WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!

The Workers' Advocate

Vol. 18, No. 4

VOICE OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF THE USA

25¢ April 1, 1988

[Front page:

Time to challenge Reaganism! May1 International Working Class Day!;

U.S. intervention continues despite cease-fire--Keep up struggle to defend Nicaragua!]

IN THIS ISSUE

Time to challenge Reaganism!

May 1 - International Working Class Day!

U.S. intervention continues despite cease-fire--Keep up struggle to defend Nicaragua!

Jesse Jackson -- workers' savior or snake oil salesman?

Jackson turns his back on the struggle against racism

Jackson: candidate for peace or for the US. big stick?

Jackson supports "humanitarian" contra aid

Democrats try out 'new' and 'populist' flimflam

It's state capitalism, not socialism, rotting in Gorbachev's Russia

Strikes and workplace news

• 10,000 workers protest scab labor, march on California steel plant
• Slowdown at GE-Lynn
• 3,500 rally in support of GE strikers
• At Chrysler: Early talks or early sellout?
• 10,000 homeless march in Atlanta

DOWN WITH RACISM!

• Klan gets a thrashing in Dallas
• Neo-nazis routed in Ann Arbor, MI
• Why La Migra's amnesty is a flop

Inside the Nicaraguan workers' movement

The U.S. imperialist dictate and Noriega's rule are both against the people

U.S. government plays gangster boss against Panama

Why so few actions against the contra aid bill?

Troops to Honduras, protests in the street

Armed workers against the Khomeini regime

Report from Kurdestan

Down with the Iran-Iraq war!

Another atrocity-Iraq uses poison gas against Kurds

More White House profiteering off the Iran-Iraq war

Ed Meese and the Iraqi oil pipeline

Iraqi demonstrators give the boot to Saddam Hussein's thugs in Detroit

What path for the struggle against the war?

8,000 march in Los Angeles against Iran-Iraq bombardments

Meeting in Berkeley on MLP trip to Kurdistan

The uprising goes on...

Support the Palestinian people!

Israeli military recruiter thwarted at Amherst College

The World in Struggle

• Dominican working masses in the streets
• Truck drivers strike in Mexico City
• Strike wave in Portugal
• Reagan, Botha and Shamir burned in effigy
  Torchlight march in Berkeley against apartheid
• Chicago rally to free Moses Mayekiso
• One million workers strike to mark Sharpeville Massacre

Dominican working masses in the streets

Truck drivers strike in Mexico City

Strike wave in Portugal

Reagan, Botha and Shamir burned in effigy

Torchlight march in Berkeley against apartheid

Chicago rally to free Moses Mayekiso

One million workers strike to mark Sharpeville Massacre

Time to challenge Reaganism!

May 1 - International Working Class Day!

As May 1st approaches, mass struggles of working people are breaking out around the world. Black workers in South Africa, Palestinian youth, workers and peasants in Central America, in Mexico and elsewhere are rising to their feet. They are fighting the cruel oppression in their own countries. They are fighting Reagan's big stick that has backed up the racist regimes, the death-squad dictators, the capitalist exploiters the world over.

Eight years of Reaganism have been eight years of imperialism trampling on the working people around the world. It has been eight years of takebacks, plant closings, homelessness and racism for the working masses in the U.S. It has been eight years too many.

May 1st is international working class day. A day for the workers to link arms all around the world. A day to stand up together in our common fight against imperialist tyranny and capitalist exploitation. U.S. workers, show your solidarity with the fighting workers of other countries! Build the resistance to the capitalist offensive at home! Join the May 1st demonstrations! Come to the May 1st meetings! Get organized! It's time to challenge Reaganism.

Democrats No Challenge to Reaganism

The presidential election campaign is in high gear. But the workers will find no relief from Reaganism there.

The Republicans seem to have settled on Bush. And all he promises is another festival of corporate greed, four more years of choking the workers.

Meanwhile the Democratic contenders have been scrambling to find another, more popular disguise. They see the economic crisis looming. They see the frustration and anger building up among the working masses. So for the moment Dukakis, Jackson, and Gore all seem to have picked up the "new populism" flimflam. But the only thing "new" in this is the pretty words they use to cover up the capitalists' offensive against the masses.

Funding the CIA-contra war on Nicaragua is not to be ended. But now it is to be relabeled "humanitarian aid" and carried out in the name of "peace." Meanwhile the monopolies' concessions drive won't be halted either. But the Democrats prefer to call it "saving workers' jobs."

Oh yes, there are Democrats shouting against "big money" and the "greedy corporations." But do they want to fight them? Heavens no. They want the workers to help the U.S. monopolies be "competitive." They want "cooperation" for a trade war against the foreign workers.

The Democrats are just another party of the monopolies, the banks, the capitalist class. Reagan's motto has been barefaced -- profits are good. With the Democrats' "new populism" they will add only the lie -- corporate profits are good, for the workers.

Rank-and-File Action Against the Capitalists

What the workers need is rank-and-file action against the capitalists. The working class has never gotten a thing except through struggle. The capitalist parties won't help. Nor will the sellouts who follow them -- the union bureaucrats and the "respectable" misleaders from the oppressed nationalities. The workers must take action on their own -- independent from the capitalist parties and their flunkies -- and rally all the oppressed into the struggle.

Youth took to the streets, even battling police, to protest Reagan's sending of troops to Honduras. The workers must join them and build up the solidarity movement in a clear, anti-imperialist direction.

Here and there black people and other oppressed nationalities are marching against police brutality and racist abuse. The workers of all nationalities must unite and strengthen this movement against the main target -- the racist government of the rich.

Strikes and demonstrations have begun against plant closings, job eliminations, and takebacks. The workers must free this movement from the clutches of the soldout union bureaucracy and broaden it into a classwide struggle against the capitalist class.

Organize, Organize, Organize

These struggles cannot go far unless the workers build up organization in the course of them. Organization is what unites the working masses and turns their vast numbers into a real power.

But today most organizations of the workers and oppressed have been taken over by corrupt, sellout leaders. The workers must not only fight the misleaders in the existing organizations. They must also build networks of resistance in the factories, anti-imperialist groups, anti-racist and other organizations independent from the union bureaucracy and the other misleaders.

In all of this it is essential to join in the work of constructing the workers' own political party. Not just some election machine. But a revolutionary party. A working class party. A party, like the Marxist-Leninist Party, which helps build the other organizations of struggle and guides them in the direction of a classwide battle against the capitalists.

Workers Need the Truth

To build up organization and mass struggle, the workers also must have the truth. The lies of the capitalist politicians won't help the working masses. And neither will the exploiters' disinformation spread in the daily newspapers, flashy magazines, and trade union journals in this country. The workers need their own working class press.

It is essential today to spread working class papers and leaflets through the factories, communities, and schools. These are papers that carry news of the struggles of workers and oppressed. Papers that encourage the mass struggle against the capitalists. Papers that tell the truth about the plight of the working people, about the causes of this oppression, about the way to fight back.

But how is the truth to be known? Important here is revolutionary theory -- Marxism-Leninism. Guided by Marxism-Leninism it is possible to see through the tricks of the capitalists, to tell the truth about what's happening to the workers and oppressed, to point the direction of struggle.

A Socialist Answer to Capitalist Economic Crisis

Marxist-Leninist theory, for example, reveals the cause of the developing economic crisis and the source of the layoffs, plant closings, homelessness, and impoverishment.

The very nature of the capitalist system drives the bosses to grab concessions, combine jobs, and close plants so they can make more profits. This too leads to the periodic economic crises. Today's plant closings and layoffs are not because the workers are lazy or unproductive. Rather the workers have produced too much, there is a crisis of overproduction in which more goods are made than the capitalist can sell. So long as production is aimed at making profits for a handful of bosses, instead of fulfilling the needs of the working masses, then unemployment and periodic disasters will beset the working masses.

But Marxism-Leninism also shows that the world is ripe for change. The overproduction crisis means the needs of the masses could be met if only we eliminate the rule of the capitalists. The goal of the working class struggle is just this -- to take power, to take over the factories and machines, to run society to serve the needs of the working people. In short, to build socialism.

Build the Independent Movement of the Working Class

May 1st is a day for the working class. A day to inspire the ongoing struggles of the masses with the fresh hope of socialism. A day to embolden the working class with self-awareness of its own potential power. A day to pull together the different threads of mass protest and begin to weave them into an independent movement of the working class.

Reaganism has been an eight-yearlong nightmare. But there is a way out of the horror. Get organized! It's time to spread the truth! It's time to build the mass struggle! It's time for the working masses to challenge Reaganism!

[Graphic: MAY 1st INTERNATIONAL WORKERS' DAY

May Day Events

CHICAGO

Demonstration

Saturday, April 30 1:00 pm 18th Street and Union

Meeting

Saturday, April 30 6:00 pm 615 W. Wellington

OAKLAND

Meeting

Friday, May 6 7:00 pm Marxist-Leninist Books & Periodicals 3232 ML King Way (old Grove St.) Phone 653-4840

NEW YORK

Demonstration

Time & place to be announced

Meeting

Time & place to be announced

SEATTLE

Meeting

Time & place to be announced

It's time to challenge Reaganism!

Fight back against takebacks, unemployment and racism!

Solidarity with the struggles of the working people in Central America, Palestine, South Africa, and around the world!]

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U.S. intervention continues despite cease-fire--Keep up struggle to defend Nicaragua!

[Photo: Angry demonstrators in the streets of San Francisco, March 19.]

On March 23 the contras and the Sandinistas signed an accord in Sapoa, Nicaragua. It is supposed to mean the end of Reagan's dirty contra war against the Nicaraguan people. But the U.S. aggression against Nicaragua continues. The economic blockade against Nicaragua continues as well. The Nicaraguan workers and peasants still need our solidarity.

If the war is over, then why are the Democrats promising to speed a new contra aid bill through Congress? Clearly they don't believe the struggle is over. They are too eager to reinforce the murdering bands of contras.

For one thing, the March 23 accords do not mark the end of the war. There is only a temporary truce. Everything, from cease-fire zones for the temporary truce to the terms for a permanent truce, has still to be negotiated. One reason the Democrats are joining with Reagan to continue funding the contras is to push the contras to insist on more concessions from the Sandinistas. Another is to keep the contras ready to continue the war until the last possible moment.

The price paid by the Sandinistas for the temporary truce was high. The contra murderers and thugs are to be forgiven everything. They are to be allowed "humanitarian" funding so they don't run out of supplies (but the cooperative farms which have been burned and pillaged by the contras don't get such consideration). There are to be no restrictions against the contras flooding the country with reactionary propaganda financed by the CIA or various foreign capitalists. The Sandinistas are to obey all the obligations of the Arias plan; but all other countries can forget about it.

And look at who is supposed to police these accords. Compliance with the accords is to be "verified" by such observers as pro-contra fanatic Cardinal Obando y Bravo. The apparatus for verification is to be established through the Organization of American States, which is an organization of capitalist regimes which oppose revolution and submit to U.S. dictate.

This is what the Sandinistas have already conceded before a single contra has disarmed. They have already begun releasing contra criminals from prison while the contras have not even signed a final cease-fire.

