.

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Shame on the Israeli occupiers!

Palestinian youth fight on

They have braved bullets and tear gas. They have stood up to mass arrests. Now they are daily defying beatings by soldiers who break their hands and bones.5 Day after day, week after week, the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza remain unrelenting in their fight against the Israeli occupation.

At the end of December the Palestinian protests had appeared to calm down. The Zionists boasted that their savage policy of shooting demonstrators was successful. But the lull was only a temporary one. In January the protests exploded again. And since then the upsurge has been stronger than ever.

Indeed, whenever there is a brief lull in the street fighting, the Israeli regime barks out that its latest measures of repression have worked. But the Palestinians prove them wrong the very next day.

The outrage among the Palestinian toilers is so widespread that when the youth go into action, they are backed up by people of all ages and both sexes.

Middle-aged men join the youths in demonstrations and stone-throwing. Older women confront the Israeli troops, blocking them when the soldiers try to chase "the guys," and denouncing the soldiers to their faces. Mothers teach their infants to cast stones at the occupation troops.

In addition to the street demonstrations, the Israelis have been hard hit by the ongoing strikes among the Palestinians.

Almost no Palestinian workers crossed the border into Israel from the occupied territories for the first two weeks of January. This meant 100,000 workers absent from the Israeli economy. This is no small blow; the Israeli economy heavily depends on cheap Palestinian labor for sanitation, construction, and many other backbreaking jobs.

The Israeli Zionists are also hard hit by the ongoing strikes of shopkeepers in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel also relies heavily on the sale of consumer goods to the Palestinians. And the shop closures also signify a disruption of normal business, a sign that the Palestinian community is united in the uprising. Israeli pressure on shopkeepers to open their businesses is growing more and more severe.

Protests by Palestinians Inside Israel

Palestinian Arabs within Israel have tried to extend their solidarity with their brothers and sisters in the occupied territories. The Israeli regime was hit hard by a one-day general strike of Palestinian workers in December.

On January 23rd 30,000 Arabs who are citizens of Israel rallied in Nazareth denouncing the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Demonstrators called on Israeli troops to get out of the occupied territories.

Meanwhile, militant demonstrations by Arabs are also being organized inside East Jerusalem. The Zionists consider this city part of Israel proper, having annexed it shortly after the 1967 war. It is especially galling to the Zionists to have militant anti-zionist demonstrations right inside their capital.

Israeli Jews Protest Too

Also on January 23rd 50,000 Israelis rallied in Tel Aviv to protest the government's treatment of Palestinians and to demand withdrawal from the occupied territories. This was the largest demonstration ever against the Israeli occupation, and shows the Israeli government's attempt to isolate the Palestinians is running into trouble.

The demonstration in Tel Aviv was organized by Peace Now, a liberal group originally formed to protest the Israeli occupation of Lebanon. The growth of sympathy for the Palestinians among Jewish residents of Israel bodes well for the future, since an alliance between the Arab and Jewish toilers could be a powerful revolutionary force against the zionist ruling class.

Peace Now is however not a militant or revolutionary force. Its leaders still support the zionist concept of a state for Jews alone. Only they promote the reformist illusion of a zionism without national oppression, a zionism that can have coexistence with the Palestinians.

Still, the revival of mass demonstrations by Peace Now shows that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the Israeli government's repressive policies even among people still harboring illusions in zionism.

Regime Tries to Cover Up Brutality While Increasing Repression

In the face of worldwide condemnation, the Israeli Zionists are claiming to have modified their brutal methods of occupation. But events prove daily that this is a farce.

A few weeks ago the Israelis said they were giving up shooting live ammunition at demonstrators. This came after years of insisting that this policy was "absolutely essential" and there was no alternative. At the same time vague promises were thrown about of reforms and negotiations, only if the demonstrations are stopped.

But the Zionists have not suddenly become humane. They have stepped up another savage policy -- breaking people's bones. The government has adopted a policy of mass beatings to try and bludgeon the Palestinian population into submission. In the refugee camps, Israeli soldiers go from house to house at night beating residents with clubs, rifle butts, fists and boots. Their favorite activity is breaking the hands of young Palestinian men -- hundreds of fractures have been reported at hospitals and clinics -- but they also beat older men and women, and children.

The Zionists are also using curfew as a weapon against the Palestinians. Refugee camps in Gaza have been totally isolated by curfew for much of the last month, and residents there have been going hungry. When progressive Jews from Israel organized a convoy of trucks bearing food to go to Gaza, Israeli troops turned back the trucks at the border. Curfews have also been imposed on some West Bank towns and on areas of East Jerusalem.

But even the promise of not using live ammunition didn't last too long. On January 30, the Israeli troops were again shooting at demonstrators on the West Bank.

Forward With the Struggle!

The uprising since December 8 illustrates once again the resiliency and militancy of the Palestinian toilers. Despite being beaten, gassed, and shot, the masses in the West Bank and Gaza continue to surge forward.

The Palestinian youth are today an inspiration to the oppressed people everywhere; they are a model of courage and determination to all who hate tyranny and racism.

[Photo: Support the Palestinian struggle -- pages 14 & 15]

[Photo: Palestinians inside Israel demonstrate in the city of Nazareth in solidarity with the struggle on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, January 23.]

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REPORT FROM KURDISTAN

[Photo.]

During December and January a medical team of the MLP,USA traveled to Kurdistan in the mountainous, war-torn border region between Iran and Iraq. The team was invited by Komala, the Kurdish organization of the Communist Party of Iran.

Our trip gave us a peek behind the shroud of lies and propaganda that the ruling governments have wrapped around this complex and tortured region.

To justify its own criminal gunboat policy, the U.S. government has told us something about the crimes of the Khomeini tyranny. We also know something about the tragic Iran-Iraq war.

But there is something we don't hear about. We don't hear about the struggle of the workers and communists against the tyranny of the Islamic regime. Nor about their resistance to the capitalist slaughter on the Iran-Iraq frontier. Nor about their strivings for liberation from capitalist exploitation and for socialism.

We don't hear about these things because of the information blockade of both the U.S. and Iranian rulers. The MLP trip marks a breach in this blockade.

More than that. It's also a big step in building solidarity between the workers and Marxist-Leninist communists of the United States and the workers and communists of Kurdistan and Iran.

Along the war-torn border mountains

The brutal regimes of both Iran and Iraq continue their war without letup. In recent years, the war has been extended from the southern marshlands into the northern highlands, a region populated by the Kurds. We were shown hilltops where thousands of young men were dispatched to their deaths in meaningless offensives and counteroffensives. And every day we could hear the not-so-distant thud of artillery.

Added to this horror there is another war, the war of the governments against the Kurds. Both sides of the border are militarized to the teeth. However, part of this mountainous border region is no-man's land, out of reach of the troops (but not of the artillery and mortar barrages) of either Iran or Iraq. Much of this is under the effective control of Kurdish guerrilla forces. This is where the Komala-CPI camps are strung along the rugged border mountains.

Our MLP team spent several weeks touring these camps. We held extensive discussions with the Komala-CPI comrades, from the Central Committee to the rank and file. And much was learned about the revolutionary movement in Iran and Kurdistan.

Komala-CPI -- A political force

In the midst of the Iranian nightmare of war and tyranny, Komala and the CPI represent a new quality, the hope of the workers and downtrodden.

Since the days of the Shah, Komala has been one of the two most important Kurdish political forces. It was the force that fought for the interests of the toilers. In the revolutionary upheaval unleashed with the Shah's downfall, Komala, along with the bourgeois nationalist KDP (Kurdish Democratic Party), was the virtual power in Kurdistan.

The defeat of the revolution was bitter and painful for the Iranian left. But the most clear sighted of the left drew from the revolutionary experience important lessons. They had seen the Iranian working class rise in revolution, only for the revolution to be strangled because the working class was not sufficiently organized as an independent political force with its own socialist aims. Komala and revolutionary Marxists from other parts of Iran absorbed these lessons, paving the way for the formation of the Communist Party of Iran in September 1983.

The militant Marxist positions of the CPI have placed their mark on everyone we met in the camps. Life in the camps is not easy; it's part of a hard, bloody and complex struggle. Nonetheless, the camps are filled with a fiery spirit of revolutionary determination.

There is a high level of political consciousness. Naturally, there is bitter hatred for the Khomeini regime. At the same time, there is a clear understanding that this is not simply a fight against a brutal dictator; it's also a fight against the capitalist class whose interests the regime serves. In this class spirit there is a sharp awareness of the need to safeguard the independence of the working class from the political influence of the bourgeois liberals. The Mojahadeen, the KDP, and all other bourgeois factions are held up to ridicule for their neglect of the workers and for, in different ways, cringing before the Islamic regime.

There is also awareness that the Islamic regime is tied with a thousand threads to world capitalism; this includes the Western imperialist powers as well as the Soviet, Chinese and other state capitalists. The camps are filled with the internationalist spirit that their struggle is inseparable from the struggle of the workers and oppressed of all countries.

This same working class internationalism guides the revolutionary work in Kurdistan. Komala militants don't describe their struggle as merely for autonomy and other rights of the Kurdish nation; in the first place they are fighting for the rights of the workers and toilers as part of the struggle of the whole Iranian working class for socialism.

These politics are in no way self-contained in the camps. All of the activity in the camps is devoted towards assisting the work of raising the consciousness and mobilization of the working people in the interior. In Kurdistan, Komala is already a major political force. The militant and active workers collaborate with it, and it enjoys the respect of the toilers throughout the region. In the rest of Iran the CPI does not have the same strength. However, it has emerged as the most important left-wing force, with a trend of support among the workers.

The Khomeini regime has done everything in its power to scrub out the gains of the revolution. It has turned the country into a prison for the torture and execution of leftists. It has dispatched the army to pacify Kurdistan. But one gain of the revolution remains that it cannot stamp out: the communist trend of Komala and CPI.

Armed contingent of the revolutionary workers

Our team had a lot of contact with Komala's peshmargas, or armed fighters. During the winter snows the camps become home for thousands of peshmargas. This is because the larger formations of fighters are withdrawn from the interior of Kurdistan to rest and study after arduous summer-through-fall military campaigns.

We had the opportunity to meet with hundreds of these fighters, from veteran battalion commanders to new recruits at the training center. These men and women are not your ordinary soldiers. Despite their business of fighting Khomeini's forces, despite living with a kalashnikov automatic rifle on their shoulder and hand grenades on their chest, there is no militarist spirit among them. They carry the spirit of politically enlightened and class conscious workers and toilers. Everywhere, the peshmargas asked us about the situation facing the American workers, as well as about the working class struggle in. Nicaragua and other countries.

The peshmargas have countless tales of heroism and bravery in battle. However, the stories that they are most proud of illustrate their close bonds with the working people. They see their military operations as a means to reinforce the mass struggles and political organization of the villagers and city workers.

The communist workers' underground

Some of our most interesting interviews were with the organizations responsible for the clandestine work. Under Iranian conditions affiliation to a left-wing organization means prison, torture and often the firing squad. By necessity the clandestine work is a pillar of the work of Komala and the CPI.

The clandestine work is most advanced in Kurdistan, where, among other favorable conditions, it has the assistance of the armed peshmargas. However, it is also unfolding in working class centers from Teheran to Isfahan.

We talked to people involved in an extensive underground system to give the workers political guidance and communist education. This includes networks of communications and the production and distribution of special clandestine literature. The clandestine activity lays stress on developing the mass economic and political struggles.

There is the growth of the economic strike movement in the brickyards and other work places. This has given rise to workers' general assemblies, the rudiments of trade unions, and other mainly underground workers' organizations.

There are the protests against the humiliation of women. There is also the resistance to the military draft and the Iran-Iraq war.

The clandestine organization is also involved in the mobilization of the workers directly for their own revolutionary aims. Such was last year's May First demonstration in the city of Sanandaj -- a bold action that focused the attention of workers across Iran.

The struggle for women's rights

The oppression of women is one of the sharp political issues. The humiliation of being forced under the veil is a public expression of this oppression. But the brutal degradation of women involves a whole apartheid-like system that robs women of the most elementary rights as human beings. Adding insult to injury, especially in the rural villages, the anti-women laws of the Islamic regime come on top of feudal-type social customs -- for example, the practice of forced marriages of young girls.

The CPI is the force which consistently defends women's rights. Not surprisingly, this has gained it much support. A woman member of the MLP team held several meetings with groups of women peshmargas -- both veteran fighters and new recruits. She heard stories of the shameless treatment women are subject to. At the same time, she heard how the CPI has trained these women as class conscious militants. The women peshmargas are renowned for their bravery, fighting in the same military units as the men for the common working class cause.

The fight against the war

Another sharp political issue is the struggle against military conscription. The Iran-Iraq war is consuming the whole region. Most of all it is consuming young men; they are hunted like animals, beaten, jailed, and dragged away for the slaughter.

The resistance to conscription is particularly sharp in Kurdistan, where the military draft and forced arming is part of the Iranian regime's efforts to pacify the region. This gives rise to a constant struggle by working people to hide potential conscripts and to free them when they are captured.

At the training camp we spoke to a new recruit from the region of Lorestan. He pointed out that the draft and the economic hardships due to the war make it so young people simply cannot breathe; they have no way out but to join the revolutionary struggle. That's why he made his way to Kurdistan and to Komala-CPI.

'Radio Voice of Revolution' and 'Radio Voice of CPI'

Our team spent several days at the camp where the Komala and CPI radio programs are produced and broadcast. Combined, the radios provide eight to eleven hours of transmission a day.

They provide hundreds of thousands of loyal listeners with news of the struggles of the working people domestically and around the world. They also popularize the political views of the CPI and Komala, Marxist theory, and progressive culture.

The radios are also a direct organizing tool. They carry special programs to guide the work of the underground activists. As well, after the regular broadcasts they transmit coded messages to the comrades in the underground.

Medicine for the revolution

Of course, the MLP team also visited Komala's hospital and medical clinics. Komala's medical service is aimed at treating the wounded and sick peshmargas. But it also has clinics to serve the local villagers.

The conditions are harsh, to say the least. By necessity the hospital and clinics are in primitive buildings. There is the mountain mud and other pressures of nature. There is the pressure of the frequent shellings of the camps. The facilities and supplies are minimal. Nonetheless the medical service does an amazing job, from routine dental work to relatively complex surgery.

One of the miracles Komala has created is an elaborate system of battlefield medicine. From where most of the peshmargas' military actions take place, their hospital is a 12-day march by foot or mule over high mountain ridges and through mine fields. So they need a system of treating the wounded on the spot.