But even if the cease-fire should become permanent, this wouldn't mark the end of the CIA's attempt to reenslave the Nicaraguan people.

The U.S. government is putting the economic squeeze on Nicaragua. The CIA is continuing to finance the Nicaraguan bourgeois opposition. It is continuing to arm Nicaragua's neighbors to the teeth. All these things are part of a plan to undermine the Nicaraguan revolution. After all, say the Reaganites, the late overthrown dictator Somoza may have been a tyrant, but he was a pro-American, pro-capitalist tyrant. Fighting the revolution, whether arms in hands or through political means, this is what Somoza's followers, the contras, are being funded for. And, in the name of freedom, the Sandinista-contra accords of March 23 give an even freer hand to the CIA plan.

The liberal Democrats and newspapers promote these accords, and the Arias plan in general, as having gotten more concessions from the Nicaraguan government than years of contra warfare ever did. They say that the purpose of the concessions is to change the nature of the Nicaraguan government. They aim at eliminating anything revolutionary and restoring a capitalist regime of law and order.

In this issue of The Workers' Advocate we report on what a delegation of our Party saw in its recent trip to Nicaragua. The economic crisis and the Arias plan have already led to an intensification of the class struggle inside Nicaragua.

The Arias plan isn't just a plan for dealing with the contra war, but it also provides an orientation to the economy of Nicaragua. Taking up the Arias plan, the Sandinistas have moved even further away from mobilizing the workers and peasants to deal with the problems of production in a revolutionary fashion. For example, there has just been a monetary reform reminiscent of those enforced by the big bankers of the IMF on many Latin American regimes. And this has given rise to discontent in Nicaragua as elsewhere. A struggle is taking place over whether the discontent of the masses will be channeled into a rightist counterrevolution or into a renewed surge forward of the revolution. In this struggle, it is the Marxist- Leninist Party of Nicaragua which stands for continuing the revolution towards socialism.

So there can be no euphoria that the solidarity movement has obtained its objective. Inside the solidarity movement, the liberal and reformist leaders have been coordinating their actions with the Democrats. This went so far that most actually supported the Democratic Party's contra aid bill. This is a shameful step. This was why there was precious little in the way of demonstrations against the Democratic contra aid bill. When Reagan sent troops to Honduras, activists eagerly held actions across the country. But the liberals and reformists try to hold back the activists when it comes to protesting aggression with a Democratic Party face.

We must not allow this shame to happen again. The rank-and-file activists in the solidarity movement and the class conscious workers want to fight every attack on the Nicaraguan people, without asking permission of Congress. Let us organize a movement that can do this, a movement independent of the capitalist parties, a movement that fights imperialism.

Solidarity with the Nicaraguan workers and peasants!

Down with U.S. imperialist dictate -- whether from the White House or Congress!

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Jesse Jackson -- workers' savior or snake oil salesman?

Jesse Jackson just won the Michigan primary, moving to the front of the Democratic race. And no one can deny that his popularity has been based on his appeals against "economic violence" and "corporate greed" and his calls for jobs and justice. Jackson's popularity is another gauge of the mood of the working masses. It is a sign that the masses are fed up with Reaganism and are searching for a way to fight back.

Unfortunately, Jackson's "populism" is little better than that of the other Democratic Party contenders (see article on facing page). His miraculous cure for the working masses turns out to be like old fashioned snake oil -- it will make a neat profit for the salesman, but is more likely to make you sick than heal your ills.

Investing in the "Greedy Corporations"

Jackson spends a lot of time decrying corporate greed, windfall profits, excessive management bonuses and the like. But what would he do about them? Well, with Jackson it's all give and take. And apparently the workers still will do the giving and the corporations the taking.

Jackson does talk of "restoring fair taxes" against the corporations and the richest one percent of Americans to the level during the 1970's. But then he turns around and calls for giving the monopolies new "tax incentives" (and who will pay for this but the workers) and special loans (paid for out of government workers' pension funds). This is Jackson's "invest in America" scheme, his key to "rebuilding America" and ending "economic violence."

Jackson got this investment program from the Wall Street financial magnate Felix Rohatyn. In 1975-76 Rohatyn headed the program of wage cutting, massive job cuts, and using workers' pension funds to pull New York City from financial ruin. The New York capitalists were saved, but only at the expense of workers' livelihood. Still Jackson praises Rohatyn as "one of the great minds of our day" and wants to spread this program across the U.S.

This is not to say that Jackson has no differences from Reagan. He would demand cooperation of union bureaucrats together with capitalists and government officials in an "American investment bank." And he would give the monopolies tax breaks and loans only if they promised to use them for modernization and other investment in the U.S. But still Jackson's program looks like "trickle down," like helping the capitalist bosses in the hopes that someday, somehow, benefits will dribble down to the masses.

Stifling Workers' Struggles With the Promise of a Worker's Bill of Rights

Of course Jackson is promising the workers more. He's made a lot of play of his "Worker's Bill of Rights" -- a list of ten good things ranging from the "right to a job" to the "right to respect." But Jackson doesn't say how the workers are to win these rights, except by voting Democratic. What is worse, he counterposes this bill of rights against the workers' mass struggle.

One might think that because Jackson shows up at picket lines and protest rallies he supports the workers' struggles. But look beyond the image. Jackson spoke at a rally of the striking Hormel meatpackers in Austin, Minnesota. But he refused to support the strike. Instead he offered himself as a mediator.

Jackson spoke at a strike rally of International Paper workers in January. But he didn't support the strikers. Rather, he told them "economic violence can be eliminated, not by the struggle of the working class against the capitalist class, but through a Workers' Bill of Rights." (emphasis added)

Jackson spoke at a protest rally against the closing of Chrysler's assembly plant in Kenosha, Wisconsin. But he did not support workers' calls for a Chrysler-wide strike to defend the workers' jobs. Rather he suggested the dead end of lawsuits and begging Chrysler to be humane.

No one should be surprised that nothing has been done after the first 400 of the 5,000 Kenosha workers lost their jobs. Or that the UAW bureaucrats in Kenosha justify banning grievances against the terrible job overloading and deteriorating working conditions on the grounds they are following Jackson's advice to convince Chrysler to keep the plant open. Jackson is opposed to the workers' struggle. And it is only the mass struggle of the workers that has ever convinced the capitalists to grant them even a bit of job security.

But then Jackson doesn't really stand against plant closings and layoffs anyway. Point number one of Jackson's Worker's Bill of Rights says, "Workers Have a Right to a Job." But read the small print under it. Jackson's version of this right would neither end plant closings nor unemployment. It would only "end plant closings without notice and unemployment without hope." (emphasis added) Now, advance notice has not saved a job in Kenosha. Nor has hope in Jackson and his Democratic Party gotten anyone off the unemployment lines. Only the struggle of the workers can defend jobs. Only the class struggle against the capitalists can give the workers hope of a better life.

But Jackson is preaching 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. The workers have had enough of Reaganism. They must also reject the Democratic Party snake oil salesmen.

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Jackson turns his back on the struggle against racism

Jesse Jackson is a black man who first gained notice in the civil rights movement. So, many people have wondered why Jackson is distancing himself from the fight against racism that is going on right now.

For example, when asked about the current furor in New York over the racist attack on the black teenager Tawana Brawley, "Jackson said only that he was sure the authorities were handling the case adequately." (Newsweek, March 21)

Can you imagine that. Jackson did not even bother to denounce the racist attack. And he had the gall to praise the authorities when people are demonstrating across upstate New York to protest the government officials' cover-up for the racist thugs (some of whom may have been "authorities" themselves).

But really this is nothing new for Jackson. He is a spokesman for the black elite. And the policy of the black bourgeoisie is to sellout the anti-racist struggle in return for cushy positions in the government and on corporate boards.

That is why Jackson's idea of reaching whites is not to mobilize the white working people into the fight against racism. But rather, to seek a common ground with the racist white politicians. That's why Jackson has been seen quoting approvingly from George Wallace, the former racist governor of Alabama. And why Jackson can be seen walking the streets of Selma arm in arm with Joe Smitherman, the mayor who, during the civil rights protests, loosed the police on blacks marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge for the right to vote.

It is natural that some black people and anti-racists take pleasure in seeing a black person, any black person, doing so well in the presidential primaries. But to really put a stop to racism, the black working masses will have to look to their own mass struggle and not to sellout politicians of the black bourgeoisie like Jesse Jackson.

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Jackson: candidate for peace or for the US. big stick?

Jesse Jackson has been running as a peace candidate. But while campaigning in Michigan he was asked point- blank, "Under what conditions would you commit United States troops abroad?" His answer is most enlightening.

Jackson declared, "If our interests were threatened, or if our allies' interests were threatened. I would keep troops in Korea at the demilitarized zone...I would keep our troops in the Philippines. I would deploy troops according to what our needs are.... (Detroit Free Press, March 21) Is this a stand for peace or for continuing the U.S. government in the role of policeman trampling on the world?

And what did Jackson mean about deploying troops "according to what our needs are" or if "our interests were threatened"? Well, Jackson also spoke of defending U.S. "industrial interests" in the Middle East (presumably plunder of oil). And last October 27, Jackson spoke of "U.S. interests" when he supported Reagan's bombing of an Iranian oil platform. Jackson also talked of the need to "expand our influence in the region" of southern Africa. And the list goes on.

Obviously Jackson is talking about deploying troops to defend U.S. imperialism's plunder of the toilers in countries all over the world. He is talking of deploying troops to defend U.S. imperialism's allies -- such as the reactionary South Korean government, the Israeli Zionists, the Filipino military, the Salvadoran death-squad regime, and so forth. But this is the basis for war, not for peace.

So how can Jackson claim to be a peace candidate? It's because he would approach defending imperialist spheres of influence slightly differently. Take the use of the nuclear threat. Jackson says, "We do not need to deploy Star Wars. The research, yes; deployment, no." In other words, get ready to deploy Star Wars, but don't use it until it's ready and needed. Use the threat first, to negotiate for U.S. interests, and then if that fails, go in shooting. That's what Jackson stands for. And that's why anyone who really wants to oppose imperialist warmongering must also oppose Jackson.

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Jackson supports "humanitarian" contra aid

Jesse Jackson is often portrayed as a defender of Nicaragua against Reagan's contra aggression. Why, he even shook hands with Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega. But don't forget that Jackson's a Democratic Party politician. And the Democrats are masters at showing you a friendly face while stabbing you in the back. Such is Jackson's Nicaraguan policy.

Jackson was in Michigan when Reagan sent the U.S. troops to Honduras. And he quickly postured against Reagan, declaring, "We do not need the troops in Honduras. They are not there to fight. [If they were there to fight would Jackson support them?]...It makes more sense to support the humanitarian aid package." (Detroit Free Press, March 21)

But wait a second. Isn't the "humanitarian aid package" money for the contras? And wasn't support for the contras why Reagan sent the troops to Honduras? Right on both counts. And that's the difference between Jackson and Reagan. Both support the contras. Both defend "U.S. interests" in Nicaragua. Both are against the revolution of the workers and peasants. But Jackson wants funding of the contras done in the name of "humanitarian aid" and "peace." He wants to hold U.S. troops in reserve, as a last resort, should contra and diplomatic pressure fail to topple the Nicaragua revolution. With friends like this, Nicaragua needs no enemies.

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Democrats try out 'new' and 'populist' flimflam

While the Republicans are campaigning for four more years of Reaganism, the Democrats have begun to look for a way to appeal to the anger and frustration that has been building up among the working people against the plant closings, cutbacks and impoverishment that the Reagan years have wrought. For years Jackson has wrung his hands over the "left out" (see other articles on Jackson). But more recently the other main Democratic contenders have also discovered what the news media calls a "new populism."

Gore: Militarist for the Workingman?

Albert Gore changed to campaigning in the South as "the workingman's friend." But there was little of substance to the claim. When pressed to justify his "populist oriented message" in South Carolina, Gore could only point to what he called his "battles...in behalf of working men and women who own satellite dishes." (Newsweek, March 21) Now there's a real champion of the working masses.

Of course Gore also claims his support for Reagan's warmongering military buildup is a working class issue. After all, won't building more aircraft carriers create jobs? And won't deploying Midgetman missiles insure "peace"?

Dukakis Defends Jobs -- the Minimum-Wage Kind

Still, Gore's empty talk of helping the workers was enough to convince Michael Dukakis. Seeing that ABC exit polls showed Dukakis losing badly to Jackson and Gore among Southern factory workers who voted, Dukakis also donned the populist mask.

Speaking to a group of unemployed steelworkers in Illinois, this Democrat launched an attack on "big money" and "massive concentrations of wealth and power." And in Michigan his TV ads concentrated on the claim that Dukakis stands for "jobs."

What jobs is another question. You know slaves never went without work. And Dukakis has been one of the champions of "hi-tech" slavery. He's pointed to the example of Massachusetts, where he is governor, to claim the future lies with low-paying jobs in highly automated industry and the service sector. But this doesn't play well among steel and auto workers who are seeing one plant close after another. So Dukakis now claims he'll "defend jobs." How? By helping the U.S. monopolies become more "competitive" (read lower wages, job combination, and layoffs) in a trade war against the workers in other countries. How this is against big money and for the workers is anybody's guess.

Gephardt: "Fighting" Greedy Corporations by Attacking Their Foreign Competitors

Of course Richard Gephardt understands. He's been playing this theme for some time. But he's losing. Exasperated that Dukakis and Jackson were stealing his thunder in Michigan, Gephardt threw a fit. He denounced all his Democratic opponents for failing to criticize "shortsighted and profit- hungry corporations." And went on to declare that "It is the height of dishonesty to say you want to fight for working men and women, family farmers and senior citizens, if you don't have the courage to say who you're going to fight against." (Detroit News, March 22)

This is true. But then who is Gephardt fighting against? It could not be the "profit-hungry corporations" since he had just spent the earlier part of the day in a photo session with Lee Iacocca, the head of the money-grubbing Chrysler corporation. Iacocca, while not endorsing Gephardt's candidacy, bragged that "Dick is a good friend of mine" and went on to praise Gephardt's efforts to get tough against foreign competition. It's the super-exploited foreign workers, not the rich U.S. monopolies, that Gephardt wants to fight.

While Gephardt and the other Democrats trade charges and counter-charges over which is a "phony populist," it is hard to stay away from the conclusion that they are all phony. Gephardt's own hypocrisy simply highlights the dishonesty of all the Democrats' claims to fight for working men and women. To a man they stand for the monopolies, the banks, and the Wall Street financial sharks. And no matter how often the candidates claim to be "new" and "populist," once in office it's just big business as usual.

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It's state capitalism, not socialism, rotting in Gorbachev's Russia

The news from the Soviet Union these days is of problems and crisis. The Gorbachev regime openly speaks of stagnation and crisis in the economy. It promises that its program of economic and political reforms will bring a new day for the Soviet people.

But there are reports that workers aren't exactly welcoming these reforms with open arms. Behind the fancy rhetoric, they see Gorbachev bringing wage cuts, layoffs, and cutbacks in social services. In several work places, workers have carried out strikes and demonstrations. Meanwhile, these days there are also increasing reports of national discord and conflicts among many nationalities within the Soviet Union.

The capitalist press and politicians are having a heyday gloating over this situation. The problems of the present- day Soviet Union have spurred them to a new round of propaganda against socialism and Marxism. They point to Russia and say, see where socialism gets you. Then they point out that Gorbachev's reforms are in fact capitalist in nature, and they say: see, even the communists are forced to acknowledge the superiority of capitalism.

The target of this propaganda against socialism is the working class movement and revolutionary activists here. The capitalist experts want to demoralize us that we shouldn't fight capitalism, we shouldn't dream of a society run by the working class, we should simply accept what the rich have provided us with.

We revolutionary communists reject this campaign against socialism. And in refutation, we point to two basic issues:

1) Let's not turn our eyes away from what capitalism has done to the workers, here and in the rest of the avowedly capitalist "free world."

2) What's more, the Soviet Union's ills are not the ills of socialism but of capitalism. The revolutionary Marxist-Leninists who have been fighting Soviet revisionism have long held that capitalism has been restored in the once-socialist Soviet Union. And Gorbachev with his new dose of capitalist medicine will not bring a bright new day for the Soviet workers. He will only make the rich richer, and the workers poorer.

What Has Capitalism Wrought?

What is this high and mighty talk about the superiority of capitalism? We've been hearing this talk by the P.R. men of Reaganism for eight years now. They've told us, let capitalism be capitalism, let it show its promise, and a new day of prosperity for all will trickle down. But while the billionaires have gotten richer and a new crew of fatcats has been added to the wealthy class, the workers have been squeezed and the number of poor and homeless has shot up. That's the legacy of capitalism.

Western Europe is in much the same condition. And what of the rest of the "free world"? Take a look across Latin America, and Africa and Asia. For billions of people, the last decade has been one long economic depression.

Across the capitalist world, workers fight exploitation daily. And they look for a way out. They know in their gut that there has to be better way. It is this yearning for an alternative society, for an end to exploitation, that the capitalists want to smother with their propaganda which takes advantage of the crisis of the Soviet Union, China, etc.

State Capitalism in Crisis

Contrary to the widely held myth, the Soviet Union's problems aren't problems caused by socialism. They are the ills of restored capitalism.

With the October revolution in 1917, the Soviet workers did bring in a new world of workers' rule. They showed what ordinary working men and women could do with political power in their hands. They successfully defended their revolution against a massive armed offensive by world capitalism. They began to build a society free of exploitation. However in the mid-1930's the Soviet leaders turned away from Marxist-Leninist principles and turned the Soviet Union on a path of bureaucratic degeneration of socialism. Eventually capitalism was restored.

The type of capitalist society restored in the Soviet Union was state capitalist. That is, the economy was still owned by the state but the state and government were now ruled by a class of bureaucrats and managers who grew wealthy off the backs of the workers and conducted business along more and more capitalist lines.

And whenever they ran into bottlenecks and trouble, the Soviet revisionist rulers took another swig from the bottle of capitalist medicine. In the late 1970's, the Soviet economy went into deep stagnation. Eventually, the Soviet leadership decided on yet another round of capitalist reforms. This is what Gorbachev's program of "perestroika" is all about.

Perestroika Means Wage Cuts, Speedup, Overwork and Layoffs

Perestroika is simply the Soviet version of rationalization that is going on here in the U.S. and other capitalist countries. Many sectors of the economy are in big trouble. The Russian rulers are trying to reorganize these sectors on the backs of the Soviet workers.

The factories there are the scene of a severe productivity drive just like the plants here in auto, steel, etc. Workers are getting their wages cut as their pay is tied closer to productivity. Propaganda campaigns are run against workers who are described as lazy layabouts who just want to live off society.

Many plants are to be shut down altogether. And we should soon see the Soviet equivalents of Youngstown and Allentown. There are empty promises of jobs for the laid-off, but these sound like Reagan's comments during the 1982 recession about how he saw fat "help wanted" sections in the newspapers everywhere. In reality, unemployed workers are to be used to step up competition among the workers and this will worsen conditions further.

And social services are due to be cut along with price increases of food and other goods. The Soviet leaders openly say that workers need the whip of insecurity to produce and work.

The U.S. corporate bosses know that this is what Gorbachev's reforms are up to. And this is why they are enthusiastic. Many corporations -- American and especially West European -- are eager to get in on the exploitation of the Soviet workers.

The outcome, however, won't be the happy one that Gorbachev and the American capitalists hope for. They may perhaps get out of this or that economic bottleneck, but Gorbachev's reforms have a basic Achilles heel, as capitalist rationalization programs do everywhere. They increase the gulf between the exploiters and the workers.

If there are skirmishes at a few work places today, tomorrow the workers will fight on a larger scale. With strikes and protests, the seeds are being laid for the Soviet workers to once again organize as an independent class. And as it fights and develops its movement, it will once again inscribe on its banner the goal of a new socialist revolution. And this is really the true solution to the ills of present-day Soviet society.

Class conscious workers everywhere should encourage every step forward in this process. Today this means taking a strong stand against Gorbachev's revisionism as well as against the capitalists who use Soviet troubles to undermine the socialist idea.

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Strikes and workplace news

[Graphic.]

10,000 workers protest scab labor, march on California steel plant

[Photo: Column of workers, thousands strong, marches against nonunion construction at the Posco steel plant near San Francisco, March 19.]

In the San Francisco Bay area a big fight is going on against nonunion construction contractors.

On March 7 unionized construction workers closed down job sites in San Francisco. Five thousand of them rallied at Moscone Center to protest a convention of scab construction companies. The workers pelted buses bringing the contractors with eggs, rotten fruit, trash, and some bottles and rocks.

A big target of the construction workers' struggle is the USS-Posco mill in Pittsburgh which has the largest nonunion construction site in the area.

On March 19th 10,000 workers marched on the USS-Posco mill to support the construction workers' struggle. Longshoremen from Seattle to San Diego held a one-day solidarity strike and took part in the protest rally. Some steel mill workers joined despite a boycott by the USWA leadership.

The MLP joined in the march. Our leaflet declared "Rally Against USS-Posco and BE&K! Build Workers' Solidarity." This was warmly received by the workers. The MLP also brought a banner which said "U.S. Imperialism, Hands Off Nicaragua!" Many workers showed their support for the banner. The demonstration took place only a couple of days after Reagan sent his latest detachment of troops to Honduras.

USS-Posco hired the nonunion construction company BE&K 16 months ago to carry out a $350 million construction project at the plant. BE&K was brought in when union construction workers refused to bow down to the steel company's demands for huge wage and benefit cuts. USS-Posco and BE&K are enforcing a regime of harassment and racist attacks, as well as speedup and extremely dangerous conditions that have resulted in injuries and several deaths. At the same time, USS-Posco is cracking the whip on the steel workers at the mill.

Capitalists -- Not Foreigners -- Are the Problem

The AFL-CIO bureaucrats are trying to undermine the workers' struggle by promoting chauvinism against foreigners. But this is a dead end for the workers. As the MLP leaflet put it:

"There are those who would throw dust in the workers' eyes claiming that it is only the foreign capitalists who are behind the unemployment and worsening conditions -- as if the American capitalists were the workers' friends.