Our team visited the medical classes where peshmargas are trained as medics capable of saving lives in the field. We also met a young man in the hospital who had been critically wounded in battle. Right under the hostile fire of the regime's soldiers, his medic comrades performed hours of abdominal surgery, rescuing him from sure death.

More reports to come

All this is by way of introduction to our trip. In future issues of The Workers' Advocate we will submit further reports.

To begin with, we will carry an account of the revolutionary storms over the last decade. Out of this class upheaval Komala and the CPI have grown and become tempered.

We will also start to fill in the outlines of what we've already touched on. As well, we hope to report on other things we observed, including the political and military education at Komala's training camp, and a revolutionary trial of an accused agent of the regime. We also would like to relay firsthand reports about the situation in Khomeini's prisons, reports given to us by brave and defiant men and women communists.

The courageous struggle of the Iranian communists and workers, from the factories of Teheran to the mountains of Kurdistan, is a school of revolutionary experience that all class conscious workers and progressive activists can learn from. While their field of battle is on the other side of the world, they are on the front lines of our common struggle.

[Photo: A Komala-CPI camp nestled in the mountains.]

[Photo: Komala peshmargas interview the MLP team about the conditions and struggles of the workers in the U.S. They are part of the Mahabad battalion, which normally operates in the district of that city. During the months of the deep snow they have been withdrawn to this border camp to rest and guard the Komala and CPI radio station.]

[Photo: Right: Anti-aircraft gun fires on "enemy" position as part of a military exercise at the Komala training camp. Heavy machine guns are also used to protect the camps from assault from both ground and air. In September, Komala gunners shot down an attacking F-14 Phantom fighter-bomber of the Iranian regime.]

[Photo: New recruits meet with the MLP team at the Komala training center. Over 60% of the volunteers at the camp were workers. Despite their youth, many have years of experience with the Komala-CPI underground.]

[Photo: A member of the MLP team with a group of new women volunteers at the Komala training camp.]

[Photo: Comrade in charge of the day's transmission oversees the radio broadcast.]

[Photo: Medical personnel at the clinic in Komala's Chenoreh village camp.]

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'88 Elections

Why the ruling class worries about 'what follows Reagan?'

With the new year, the 1988 election season is upon us. Ho hum. So far, there have been more scandals and trivia than anything else. No candidate has yet stepped forth as the shining knight of the post-Reagan years. More to the point, the movers and shakers of the establishment -- the capitalist rulers of America -- have not yet selected a favorite.

The candidates speak in vague generalities and promote hollow slogans. The capitalist establishment itself complains that while it is eager to see some "new ideas," none of the candidates have anything serious to offer the bourgeoisie.

However this is not just some peculiarity of the candidates. What this seems to reflect is that the bourgeoisie hasn't itself sorted out what themes it wants to push in the post-Reagan period. In fact the capitalist mouthpieces in the news media refer to the present period as one of uncertainty, as a tentative period.

For some time now, the big business newspapers and magazines have begun writing on the theme of "what's after Reagan?" This discussion escalated after the Wall Street crash in October. It is through this discussion that the bourgeoisie is setting the climate for the program that will be pushed in the coming years.

For example, the October 1987 issue of The Atlantic Monthly carried a major article which begins: "America has let its infrastructure crumble, its foreign markets decline, its productivity decline, its savings evaporate, and its budget and borrowing burgeon. And now the day of reckoning is at hand." The article is titled "The Morning After."

And this discussion isn't just about domestic affairs or the economy which the capitalists are particularly nervous about. It also encompasses foreign policy. The January 25 U.S.News and World Report carries an article called "Uncle Sam in a grave new world." The January 21 Wall Street Journal carries a guest editorial titled "U.S. foreign policy has outlived its time." And on top of the reading lists of the capitalists these days are books like The rise and fall of the great powers and Beyond American hegemony: the future of the Western alliance.

And these are just some samples. Reading through this literature, one can get an idea of what are the common themes the bourgeoisie shares and what concerns it is worried about. This will provide some idea of what the bourgeoisie plans to do in the next period.

What the Capitalists Think About the Reagan Presidency

Let's take a minute to see how the capitalists assess the Reagan presidency. That is after all what sets the stage for the question, "After Reagan, what?"

The capitalists are pretty frank about the good things Reagan has done for them.

They praise the cornerstones of his economic program which created an explosion in profit-taking. Business Week points out that under Reagan, government regulations on business were cut sharply, ''clearing the way for a massive restructuring of corporate America." His overhauling of the tax system was still another bonanza for business. Newsweek gushes that under Reagan the 80's were a time when "avarice got respectable... and wealth became a kind of state religion." They declare that in the 80's, "the business -- and the passion -- of America was business."

The wealthy are also overjoyed how great it was that Reagan bashed the workers' movement. Business Week declares that the trade unions "took a body blow" under Reagan who by smashing the PATCO strike "set the stage for years of business militancy in labor relations." They praise him for unleashing the concessions drive and express their satisfaction that under Reagan there was "a remarkably slow rise in wages."

The capitalist interests are also proud of Reagan's warmongering and imperialism. Business Week says that "one of Reagan's proudest accomplishments" was "the restoration of America's global influence."

The Marxist-Leninist communists have been saying for years that Reagan was put in the White House to spear: head a capitalist offensive and that the entire bourgeoisie was behind this assault. This is why the Reaganite offensive wasn't just Reagan's alone but supported to the hilt by the Democratic loyal opposition. And it is precisely for this role that the bourgeoisie praises Reagan today at the end of his second term.

As Business Week puts it, Reagan restored a "presidency battered by the failures of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Jimmy Carter." It editorializes, "Ronald Reagan gave the nation just what it needed for the 1980's: a return to stability and optimism and a respite from the emotional turmoil and incessant change that had roiled our society since the early 1960's."

However with contragate, with the Wall Street crash, the Reagan myth has begun to crumble. And all is not as well as the bourgeoisie hoped for. Thus in summing up the record, the capitalists do point out that Reaganism had a darker side to it.

The Rediscovery of Poverty

And these days, in the wake of the stock market crash, there is a lot of discussion of the "other side" of Reagan's America.

The state of the U.S. economy is at the top of their concerns. They love the orgy of profit-taking that took place under Reagan, but they are nervous that Reagan piled up huge debt and deficits. Almost everywhere there is the complaint that under Reagan the U.S. debt skyrocketed. When they are given to cynical remarks, the bourgeois journalists describe "supply-side" economics as "Keynesianism on steroids."

At the same time, there is also a good deal of discussion of the social cost of Reaganism. Newspapers and magazines are carrying many articles about the rising poverty and homelessness. Thus Business Week points out that poverty is growing, especially among the working poor and children. That a crisis in low-cost housing is driving many of the needy into the streets. That some 37 million people have no health insurance. And so forth.

What's the Meaning of the New Talk of Compassion?

What's behind this rediscovery of poverty and misery by the bourgeoisie? After all, to the workers and poor these things are not something that just appeared in 1987. They know firsthand what the orgy of profit-taking meant to the masses of working people.

Here too you will find a frank admission that occasionally peeks through. As Business Week puts it, under Reagan "the degree of inequality among families is at its highest level since the 1930s," and they warn that Reagan's successors may face "heightened class animosity."

This is their real worry. The bourgeoisie is worried about the renewal of social struggle. They put Reagan in power to exorcise the turmoil of the 60's and 70's but he may have brought it back, this is what they fear.

In response, there is today a new face of "compassion" from the bourgeoisie. For example, the January 4 cover story of Newsweek declares that "Greed is out" and says that "The 80's are over." And it's not just in the media. This has become a major theme in the 1988 elections. Nearly every candidate claims to be a candidate of "compassion." Not just the Democrats who have traditionally played around with such rhetoric but even Republicans like Bush and Dole.

But "compassion" is just makeup for the bourgeoisie. It is merely a new mask to replace its Reaganite face of unabashed greed.

Don't think that this means they're going to meet the needs of the masses. In fact, the bourgeoisie says that while there are all these needs, they won't put out the money to fund them. In the Reagan years they built up the theme that you should cut back on funds for social benefit programs. And they plan to keep this up.

Making the masses pay for deficit reduction remains their battle cry. Thus they will only squeeze the masses more. They are devising new and unfair taxes and more cuts in social programs. But now they will soothe you with words about fairness and compassion.

While they haven't sorted it out, the capitalists are experimenting with such new slogans as what Time magazine referred to as "tough liberalism," or what Business Week describes as "compassion with realism."

The Workers Must Prepare for Class Struggle

The workers cannot expect solutions to their problems to come from the capitalists or their political parties. All the rich promise is more of the capitalist offensive. More squeezing of the masses in the name of deficit reduction and saving the economy. More military adventures abroad to put down working people who are being starved and ruined by capitalist austerity and crisis. But now, unlike under Reagan, they promise some sugar coating. They will carry out their assault under talk of compassion and social concerns.

Let the workers not be fooled. These are empty promises. It is fool's gold that they dangle in front of our noses. To defend our interests, we must wage our own struggle. We must have our own agenda. We must build our own political movement.

The bourgeoisie will find that the specter it wants to avoid so desperately -- "increased class animosity" -- will indeed turn into reality. While the bourgeoisie has rediscovered poverty and misery recently, the workers have been trying to deal with the bitter fruits of Reaganomics for years and years. On different fronts, struggles and skirmishes have gathered steam. Sooner or later, they are bound to reach a critical temperature. And the working class will break through the stifling hold of the Democratic liberals and trade union bureaucrats to have its own say.

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Orrin Hatch cares-but not much

Daycare -- decent, affordable childcare -- is a nagging problem confronting tens of thousands of working parents. And it is a problem that is growing as more and more women enter the workforce. Today over nine million children under the age of six have working parents. By the year 1995,15 million pre-schoolers will have mothers working away from home and another 34 million school children will have mothers in the labor force.

Recently several bills have been introduced in Congress claiming to deal with this issue. One, the so-called "Child Care Services Improvement Act," has been proposed by none other than Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. Hatch has gained notoriety over the years for his reactionary, anti-worker stands, including support for anti-union "right-to-work" legislation and sponsorship of the Hatch Act, which bars federal government workers from participating in partisan politics.

With such an inglorious history, one wouldn't expect much from Hatch's childcare bill. And sure enough, it is the thinnest of gruel.

The bill calls for allocating a meager $875 million of federal funds over three years to be used mainly as an "incentive" for various local groups to devise daycare programs. The bill also calls for tax breaks for businesses who offer their own childcare services. One doesn't need much to figure out that all this is pretty mealy stuff.

Why is Hatch even bothering to make a pretense of addressing the childcare question?

Hatch's bill seems directed at plumping up the image of the Republican Party, to portray it as having "heart," as being compassionate and caring towards the problems facing the working and poor people. It is an election- year ploy to try to win support for the Republicans by painting them up as concerned with social issues.

What a sick joke! It is the Reaganite Republicans who for eight years have been slashing one social welfare program after another. According to one study done by the Children's Defense Fund, during the past seven years while more mothers have begun to work, federal support for daycare has been cut by 50%. In Michigan for example, the CDF reports that federally subsidized daycare places have been cut from 35,779 in 1981 to just 4,410 in 1987!

Of course Hatch's Democratic Party counterparts are not much better. They have gone along with the bulk of Reagan's budget cutting and they too agree with the rest of the bourgeoisie that "deficit reduction" not new social spending is the first priority of Congress. The Democrats claim to have a more generous daycare bill, but it's lying dormant as deficit reduction takes precedence.

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AFL-CIO politicking flops again

The AFL-CIO bureaucrats are once again on the campaign trail. Instead of organizing the workers for mass struggle against Reaganism, the union hacks claim that the 1988 elections will be decisive to "turn the country around." But haven't we heard this sorry song before?

What Happened to the "Year of Reforms"?

In 1986, the union leaders also subordinated the workers' movement to their electoral strategy. With an enormous election campaign, the AFL-CIO bureaucracy helped the Democrats win a majority in both the House and the Senate.

They were ecstatic. Now they could get passed all manner of legislation to help the working masses -- raising the minimum wage, improving benefits for the unemployed, measures against union busting in the construction industry, parental leave, better health insurance for the elderly, measures to block the erosion of the rights of black people, and so forth. 1987 would be the "year of reforms," the union bureaucrats proclaimed, because now the Democrats were in the driver's seat in Congress.

But what happened? Well, not only was the union hacks' legislation inadequate to begin with; and not only did they water down their bills to the point where they were virtually useless; and not only did the hacks center their efforts on passing the chauvinist trade bill against foreign workers; but they could not even get their most backward bills passed.

Why? Because the Democratic Party is just another party of the capitalist class like the Republicans. Instead of fighting Reaganism, the Democrats spent the year bogged down in "crisis management." How could the Democrats increase the minimum wage again when they were so busy trying to "restore the credibility of the presidency" and "confidence" on Wall Street? Instead of the promised reforms, the Democrats gave us a liberal mask to cover up the ugly face of Reaganism.

Another Year of Reaganite Union Busting

While the Democrats were helping to preserve Reaganism, the working masses continued to suffer under the savage Reaganite assault. Among other things, this offensive continued to break strikes and bust up unions. In 1987 the AFL-CIO lost another 62,000 members. It now represents only 17% of the country's full-time workers, down from 24% in 1979.

Are the AFL-CIO leaders calling for a fight against the Reaganite assault? For mass picket lines against strikebreaking? For sit-down strikes against lockouts? For slowdowns against the job eliminating productivity drives? For a major struggle to organize the unorganized? For any kind of mass struggle against plant closings and layoffs? Not a chance.

Instead, the union hacks are trumpeting their "electoral strategy." When asked what they will do about their declining membership and combating Reaganism, one AFL-CIO official declared, "What we will be doing in 1988 is stepping up action in the political arena...to get a Democrat elected president."

The working masses can expect no help from the union bureaucracy or their bankrupt electoral strategy. Rather, the workers must build up the mass struggle on every front. And on this basis, they must organize an independent political movement of the working class; a movement that can fight the capitalist offensive of both parties -- the Republicans and Democrats alike.

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Jesse Jackson preaches against class struggle to IP strikers

In Green Bay, Wisconsin over 2,000 workers turned out January 8 for a solidarity rally with the Nicolet Paper strikers. The Nicolet mill in nearby Depere is owned by International Paper (IP). Three thousand five hundred workers have been on strike since June at four IP mills in Depere; Jay, Maine; Lockhaven, Pennsylvania; and Mobile, Alabama (where they were locked out last March).