"In the case of USS-Posco, AFL-CIO union leaders are blaming the situation on the fact that there are new South Korean co-owners of the plant. This is ridiculous. The American billionaires of USX joined hands with Korean capitalists in 1986 in a 50-50 joint venture to rebuild and reorganize the Pittsburgh plant.

"But to hear the AFL-CIO leaders talk, everything was rosy till the Korean capitalists appeared on the scene. What a rotten joke! Ask a USS-Posco steelworker: how many concessions contracts have been forced down their throats by the American capitalists of USX?"

The MLP call declared that instead of joining the patriotic "Rally for America" crusade of the labor hacks (which means rally for the American corporations), the workers have to build their own rank-and-file action and make common cause with workers of all countries against the international capitalist exploiters.

Labor Hacks Promote Democratic Party As the Workers' Savior

Besides promoting patriotic unity with U.S. capitalists, the other thing the labor bureaucrats have done is to turn the March 19 rally into a Jesse Jackson campaign rally. Jackson was the featured speaker, joined by other Democratic Party politicians. The common call from the platform was to elect Democrats in '88.

Instead of voting Democratic, the workers have to build their own class struggles against the capitalists and build an independent political movement opposed to both capitalist parties.

Slowdown at GE-Lynn

The March 14 issue of the Boston Worker, paper of the MLP-Boston,, reports that a slowdown has begun in many areas of GE's Lynn, Massachusetts complex. After laying off many workers at GE-Lynn, GE is planning to shut down the Everett and Medford plants, eliminating 800 more jobs. Another 600 jobs may be moved to Lynn, but only if the workers accept more concessions. But the workers are growing angrier. Workers are dragging out training as they are bumped around by the layoffs. Letters of solidarity with the Evendale strike are being circulated. And the hatred for the GE bosses is at an all-time high.

The Boston Worker declares, "We should carry this trend further. We need direct solidarity with Evendale, such as slowdowns and lunchtime meetings. We should spread the slowdown to every department, organize overtime boycotts, distribute leaflets, and put up stickers, all to build up the fighting spirit and shop floor organization we need to fight the Everett layoffs and concessions, and the concessions GE will demand in the upcoming contract."

3,500 rally in support of GE strikers

On February 27 over 3,500 people rallied in Cincinnati, Ohio in support of workers who struck GE's Evendale jet engine plant on February 16.

The strike by the 7,000 GE workers was provoked when the company unilaterally imposed job changes. The contract doesn't expire until June 30. But GE went ahead and reduced about 64 job classifications down to 32 and made other changes intensifying work and eliminating jobs.

Hundreds of workers came to the Cincinnati rally from other plants in Cincinnati, Dayton and Columbus, Ohio. There were also delegations from GE workers in Cicero, Illinois and Lynn, Massachusetts.

The most recent action by GE is part of a company-wide assault on the workers. In the last several years GE has closed 20 plants, combined and automated jobs, laid off about 125,000 workers, and transferred work to nonunion farmout shops. A united struggle of all GE workers is what's needed to resist the savage attacks.

At Chrysler: Early talks or early sellout?

UAW's National Chrysler Council met March 10 and voted unanimously to open early negotiations with Chrysler. It also voted to stop the protests (including strike preparations) against Chrysler's plans to close Kenosha assembly and five Acustar parts plants. UAW Vice-President Marc Stepp declared that union leaders would do their part "to defuse hostility that has been present for the last several weeks." (Detroit News, March 11)

Why, when Chrysler is still attacking the workers, has Stepp called off plans to fight back? The answer came in less than a week. Stepp and UAW President Owen Bieber announced they are bargaining for four seats on the Chrysler board of directors. So what if thousands of workers are losing their jobs. Stepp and Bieber are trading those workers' livelihoods so they can get cushy corporate positions.

Of course Stepp claims the aim is to help the workers. But the UAW has had one man on the board since 1980 and no workers have been helped yet. Three more board seats only mean that the UAW leadership can do a better job of helping Chrysler administer the job elimination.

Of course Stepp also claims he is negotiating for "job security." But all he's asking for is the GM "pattern." And more than 55,000 workers have already lost their jobs under GM's "job guarantees." They won't help those already laid off. They won't help the thousands losing their jobs in plant closings that have already been announced. And the loophole -- allowing the closing of plants affected by "changing market conditions" -- means no plant is safe from shutdown.

Chrysler workers can't settle for this. We have to fight for real job guarantees -- for full pay and benefits for all the laid-off until they get comparable paying jobs.

(From the March 22 "Detroit Workers' Voice," paper of MLP-Detroit.)

10,000 homeless march in Atlanta

[Photo.]

On February 27, nearly 10,000 people marched through the streets of Atlanta, Georgia, demanding an end to homelessness. This first national march of the homeless drew people from more than 50 cities across the country. Marchers represented homeless unions from Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Boston, Washington, D.C. and other cities. They were joined by trade unions, anti-racist organizations, and student groups.

The call for a national rally to be held in Atlanta was issued to oppose recent actions of Mayor Andrew Young. In preparation for the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, Young called for a "safeguard zone" in the downtown area. Young's police have begun nighttime sweeps, arresting dozens of people, to clear homeless people out of this free zone. Young has also threatened to call out the National Guard if homeless protesters carry out their plan to erect a tent city outside the Convention.

Despite Young's disgusting actions regarding the homeless, the leaders of the National Coalition of the Homeless invited him to address the rally. But the masses booed loudly when he tried to speak. He was constantly interrupted by chants of "Andy, Andy, stop your lies! We want jobs and housing now!"

The organizers also invited all six of the Democratic Party presidential candidates to speak. They eagerly used the march as a "photo opportunity." But most of them were jeered by the crowd. The Democrats have worked hand-in-hand with Reagan and share full responsibility for the plight of the homeless. Homeless people must fight their own fight, with the support of other working people. They can expect no help from the capitalist politicians whether Republican or Democrat.

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DOWN WITH RACISM!

Klan gets a thrashing in Dallas

[Photo: A Klan supporter gets the boot from an anti-racist fighter in Dallas, February 27.]

About 200 anti-Klan demonstrators gave the racists a good beating in Dallas, Texas, February 27.

The Invisible Empire of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan planned to hold a news conference at the Dallas City Hall. This group is based in Shelton, Connecticut. But it came to Texas to declare support for the Dallas police chief's condemnation of affirmative action guidelines to promote black policemen. The Dallas police department is notorious for its racism. In just the week before, policemen murdered three black men. And they've been conducting a terror campaign against the homeless.

The police were on hand to defend the Klansmen. They clubbed anti-KIan protesters and arrested about eight. But this only made the anti-racists angrier. They shouted, "Cops kill the people!'' And one man yelled, "Shoot a cop!'' The policemen were unable to control the crowd.

The demonstrators beat the Klansmen with a vengeance. Pounding them with fists. Kicking them. Ripping off their hoods. And pelting them with bottles and horse manure. Confederate and Nazi flags were burned. A small group of racist "skinheads'' were also beaten when they attempted to attack the anti-racist demonstrators.

Neo-nazis routed in Ann Arbor, MI

Neo-nazis were not even able to begin their racist rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan on March 18. About 200 people showed up to oppose them. The protesters pelted the nazis with rocks, eggs and bottles when the handful of racists first emerged from a rented truck. The anti-racist demonstrators smashed the truck's window and lambasted the nazis for five minutes, injuring one of them.

Then 20 policemen in riot gear stormed to the nazis' defense. The police arrested four of the anti-racist protesters. And a police escort whisked the nazis to safety out of town. One policeman was also injured in the scuffle.

Why La Migra's amnesty is a flop

When Congress passed the Simpson-Rodino immigration law a year ago, great predictions were made about how its amnesty program would bring millions of undocumented workers "out of the shadows.'' But this talk was just a smokescreen for the anti-immigrant character of this law. The purpose of Simpson-Rodino is not to help the undocumented but to better control the movement of immigrant labor and to better exploit the immigrants -- all for the benefit of the rich capitalists.

When the law was written, the INS predicted that there would be as many as 3.9 million applicants nationwide for the amnesty. More recently the estimate was two million. But only 973,000 have applied for the general legalization and about 269,000 for the agricultural worker program.

The amnesty program is due to expire at the end of April. The amnesty was meant to be a sweetener for a cruel anti-immigrant package, but the smoke is clearing, leaving only the new detention centers, the beefed-up border patrols, and the employment verification forms.

Now, as the amnesty deadline approaches, the INS is trying in some cities to don a humanitarian face with a P.R. campaign to sell the program to the undocumented.

But why haven't the immigrant workers come flocking to the amnesty program? Don't they want rights?

Why the Amnesty Program Flopped

The truth is, the amnesty was more full of traps for the immigrants than of promise. Even if a worker could surmount the high costs of application fees, lawyers' fees, medical exam, etc., the applicants must still show proof of continuous residency from January 1, 1982. For the undocumented who have been living an underground life and in many cases getting paid their meager wages under the table, this is quite difficult if not altogether impossible.

A further roadblock has been the question about whether immigrants who qualify could have nonqualifying family members live with them in the U.S. Those who could qualify quite justly feared that La Migra would round up their family members and deport them.

Some reformist forces had preached that the liberal politicians in Congress would change this feature so that families would not be split up. But Congress was not inclined to do even this much.

In December, as part of its deficit reduction bill, Congress ruled against family members of a qualifying applicant legally staying in the U.S. An immigrant worker may get temporary resident status under the amnesty in order to slave in sweatshops or growers' fields. But woe to those who dare to pine for a family life as well. The foot soldiers of the capitalists cry out in chorus, why, food stamps might be asked for! They might want unemployment benefits. And their kids' education would need to be paid for! You can't have such things in the era of Reaganite belt-tightening.

INS Holds Out Another Carrot

In many places, the amnesty offices are being shut down. But in some areas of large immigrant population, the INS has launched big P.R. campaigns to encourage more people to sign up for the amnesty. The hated Migra does not want to miss this last chance to look humanitarian in the immigrant communities.

For the INS region centered in Chicago, INS regional boss Moyer has even announced new procedures which supposedly won't break up families of those who qualify for amnesty.

But the INS isn't giving the undocumented any peace of mind with this offer either. All Moyer's new regulation amounts to is that, out of his discretionary powers, he will offer the status of extended voluntary departure to some family members. But this would be done case by case. This status isn't any kind of legalization -- it only means that the INS postpones deportation for a period of time.

What's more, Moyer won't even automatically give work permits to all the adults who apply for this status. That's to be reserved only for those who can "demonstrate overwhelming need." So what Moyer's generosity amounts to is this: you can stay -- for a while -- but you can't work. Some favor!

But this latest attempt to breathe life into a collapsing amnesty program won't change the basic anti-immigrant character of Simpson-Rodino. Don't expect Congress or the INS to make life easier for the immigrants. The only way to beat back the anti-immigrant offensive is by organizing and fighting for full rights for all the immigrants. This is a task facing all the workers, immigrant and native, documented or undocumented.

Full rights for all immigrant workers!

No deportations, no raids, no discrimination!

(Based on an article in the March 2 "Chicago Workers' Voice," paper of MLP-Chicago.)

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Inside the Nicaraguan workers' movement

The economic crisis has reduced the buying power and standard of living of the Nicaraguan toilers to the point where they are unbearable. The contra war and U.S. blockade, the economic crisis, and the profiteering and speculation by the Nicaraguan entrepreneurs have taken their toll. The petty-bourgeois capitalist program of the Sandinistas has simply made the situation worse. So ever since the ban on strikes and demonstrations was lifted late last year, the number of workers' protest actions has shot up.

In this battle to keep food on the table, the Nicaraguan masses are coming up against the anti-worker economic policies of the government. The government enforces subservience to the capitalists while being completely oblivious to the workers' urgent daily needs. It fails to see the revolutionary role of the workers' movement. The mobilization of the worker and peasant masses to take over the direction of the economy and solve the problem of production, to control the work places and step by step supplant the capitalists of town and country is the way out. But this alternative is alien to the petty-bourgeois class stand of the Sandinista government. Instead the government rules through a privileged bureaucracy, imposes harsh conditions on the workers, and at the same time lavishes subsidies and privileges on the right-wing corporate sector.

In this situation the right-wing parties, representing the very capitalists who are being treated so delicately, are trying to commandeer the strike movement. They are trying to win influence by presenting themselves as the champions of the workers against the repression and heavy-handedness of the Sandinistas.

Also very active in the workers' movement, however, is the Marxist-Leninist Party of Nicaragua (formerly MAP-ML). Along with its union center, Frente Obrero, it champions the legitimate demands of the strike movement. It is defending the workers' struggle from both Sandinista repression as well as from right-wing demagogy.

Strikes in Many Sectors

Construction workers, fuel truck drivers, sugar plantation workers, dock workers, auto mechanics and waiters, among others, have recently launched strikes for higher pay. In trucking, sugar and auto repair the workers have already succeeded in winning some of their demands. The February 15 monetary reform spurred on the strike movement because it was carried out in a way that allowed prices to rise while fixing wages at unlivable rates.

The strikes have raised the issue of the availability and affordability of basic goods at the commissaries (work place supply centers), democratic union rights, and, in several of the strikes, work rules. Along with the strikes, workers at various plants have been fighting and making gains on these same issues while still on the job. In certain industries the workers have also been fighting to have a say in the management of production.

Sandinista Government Stonewalls the Strike Movement

With the lifting of the state of the emergency, the outright ban on all strikes was lifted. But the government is maintaining its rigid stand against all strikes, as has the leadership of the CST unions (Sandinista union confederation). Strikes are often declared illegal. The Sandinistas regularly use scabs, police or troops against strikers. The construction strike beginning February 29, for example, was declared illegal by the Ministry of Labor; the government attempted to bring in scabs, but they were kept off the sites by picketing workers. The Sandinistas may also jail leading militants in work place struggles or try to intimidate workers with the threat of firing and blacklisting.

Thus, while giving increasing concessions and subsidies to the real right wing, the Sandinistas come down against ordinary toilers on the pretext they are playing the game of the right. The government doesn't see the role of an active workers' movement. Instead it promotes the bankrupt line that workers' strikes disrupt the Nicaraguan war effort. Yet it is clear that the workers can neither continue to fight the contras, nor produce the badly needed goods and services, nor implement revolutionary social and economic measures, if they are chained hand and foot and bled white by the capitalists.

Mixed Economy and National Unity Endangering the Revolution

These stands of the Sandinista government are not an accident. They follow from the program of mixed economy and unity with the capitalists. These guarantee the Nicaraguan businessmen: 1) the right to continue to extract profits from the labor of the masses; and 2) the right to "class peace'' from the working class. This attempt at class collaboration is coming apart with every passing day.

Right Wing Tries to Co-Opt the Strike Movement

The right-wing parties are the direct representatives of the capitalists and rural landlords. Recently all these parties have united into a bloc or coalition of 14 parties, including the revisionist parties and former Sandinista allies. This bloc includes the parties that have traditionally been known as the internal voice of the CIA-contra aggression.

This pro-capitalist bloc seeks to make hay out of the Sandinistas' repression of the workers and hide their own diehard anti-worker essence. They disguise their policies and their aim to restore a typical Latin American regime of exploitation with "pro-worker'' rhetoric about the right to strike, free trade unions, and raising the price of proletarian labor power. Thus the pages of the CIA-financed La Prensa, reopened thanks to the Arias peace plan, give prominence to the strikes, praising them and decrying the restrictive Sandinista wage scale (SNOTS).

The capitalist political coalition has rigged Up a trade union coalition of the rather insignificant right-wing trade unions with the revisionist trade unions. It is called the CPT. It includes the CIA- connected, AFL-CIO-style union, CUS, and the CIA-influenced Catholic trade union, the CTN. The CAUS union affiliated to the Communist Party is also rather insignificant. The CPT relies heavily on the CGT(i), which is affiliated to the Socialist Party. (In the future, we will discuss in more detail the role of pro-Soviet revisionist parties as members of the right-wing bloc.)

MLPN Agitates for Economic Measures in Favor of the Working Class

The Marxist-Leninist Party of Nicaragua champions the workers' movement against the Sandinista bureaucracy and the schemes of the capitalist parties. The MLPN and the Frente Obrero trade union center organize among the rank- and-file workers and peasants at many work places around the country. They lay stress on building up the unity of the workers from below on their basic demands and help the workers organize Committees of Workers' Struggle (CLT). The MLPN fights hard on the day-to-day demands of the toilers and also seeks to bring to the workers consciousness of their revolutionary mission. Because of Sandinista juggling with the union elections, the local union leaderships do not necessarily represent the will of the workers. But in some places militant workers have also been elected to union positions, even in some cases where the locals have been forced to stay within the CST.

For some time the MLPN's economic agitation has been focusing a lot of attention on the demand to abolish the Sandinista wage scale, SNOTS. This national wage scale ties workers to a low wage and fails to take into account the actual prices and inflation, the workers' needs, or the quantity, quality, or difficult conditions of the work. Because of SNOTS, many workers have been driven out of the factories altogether since they are unable to make ends meet. Instead they eke out a marginal existence as street or marketplace vendors.

In the struggle against SNOTS, MLPN combats the demagogy of the right wing parties on SNOTS. The right wing, which used to agree to SNOTS, now also champions the demand to abolish it, but for its own reasons. They neglect to mention who benefits from the low wages and exploitation of the workers, and they do not present any alternative wage scale to SNOTS. That is because the capitalists want to abolish uniform wage scales altogether and pay whatever wage they please. MLPN, on the contrary, combines its exposure of SNOTS with detailed proposals for an economic policy that would improve the position of the working class at the expense of the rich.

With the Sandinista monetary reform of February 15, which was a setback for the workers, the agitation for an economic program to benefit the toilers has become all the more important. The March issue of MLPN's Prensa Proletaria carries an editorial calling on the workers' movement to give an immediate response to the monetary reform by demanding eight new economic measures. Among these measures were the following:

* a minimum wage sufficient to buy the basic grocery basket, and keeping up with the cost of the grocery basket;

* guaranteeing that the components of the basic grocery basket will be in the market at affordable prices;

* restoring the incentives that were just abolished for extra work, and setting the quotas so that the incentives can actually be earned (previously they may well have been unattainable);

* agrarian reform with the turning over of fertile land, tools and credit to the poor peasant;

* workers' vigilance and control over production to put an end to high prices, speculation and shortages;

* a price freeze on government services and financial services, along with ending the subsidies to big businesses and increasing their taxes;

* no concessions in the social gains won by the workers such as cafeterias, transportation, and medical service.

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The U.S. imperialist dictate and Noriega's rule are both against the people

U.S. government plays gangster boss against Panama

The news is full of the campaign by the American government to overthrow the Panamanian government of General Noriega. Democrat and Republican unite in the glorious crusade to ensure that Panama will be an old-style "banana republic," subservient to every whim of the U.S. embassy. Meanwhile the man they want to overthrow, Noriega, has for years been on the payroll of the CIA and offered his services against the Nicaraguan revolution.

But this comedy of the U.S. government seeking to overthrow its own paid informer is being played out on the backs of the Panamanian working class, which want neither U.S. imperialist dictate nor Noriega's dictatorship. The U.S. financial blockade aims to hurt the masses in order to propel them to take action against Noriega and install Washington's latest love. This love, the Panamanian bourgeois opposition to Noriega, is just a miserable creature begging that it should get the largess that Noriega once enjoyed, with the wife of recently deposed president Delvalle begging that the U.S. should consider military intervention to put her husband in power.

Are Drugs the Issue?

The Reagan administration, Congress, and the bourgeois news are shouting that drugs are the issue. But Noriega's drug deals were well-known while the CIA was paying him. All he had to do was occasionally extradite a small drug dealer for appearances, and the U.S. government was more than willing to look the other way.

Indeed, the Reagan administration makes full use of drug-dealing fiends in Central America. The CIA-organized contras are up to their necks in drug dealing. And "national hero" Oliver North had his plans to utilize Noriega for various of his plots against the Nicaraguan people.

The Democrats Want to Out-Reagan Reagan

Not drugs, but subservience to U.S. imperialism is the issue.

And in this the Democrats have spotted an issue to wave the flag even higher than Reagan. They are shouting for even harsher and faster measures against Noriega.

Take Sen. John Kerry, who is the darling of some opportunist forces because he is leading a Senate investigation of contra drug-running. It turns out that Kerry has declared his willingness to fund the contras, if the Sandinistas don't behave properly, despite his own investigation into their being drug fiends.

But while the investigation of the contras drags out for months, then years, he has already jumped on the bandwagon with respect to Panama. He is spurring on the Reagan administration to greater aggression. All this because he is oh so concerned about drugs, he would have one believe. At least, concerned to drug the masses with chauvinism and to inspire a patriotic high whenever the bourgeoisie looks at him.

Washington D.C. -- a Mafia Government

What about the history of Washington's dealing with Noriega? It reads like a novel about the Godfather. One day they consider ordering a hit on Noriega, the next day they are dividing up the spoils of the exploitation of the Central American toilers.

In 1972, for example, Noriega was chief of military intelligence and key in protecting General Omar Torrijos from being overthrown. At this time a predecessor of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) called the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, proposed to assassinate him. This was stated in a Senate Intelligence Committee report of 1978, and revealed in the New York Times in 1986.

It seems the federal "drug fighters" actually copy the methods of the dealers.

But Noriega managed to win the favor of U.S. imperialism and got put on the CIA payroll. It seems, indeed, he was a master in getting on quite a few payrolls.

Most recently Noriega has again fallen into disfavor. It seems he didn't jump high enough in helping the Reaganites oppose Nicaragua. Or perhaps his dealings with the Soviet Union were too much for his White House protectors. The bourgeois papers also say that a disagreement over who would be civilian figurehead in Panama was involved. The Panamanian military, under Noriega's direction, ensured that civilian Nicolas Ardito Barletta was "elected" in 1984. But then they deposed him in 1985 and replaced him with his vice-president, Eric Arturo Delvalle. This got the ire of Washington, which is so "principled" about this sort of thing that it now champions the claim of the formerly despised Delvalle to power simply on the grounds that he decided that the wind was blowing against Noriega.