Shortly before the rally, the Nicolet workers had just rejected IP's latest contract offer. IP promised strikers "job retraining" and "relocation elsewhere in the IP system." In other words, IP wanted to send Nicolet workers to be used as scabs at other mills. IP is using scab labor to break the strikes in all four mills.

The workers came out to this solidarity rally to show their support for a militant fight against the strikebreaking and the capitalists' concessions drive.

Vote Democrat or Build the Working Class Movement?

But the leaders of the United Paper- workers International Union (UPIU) turned the solidarity rally for the strikers into an election campaign rally for the Democrats. The main banner over the speakers' platform declared, "Solidarity Is Voting in the 1988 Elections." And Jesse Jackson was the featured speaker.

Jackson used his standard militant- sounding double talk to make it appear that he supports the strikers. But a key theme of his address was to denounce the class struggle. At one point he shouted, "economic violence can be eliminated, not by the struggle of the working class against the capitalist profit system, but through a 'Workers' Bill of Rights.'" (emphasis added)

But this is ridiculous. Workers know that IP's "economic violence" -- its concessions drive and strikebreaking -- cannot be resisted except by striking. Indeed, at IP mass picketing and other militant tactics are needed to fight the scabbing. And the strike needs to be extended to other paper mills to unleash the strong, united force of the workers to break the power of IP.

What is more, IP is not alone in its attacks on the working masses, The capitalists as a class are on a countrywide offensive of takebacks, layoffs, strikebreaking, union busting, racism, and war. Reagan is their henchman. But throughout his terms of office, the Democrats have time and again supported the same capitalist drive. This is a bipartisan offensive of the capitalist class against the working class. And it can only be resisted by extending the current struggles of the workers into a countrywide struggle of the working class against the capitalist class.

Jackson is holding out a vague promise of a "workers' bill of rights" which he sets against the mass struggle of the workers against the capitalists. But, we must ask, what rights have the workers ever won except through the mass struggle? They sure haven't won anything by electing Democrats, no matter how many rights have been promised. The Democrats are just the liberal party of the capitalists. The party that makes promises to the workers and poor while serving the profit drive of the billionaires.

Today Jackson is walking the picket lines and joining mass rallies of the workers. But the sermon he is preaching is against the workers' struggle. He is trying to subordinate the workers' movement to the liberal capitalists, to make the workers mere voting fodder for the Democratic Party. He, and the party he serves, must be rejected by the workers. They can defend their jobs and livelihood only by fighting against the capitalists, by building up the movement of the working class independent from and against both the Republicans and the Democrats.

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Why the contragate hearings were a dud:

Democrats say no 'Reagan bashing'

The contragate hearings began with the Democratic-controlled Congress promising firm action against Reagan's crimes. But after months of hearings, after countless revelations about the secret war on Nicaragua, what happened? Congress declared there was no "smoking gun" linking Reagan to any crime.

This was no accident.

In a recent interview, the chairman of the Iran-Contra Committee, Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), made it clear that the Democrats never intended to go after Reagan. He states that "Our first priority was to make sure that we did not get into Reagan bashing." (All quotes from Inouye appear in Parade Magazine, Jan. 10, p. 8)

Wonderful, is it not? The main concern of a committee investigating Reagan is to make sure Reagan is not discredited. But what is an investigation whose top goal is not to discredit the people it is investigating? It is a sham.

Perhaps Inouye was merely referring to attacks on Reagan not based on any evidence? Wrong! Inouye says: "I told the press at a background meeting before the hearings, 'I pray that if there is such a thing as a smoking gun, we never find it. What would we do if we find it?"'

What worried Inouye was not unjust accusations. He was terrified that the truth would come out. He was panicked by the thought of having to do something against Reagan if the "smoking gun" was found. My, my. What dedicated anti-Reagan warriors the Democrats are!

Senator Inouye gave the following "reason" for his fear of condemning Reagan. He states: "I have noticed that, often, when the President of the United States is perceived to be wounded, and the country is divided, the Soviet Union acts up."

Thus Inouye claims that any opposition to Reagan plays into the hands of the Soviet Union. But isn't this a dirty theme from the Reagan administration itself? If you oppose Reagan's reactionary policies, the Reaganites accuse you of being a Soviet dupe. Inouye not only was unwilling to take on Reagan at the contragate hearings, he even talks Reagan's language.

Is it any wonder, then, that the contragate hearings were a dud? And that the secret contra aid networks continue to drop weapons into Nicaragua?

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Strikes and workplace news

[Graphic.]

While layoffs mount: UAW and GM bosses meet to 'cut costs'

Where are the "guaranteed jobs" that the UAW leaders and GM promised in the new contract signed last fall?

GM just announced it will "mothball" its Leeds assembly plant in Kansas City, Missouri. On April 15th, 1,600 workers will lose their jobs. Second shift at the Van Nuys, California plant is also being eliminated, and eventually 3,600 workers will be thrown into the streets. In November, GM also closed its Framingham, Massachusetts assembly plant. These closings are said to be due to lagging sales. A dozen other closings were specifically allowed by the contract. Altogether GM has thrown some 55,200 workers onto "indefinite layoff." Obviously, the contract's "job guarantees" are worthless.

So what are the UAW leaders doing about the plant closings and layoffs? Helping the company, of course.

On January 11th, 400 GM managers and UAW officials met in Detroit to discuss how to further "cut costs" in the GM parts plants. The theme of the conference was made clear by GM Vice- President W. Blair Thompson. "The effectiveness of any manufacturing organization to remain competitive has to be to produce more products with, in effect, less resources, and one of those resources is people." And the UAW leaders agreed. They lauded the joint efforts with GM that have saved profits through speedup and job elimination.

The UAW leaders have given up any fight for jobs. Instead, they have turned to company unionism, to helping GM administer the job cuts.

Northwest dockers walk out against union busting

On January 13, about 4,000 dock- workers walked off their jobs along the Washington and Oregon coasts. The strike lasted 38 hours. It was a protest against the proposed use of nonunion firms to load logs onto ships.

ITT Rayonier, one of the largest forest products exporters in the Northwest, has begun negotiating with several nonunion companies to load ships at two ports. It says it wants to "cut loading costs." And, of course, that means cutting the pay of dockworkers.

The use of lower paying, nonunion firms has already begun to plague the Gulf ports. The longshoremen struck to stop the union busting before it gets started in the Northwest.

Cannery workers show solidarity

Watsonville Cannery workers recently gave strong support to the striking workers at United Foods. The Watsonville workers voted overwhelmingly to "hot-cargo" scab produce from the struck United Foods plant in Salinas, California. "Hot-cargoing" means refusing to handle the food.

United Foods had asked Norcal Frozen Foods (formerly the Watsonville cannery) to process four million pounds of scab broccoli. The cannery workers were infuriated. The Watsonville workers are the veterans of a bitter 18-month strike. They declared they "would rather starve than handle scab produce."

This action is even more courageous given the fact that work in the canneries is very scarce these days. The scab deal would have meant a solid month or more of work. But the workers preferred to suffer through layoffs than to betray their fellow workers in Salinas.

As a result of the workers' action, United Foods could not get its broccoli processed. It had to sell it raw, at a loss, on the open market.

Farm workers from Mexico join strike in California

A recent farm workers' strike against a grower in Salinas, California illustrates the potential for international workers' solidarity.

Last November, 380 farm workers struck the Jack T. Baillie company. Baillie was trying to slash wages and benefits at its Salinas and Bakersfield farms.

To break the strike, the company drove in two busloads of "replacement workers" from Mexicali, Mexico. The company hadn't told the Mexican workers about the strike. When the buses arrived, they were surrounded by 230 striking workers carrying red flags -- traditional in Mexican labor struggles. The Mexican workers immediately went over to the strikers' side. Not one of them crossed the picket line to scab!

Twenty-five of the Mexican workers decided to return home and the strikers raised money among themselves for their return trip. The remaining Mexican workers joined the union and became strikers themselves.

Judge orders striking L.A. nurses back to work

More than 4,000 striking nurses from 50 Los Angeles County hospitals and clinics were ordered back to work January 29. At the county government's request, Judge Vogel signed a temporary restraining order claiming the strike represented a "clear showing of imminent danger to the public health and safety." Once again the courts have sided against the working people who are fighting to defend their livelihood.

This was the first strike ever by these nurses. They have been working without a contract since September. On January 26, they walked out demanding comparable pay with the nurses in other hospitals.

The county government was not the only one opposing this strike. Leaders of the AFL-CIO decried it. Aghast at the united action of the nurses, AFL-CIO officials in L.A. complained that the nurses are demanding too much. It seems the AFL-CIO bureaucrats have become so used to giving in to the capitalists' concessions drive that they can't even imagine a fight to improve conditions.

Nurses at Oakland hospital stage sickout

The under-staffing at Highland Hospital in Oakland, California has become unbearable. In every department the administration is trying to cut back the budget and increase workloads.

In its latest cost-cutting attempt, the administration all but eliminated the use of registry nurses. As a result, the ward and units have been left dangerously understaffed. Workloads have increased to the point where nurses have been forced to take up to eight patients on night shift and seven on day shift. And the patients have suffered. Of course, this doesn't bother the administration. Money is far more important than human life to these highly paid bureaucrats.

On December 31, the MLP put out a leaflet denouncing the overwork and calling for mass struggle. Then on January 6, nurses on 7E carried out a sickout to demand more staffing.

The successful sickout threw both the administration and the union bureaucrats into a panic. The union leaders had done nothing to oppose the overwork. But suddenly they became the champions of the struggle, only to force it into "proper channels" -- behind the scenes wheeling-and-dealing with the administrators.

But the nurses have started on the road of mass struggle. This experience will help them see through the sabotage of the union hacks and help them learn to extend the mass actions to draw in the other hospital employees.

(Based on Dec. 31 leaflet and report from the MLP, S.F. Bay Area Branch.)

N. Dakota miners' strike gains support

Since November workers at the Indian Head coal mine in Zap, North Dakota have been on strike against the North American Coal Co.

The strikers are fighting for a job security clause in their contract. It is estimated that the coal reserves at the Indian Head mine are due to run out by 1992. The miners demand a contract clause that would give them hiring rights at other mines when their mine is closed.

A week after the strike began, 23 strikers and 10 strikers' wives were arrested for blockading the mine entrance. A little while later, 24 retirees and surviving spouses were cut from the company's health insurance plan. The company claims that its obligation toward the retirees ended when the contract expired. The striking miners have been joined on the picket line by the mine retirees.

The strikers are receiving strong solidarity from other workers in the area. Over 100 workers attended a support rally in December where $3,000 was raised for the strikers' fund. Lumber truck drivers are refusing to cross the picket lines to deliver supplies to the mine. A local supermarket is providing food for the miners and their families. And farmers in the area have donated their goods to the families.

Auto crisis and socialism

The "Big Three" auto companies raked in around $10 billion in profits last year. But the people who work for them are suffering. Overwork in the plants, poverty in the streets.

The Laid-Off Face Ruin

There are now some 65,200 auto workers on "indefinite layoff." And more layoffs are coming. The laid-off workers are staring ruin in the face. They receive only 26 weeks of state unemployment compensation. And although the benefits have already run out for many workers, the government presently refuses to extend them. Meanwhile, their supplemental unemployment benefits (SUB) are being slashed.

SUB, combined with state unemployment benefits, is supposed to ensure laid-off auto workers 95% of their salary for two years. But both GM and Chrysler have already cut the SUB portion of the benefits by 20%, providing workers only 85% of their previous salary. Meanwhile, the length of time a worker receives SUB is being whittled away. Last year both GM and Chrysler cut SUB from 52 weeks down to 26 weeks for laid-off workers with less than 20 years seniority. The January 21 issue of The Wall Street Journal reports that GM has gone further, cutting benefits down to a maximum of 16 weeks for workers with 5-19 years seniority and only 11 weeks for those with under five years seniority.

Many auto workers report they have already lost their cars and homes. They squeak by day to day, barely living hand-to-mouth.

Overproduction Crisis of Capitalism Is the Source of the Workers' Plight

What have these workers done to be so mistreated? What crime have they committed that they should be sentenced to a life of impoverishment? It appears that their only crime has been to work too hard, to have been too productive.

The auto industry has been hit by a crisis of overproduction -- it has the capacity to make many more cars than it can sell. According to a recent study by Auto Facts Inc., by 1991 there will be an excess capacity of some five million cars in the U.S. The consulting firm suggests that another 12 auto plants may have to be closed to deal with this overproduction crisis.

Socialist Revolution Is the Way Out for the Workers

But what kind of ghastly system is this where the production of plenty becomes a crime; where producing more means sentencing workers to layoffs and impoverishment?

This is the capitalist system. A system of money-grubbing where production is not aimed at fulfilling the needs of the working masses but of making profits for a handful of capitalists. As long as the capitalists still privately own the factories and machines, as long as the workers are reduced to being wage slaves, then unemployment and periodic disasters will remain the plight of the masses.

But the overproduction crisis also shows something else. It demonstrates that socialized production, the workers working collectively, has reached the level where the needs of the masses can be met. The cooperative labor of the workers is boundless; but the private ownership by the capitalists keeps this potential from being realized.

The overproduction crisis shows that the time is ripe for the workers to not only labor collectively, but also to collectively take over the ownership of the factories and workshops throughout the country. Then production can be planned and carried out to serve the working masses, instead of the handful of capitalist parasites.

Capitalism creates the overproduction crises and the devastation of the working masses. The working masses can abolish the crises and. the impoverishment by overthrowing capitalism, by socialist revolution. Today -- while we resist the overwork in the plants and fight the layoffs and plant closings -- we must also work to inspire the masses with the prospects of socialism. We must work to make the masses conscious that the aim of the working class movement is to do away with unemployment and exploitation once and for all. Socialist revolution is the workers' way out of the capitalist crisis.

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The homeless fight back

More than two dozen people have died so far this winter as a result of exposure to the freezing temperatures. Many of them were homeless.

It has been estimated that there are now around three million homeless people in the U.S. -- 500,000 of them are children. About 40% of the homeless are families with dependent children. And more than one-fifth of the people who are homeless are employed -- but their wages are not enough to provide food and shelter in this day and age.

Despite their terrible conditions, the Reagan administration has shown the homeless no mercy. For example, since 1981 federally subsidized housing programs have been cut more than 75% -- from $32 billion to $7.5 billion. In most cities, the waiting lists for these programs are so long that they have been closed. And recently it was revealed that the Reagan government has refused to dispense $155 million in federal funds for the homeless that had been appropriated last year.