Meanwhile the drug issue is being played solely for political purposes. An indictment is laid down against Noriega in Miami, where federal prosecutors have managed to close their eyes to contra drug running for years. But the government suggests it will make a deal to withdraw the indictment or at least not extradite him if Noriega goes into exile.

The Panamanian People Will Have Their Say

Washington tries to pretend that it is ramming the bourgeois opposition down Panama's throat in order to help the Panamanian people. Hogwash! Indeed, the weak attempts of the Panamanian bourgeois opposition to organize demonstrations and strikes showed how little the mass of the Panamanian people cared about it. It was only when Washington stopped Panama Canal payments to Panama and started to starve out Panama that serious strikes and demonstrations began. But these have mostly demanded the payment of wages or money to buy goods, and hardly showed much enthusiasm for the bourgeois opposition.

The Panamanian working people may not be able to enforce their will at the moment. Noriega and Washington and the bourgeois opposition may control the game. But the working class and progressive students have historically shown that they are content neither with local dictatorship on behalf of imperialism nor with direct U.S. imperialist dictate from Congress and the White House. The day will come when the working class will shake the exploiters off its back.

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Why so few actions against the contra aid bill?

When Reagan sent troops into Honduras in March, there were demonstrations all over the country. With little advance warning, more people surged into the streets than has been seen for a while.

But why were there so few demonstrations against the contra aid bills in Congress? Why could Wright and Reagan debate how to allocate $30 or $40 million to the contras without the solidarity movement denouncing them up and down?

It's because the reformist leaders are unprincipled camp followers of the Democratic Party. And the Democratic Party had given the word: no more posturing against contra aid. Now is the time to unite around "humanitarian" contra aid. Only 14 liberal Democrats voted against contra aid in early March. The bill failed only because the Republicans hung tough in a dispute with the Democrats over exactly what aid to give to the contras.

The mainstream Democrats didn't make any secret of what they want to do with "humanitarian" contra aid. They say that they don't want the contras to feel unloved and unwanted, because they feel responsible for these tools that Reagan recruited. The Democrats just boast of having a more realistic idea of how to get concessions from Nicaragua than the Republicans.

It is treachery for any self-proclaimed friend of the Nicaraguan people to go along with this. When demonstrators throw tomatoes at the contra leaders, they want them to feel the hostile stand of the American workers and progressive people. When Nicaraguan toilers shoot at the contras, they want the bullets to hit.

When the Bugle Calls...

But the more left Democrats put out the call to the reformist leaders in the solidarity movement. As the journalist Alexander Cockburn pointed out: "As the days before the vote fell away, liberal Democrats issued frantic appeals to the leaders of the major anti-contra groups not to rock the boat. The Democratic [contra aid] package, they argued, had some constructive elements, even though it kept the contras going.... Leading liberals such as George Miller, Mel Levine, George Crockett, John Conyers and Mike Lowry pleaded with the Central American Working Group, the informal Washington coalition of anti- contra lobbying organizations, for its indulgence, urging its members to curb the waves of phone calls...." (See Cockburn's nationally distributed column, "Ashes and Diamonds," for mid-March.)

So the reformist and church groups that had formerly opposed contra aid began reversing their stand. While the few demonstrators in the streets still shouted "not a penny to the contras," the liberal and reformist leaders in the solidarity movement were debating how many millions and who should deliver it. Some actually began to lobby Congress in favor of passing the Democratic bill of "humanitarian" aid to the contras. Others, to save face, said they still opposed all contra aid.

It's Hard to Tell Them Apart

But the difference between the two sides was not as big as might seem. The liberal magazine The Nation points out: "By the accounts of Democratic members [of Congress] and lobbyists, the split [among the liberal solidarity organizations over whether to back humanitarian contra aid] did not cause any great acrimony. The lobbying groups opposing the package even went so far as to let it be known that members who voted for the aid plan would face no retribution." (editorial of March 19, emphasis added) How's that for just going through the motions!

No retribution! And so no demonstrations condemning the contra aid bills because this would strike at the Democratic Party. Nothing must be done to embarrass the Democrats. Nothing must be done to expose the Congressional command post which is plotting how to make Nicaragua capitulate.

Of course, the liberal and reformist leaders don't usually say they are opposing demonstrations in order to protect the Democrats. Oh no. They are just worried that people will not come, that the issue is dead, blah, blah, blah. Blame the people for the crimes of the imperialists. The liberals and reformists are well-trained in this art.

Indeed, the doubletalk gets so thick that one sometimes can hardly tell which side of the question a particular liberal or reformist-led group is on. On March 1 a press conference at the offices of the Central American Peace Campaign in Seattle advocated passage of the Democratic contra aid bill. Here's what Miriam Spencer, speaking for the Pledge of Resistance, stated: "If this [the Democratic contra aid bill] is really the only choice we can hope for, the lesser of two evils, it is a very sad comment upon the democracy we live under. As an organization we will continue to work for the cessation of all contra aid." So they are against the bill, right? The journalist Alexander Cockburn lists them as one of the groups that opposed the bill. Unfortunately, Miriam Spencer went on to add: "While we are sorry the Democratic package is the only alternative, at least it's better." (The Militant, March 11, p. 6)

During the Cease-Fire

And so now, even after the Sandinista-contra cease-fire, Congress will go back to the job of passing contra aid. Speaker of the House Jim Wright enthusiastically jumped at the chance to speed up a vote on the bill precisely because the cease-fire was agreed to. Think that one over. Doesn't that prove for the ten millionth time that the Democrats are diehard enemies of the Nicaraguan people? Apparently they feel that such aid is more crucial than ever to ensure that the contras will feel U.S. backing as they seek to extract more concessions from the Sandinistas.

Ortega Knows Best

The Sandinista leadership too didn't want to offend the liberals. Its whole strategy is how to get a coalition with capitalism -- with the big pro-contra capitalists inside the country and with U.S. imperialism and other capitalist powers externally. And so the Sandinistas also came out for "humanitarian" aid to the contras. After all, didn't the Sandinistas sign the Arias pact which already provides for this? Ortega gave speeches okaying the concept, and now it is in the present Sandinista-contra accord. Ultra-liberal Democrat John Conyers, for example, justifies his vote for the Democratic contra aid bill on the grounds that the Sandinistas told him to.

So much for all the big words of the Sandinistas about how the Arias pact will force Honduras to end the contra bases. So much for the big talk about forcing the U.S. government to back down. So much for anything but one concession after another.

This shows the fiasco of the Sandinista policy of class conciliation with the capitalists at home and the imperialists abroad. It shows that consistent support for the Nicaraguan revolution, even consistent support simply for Nicaraguan self-determination, requires going beyond the Sandinistas. We must support the revolutionary proletariat of Nicaragua, whose vanguard is grouped around the Marxist-Leninist Party of Nicaragua.

The shameless failure of the reformists to hold demonstrations against contra aid, the shameless support of the reformists for Democratic Party contra welfare bills, poses a choice for all activists and workers: either a solidarity movement with the Nicaraguan toilers or faith in the Democratic Party liberals. There can't be both. One or the other has to go.

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Troops to Honduras, protests in the street

Reagan's March 16 decision to send U.S. troops to Honduras has been greeted across the U.S. with outrage, protests and the angry cry "U.S. troops out, now!"

Thousands Take the Streets in San Francisco

San Francisco has been a hotbed of struggle. The streets have been filled with angry demonstrators day and night.

On March 17, over 500 people held a noontime rally at the Federal Building. The police arrested 25 people for blocking a building entrance.

That night about 1,000 activists marched through the streets to the Federal Building. "Nicaragua, El Salvador -- U.S. Out!'' was their battle cry. Along the way the marchers were enthusiastically cheered by people hanging out of their apartments and on the sidewalks.

At the Federal Building the police ordered the protesters to stay out of the streets. But the demonstrators were in no mood to let the cops confine their protest. They hurled down police barricades and spilled into the streets. They smashed a glass door with a trash can. And spray painters covered the area with slogans against U.S. aggression in Central America.

Following an all night vigil by some activists at the Federal Building, the protests resumed in earnest the next morning. One thousand protesters sat down on Golden Gate Ave. and a human wall blocked off a cross street. Once again police barricades were tossed aside. The police arrested over 250 people, clubbing a 57 year-old man who had to be hospitalized.

A letter signed by 40 government employees working in the Federal Building was sent to the protesters which read "We want you to know there are thousands of people in this building who support this protest.''

The struggle heated up further that night. One thousand people marched to the Federal Building shouting "One, two, three, four, we don't want your dirty war!'' They were confronted by 60 cops in riot gear guarding the building and more in the streets.

"Out in the street!'' rang out from the defiant crowd. Down went the barricades again. The police thugs charged the protesters and there were a number of skirmishes. At one point a real estate developer in a Mercedes almost ran over protesters. His Mercedes was trashed. Another clash occurred at a recruiting center on Market Street.

The protests peaked the following night. The march began with 2,000 people in the working class and Latino Mission district. Soon thousands more poured into the street. It was Saturday evening and people came out of shops, restaurants and their homes. They even climbed out of the windows of city buses. The march swelled to 8,000.

This was one of the largest and loudest demonstrations the city has seen for years. Working people, youth were out on the streets mad as hell. They marched for miles with fists in the air and shouting their lungs out. They shouted "U.S. out! U.S. out!'' and "They lie, they screw us, U.S. out of Honduras!''

Pressed hard by the smaller protests of the two days before, the police, in the main, retreated in the face of this angry crowd. The march flooded down both sides of Market Street. In front of the federal building, burning American flags were hoisted on the flagpole.

In United Nations Plaza there was a short rally. Some activists set some bags of trash ablaze. The police moved in but they were quickly surrounded and pelted with bottles, sticks, and drink- filled cups, and a few of their motorcycles were kicked over before they could flee. The tireless marchers carried their protest back up to the Mission district.

The pro-Reagan and pro-contra Chronicle and other papers made a big fuss about the alleged "violence" of the Saturday protest. However, the only serious injury was caused by some cowardly right wingers who dropped flower pots and other objects from a high-rise, sending one protester to the hospital with head injuries.

Monday morning, demonstrators again blocked the federal building. And more protests took place throughout the week.

On Saturday March 26, there was a long march of 3,000 people from the Civic Center to the Presidio. But by this time the militant spirit was starting to flag and the party-time atmosphere was creeping back. This time the march went through wealthy neighborhoods full of boutiques.

But more than that, the lack of militancy was connected to the euphoria about the Nicaraguan cease-fire among the opportunist leaders of the march. One of these social-democratic chiefs announced to the protest that: "Finally the contras themselves have realized the bankruptcy of U.S. policy." Imagine that! Last week the contras were terrorists, murderers and rapists. But this week we are supposed to believe they have realized the error of their ways and become passive lambs.

Militant Activists March in Chicago

In Chicago, 500 demonstrators marched on March 18. When activists tried to move into the streets, the police attacked, arresting 10. The demonstrators rallied at the Federal Building.