Some Democrats are yelling, but they have done little more themselves for the homeless. They have gone along with the Reaganite cuts in the past. And this year, in the name of cutting the budget deficit, the Democratic controlled Congress cut appropriations for the homeless by another $5 million.

But the homeless people have started to fight back. They are organizing, gaining public attention, and winning support in their fight. A number of actions have recently taken place.

Jersey City, New Jersey

On December 24, homeless activists seized an area on the 16th floor of the Jersey City Medical Center. The partially abandoned hospital is being converted into expensive condominiums. Meanwhile thousands of residents are on the waiting list for public housing. At the present time, the hospital is still publicly owned. On the occupied floor, room after room was clean and empty; water and plumbing still functioned.

A demonstration was held on the street in front of the hospital as the occupiers hung a banner outside the 16th floor windows. Both groups demanded that the building be opened to house the many homeless in the area. After threats made by hospital security and city police, the occupiers left the floor.

Oakland, California

On January 5th, 150 people marched to Preservation Park in Oakland, California. Fifty occupied a Victorian house which is part of a $9.4 million city redevelopment project. The police were called out and 17 people were arrested.

Earlier, on December 26, Oakland police evicted two dozen homeless people from a vacant house they had seized earlier in the week.

The homeless and their supporters took over the house to dramatize the need for repairing and fixing up vacant houses in order to provide proper housing for others. They planned to set up a shelter and gathering place for the many homeless people in the area. They worked for two days fixing up the place -- more attention than the house had received in several years.

But late at night, the Oakland cops barricaded the street and moved in. The city "generously" provided a bus to "escort" the evictees to the nearest public shelter, a facility which will only be open until February.

The protesters believe that the homeless should run their own living quarters. They are seeking a permanent solution to the situation of the homeless, not just some temporary charity shelter.

Detroit, Michigan

On January 18, around 200 people marched into the Brewster-Douglas housing project in Detroit. They seized two vacant apartments. The administration of Mayor Coleman Young plans to demolish the 1,037 unit, low-income project and replace it with 250 gentrified apartments.

The homeless were joined by people who have refused to move out of the projects. The hundreds of residents who remain in the projects have organized to fight the proposed demolition. Together they were a strong force.

Many of the demonstrators were angry and militant. They carried placards which said, "Homeless, not helpless!" "Jobs and Housing, not Shelters!" and "Who are the Homeless? Former workers, your parents, your children!" MLP militants started the popular slogan, "Housing Yes, Casinos No -- Reagan and Coleman have got to go!"

Project security called in the city cops to evacuate the occupied units. Four demonstrators were arrested.

As a result of this demonstration and others like it, the city administration pledged to provide 200 vacant public housing units to people now living in shelters. Many people from the shelters had tried to apply for public housing but had been turned away. City officials now lamely claim they didn't know people in the shelters wanted public housing. Incredible! And what about the rest of the estimated 27,000 homeless people in Detroit? Mayor Young just keeps denying that there is any homeless problem.

In another action, homeless parents and their children stormed a recent meeting of the Detroit Board of Education demanding that their children be allowed to attend school. The children have not been able to attend school because once they entered a city shelter, they technically lacked a permanent address, could not be enrolled and didn't qualify for busing. The parents won their demand and the children were enrolled in the nearest public schools.

Support the Homeless Movement!

Homeless people in this country are getting organized. They are fighting back against the exploitation of the capitalists. They are demanding a roof over their heads and the right to live their own lives with dignity. They deserve the support of every working man and woman.

[Photo: Homeless occupy a vacant home in Oakland, California.]

[Photo: Homeless and residents jointly protest plans to demolish Brewster- Douglas housing project in Detroit, January 18.]

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DOWN WITH RACISM!

Anti-racists take to the streets of New York

[Photo: March in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, January 2.]

Racist attacks in New York City are continuing to fuel the anti-racist movement.

On January 2nd, 400 people carried out an anti-racist march in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. It was in a white enclave in this area that 10 racists surrounded and beat up the LaMount brothers on Christmas night. The protest against this attack began at the Marlboro Housing project, not far from where a black transit worker, Willie Turks, was beaten to death by a white mob in 1983. Shouting "No Justice, No Peace!" the protesters marched to the precinct police station and back. Groups of racists showed up along the march route shouting racist epithets at the protesters. Nearly 1,000 policemen were on hand to prevent a fight against the racists.

On January 16, about 800 people joined a protest rally at a Brooklyn church against the rising attacks by white gangs and policemen. Besides the attack on the LaMount brothers, people denounced the racist murders by policemen in December of Alfred Sanders, a former transit mechanic, and Yvonne Smallwood, a hospital worker. These are only the latest in a whole series of racist attacks and murders over the last period.

The next day, another 500 people marched in Astoria, Queens in response to a rumor that the KKK was planning a public meeting in the neighborhood.

The anger against the racist violence brought out at least 3,000 people for a march through the Manhattan financial district, in connection with Martin Luther King Day, on January 18. Marchers included contingents of workers from numbers of workplaces. There were anti-racist activists. Activists from the solidarity movements with the fighters in South Africa, Central America, Palestine and South Korea. As well, there were contingents of high school students and of many other people of all nationalities who wanted to show their opposition to racism in New York. A contingent organized by the MLP carried a banner declaring, "Wage Mass Struggle Against Racist Attacks!" Slogans like "Cops and the Klan Work Hand in Hand!" and "No Justice, No Peace!" rang out along the march route.

The same day, protesters denounced Mayor Koch across town at a Harlem church. The Greater New York Baptist Ministers Conference had invited Koch to address a Martin Luther King memorial. But some ministers and much of the church's congregation would not stand for letting this racist act as if he were a supporter of the anti-racist movement. About 450 protesters confronted Koch as he entered the church. Once inside, many of the 1,500 people who attended the memorial booed and shouted "Racist Koch Go Home! '' Despite threats that they would be evicted from the church, people continued nonstop their shouting against Koch. He was forced to give up trying to address the crowd.

Day of Outrage II

Mayor Koch and his police department are going to great lengths to block the anti-racist protests. On January 21, some 4,000 city policemen and another 1,000 transit cops were dispatched to keep an anti-racist demonstration under control.

About 600 people demonstrated in Brooklyn that day against racist gang and police attacks. The leaders of the demonstration, dubbed "Day of Outrage II" announced beforehand that they would try to disrupt rush hour transportation, as was done in an earlier protest in December. But police surrounded the marches, blocked the demonstration from the two bridges in the area, and sealed off many subway stations.

While the protesters were unable to block the subways, a dozen stations were actually shut down by the police who were trying to keep the protesters out.

[Photo.]

Anti-racist protests on ML King day

The rich ruling class in this country is opposed to virtually any and every anti-racist protest. But if forced to pick among protest leaders, they choose Martin Luther King as their favorite. This is not because King led the masses into struggle against racism. It's because at every point King tried to tone down the mass struggle, to preach turning the other cheek, passive nonviolence, and reliance on the Democratic Party big-shots for salvation.

It is exactly in this spirit that many MLK memorials were held on January 18 throughout the country. Such, for example, was the character of events in Atlanta this year. Headed by Andrew Young, who has been presiding over a string of racist police attacks on the masses in that city, the Atlanta MLK parade could not help but be a rally to reconcile the black masses with their oppressors. Young is a representative of the black bourgeoisie. And the black bourgeoisie is selling out the interests of the masses to gain its own crumbs from the banquet table of the big white ruling class.

Nevertheless, the spirit of militant struggle against racism is spreading among the working masses. So large numbers of people came out to many of the MLK events, and some were marked by the mass spirit of protest against racism.

In Wappingerfalls, New York, for example, 200 people marched to demand justice for Tawana Brawley. On Thanksgiving the 15-year-old girl was abducted, raped, and dumped with "KKK" and "NIGGER" written across her half nude body. She pointed out that one of her assailants was a policeman. Since the police have been trying to cover up the case, she and her family have refused to cooperate with the police investigation. They have continued to refuse even after Governor Cuomo recently ordered Attorney General Robert Abrams to be a special prosecutor in the case.

Other protests included the one in New York City, where 3,000 people carried out a spirited march through downtown Manhattan. Hundreds of others denounced Mayor Koch in Harlem. At the University of Michigan, 1,500 students denounced the racist policies of the administration. (See reports elsewhere on this page.)

In Phoenix, Arizona, about 5,000 people rallied at the state capitol to denounce the racism of Governor Evan Mecham.

In Austin, Texas, 200 people burned a Confederate flag in protest against racism. They demanded justice for Clarence Bradley, a black maintenance worker who has been railroaded for a murder he didn't commit. In Houston, 300 black city employees held a militant rally against job discrimination.

In Richmond, California, about 250 workers and family members rallied to denounce the racism of Chevron Oil. In East Los Angeles, 350 people protested against a planned public rally of the KKK, but most klansmen were afraid to show up. As well, 600 people picketed outside the South African consulate in Los Angeles in a militant protest against apartheid.

Anti-racist sit-in at U. of Michigan

In January students staged a new round of protests against racism at the University of Michigan (U-M) campus in Ann Arbor.

Last spring anti-racist protests spread across the campus. Jesse Jackson, Democratic presidential hopeful, intervened to diffuse the protests by gaining the promise that the University would correct its racist practices. But little has changed. Black and other minority students continue to face harassment. Although racist jokes were stopped on a campus radio station, they reappeared on a public computer bulletin board. And racial discrimination has kept black enrollment down to only 5.4% of the 36,000 student body, even though the administration promised, back in 1970 and again last year, to raise it to 10%.

The anger at the racism boiled over into mass protests when a racist statement by Dean Peter Steiner came to light in mid-January.

Dean Equates Minorities With Low Standards

Steiner is the Dean of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts, which includes about half of U-M's student body. Steiner gave a talk to a private departmental meeting last September which, he claims, aimed to "promote affirmative action."

But the underlying theme running through his statements automatically equated minorities with lower standards. He implied that increased black enrollment would undermine U-M's "high academic standards." This is one of the basic racist ideas that has stood behind the discrimination at the campus and that has helped to create the rotten racist atmosphere.

Students Occupy Dean's Office

When students heard about this statement they were outraged. On January 13, a group of students carrying anti-racist placards confronted Steiner when he held a press conference to try to explain away his racist statements. The next day 200 students joined a protest on the steps of the university's library.

Then 100 students met with Steiner directly. When he refused to apologize for his racist remarks, 50 students walked out of the meeting and took over the Dean's office. The sit-in swelled to 130 students, and lasted 26 hours. It was ended so they could carry their protest to a Board of Regents meeting.

Protest at Board of Regents Meeting

Some 500 black and white students packed the room of the Regents meeting. This governing board for U-M was forced to quietly listen as one after another of the students condemned Steiner and decried the institutionalized racism on the campus. The students demanded that Steiner be fired, and they reissued their 12 demands from last year's protests which, despite promises, have still not been met.

The regents closed the meeting without comment. The next day they met again. They refused to condemn Steiner, but claimed they would talk with him and try to improve relations with the minority students.

The students decided to use Martin Luther King Day to continue their protest. On January 18, over 1,500 black and white students joined the march and rally condemning racism at U-M.

University Offers Concessions

Faced with the spreading protests, the administration offered some concessions to the students.

On January 23, Dean Steiner announced plans to accelerate recruitment of minority faculty and students for his college. He promised to increase financial support for the minority recruitment. And he appointed a black administrator to the Comprehensive Studies Program. Earlier, U-M's interim president promised to establish a policy to punish students for "race baiting.

The mass protests forced these concessions. But the students must be on guard. The University has done little to fulfill its promises in the past. For example, the main change from last year's protest was that the University hired a Provost for Minority Affairs. He was supposed to be the spearhead to combat racism at U-M. But his chief role appears to have been to undermine student protests. He claimed to support the students. But he refused to condemn Steiner, and in his meetings with the students he repeatedly called for calm.

The token hiring of a few black administrators has aimed to drown the fire of protest, while not changing the basic racist setup. It's only by remaining vigilant and carrying forward the mass protests that students can make progress beating back racism at U-M.

[Photo: Anti-racists rally at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, January 18.]

Police killing of black truck driver protested in Texas

Several hundred people demonstrated January 9 to protest the beating death of a black truck driver by policemen in Hemphill, Texas.

Loyal Garner, a truck driver from just across the border in Louisiana, died of head injuries two days after he was beaten unconscious in jail. Garner had been arrested on a traffic violation. When he asked to call his wife, the Hemphill police chief and two Sabine County sheriff's deputies dragged him from his cell and beat him for a half an hour. They refused to call for medical aid until the next morning. Garner died two days later from the injuries he suffered.

The policemen have now been indicted with violating Garner's civil rights and are out on bond.

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FBI spying and the people's rights

The recent revelations about the FBI come from information collected by the Center for Constitutional Rights. Through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), it obtained 1,320 pages from the FBI files. It also collected its own information on FBI dirty tricks and spying.

The very information collected by the Center for Constitutional Rights shows what a thin reed the much talked about "constitutional rights" are.

Freedom for the FBI to Censor Information

The FOIA itself promises much but delivers little. The FBI censored the information it provided to the point of virtual uselessness. It has the right, under the FOIA, to withhold anything if only it labels it a matter of national security. Or if it might reveal the identity of any of the army of FBI spies and informers. Or if it reveals the methods of the FBI.

Well, if one can't even check up on the methods of the FBI, what is left to reveal? A list of names of organizations to terrorize the weak-willed?

Take for example the Detroit office of the FBI. It is active in spying on the movement but felt it could simply flaunt the FOIA. So it gave no information at all about its spying.

Liberals Capitulate

The liberal congressmen cluck their teeth and did nothing about the FBI spying. Take Don Edwards, Democratic Representative from California, who is chairman of the House subcommittee on civil and constitutional rights. He said how he regretted the FBI's actions, but he dutifully declared them legal. He talks "left" to the workers to promote confidence in Congress, but sits on his hands in front of the crimes of the Reaganites.

The Contragate Committee Whitewashed the FBI

Indeed, the actions of the FBI were already known at the time of the Contragate hearings. The Contragate committees could have obtained information which private citizens could not. But they weren't interested. Democratic Senator Inouye presided over the televised hearings. He declared privately to reporters that their first priority was to avoid "Reagan-bashing." He now admits publicly that he didn't want to find a "smoking gun." (See article on Democrats against Reagan-bashing elsewhere in this issue.)

So although the FBI actions were just as bad as Nixon's "enemies list," the contragate committee obligingly looked the other way.

Indeed, the Democrats joined the Reaganite applause when FBI chief William Webster was appointed CIA head. This would supposedly civilize the CIA. But who is William Webster? He is the man who directed the FBI program of wire tapping and break-ins and spying on the opponents of U.S. intervention in Central America.

One could talk about constitutional rights all one wants. But if the government and the courts don't recognize any such rights, then it is all hot air. The people should put no faith in their "constitutional rights." It is only the powerful force of working class struggle and organization that forces recognition from even the workers' enemies.

The Concentration Camps Are in Place

But, it is said, repression in the U.S. isn't as bad as in some of the countries that are backed by American military might -- such as the death squad regimes in Central America. It is true that the forms of repression differ from one capitalist regime to another. But one way or another, the capitalists disrupt and persecute their opponents in the U.S. too.

For that matter, in the 1960's, when the level of mass struggle was higher, police repression was more severe. This included the armed extermination of many of the Black Panthers in police raids upon their offices. It included a number of prominent political assassinations.

Today too, the death squads are being kept in reserve. For what else are the KKK, the anti-abortion bombers, and the racist gangs but America's death squads in embryo? And the FBI has been sitting on its hands as Central American and Vietnamese death squads begin activities in southern California.

This and other apparatus is in place for stepped up repression from the government. All that is required is a declaration from the government. Need one recall "national hero" Oliver North's plan for military rule in the U.S., to be established through a government agency established by former President Carter to deal with emergencies, the FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency)? (See the August 1, 1987 issue of The Workers Advocate.) And what about the concentration camps already established decades ago under the McCarran-Walter Act?

One Police-State Law After Another

Indeed, in the recent years, one law after another has been put in place to allow stepped-up repression. The Federal Criminal Code Reform enacted a new series of laws that basically allow widespread conspiracy charges of the most far-fetched nature. The police and federal government are also busy establishing computer tracking systems to spy on everyone. The Social Security number is being turned into a way of tracking people. And preventive detention (jailing for crimes which have not yet been committed), given the OK by the Supreme Court, is being extended.

Lack of prison space prevents these laws and other laws from being applied more widely. Also the government fears that premature use would bring too strong a reaction. But they are there whenever the capitalist class as a whole decides to use them.

Capitalist Terrorism in the Name of "Anti-Terrorism"

One of the most popular of excuses against the activists is "terrorism." The meaning of terrorism has been so stretched beyond belief that the Reaganites even call strikes "economic terrorism."

The FBI used "terrorism" as a pretext in its investigation of the antiwar groups. It labeled its investigation a "foreign intelligence terrorism" inquiry. This allowed it to use methods of spying that the U.S. government allegedly reserves for use outside the country. It is supposed to be oh so democratic for the CIA to spy and bribe and lie and kill in other countries if only these methods aren't used in the U.S. too.

But should activists and workers accept the use of these methods on the people of other countries, should the anti-CIA and anti-imperialist protests be abandoned, the chains will be forged that will be used to bind the people at home as well.

How Long Can a Giant Be Enchained?

But why does the government feel it needs all this arsenal of repression? What giant is this that requires so many different chains to hold down? This giant is not lawsuits and reliance on clauses in the constitution. It is instead the power of the millions upon millions of exploited and oppressed people. It is a power that has time and again broken through the heavy chains of repressive law and of political police.

In Central America, the tyrant Somoza fell in Nicaragua. The use of death squads show the despair of the oligarchy in El Salvador. In the U.S., the wave of struggle in the 1960's shook the confidence of the bourgeoisie. The new laws and repression are a sign that, underneath its show of force, the ruling class fears being isolated and alone.

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Revolutionary Kurdistan-- background notes

Kurdistan is one of the most politically important regions of Iran. Although it only contains a small percent- age of Iran's 40 million people, it has been a bulwark of the revolutionary movement of the Iranian working people. Despite the terror of the Khomeini regime, there is a strong underground workers' movement linked to the revolutionary Marxists of the Communist Party of Iran and its Kurdish organization Komala. The communist workers have also organized a powerful armed resistance to the Islamic dictatorship.

Below we carry some background notes prepared by a member of the MLP team that recently returned from Kurdistan. It outlines basics about Iranian Kurdistan and the revolutionary struggle there.

Where Is Kurdistan and Who Are the Kurds?

Kurdistan is a large mountainous region spanning the borders of Iran, Iraq and Turkey. Several million Kurds live in each of these countries. There are much smaller concentrations of Kurds in eastern Syria and in the southern tip of the Soviet Caucasus.

Their language is Kurdish, which is neither Arabic, Turkish, nor the Iranian language Farsi. There are also distinct dialects among the Kurds, making it difficult for a Kurd from Turkey to understand the language in the south of Iranian Kurdistan.

The Kurds living in different countries, while sharing a similar language and culture, do not tend to come together as a single political entity. For example, for Iranian Kurds there is a strong economic, political and cultural pull towards amalgamation with the rest of Iran. And they generally consider themselves part of Iran.

The onslaught of the Khomeini regime against Kurdistan rekindled national feelings. However, even when national feelings run high, the general demand of the Kurds is for autonomous rights, not independence and separation from Iran.

What Is the Social Make-Up?

Not so long ago, Iranian Kurdistan was a backward agrarian region. Much of the farming and herding was primitive. Feudalists and tribal chieftains held sway.

But especially over the last 25 years, since the time of the Shah's agrarian reform, there has been a dramatic capitalist transformation. The domination of the feudal chiefs was undercut by the rise of the bourgeois class, both in the cities and towns and also in some rural areas. Many peasants were driven off the land or turned into wage laborers with the introduction of tractors and capitalist farming. Most important was the emergence of the working class.

Presently about 50% of the population live in the cities (Sanandaj, Saqqez, Mahabad, etc.). In the cities there are textile, tobacco, plastic and other factories that hire 30 to 40 workers. There are also many small shops where workers are engaged in carpet weaving, metal work, bakeries, etc. There is also a lot of seasonal work in brickyards and construction projects. (Many of the underemployed and seasonal Kurdish workers regularly travel to the factories and work sites in Tabriz and other industrial centers across Iran.)

This capitalist transformation didn't raise the Kurdish toilers out of their wretched poverty. What it did do, however, is bring about a class polarization. It brought the working class onto the stage as a class to be reckoned with. This has had a major impact on the revolutionary upheaval of the last decade.

What Was Its Role in the Iranian Revolution?

In 1978 and early 1979 a mass upsurge swept Iran, toppling the U.S.-backed dictatorship of the Shah. Although not the first to go into action, the Kurdish people played their part in this insurrection. Once the revolution was unleashed, it was carried further and realized a greater freedom for the working masses in Kurdistan than in other regions of the country.

There were a number of reasons for this. There was the historic strength of non-Islamic and left organizations, including the communist organization Komala. There was the religious distinction; the Kurds, being mainly Sunni Moslems, were less vulnerable to the demagogy of Khomeini and his Shiite mullahs. National feelings also played a part, with the Kurds rightly suspecting that the new government in Teheran would not respect their demands for autonomy.

All this meant that in Kurdistan there was greater distrust in the new Islamic government that came in after the fall of the Shah. This opened the way for a more thorough struggle against the remnants of the old order and a more resolute defense of the gains of the revolution. The working people took up arms and set up their own authority across most of Iranian Kurdistan.

The Khomeini clique came to power in the anti-Shah insurrection. But this didn't make it revolutionary. On the contrary, the Khomeini regime came to power with the aim of turning back the revolution of the workers and toilers and rebuilding the state power of the capitalist exploiters.

Revolutionary Kurdistan was a sharp thorn in its side. In August 1979 the Khomeini regime launched an all-out military offensive to assert its authority in the region. The masses put up a ferocious resistance and the troops of the regime were temporarily thrown back.

After more than five years of bloody warfare, the Islamic regime was able to establish its military control. The army and "revolutionary guards'' of the dictatorship have now set up garrisons and forts on top of almost every hill surrounding the villages and towns. Nonetheless, the armed resistance continues. Because of the support of the people, the Kurdish peshmargas (armed fighters) continue to land heavy blows on the regime throughout the region.

What Are the Political Forces?

There are two important political forces in Iranian Kurdistan: there is the bourgeois nationalist KDP (Kurdish Democratic Party), and there is the organization of the workers and toilers known as Komala, which is now the regional organization of the Communist Party of Iran.

At the time of the revolution there were other left organizations with a following in Kurdistan, including the Castroite Fedayee organization. But these left-wing forces had a vacillating, non-working class standpoint and were essentially pushed aside by the wave of acute class conflicts. (Besides the left, at one point there were attempts to create feudalistic, reactionary groupings; however, these were smashed up by the blows of the masses.)

The KDP goes back a long way and had maintained an image of being somewhat left-wing and popular. But in the wake of the revolution, where the working class came out in struggle for its own interests, the KDP slid rightwards, lining up with the wealthy and reactionary elements. (Internationally the KDP has been grooming links with forces like West European social-democracy.)

At the same time, Komala has become more firmly rooted in the working class, both ideologically and in terms of its base of support among the masses.

Both the KDP and Komala fight for the right to self-determination and autonomy. However, the KDP fights within the framework of bourgeois nationalism. It preaches unity with the Kurdish factory owner, and its firmest supporter in the villages is the rich farmer. Komala, on the other hand, says autonomy will mean nothing without defense of the workers' interests. It organizes the workers against the factory owners and agitates for a workers' government. And in the villages it has support among the rural laborers.

This class division between the two Kurdish parties means constant strife. In 1984, the KDP attempted to settle matters by attacking Komala militarily. A savage and bloody war ensued between them. Komala successfully rebuffed the KDP's attacks, essentially teaching the bourgeois nationalist chiefs a costly lesson that the communist forces of the working masses are not to be trifled with.

Over the last year, the war between the KDP and Komala has calmed down for now. Both sides generally refrain from carrying out military actions in the zone of operations of the other (the KDP mainly operates to the north of Komala). This has allowed Komala to once again concentrate its fire on the occupation forces of the Khomeini tyranny.

[Photo: A rural village in Iranian Kurdistan.]

[Map.]

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U.S. imperialism, get out of Central America!

[Graphic.]

Navy's death train sues its victim

[Photo: Outraged by the attempted murder of Brian Willson, 20,000 people rallied at the Concord Navy base on September 5. Thousands took part in tearing up the tracks that carried the death train.]

In September 1987, activist Brian Willson was run over by a Navy train at the Concord (California) Naval Base. Willson was protesting peacefully on the railroad tracks against U.S. aggression in Central America. He lost both legs below the knees, and very nearly his life.

The attempted murder of Willson by the Naval authorities was a horror. But now another grotesque chapter has been added to the story. The crew of the train that ran over Willson is suing him for the "mental anguish" and "embarrassment" that their near killing of Willson allegedly caused them!

What sick logic! The Navy almost kills an activist. Then the activist is blamed for causing so much suffering.

What next? Maybe a new legal precedent will be established. You can commit any crime and then sue your victim for the inconvenience or any bad feelings you experience later on.

Perhaps the Justice Department will file suit against all protesters for the "anguish" they have caused Reagan. Why, it could be a whole new avenue of funding for the contra war. Or maybe Austrian President Kurt Waldheim will bring suit against the surviving family members of his mass murder victims as a Nazi officer during World War II. After all, hasn't Mr. Waldheim been "embarrassed" by the revelations of his past activities as a war criminal?

The Navy Brass Are the Criminals

The physical and legal attacks on Willson are. not just the whim of the crew members. The U.S. Navy bears the chief responsibility for the crime against Willson. The Naval authorities knew that Willson and others were holding a peaceful demonstration on the railroad tracks. But they told the train crew to take a run at the protesters. After the incident, the Navy conducted a sham investigation that whitewashed the whole affair. No action was ever taken against those who ordered the train crew to plow through the protest.

The Navy also has more than a passing interest in the train crew's lawsuit. Willson is planning to sue the Navy for his medical expenses and the loss of his legs. A counter-suit against Willson would help pressure him to drop his own lawsuit. And if the train crew wins, it would set a precedent for similar lawsuits against every demonstrator and protester around the country.

The train crew is allowing itself to be used as pawns for the bloody crimes of the Navy. They followed orders and had the train speed through the demonstration. Their lawsuit is continuing the job their speeding train began.

The Navy's crimes against Willson are not some isolated accident. It goes hand in hand with the Pentagon's crimes against the Central American workers and peasants. It is part of an entire system of war and terror, the imperialist system.

Confessions of an Arias plan supporter

Pity the poor opportunists. When the Arias pact was signed six months ago they assured one and all that the light of "democracy" and "peace" would soon shine on Central America. Now the dark reality behind the fine phrases has set in. The Arias plan has been revealed as little more than an attempt to make Nicaragua capitulate to the wishes of the contras, the reactionary regimes in Central America, and U.S. imperialism. This has become so obvious that even the opportunist supporters of the Arias pact are admitting the plan is not fulfilling its promises.

The Guardian Confesses...

A charter member of the Arias plan fan club is the opportunist newspaper, the Guardian. The Guardian used to boast of the alleged wonder-working powers of the Guatemalan accords. The headlines in their paper proclaimed such things as "Peace plan stymies contra aid supporters." (Sept. 16, 1987, p. 3)

Today the Guardian has had to adopt a more somber tone. In their January 27 issue, the front page article on the Arias plan has the headline "Managua gives a lot, U.S. wants more." This article admits that although Nicaragua has made big concessions, the Reagan administration plans to continue pressing the contra war.

It points out the rotten results of the January 15 summit of the Central American governments which signed the Arias plan. They comment on this summit's final declaration as follows:

* it "contained little that was favorable to Nicaragua";

* it "said nothing about U.S. aid to the contras";

* "The other Central American countries" were "forcing Nicaragua to agree to the new declaration that calls for unconditional and unilateral steps [by Nicaragua -- ed.]";

* "The IVC (International Verification Commission) is apparently abolished" (the opportunists promoted the IVC as an example of how the bourgeois regimes of Latin America were defiant of U.S. imperialism, but the IVC dissolved rather than say a word that would hinder the attack on Nicaragua);

*and it means "the U.S. Congress will decide on its own whether to vote for more contra aid despite the Esquipulas 2 [Arias plan] call for an end to such outside aid for the contras."

The Guardian sums up that "it was clear here that the other Central American presidents had decided to put the onus on Nicaragua." They add that there are now only "sparse prospects for democracy and peace in Central America...."

...But Keeps Blind Faith in the Arias Plan

When the Guardian looks at the actual carrying out of the Arias plan, it admits things are pretty bad. Well then, does if condemn the Arias plan? No, it simply pretends that this is not the real Arias plan.