Across the street police attacked protesters holding signs against U.S. intervention in Central America. When a call to "Take the streets!" was shouted over a megaphone, the activists responded. At this point the cops grabbed the man who had given the call.

Supporters of the MLP rallied the demonstrators over their megaphone. A group of protesters gathered around the MLP speaker and successfully blocked any police attempt to seize the megaphone.

An important factor in the demonstration was the section of militant young activists. The reformist Pledge of Resistance honchos raised the slogan "5,6,7,8, Stop the War, Negotiate!" a slogan that endorses the Arias plan of forcing concessions on Nicaragua. The militants and the MLP supporters countered with the slogan "5,6,7,8, Down With Your Terrorist State!"

Such slogans upset the reformists to no end. Jesus Garcia, a reformist Chicago alderman, argued against these slogans with an activist. In fact it seems the reformist Pledge leaders even dropped one of their usual slogans against contra aid. The reformists are downplaying the issue of contra aid because they do not want to embarrass the Democratic Party and its own contra aid proposals.

During the Chicago action 62 people were arrested.

New York Police Can't Stop March on UN

Also on Friday, March 18, there was a spirited march from the Armed Forces Recruiting Center at Times Square to the United Nations. Two thousand people joined the protest, with many people from the high schools.

The marchers took the streets and tied up rush hour traffic. They shouted: "Troops out! Troops out!" "We remember Viet Nam!" and other slogans against the U.S. war on Nicaragua.

The police tried to closely marshal the demonstration and even to block its route to the United Nations. There were scuffles when the police tried to snatch banners. One protester was grabbed and arrested. Scores of demonstrators surrounded the squad car and shouted "Let him go!" as they banged on the car.

The march repeatedly overran the police lines and successfully rallied at the United Nations.

Outcry Across the Country

One thousand demonstrators marched in Minneapolis on March 17. They took over some downtown streets, blocking traffic for over an hour.

On March 17 there was a protest of 100 at Fort Ord, California. Twelve hundred troops from this base were among those sent to Honduras. Demonstrators included some wives of the soldiers who were shipped out. Elsewhere in California there were protests in Los Angeles, San Jose, San Rafael, Santa Rosa, Sacramento, and Berkeley.

There was a protest of 300 in Detroit and 300 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The outcry against sending troops to Honduras was also heard in protests in Boston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Kansas City, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle, Austin Texas, Tallahassee Florida, Montpelier Vermont, and other cities.

[Photo: Demonstrators overthrow police barricades designed to stop them outside the federal building in San Francisco, March 18.]

[Photo: Demonstrators besiege the armed forces recruiting center in San Francisco the night of March 18.]

[Photo: March in Boston against Reagan's order to send troops to Honduras.]

[Photo: Demonstration against Reagan's invasion of Honduras in Chicago, March 17.]

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Armed workers against the Khomeini regime

Report from Kurdestan

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

In Komala's camps the MLP team had the opportunity to meet with hundreds of Komala's peshmargas (armed fighters) -- battalion commanders, veteran fighters, and new recruits. The following report on the armed struggle of the revolutionary communists in Kurdistan has been prepared by a member of the MLP team.

A New Quality to the Kurdish Resistance

Generations of Iranian Kurds have felt the lash of persecution at the hands of the government in Tehran. This oppression has repeatedly given rise to armed resistance. It is something of a tradition in Kurdistan for young men to take to the mountains and become guerrilla fighters against the central authorities. Such fighters are known as peshmargas, which roughly translates from the Kurdish as "those who go before death.''

Hearing about armed resistance in the mountains of Kurdistan may conjure up pictures of the classic peasant guerrilla, of men with only vague notions of why they are fighting and who are mobilized by the chieftains of clans and other exploiters and traditional figures. The peshmargas of the bourgeois nationalist KDP (Kurdish Democratic Party) resemble such a force.

Today, however, the peshmarga movement has taken on a new quality with Komala and the CP of Iran. Komala's peshmargas are armed with light weapons; they are intrepid fighters who move quickly by foot across the rugged Kurdish mountains; and their sun-scorched faces carry the scars of years of harsh struggle. But beyond that they are a far cry from what one might think of as your typical guerrilla in this part of the world. This is an army that is part of the revolutionary workers' movement, an army of workers and toilers motivated by a scientific, socialist world outlook.

Armed Contingent of Revolutionary Workers

During the winter snows, the big formations of peshmargas come into the border camps to recuperate from long military campaigns and to strengthen their training in Marxism-Leninism. This gave the MLP team opportunity to meet with hundreds of these fighters in the camps where we were pressed with questions about the struggles of the American workers. They wanted to know the details of the working and living conditions of the workers in the U.S. They wanted to know about the reformist trade unions and other roadblocks to the workers' movement. And they were eager to discuss the world-wide struggle of the workers and communists, from Western Europe to Nicaragua.

What dominates the discussions in the camps isn't battles and military matters, but workers' strikes, mass protests and the socialist education of the workers and other toilers. The peshmargas are closely linked with the lives and struggles of the working people. Among the new recruits at the training center, 60% had been workers and agricultural wage laborers, with others having been peasants or other toilers or students.

On the military front, one of the most striking things is the conception of military work that shapes Komala's peshmargas. The armed struggle is seen as a lever of the revolutionary movement of the workers and poor.

Komala's peshmargas played a big part in the early days of the resistance to the assault of the Khomeini regime on Kurdistan. Originally the underground organizing among the working masses was geared to a large extent towards gaining recruits and logistical support for the peshmarga forces.

However, this is no longer the case. Now the armed struggle is mainly seen as providing support for the workers' revolutionary underground and the mass movements against the regime.

This change is connected to the ideological clarification that helped pave the way for the founding of the Communist Party of Iran in 1983. In particular it was linked to overcoming populist ideas that denied the pivotal role of organizing the working class itself as the force for change and revolution.

The main bearers of populism in the Iranian and Kurdish left were the Castroist and Maoist-influenced organizations. The Fedayeen, for example, had attempted to create an armed movement with Che Gueverist-type isolated guerrilla focos. Other left groups attempted to create a peasant guerrilla army on the Maoist pattern. Both these attempts have now collapsed.

Meanwhile, the Marxist line of Komala has consolidated a powerful armed movement on the shoulders of the workers and other toilers.

Linked to the People

One of the first things that the new Islamic regime did upon coming to power was to unleash troops against the revolution in Kurdistan. The workers and peasants put up a ferocious resistance; it took over five years for the Khomeini regime to complete its occupation of the region. Nonetheless, the forces of the Islamic republic remain isolated and hated, and the peshmarga forces operate throughout Kurdistan with the support of the people.

The peshmargas have countless proud stories illustrating their close bonds with the working masses. In many localities, Komala's forces are still the authority recognized by the people. For example, disputes among villagers are not brought to the Islamic authorities; instead, the resolution of such personal disputes is often postponed until they can be brought before the communist peshmargas. It is this type of trust and support among the masses that make the peshmargas' operations possible.

The peshmargas are highly mobile. They often march twelve hours a night and sleep by day. They carry light weapons. Each fighter has his or her automatic rifle, cartridges, and grenades, and there is an occasional light machine gun and mortar. (At the training center we saw exercises with heavy machine guns and 120 mm mortars, but such weapons are used sparingly because they require arduous transport by mule pack.)

On top of this it would be impossible to carry much food or other supplies. By necessity the peshmargas rely on the local population. Villagers devise ingenious means to smuggle bread through the surveillance of the regime to the Komala forces. The townspeople also protect and hide the peshmargas.

This explains how the Komala battalions can carry out continuous operations deep in the interior of Kurdistan from early spring to late fall.

A Political Army

Komala peshmargas generally speak more like political organizers than like soldiers. This is because much of their work goes towards organizing, educating and mobilizing the masses.

The peshmarga units are divided into military and organizational units. The organizational groups specialize in the political and educational work. They travel to the villages and towns with the battalions because it is safer to march in a column of one or two hundred rather than smaller units that can be easily attacked. Then these groups separate off to enter the localities where they may stay for several days or longer in peoples' homes.

Mass meetings are organized right under the nose of the regime. Often these meetings are held in the village mosque because it is the largest available building. The local mullah may not be happy about his mosque being used to propagate the policy of the communists; but the popularity of Komala is such that there is little the mullah can do without fear of losing all influence.

These groups also intervene in the local conflicts with the regime. They work to isolate spies and agents, when possible holding public trials of those who carry out crimes against the people. The peshmargas also organize resistance to the attempts to set up Islamic Councils, which are tools of control by the regime and are hated by the masses.

There are similar peshmarga groups called city units for work in the large cities. Such units took part in the brickyard workers' strikes in Bookan last year. They also carried out agitation for last year's unprecedented May Day action in Sanadaj. And they widely distribute the party's newspapers and other literature.

One method of their agitational work is to occupy a section of the city in conjunction with the military units. This allows open work among the masses that would be otherwise impossible under the repression of the regime.

This political work of the peshmargas provides an important link between Komala-CPI and the workers and toilers. Part of this work is the recruiting of new forces for both the peshmargas as well for the party's underground organization.

An important distinction has to be made here between the peshmarga units and the underground organization of the party. Peshmarga units stay in a locality for short periods, are armed at least with pistols, and carry out relatively more open political work. The underground party organization, on the other hand, is rooted in the workplaces and neighborhoods and has to use extreme care to avoid arrest and Khomeini's torture chambers. The peshmargas do not make direct contact with the clandestine organization because this would pose the danger of exposing the underground workers to the regime.

Meanwhile, there is also the military side of the work. Komala's peshmargas strike at the troops of the Islamic regime across Kurdistan and this can involve concentrations of several hundred fighters. But here too the targets and the timing is guided by political considerations, often linked to the mass movement.

One important mass movement, for example, is the struggle against the military draft. There are big protests and mass actions against the attempts to drag young men off to the slaughter in the Iran-Iraq war, as well as against the attempts to forcibly arm people against the peshmarga forces. The Komala peshmargas will direct their attacks against the regime's special task forces that hunt down suspected draft dodgers; or they will overrun a military garrison that is particularly active in enforcing the draft -- all to encourage the mass struggle.

Towards a New Insurrection

The peshmargas we talked to described the troops of the regime in Kurdistan as demoralized. In the early days of the Khomeini regime, the Islamic guards and troops were flush with enthusiasm. If their fort were attacked they would bitterly resist, and if possible they would even attempt to pursue the peshmargas. Now things have changed. The troops give up quickly to save their skins and are reluctant to leave their bunkers. The dirty and dangerous job of holding down a hostile population is taking its toll on the troops.

Nonetheless, the regime's military occupation is still being beefed up with better weapons and fortifications. It will take more than several thousand lightly armed peshmargas to lift this heavy military jackboot.

The Komala peshmargas are acutely aware of this. There is no militarist play acting about a quick military victory. On the contrary. They proudly understand their place as a lever for building up the revolutionary movement among the workers, peasants and other working people -- a force which no military power, no reactionary terror can hold down.