It still claims that "All five countries would benefit if the peace plan were to take hold." Then there would be ' 'genuine democracy."

But the Arias plan has been "taking hold" for the last six months. And all it has accomplished is to help U.S. imperialism and the contras try to "take hold" of Nicaragua by the neck!

For the Guardian, the "real" Arias plan is actually only the fantastic picture that exists in its mind. It is a figment of its illusions that the interests of the oppressed masses of Central America can be reconciled with those of the reactionary regimes backed up by U.S. imperialism. These illusions are a product of its betrayal of the revolutionary struggles which alone can sweep away the horrible conditions and war which the Arias plan is helping to perpetuate.

The peace plan and 'death squad' democracy in Honduras

When the Arias peace plan was signed in August 1987, one of its big promises was that the death-squad regimes in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala would reform themselves. "Democracy" and "human rights" were to flourish. Now six months have passed. But instead of democracy in these countries, the death squads and military power remain unchecked. Recent events in Honduras confirm this.

Honduras on Trial for Death-Squad Murders

This past month the government of Honduras was placed on trial by the Inter-American Court on Human Rights, the judicial arm of the Organization of American States (OAS). In the sea of murders carried out by right-wing death squads in Central America, the Inter-American Court finally took notice of four murders by Honduran army death squads in 1981 and 1982.

The OAS is itself a reactionary organization of pro-U.S. and capitalist regimes in Latin America and the Caribbean along with the U.S. It has a long history of opposing revolution and helping U.S. imperialism maintain its domination of Latin America.

But the Honduran death squads have even been killing people with prominent connections or who were citizens of other countries. They are so blatant even the OAS was forced to acknowledge their existence.

Right-Wing Death Squads Kill the Witnesses

The trial concerns four murders that took place years ago. But the Honduran death squads are alive and well today. The lead witness in the trial, Angel Pavon, was just murdered; he was a regional official of the Honduran Human Rights Commission. And another witness scheduled to testify, Jose Isaias Viloria, a repentant death- squad member and former Honduran army sergeant, was also murdered.

Meanwhile, an army officer who was the former commander of the 316th Battalion, which organized several of the death squads, recently served as a high official of the Honduran police. Now he has just been promoted to lieutenant colonel by Honduran President Azcona.

As well, the brother of the present commander of the army is also a well known death-squad leader.

The U.S. Backs the Death Squads

The trial has also shed some light on the U.S. government's involvement with the death squads. A former Honduran army sergeant testified he was trained in interrogation by the CIA. He admitted to interrogating civilians caught by the death squads. He said that after he grilled them they were inevitably killed.

Another witness at the trial was Consuelo Murillo, a woman who was tortured and sexually abused by the death squads for 80 days. She was one of the few victims who survived, due to being a daughter of a former army officer and to West German pressure. She has identified a CIA agent who was present at one of her interrogation sessions.

Organized by the CIA

These events are no accident. The CIA actually established the notorious 316th Battalion which runs the death squads. And despite having full knowledge of the army/police involvement in the death squads, the Reagan administration keeps praising Honduras' "human rights" record. Reagan keeps sending aid to the police and military.

Shooting Down of DC-6 Shows Honduras Keeps Aiding the Contras

Another promise of the Arias plan was that the Central American countries were to stop being used as launching pads for the U.S./contra war.

But this has not happened either.

For example, at the end of January, Nicaragua shot down a contra DC-6 supply plane over Nicaragua which had taken off from Honduras' Swan Island. The peace promises have thus gone up in smoke!

Of course the DC-6 was just the tip of the iceberg. Everyone knows that the Honduran government has continued to harbor the contra bases. It also welcomes the U.S. military which directs and supplies the contra war.

The Hypocrisy of the Arias Plan

Obviously the pious words of the Arias plan have remained a dead letter in Honduras.

But the Arias plan gives Honduran President Azcona and other heads of death-squad regimes the determining voice in judging Nicaragua. Are these leaders condemning themselves as murderers and warmongers undermining peace and democracy? Of course not! Their big hue and cry is against Nicaragua, which is being victimized by the U.S. contra war waged from their soil.

Window Dressing Versus Reality

This shows that the Arias plan's rhetoric about bringing "peace" and "democracy" to Central America was just window dressing. The real purpose of the Arias plan was to pressure Nicaragua to dismantle its revolution. And to prettify the death-squad regimes in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

Fig leaf for American bayonet

Central American summit

In mid-January President Ortega of Nicaragua met with four presidents of pro-U.S. regimes in Central America. This was the long awaited Central American summit to decide the fate of the Arias peace plan. And the conclusion of this meeting was dramatic indeed.

The International Verification Commission was swept aside.

Criticism of anyone but the Nicaraguans was cast aside.

Only deeper and deeper concessions by Nicaragua, given unilaterally while Honduras and El Salvador flaunted their support for the contras, "saved" the summit.

At this meeting the petals were blown away from the flowery rhetoric adorning the Arias peace plan. Little remained to hide the reality of a brutal ultimatum dictated to Nicaragua on behalf of an American bayonet.

The International Verification Commission Is Dissolved

The International Verification Commission (IVC) for the Arias plan was composed, except for the Nicaraguan, of representatives from the bourgeois regimes of Latin America. It was supposed to be a sign that the bourgeois regimes of Latin America were standing up to Reagan. It was a sign of how the Arias plan was allegedly forced on the U.S.

But all this was play-acting.

Faced with a hard line from Reagan, the IVC refused to even stand up for its own politics of negotiating the revolution away. The IVC simply dissolved.

No Criticism of the Death-Squad Regimes

This went along with two important results of the mid-January Central American summit.

First of all, there was to be no pressure on the death-squad regimes. Even the play-acting of the IVC was to be banned. The obligations of the Arias plan bind only Nicaragua and no one else. And if Nicaragua doesn't live up to them, let it perish under the American bayonet. The Arias pact is not a plan to stop the contras, but to justify the American bayonet.

Even previous to this meeting, President Arias of Costa Rica had absolved Honduras of all need to stop supporting the contras until an agreement was reached between Nicaragua and the contras, i.e., until the contra war was over. And this was the line of the Central American summit.

The line of the summit was that blame for everything lies on Nicaragua.

Everything Is Subject to Approval by Congress and the White House

The second important result of the summit.

With the IVC gone, who was to verify compliance with the terms of the Arias pact? Fine words aside, the answer was -- the U.S. government. The Arias plan was revealed as simply fancy words to cover the demand that Nicaragua satisfy the White House and Congress. The Arias pact doesn't bind Washington in any way, but Washington is to have final say on it.

Destabilizing Nicaragua

The Sandinista government bowed down to this. The only reason that the summit didn't end in collapse was that Nicaragua made a series of unilateral concessions. It decided to save the summit by bowing deeper than ever to the demands of the pro-U.S. regimes. It began a campaign of making one concession after another to purchase a meaningless congressional vote that can be reversed in 24 hours.

The Nicaraguan Workers and Peasants Will Have Their Say

But there is another force that will have its say. This is the Nicaraguan workers and poor peasants who made the revolution to stand up in their own interests and not to beg Reagan and the pope for forgiveness.

The Marxist-Leninist Party of Nicaragua is the party of the class conscious workers. It opposes dismantling the revolution for the sake of the Arias plan. And it is the only party in Nicaragua that fights the vacillation of the Sandinistas from the left. The only party that stands for carrying the revolution through to the end.

In standing up for revolution, the MLPN is rendering support as well to the other toilers of Latin America. The Arias plan has not brought reconciliation between death squad executioner and toiler in El Salvador or elsewhere. Despite the dreams of the reformists, the struggles still rage on. And it is the brotherhood of revolutionary struggle that is driving the U.S. and Latin American bourgeoisie into a frenzy.

A tale of two drug dealers

The TV is full of news that Panama's military ruler General Noriega is involved in drug deals. Congress is up in a huff about it. Liberals and conservatives together want to force General Noriega out.

But is that what they really have against Noriega? Reagan's "brothers," the contras, are also up to their waists in drug running. And Congress couldn't care less. One or two committees investigates for years and then lets the matter drop.

It seems that drugs are all right, so long as one is on good terms with the State Department and the Pentagon. As long as Noriega was offering to carry out assassinations for the U.S., his drug deals were overlooked. The day the Reagan administration decided to look to a better agent in Panama, his drug dealing became an issue.

The contras, on the other hand, are all the rage with the Reagan administration. So Reagan continues to "just say yes" to these murdering drug fiends. Their drug dealing is regarded by the TV and Congress as at best a controversial issue. Surely nothing to require any action. Perhaps a reason to give them more "humanitarian" aid so as to wean them off drugs.

We, on the other hand, say down with the contras and Noriega, and down with Reagan and the Democratic-dominated Congress which has financed the contras for years. No "humanitarian aid" for drug-dealing counterrevolutionaries. Support the workers and peasants of Nicaragua and Panama against U.S. imperialism and the local bourgeoisie. Just say no to Reaganism.

Not a penny for the contras!

Congress is debating aid to the contras again.

The Democrats have voted aid to the contras over and over. Now the talk is that there is still aid left in the pipeline, so they are wondering whether it is safe to leave it at that for now. After all, the Democrats say, the Sandinistas are giving up far more concessions through the Arias plan than the contras could ever hope to win militarily.

At one time House Speaker Wright postured as a fighter against contra aid. Allegedly his hand was forced each time. But now the only thing he objects to in Reagan's plan is that it isn't restricted to so-called non- lethal aid.

Reagan wants $36.2 million to last for several months. This is a huge annual rate. He could probably get the Democrats to pass it fairly readily except for one thing. Wright objects only to the $3.6 million part of it that is called military aid. And even here, Wright is willing to consider putting the military aid into escrow for a month or two.

The Fraud of "Non-Lethal" Aid

But look at this so-called non-lethal aid.

Eighteen million dollars, about half the package, is for maintaining the contras' supply planes. So the planes to drop arms into Nicaragua (under CIA supervision, of course) are allegedly non-military aid.

Military uniforms are also said not to be military aid.

Electronic equipment to disable Sandinista radar has nothing to do with military purposes, oh no.

Rifle scopes for accurate killing are also called non-lethal, as are spare parts of various types.

According to Reagan, only bullets and missiles are military aid. To feed and clothe and arm and train and transport an army is humanitarian.

And most Democrats accept this.

The Democrats Are for Destabilizing Nicaragua

Why?

Well, do the Democrats say that contra aid is wrong because the U.S. government has no business imposing its interests on Nicaraguan workers and peasants? On the contrary, they argue over how effective the contras are in promoting "U.S. interests."

But the liberals think that destabilizing Nicaragua politically is more effective than Reagan's onesidedness. They hope that an internal counterrevolutionary political front in Nicaragua, backed by U.S. dollars and support, will be more effective than the demoralized contras. So they link any vote against contra aid to more concessions from Nicaragua.

Besides, even if the aid vote is defeated, the Reagan administration has alternative ways to continue backing the contras. The Democrats have thoughtfully removed even the pretense of a Boland Amendment. They have cleared the way for CIA action.

The Sandinistas Give Concessions

Everyone can read for themselves that the Democrats are critical of the contras because the contras are losing. But the Sandinistas apparently believe that Reagan and Congress are serious in talking about "peace" and "democracy." So they are trying to purchase the goodwill of U.S. imperialism.

This is a dangerous game. It means helping open the door for CIA political action in Nicaragua.

In the last month or two, the Sandinistas have given one concession after another. Among other things:

* Ortega has even said that humanitarian aid can be given to the contras after a cease-fire is negotiated.

* The Sandinistas have even promised to allow the contras to form a counterrevolutionary political party with full rights in Nicaragua if they give up their weapons. This means allowing the CIA to finance and direct political puppets in Nicaragua, while the U.S. government also continues its economic and military pressure from the outside.

* The Sandinistas have put forward the demand for international verification of Nicaragua's political situation. They have offered to have the Democrats and the Republicans, as well as representatives of other capitalist countries, verify that full rights have been given to the contras.

Down With All Methods of Strangling Nicaragua!

We must oppose the war on Nicaragua lock, stock, and barrel. No aid of any type to the contras! An end to CIA and congressional-sponsored destabilization campaigns! An end to all covert CIA and Reagan administration support of the contras and stiff jail sentences for the Colonel Norths and all the mercenary chiefs!

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What's holding back the solidarity movement with Palestine?

As Palestinians in the occupied territories stand up against the Israeli military, protest actions are starting to break out here in the U.S. against Israeli brutality. The demonstrations have been small but in several cases are marked by a militant spirit.

More needs to be done. Of course, organizing a movement in support of the Palestinians is no easy task. For decades the politicians, government and news media have, spread lie after lie about Israel and the Palestinians. A myth has been created about Israel as a democratic paradise, while the Palestinians have been repeatedly abused and vilified.

However today there are favorable conditions for developing the exposure and condemnation of Israeli zionism.

Israel is once again baring its fangs before the world. They are shooting down unarmed demonstrators. They are beating Palestinian youth. And even the capitalist media cannot shut their camera lenses to the daily outrages in the West Bank and Gaza. Thus working people in large numbers are getting a glimpse of the brutality of the Israeli regime. And they are seeing a people standing up in defiance of. powerful odds. Such scenes are helping to create sympathy for the Palestinians.

Yet another factor helping to mobilize sentiment against the Israeli regime is the anti-apartheid movement of recent years. This movement helped to spread exposures of the racist barbarity of the apartheid system in South Africa. The parallels between South Africa and Israel are not too difficult to see. Indeed, slogans drawing this parallel are showing up widely in the recent demonstrations. And in Berkeley, California, anti-apartheid activists were among the organizers of the recent "BART Alert" in solidarity with the Palestinians.

The present climate is useful to push forward the fight in support of the Palestinians. This is an important task facing class conscious workers and progressive activists. Any blows directed here against U.S.-backed zionism would be a boost for the fighting Palestinians.

Of course one cannot minimize the hard work that is needed on this front. Building the movement in solidarity with the Palestinian people faces many obstacles. But the best way to move ahead is to confront those roadblocks face to face.

A Head-On Fight Is Needed Against the Liberal Democrats

To organize support for the Palestinians means going up against the politics of support for the Israeli zionist regime. This is a central feature of mainstream U.S. bourgeois politics. Aid for Israeli zionism is a bipartisan cause, upheld by both Republican and Democratic party politicians.

Thus when the Israeli regime invades Lebanon or when it bombs Palestinian refugee camps or when it routinely oppresses the Palestinians, there is a deafening silence from even the most liberal of Democratic politicians.

But today the people are being treated to daily graphic scenes of Israeli brutality. Still, there is no protest from the politicians on Capitol Hill. There is no criticism of Israel in the election campaign.

The Democratic Party's stand is especially telling. The silver-tongued liberals never tire of proclaiming how they are for democracy and human rights. But when it comes to the Israeli denial of Palestinian rights, the Democrats are nowhere to be found.

This stand of the liberal Democrats is yet another proof of their utterly imperialist nature. It is one more reason why the workers and progressive activists must reject the Democratic Party and build their struggles independent of both parties of the rich.

Deepen the Exposure of Israeli Zionism

The cruelty of the Israeli government is forcing even friends of Israel to criticize Israeli policies. Such criticisms are coming from the leaders of bourgeois zionist organizations as well as liberal Zionists like New Jewish Agenda.

This shows that even Zionists are being forced to acknowledge at least part of the reality of Israeli policies. But these forces only criticize Israel in order to defend it better. Indeed, they are openly complaining that Israeli policies are giving them a difficult time defending democracy in Israel. But Israel as a democracy is a myth. It is a "democracy" based on disenfranchising and expelling the Palestinian majority.

After all, what Israel is doing today in the West Bank and Gaza is not something that just appeared from nowhere. It has long been the reality in these territories. Hasn't Israel kept up a military occupation of these territories since 1967? Isn't there something basically incompatible between military occupation and democracy?

The fact of the matter is that zionism set up Israel as a theocratic and exclusivist state; the state of Israel is based on the denial of a whole people's national rights. And this is why the brutal policies of the Israeli regime are the politics of the entire Israeli establishment. Terror and subjugation of the Palestinians is upheld by right-wing Likud as well as social-democratic Labor parties. It is upheld by the trade union bureaucracy of Histadrut. In sum, this is the class politics of the zionist bourgeoisie.

Of course zionist chieftains aren't the only ones criticizing Israel. Today there is also growing criticism of Israel among many ordinary Jewish people who have what might be called sentimental views about Israel. Their criticism signifies a more honest striving. It shows the influence of zionist myths being shaken. This is a good development. Such people should be drawn into the protests against Israel.

However many such people still have hangovers of zionist myths. We don't think the movement should adapt to their prejudices; instead they need to be drawn into discussion over the meaning of Israel's policies. They need to be shown that Israeli occupation policies are not some minor deviation from an otherwise democratic order but a question of a whole regime, a ruling class, a political trend -- zionism.

Arab-American Reformism Also Undermines Movement

In years past, Palestinian and Arab immigrant groups have been among the few forces to organize the Palestinian solidarity actions. Unfortunately in recent years much of this work has been liquidated. Today the leaders of the official Arab-American organizations are undermining the development of a strong movement in solidarity with the Palestinians.

In many places they don't even call demonstrations. For example, in the Detroit area, where there is a large Arab immigrant population, the protests have been among the weakest. And where events have been organized, the official leaders have tried to make them as nonpolitical as possible.

This is based on the view that the struggle should be toned down to what is acceptable to the American bourgeoisie. The Arab-American group leaders promote the politics of begging the politicians and government in Washington to become kinder towards the Palestinians. Their highest goal has become to create a bourgeois lobby in Washington like the pro-Israeli lobby. Hence they promote attempts to work with and through the Republican and Democratic parties.

Such a scheme is of course based on their class interests. The Arab-American officialdom is made up of businessmen and professionals, aspiring to capitalist respectability.

But for building a movement in support of the Palestinians, their politics is a dead end. It is ridiculous to seek the favors of the imperialist politicians who each year vote billions in aid for Israel. Instead the place to expect and build solidarity is among the working people and youth. What's needed is activity among the masses -- spreading exposures, holding public meetings, protests and demonstrations.

Which Way for the Palestinians: Reformism or Revolution?

In the protests against Israeli terror, certain liberal zionist and Arab reformist forces have coalesced behind a common stand. The call has been raised that the solidarity movement should put pressure on the U.S. government to support an international peace conference among the big imperialist powers, Israel and the PLO, etc. This is being promoted as the way out for the oppressed Palestinian people.

This call is also being supported by reformist and revisionist groups like the Socialist Workers Party, Workers World Party, the CPUS A, etc. Internationally this campaign is being strongly pushed by the Soviet revisionists, the Arab bourgeois regimes, and the PLO leadership.

But just because the PLO leaders are advocating this proposal doesn't mean that this is the best path for the Palestinian struggle. In fact the PLO leadership is caught up in the reformist politics of despair. In the late 60's the present PLO forces had emerged with certain national-revolutionary features, but they have for quite some time been mired in the grip of national-reformism. They have no fighting strategy for the Palestinian movement. Thus they preach reliance on the superpowers, reliance on the UN, reliance on the Arab governments -- anything except reliance on the basic masses of the oppressed themselves.

Let's assume for a moment that such an international peace conference were to be held. What would be the outcome? Even if a "negotiated peace" is worked out, that could only at this time signify a reformist accommodation between the Israeli ruling class and bourgeois Palestinians. The proposals for Palestinian "self-rule" that are generally bandied about in imperialist circles would simply amount to some sort of bantustan status for a Palestinian "homeland" in the West Bank and Gaza. The PLO leaders may get to sit in some governmental seats, but the Palestinian toilers would remain economically and politically subjugated to Israel. During the last 20 years of occupation, the Palestinian territories have become a source of cheap labor for Israel and a dumping ground for Israeli goods. A bantustan arrangement would not alter this one bit. And the "security guarantees" demanded by the Israeli regime mean that Israeli troops would stand close by to put down any ferment among the toilers.

We do not consider this the liberation of the Palestinian people. This is why, we think it is wrong to impose these politics onto the solidarity movement. Instead we should fight in support of a revolutionary path.

To win Palestinian liberation, what is needed is the overthrow of the Israeli ruling class. The forces for this revolution are there. They are among the Palestinian masses in Israel and the occupied territories. They are among the Jewish working people bit by bit breaking with zionism. Their interests lie with one another, in a common fight for a democratic and secular Palestine. In the struggle for working class goals against the capitalist exploiters.

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U.S. activists support Palestinian youth

Israeli soldiers shooting and beating Palestinians. The U.S. government the No. 1 backer of the zionist regime. An ugly combination such as this is bound to call forth protest and opposition.

The youth of Palestine are standing up fearless against guns and clubs. Such a sight is bound to call forth actions in solidarity.

And so it has. In several cities hundreds of people have come out in demonstrations to voice their outrage against Israeli oppression of the Palestinians. To denounce U.S. support for Israel. And to salute the Palestinians.

Berkeley Action Supports Palestinian Revolution

On the evening of January 21, activists in the San Francisco Bay Area organized a "BART Alert" against Israeli oppression of the Palestinians. About a hundred protesters gathered at the Berkeley BART (mass transit) station. After a brief rally demonstrators marched through the town and onto the campus of the University of California.

The banner heading up the march declared boldly, "Zionism is racism! Support the Palestinian struggle!" At the rally, speakers from the Marxist-Leninist Party and the Campaign Against Apartheid addressed the crowd. The MLP militant said, "Make our action today a very clear militant support for the struggle of the Palestinian people; let us make it clear that we stand for victory to the revolution in Palestine." He made a point of exposing and denouncing the dirty role of the Republican and Democratic Parties, which are fervent supporters of Israeli oppression.

The marchers went through the streets shouting militant slogans. They raised their voices against the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza; they condemned Israeli terrorism; they denounced Reagan and U.S. imperialism. The demonstration made it clear that brutality by the Israeli state could end only by overthrowing it and replacing it with a democratic Palestine without a state religion.

The following week there was a campus rally of about 200. It too saluted the brave youth of Palestine. Speakers exposed the repressive and racist nature of zionism and its service to imperialism. The speaker from the Campaign Against Apartheid exposed the dirty role of the Democratic Party in backing zionist suppression. The CAA activist pointed out that the Democrats' criticism of apartheid in South Africa is hypocritical when they support Israeli apartheid in the Middle East.

Militant Pickets in Los Angeles

Los Angeles has seen a number of protests since the upsurge of Palestinians began in the West Bank and Gaza.

On January 14, a noontime picket was organized at the Israeli consulate. Some 250 people turned out. At the beginning of the action an attempt was made to. disrupt the picket line by a dozen heavies from the ultra-zionist Jewish Defense League. They didn't succeed. But with their racist anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab abuse, the JDL confirmed again that zionism is indeed racism.

A couple of weeks earlier, 900 people rallied for three hours outside the Los Angeles city hall on January 1.

And on December 21st, 250 protesters had gathered to picket the Israeli consulate on Wilshire Boulevard. Incensed at the butchery of the Israeli forces, the crowd was in a militant mood. They shouted slogans like "Free, free Palestine; Down with Zionism!" "Long live the Palestinian Struggle!" "Jews yes, Zionists no!" At this action too, five JDL reactionaries came to taunt the pickets from across the street. About 25 militants from the demonstration rushed across the street to get at the fascists. Only the interference of 10 armed cops saved the JDL thugs.

Elsewhere

In Seattle, on January 18, about 300 people marched on local newspaper and TV stations. They denounced Israeli brutality and opposed U.S. support for Israel.

In Chicago, six demonstrations have been organized in recent weeks, involving up to several hundred people. The actions were marked by a spirited mood among the protesters.

Actions condemning Israel have also been reported from other cities, including New York and Detroit.

These expressions of mass outrage against Israeli brutality are welcome events. Activists of the Marxist-Leninist Party have been in the thick of many of the recent demonstrations around the country. Mobilizing support for the brave Palestinian fighters is an important task here in the U.S., where the ruling class is Israeli Zionism's main imperialist backer.

[Photo: March against brutality of Israeli occupiers gets under way in Seattle, January 17.]

[Photo: "BART Alert" action in Berkeley, California salutes Palestinian struggle, January 21.]

[Photo.]

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Arab governments fear Palestinian struggle

The Arab League, the international grouping of the Arab regimes, met the weekend of January 23-24. The meeting passed a resolution of support for the Palestinian upsurge in the occupied territories.

The Palestinian people cannot place any hopes in such resolutions. They are just so much hot air. Still worse, they are thoroughly hypocritical. At the very same time as they made declarations of "support" for the Palestinians, the Arab League governments were smashing pro-Palestinian demonstrations in their own countries.

Jordan

In Jordan, where the majority of the people are Palestinians, the prime minister bragged to the Jordanian parliament on January 24 that his government had arrested a number of Palestinian militants. Their crime: planning demonstrations in Jordan that would express support for the Palestinian cause. Nonetheless, on January 24th, 150 people did stage a protest in the streets of Amman, Jordan's capital. The protesters called for support for the Palestinian uprising and chanted "Revolution until victory." But Jordanian police attacked the demonstration, broke it up and arrested the leaders.

Iraq

Iraq's government claims to be militantly anti-zionist. But what did it do when Palestinian residents in Baghdad distributed leaflets the second week of January calling for solidarity demonstrations? The Iraqi secret police raided their homes and took them away. They haven't been heard from since.

Morocco

In Morocco, students organized a pro- Palestinian demonstration the second week of January. Police attacked the protest with so much violence that one student died and nine were injured.

Egypt

The Egyptian government is also dead set against expressions of support for the Palestinians. In Cairo, police attacked pro-Palestinian demonstrations at two universities and arrested dozens of students.

Capitalist Regimes Fear Any Mass Stirrings

Why is it that the Arab regimes are so afraid of actions in solidarity with the Palestinians? One would think that since these regimes give lip service to the Palestinian cause they could well tolerate some expressions of public solidarity, or they would even themselves organize or co-opt such actions.

But no. The Arab regimes are not inclined to act this way.

For one thing, they are distrustful of the Palestinian refugees in their own territories. The regimes are willing to hobnob with the bourgeoisified PLO leaders or with the leaders of Palestinian groups that this or that regime controls; but they are dead set against allowing any mass mobilization among the Palestinian population.

For another thing, they fear that the Palestinian upsurge may be infectious among their own peoples. The Arab regimes are all capitalist regimes based on the exploitation and oppression of the toilers in their own countries. They keep the masses down with repression and tyranny. They do not tolerate mass actions. They are afraid that actions in sympathy with the Palestinians might bring the contagion of rebellion from the West Bank and Gaza. After all, to the Arab masses it would not take much to conclude from their own lives that they too should take up rebellion against their tyrannical governments.

Also, despite the empty resolutions of solidarity, the Arab League governments are working to cool down the Palestinian upsurge in the Israeli-occupied territories. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, for example, has launched an appeal for a so-called peace plan, the first condition of which is for calm in the West Bank and Gaza. The Palestinians are being asked to call off their struggle and trust their fate to negotiations among the big powers and between the Israelis and Arab regimes.

Reportedly Mubarak and King Hussein of Jordan are begging Reagan to support this peace plan, warning him that the Palestinian upsurge is threatening stability in their own countries.

A History of Treachery

The Arab bourgeois regimes have a dirty history of treachery against the Palestinians. A few examples from recent history:

In 1970 King Hussein of Jordan launched civil war against the Palestinian guerrilla camps in Jordan. Hussein succeeded in forcing the Palestinian guerrillas to leave Jordan and go to Lebanon.

In Lebanon, Palestinian forces formed an alliance with the Lebanese left; this alliance came close to defeating the right-wing Phalangist forces in the 1975-76 civil war. But the supposedly "radical" government of Syria intervened to prevent their victory, and to ensure dominance of Lebanon by reaction.

In the Israelis' 1982 invasion of Lebanon the silence from Arab capitals was deafening. The governments of Syria and Saudi Arabia cooperated with Reagan in working out a plan to evict Palestinian forces from Lebanon. Then as now the Arab governments brutally suppressed demonstrations in support of the Palestinians.

No Divisions in the Arab Regimes

Life has shown enough times that the Palestinian people cannot look to the Arab regimes for help with their cause. The PLO leadership however promotes the opposite idea. As a member of the Arab League, the PLO leaders begged for the empty declarations of solidarity. And they said nothing in criticism of the actual record of the Arab regimes.

Instead of looking to the Arab regimes, the Palestinian toilers need links with the exploited and oppressed working people in the Arab countries. They face a common struggle against imperialism, Israeli zionism and Arab reaction.

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The World in Struggle

[Graphic.]

Chilean miners in combative mood

There are reports of a revival of the strike movement among miners in Chile.

In December, miners in Pedro de Valdivia in northern Chile went on strike. The mines here are run by General Pinochet's relatives. This was the mine's first strike since the 1973 coup which installed the brutal dictatorship of Pinochet.

The miners get an average wage of $80 a month. But inflation which is running at 20% means a sharp wage cut. Meanwhile the mining capitalists are swimming in profits.

Union organizers claim that there are many more strikes and near-strikes now than two years ago. The miners are clearly in a combative mood.

General strike hits Peru

During the last week of January, Peru was hit by a 24-hour general strike. The Peruvian workers are protesting the high inflation which is robbing them of the value of their paychecks.

The strike was declared illegal by the reformist government of Alan Garcia. But this did not stop demonstrators from hitting the streets. They blocked roads with burning tires in Lima. Rock-throwing students confronted police who used tear gas.

Outrage against killings by dictator in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh General Ershad imposed a state of emergency in November to put down a rising tide of struggle against his dictatorship. But repression has not succeeded in putting down the mass movement.

On January 24, police fired on demonstrators in the port city of Chittagong. At least 17 people were reported killed and 300 more wounded. This massacre was one of Ershad's most brutal crimes against the Bengali people.

The Chittagong killings have brought a storm of outrage and protest. A general strike was immediately called. The last week of January demonstrators took to the streets in several cities. They defied bans by the government and stood up against police who were using tear gas and batons.

Steelworkers protest plant closings in W. Germany

The steel capitalists in West Germany are closing down a series of plants. Thousands of workers are being thrown out of work. In protest, German workers have been organizing actions. They are fighting against the capitalist restructuring of the steel industry at their expense.

A few days ago, workers went on strike at a foundry due to shut down near Regensburg in Bavaria. And thousands of children joined their parents to form a human chain around a steel mill marked for shutdown in Duisburg.

[Photo: Steelworkers blockade a bridge in struggle against closing of a Krupp steel mill in Duisburg, December 2.]

Condemn the long prison terms for Portuguese anti-fascists

On November 25 the Portuguese Court of Appeals in Lisbon sentenced 20 men and women to 16-18 years in prison. Many others got 8-12 years. Court proceedings await for over 100 more defendants around the country.

The accused are anti-fascist activists from the 1970's, most of whom were originally arrested and jailed in 1984. They were associated with either the Popular Unity Front (FUP) or the Popular Forces April 25th (FP-25.) Among those sentenced to 18 years is Otelo Saraiva de Cavalho, the founder of FUP. Otelo was one of the leaders of the left wing of the Armed Forces Movement, which organized the overthrow of the fascist Caetano dictatorship in April 1974.

The Portuguese political prisoners were charged with the crime of "terrorist association.'' The government never bothered to prove that these defendants were responsible for any particular acts. For example, Otelo was accused of "terrorist association'' because in 1977 he had conceived of a plan to organize a liberation army in case there was another fascist coup in Portugal.

On December 5 the prisoners were dispersed to prisons around the country where they are being treated as ordinary criminals. The same day they launched a hunger strike demanding political prisoner status. The strike was still in effect as of December 21.

Our comrades of the Communist Organization "Workers' Policy'' in Portugal have voiced their protest against the persecution of the FUP/FP-25 activists by the Portuguese bourgeoisie. They point out that although they disagree with the political tactics of these groups, solidarity with the Portuguese political prisoners is important in developing the fight against the capitalist offensive in Portugal today.

The Workers' Advocate adds its voice to the condemnation of the repression of the political prisoners in Portugal.

Portuguese Bourgeoisie Launches Two-Pronged Attack on the Masses

The Portuguese capitalist rulers, represented by the right-wing government of conservative Prime Minister Cavaco de Silva and Socialist Party President Mario Soares, are spearheading a renewed economic and political offensive against the masses.

On the one hand, the exploiters want to throw the galloping economic crisis further onto the backs of the workers. In particular, they want to create, at the workers' expense, a favorable investment climate to facilitate the Portuguese capitalists' integration into the European Common Market. To this end Parliament produced an anti-worker labor law on November 20, giving employers a carte blanche for layoffs, firings and wage cuts. The law also removes union members' rights to legal protection from reprisals by employers.

On the other hand, the Portuguese rulers are bringing out the big guns of political repression to try to enforce their economic attacks. Thus, on November 25, hoping to intimidate the resistance to their program, they announced the prison sentences against those who have defied the bourgeois order in the past. They want to exorcise the specter of the 1974 revolution from the minds of the toilers.

The Way Forward

The capitalist offensive needs to be answered with class struggle. However, the mass struggle in Portugal is currently at a low ebb. Part of the responsibility for this lies in the demobilizing role of the trade union leaders connected to the revisionist Communist Party and the social-democrats.

And how did the two main trade unions respond to the Nov. 20 anti-labor law? The recent issue of Workers' Policy points out that the social-democratic and revisionist union leaders, while grumbling over the law, present it as some kind of aberration caused by the supposed incompetence of the government. The social-democrats characterize it as a sign the government is "not in control'' or that it lacks "creativity,'' and the revisionists say it is an attempt to revert labor relations to "pre-history." Both union leaderships fail to expose the law as a centerpiece of the Portuguese bourgeoisie's deliberate onslaught on the working class in the name of "economic recovery." And they refuse to take up the responsibilities for the radical fight that is needed against the program of "economic recovery."

The comrades of the Communist Organization "Workers' Policy" point out, "In the struggle against these two crying manifestations of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie -- economic exploitation and political repression -- there must be forged a new revolutionary workers' trend. Its regrouping might be delayed. But there is no force that can prevent it." This is the task which the Portuguese communists have dedicated themselves to.

New issue of 'Red Dawn' from Sweden

We have just received the second issue of Red Dawn from Sweden. This Marxist-Leninist journal is produced by the Communist League of Norrkoping (CLN).

The CLN reports to us that the first issue created a stir in a section of the left in Sweden. It has proved to be the only journal in the country addressing the key questions needed to restore revolutionary Marxism-Leninism as the vital basis for a new communist party. The CLN also reports that its work has now laid the basis for the journal to come out regularly.

This issue of the journal carries two articles on the 70th anniversary of the October Socialist Revolution in Russia. In one it contrasts the revolutionary stand of Lenin towards the provisional government of Kerensky in the face of the Kornilov revolt with the reformist distortions in united front tactics adopted by the Seventh Congress of the Comintern. In the other article it denounces the current capitalist reforms of Gorbachev. And it traces the roots of the degeneration into capitalism to the vacillation of Soviet leaders, headed by Stalin, in the mid-1930's in the face of the double pressure of world capitalism and domestic bureaucracy.

Red Dawn also carries an article on "The Central American 'Peace Agreement' -- An Imperialist Conspiracy." It also reprints a joint statement with another group against the Arias peace pact. The statement was handed to the Nicaraguan embassy in Sweden at a solidarity action on November 6.

The journal also analyzes the current workers' struggle against concessions in Sweden. It especially deals with the need to fight social- democracy and the union bureaucracy to "Build the Independent Movement of the Working Class."

There are other articles as well, including reprints from the Workers' Advocate Supplement criticizing the sectarian Madrid communique and the Party of Labor of Albania's praise for the Ethiopian regime.

The Workers' Advocate welcomes this issue of Red Dawn. We wish the CLN continuing success in their important and difficult work.

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Chilean miners in combative mood

There are reports of a revival of the strike movement among miners in Chile.

In December, miners in Pedro de Valdivia in northern Chile went on strike. The mines here are run by General Pinochet's relatives. This was the mine's first strike since the 1973 coup which installed the brutal dictatorship of Pinochet.

The miners get an average wage of $80 a month. But inflation which is running at 20% means a sharp wage cut. Meanwhile the mining capitalists are swimming in profits.

Union organizers claim that there are many more strikes and near-strikes now than two years ago. The miners are clearly in a combative mood.

[Back to Top]

General strike hits Peru

During the last week of January, Peru was hit by a 24-hour general strike. The Peruvian workers are protesting the high inflation which is robbing them of the value of their paychecks.

The strike was declared illegal by the reformist government of Alan Garcia. But this did not stop demonstrators from hitting the streets. They blocked roads with burning tires in Lima. Rock-throwing students confronted police who used tear gas.

[Back to Top]

Outrage against killings by dictator in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh General Ershad imposed a state of emergency in November to put down a rising tide of struggle against his dictatorship. But repression has not succeeded in putting down the mass movement.

On January 24, police fired on demonstrators in the port city of Chittagong. At least 17 people were reported killed and 300 more wounded. This massacre was one of Ershad's most brutal crimes against the Bengali people.

The Chittagong killings have brought a storm of outrage and protest. A general strike was immediately called. The last week of January demonstrators took to the streets in several cities. They defied bans by the government and stood up against police who were using tear gas and batons.

[Back to Top]

Steelworkers protest plant closings in W. Germany

The steel capitalists in West Germany are closing down a series of plants. Thousands of workers are being thrown out of work. In protest, German workers have been organizing actions. They are fighting against the capitalist restructuring of the steel industry at their expense.

A few days ago, workers went on strike at a foundry due to shut down near Regensburg in Bavaria. And thousands of children joined their parents to form a human chain around a steel mill marked for shutdown in Duisburg.

[Photo: Steelworkers blockade a bridge in struggle against closing of a Krupp steel mill in Duisburg, December 2.]

[Back to Top]

Condemn the long prison terms for Portuguese anti-fascists

On November 25 the Portuguese Court of Appeals in Lisbon sentenced 20 men and women to 16-18 years in prison. Many others got 8-12 years. Court proceedings await for over 100 more defendants around the country.

The accused are anti-fascist activists from the 1970's, most of whom were originally arrested and jailed in 1984. They were associated with either the Popular Unity Front (FUP) or the Popular Forces April 25th (FP-25.) Among those sentenced to 18 years is Otelo Saraiva de Cavalho, the founder of FUP. Otelo was one of the leaders of the left wing of the Armed Forces Movement, which organized the overthrow of the fascist Caetano dictatorship in April 1974.

The Portuguese political prisoners were charged with the crime of "terrorist association.'' The government never bothered to prove that these defendants were responsible for any particular acts. For example, Otelo was accused of "terrorist association'' because in 1977 he had conceived of a plan to organize a liberation army in case there was another fascist coup in Portugal.

On December 5 the prisoners were dispersed to prisons around the country where they are being treated as ordinary criminals. The same day they launched a hunger strike demanding political prisoner status. The strike was still in effect as of December 21.

Our comrades of the Communist Organization "Workers' Policy'' in Portugal have voiced their protest against the persecution of the FUP/FP-25 activists by the Portuguese bourgeoisie. They point out that although they disagree with the political tactics of these groups, solidarity with the Portuguese political prisoners is important in developing the fight against the capitalist offensive in Portugal today.

The Workers' Advocate adds its voice to the condemnation of the repression of the political prisoners in Portugal.

Portuguese Bourgeoisie Launches Two-Pronged Attack on the Masses

The Portuguese capitalist rulers, represented by the right-wing government of conservative Prime Minister Cavaco de Silva and Socialist Party President Mario Soares, are spearheading a renewed economic and political offensive against the masses.

On the one hand, the exploiters want to throw the galloping economic crisis further onto the backs of the workers. In particular, they want to create, at the workers' expense, a favorable investment climate to facilitate the Portuguese capitalists' integration into the European Common Market. To this end Parliament produced an anti-worker labor law on November 20, giving employers a carte blanche for layoffs, firings and wage cuts. The law also removes union members' rights to legal protection from reprisals by employers.

On the other hand, the Portuguese rulers are bringing out the big guns of political repression to try to enforce their economic attacks. Thus, on November 25, hoping to intimidate the resistance to their program, they announced the prison sentences against those who have defied the bourgeois order in the past. They want to exorcise the specter of the 1974 revolution from the minds of the toilers.

The Way Forward

The capitalist offensive needs to be answered with class struggle. However, the mass struggle in Portugal is currently at a low ebb. Part of the responsibility for this lies in the demobilizing role of the trade union leaders connected to the revisionist Communist Party and the social-democrats.

And how did the two main trade unions respond to the Nov. 20 anti-labor law? The recent issue of Workers' Policy points out that the social-democratic and revisionist union leaders, while grumbling over the law, present it as some kind of aberration caused by the supposed incompetence of the government. The social-democrats characterize it as a sign the government is "not in control'' or that it lacks "creativity,'' and the revisionists say it is an attempt to revert labor relations to "pre-history." Both union leaderships fail to expose the law as a centerpiece of the Portuguese bourgeoisie's deliberate onslaught on the working class in the name of "economic recovery." And they refuse to take up the responsibilities for the radical fight that is needed against the program of "economic recovery."

The comrades of the Communist Organization "Workers' Policy" point out, "In the struggle against these two crying manifestations of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie -- economic exploitation and political repression -- there must be forged a new revolutionary workers' trend. Its regrouping might be delayed. But there is no force that can prevent it." This is the task which the Portuguese communists have dedicated themselves to.

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New issue of 'Red Dawn' from Sweden

We have just received the second issue of Red Dawn from Sweden. This Marxist-Leninist journal is produced by the Communist League of Norrkoping (CLN).

The CLN reports to us that the first issue created a stir in a section of the left in Sweden. It has proved to be the only journal in the country addressing the key questions needed to restore revolutionary Marxism-Leninism as the vital basis for a new communist party. The CLN also reports that its work has now laid the basis for the journal to come out regularly.

This issue of the journal carries two articles on the 70th anniversary of the October Socialist Revolution in Russia. In one it contrasts the revolutionary stand of Lenin towards the provisional government of Kerensky in the face of the Kornilov revolt with the reformist distortions in united front tactics adopted by the Seventh Congress of the Comintern. In the other article it denounces the current capitalist reforms of Gorbachev. And it traces the roots of the degeneration into capitalism to the vacillation of Soviet leaders, headed by Stalin, in the mid-1930's in the face of the double pressure of world capitalism and domestic bureaucracy.

Red Dawn also carries an article on "The Central American 'Peace Agreement' -- An Imperialist Conspiracy." It also reprints a joint statement with another group against the Arias peace pact. The statement was handed to the Nicaraguan embassy in Sweden at a solidarity action on November 6.

The journal also analyzes the current workers' struggle against concessions in Sweden. It especially deals with the need to fight social- democracy and the union bureaucracy to "Build the Independent Movement of the Working Class."

There are other articles as well, including reprints from the Workers' Advocate Supplement criticizing the sectarian Madrid communique and the Party of Labor of Albania's praise for the Ethiopian regime.

The Workers' Advocate welcomes this issue of Red Dawn. We wish the CLN continuing success in their important and difficult work.

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