The armed struggle of the Komala peshmargas is tilling the soil for a new insurrection; for the creation of truly mass militias of the workers and toilers; for the overthrow of the Khomeini tyranny; and for bringing to power a revolutionary government of the workers and poor that will open the way to socialism.

[Photo: Komala peshmargas in the rugged hills of Kurdistan.]

[Photo: Men and women peshmargas celebrate their graduation from basic training.]

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Down with the Iran-Iraq war!

Another atrocity-Iraq uses poison gas against Kurds

The war between the reactionary governments of Iran and Iraq continues to take its cruel toll on the people of both countries.

The Reagan administration has played both sides in this war, trying to profit from it as much as it can. Since the Iran-contra exposures of Reagan's efforts to make deals with the Iranian government, the U.S. has tilted towards Iraq.

And the capitalist news media has dutifully lined up to paint Iraq as a "moderate" state which is helpful to U.S. interests. The politicians and press reserve their venom for the Iranian regime.

The reactionary character of the Khomeini regime in Iran is well known. But the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq is no less reactionary. At the end of March the world got a firsthand glimpse of the brutality of the Iraqi regime when TV pictures came out showing the aftermath of a gruesome extermination of civilians in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The town of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan, not too far from the city of Sulaymaniyah, was once a thriving settlement of 70,000. The border region of Kurdistan has become a major military front in the Iran-Iraq war, and Halabja recently fell under Iranian control.

The Iraqi regime responded to its defeat here by bombing the town and surrounding villages with cyanide and other poison gases. The photographers who visited Halabja took pictures of hundreds of corpses which did not have any wounds. They had been gassed to death. Hundreds more were writhing in agony in the hospitals. Men, women, children, old people -- no one was spared.

Not An Isolated Incident

When they broadcast these pictures on U.S. TV, the journalists expressed amazement that Iraq had done this to "its own people." But Iraq's war "against its own people" did not begin with this attack. The Saddam Hussein regime is a ruthless police state. And in recent years, it has escalated its oppression of the Kurdish people inside Iraq to new levels of brutality.

The Kurdish people in Iraq, like the Kurds in Turkey and Iran, have long been oppressed by the central government. Armed resistance to the Baghdad regime has in the last several years grown to huge proportions. The Saddam Hussein regime has responded to this resistance with an iron fist reminiscent of the Nazis.

Accounts appearing in some European newspapers point out that chemical weapons have been used a number of times before. Large numbers of Kurdish villages have been blown up and their inhabitants transferred elsewhere en masse. Those who are arrested are usually tortured and killed. Just in December alone, it is reported by Amnesty International that hundreds of political prisoners were executed in Iraqi prisons.

But the ferocious repression hasn't helped the regime pacify the people. Large parts of Iraqi Kurdistan remain out of the control of the regime.

Tyranny to Prop Up a Capitalist Order

The barbarism of the Saddam Hussein regime is the brutality of a capitalist regime which finds itself cornered by the war and acute crisis.

The Iraqi government is a capitalist government. In 1980, fearful of the Iranian revolution which had toppled the Shah, Saddam Hussein launched a war against Iran. He hoped to carve a big regional position for himself by becoming the saviour of capitalist-imperialist stability in the Persian Gulf. But his fortunes in the war turned sour. And along with the war, Iraq has been caught in deep economic crisis. It owes more than $60 billion to the Western imperialists and the rich Arab powers. The war has also reduced the labor force. The regime responded last year to economic crisis with new anti-labor laws, which included cutting benefits, increasing the workday to 12 hours, and abolishing even the official pro-government trade unions.

Capitalist regimes like this -- pressed by war, economic crisis, and domestic unrest -- are inclined to lash out against the masses with barbaric fury. To end such savagery, the workers and toilers have to overthrow the tyranny and the capitalist order it is based on.

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More White House profiteering off the Iran-Iraq war

Ed Meese and the Iraqi oil pipeline

The Reagan administration has been a scandal from the get go. The list of officials who have been investigated, indicted or convicted is long enough to make a parade along Pennsylvania Ave.

There has been your run-of-the-mill corruption to tip an EPA ruling or win a Pentagon contract. There has also been truly world class scandals -- ones so big that they reveal the workings of international events.

The Iran-contra affair is such a scandal.

And now there's another whopper in the works. This involves Reagan's attorney-general-of-sleeze-and-corruption Edwin Meese and plans to build a $1 billion oil pipeline in Iraq.

Oil Money

In the early 1980's, Bechtel Group Inc. floated a scheme to build an oil pipeline from Iraq to the Gulf of Aqaba in Jordan. San Francisco based Bechtel is a monster conglomerate that has built oil installations in the Middle East and nuclear plants all over the world. Bechtel was to be the main contractor of this $1 billion pipeline (which it turns out was never built because the Iraqis lost interest).

Bechtel began an intense lobbying effort to get Washington's approval and funding for the pipeline project. The people at Bechtel had reason to believe that they would get a good hearing; after all, Secretary of State Shultz and then-Secretary of Defense Weinberger had both come to the administration from Bechtel.

Just to make sure, Bechtel formed a partnership with Swiss financier Bruce Rappaport. Rappaport's connections with then-CIA director William Casey and with the government of Israel were useful for getting the project cleared. Rappaport in turn recruited the services of E. Robert Wallach, who was the lawyer, adviser, financial partner and close crony of Attorney General Meese. (This is the same Wallach who was indicted in December in the Wedtech arms contract scandal for taking money in payment for his links to Ed Meese.)

Wallach and Meese set to work speeding approval of the Iraqi pipeline project. In June 1985, Meese arranged a special meeting of Wallach and Rappaport with then-National Security Council chief Robert McFarlane. Soon after Bechtel's pipeline got the support of CIA director Casey and President Reagan.

The March 10 Los Angeles Times reports that government investigators have discovered a $150,000 payment from Rappaport to Wallach for his lobbying efforts. And surprise, surprise, it turns out that this payment found its way into an account in a Los Angeles trust company shared by Edwin Meese.

In short, U.S. corporate interests in the oil rich Middle East were greasing the works in high places.

Greasing the Israeli War Machine

The hitch in the plan was that Bechtel needed a guarantee from Israel that it wouldn't blow up the pipeline as it had bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981.

Meese undertook secret negotiations with then Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. Reportedly Peres agreed to support the pipeline.

(When Meese was asked what the head of the Justice Department was doing conducting such a foreign policy initiative, he explained that it would have been inappropriate for the State Department to handle it because of Secretary Shultz's former job as Bechtel vice-chairman. Funny that Meese didn't mention his own Bechtel link.)

Recently a 1985 memo from Wallach to Meese came to light which showed a complex bribe scheme to ensure the Israeli guarantees. The proposal included $700 million in U.S. aid payments over ten years. Part of this would go to Peres' (allegedly liberal) Labor Party; most of it would go to the Israeli military. There were also discussions promising the Israeli regime part of the oil from the planned pipeline.

This bribe scheme would have provided more padding for the alliance between U.S. imperialist oil interests and the Israeli regime. It would have meant more fuel for the Israeli military machine of occupation and oppression against the Palestinians.

Profits from Iran-Iraq War

While all this was going on, Robert McFarlane and the White House staff was baking a cake for the Ayatollah Khomeini. The Reaganites were preparing to make tens of millions of dollars out of the now infamous arms shipments to the Islamic regime in Iran for its war against Iraq.

In other words, the men at the top of the U.S. government were playing both sides of the Iran-Iraq war. All the official handwringing about the need for peace was just so much bunk.

War is good for business. The sharp business minds in the basement of the White House have jumped at the chance to turn a profit from the Iran-Iraq bloodbath.

It doesn't matter that hundreds of thousands of young men on both sides have been butchered in this war between these two brutal capitalist dictatorships.

It doesn't matter that Khomeini needs more rockets and U.S. aircraft parts to slaughter Iraqis. Or that the Sadaam Hussein regime in Iraq needs an outlet for its oil to finance the slaughter of Iranians.

It doesn't matter that the U.S. weapons for Khomeini back up a savage terror inside Iran against the workers, against the Kurds and other oppressed masses. Nor that the Iraqi pipeline was to serve the Kirkuk oil fields in Iraqi Kurdistan, where the Iraqi regime is blowing up villages and applying poison gas against the Kurdish population.

To Reagan, Meese and crew, none of this matters. Because there's lots of money to be made from the flow of Middle East oil and from the flow of blood that feeds the international arms merchants.

Lesson in Imperialist Government

The federal inquiry into Meese's role in the Iraqi pipeline limps along. It is probing the $150,000 of Bechtel-Rappaport money that made its way into a Meese Partners account. And it may go deeper.

Meese's payoff may sound like small change. Nonetheless, it's not unimportant. In the crude money grabbing style of the Reagan administration, it reveals one of the many (thousands) of links between the multinational corporations and the government. Taken together these links -- both legal (through campaign funding, cabinet appointments, etc., etc.) and illegal (all types of sleeze and corruption) -- form the ruling system in this country, the rule of monopoly capitalism or imperialism. Meese's pipeline caper shows just how this system thrives on robbery, oppression and war.

No federal investigators are going to put this criminal system on trial. That will be left to the workers and oppressed themselves. That's the job of the revolutionary workers of Iran and Iraq struggling against the dictators and the war. Of the Palestinian masses rising against U.S.-backed Israeli occupation. Of the American workers who will one day throw off the yoke of the billionaire capitalists and their well-paid political lap dogs.

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Iraqi demonstrators give the boot to Saddam Hussein's thugs in Detroit

On Sunday, March 27, the streets of the Iraqi neighborhood in Detroit resounded with shouts of anger against the latest atrocities of the fascist Saddam Hussein regime. Two hundred Iraqi immigrants staged a militant demonstration to protest the murder of thousands of people in Iraqi Kurdistan by poison gas.

This was one of a series of actions by anti-fascist Iraqis taking place in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Ottawa and other cities of North America.

In Detroit the agents of the Iraqi ruling Ba'ath Party have for years maintained a reign of intimidation over the Iraqi community. The protesters assembled on the main street of the neighborhood defying the intimidation enforced by Saddam Hussein's henchmen. Banners and picket signs denounced the war crimes of the Baghdad dictatorship. Slogans filled the air in English and Arabic: Down with Saddam! He's a fascist, he must go! Stop the chemical war against the Iraqi people!

A small band of Ba'athists began taunting the demonstration with pictures of the tyrant and threatening retaliation against the families of the marchers. Undaunted, the anti-fascists surged forward and soundly thrashed the provocateurs. They ripped to shreds the posters of "Saddam Hitler" as they called him. In the course of the struggle one young fighter was arrested by the Detroit police. Despite this loss the crowd was cheered by the victory. They went on to march for an hour and a half, taking the spirit of resistance to the people on the streets and in the shops along the route of march.

MLP militants took part in the demonstration. They shouted in solidarity with the struggle against tyranny in Iraq and were warmly received. As well, over 100 copies of The Workers' Advocate were eagerly snapped up by the demonstrators and community residents.

At the end a spirited rally concluded the action with calls for struggle against the bloodstained rule of Saddam Hussein and for building the solidarity movement here in the U.S.

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What path for the struggle against the war?

8,000 march in Los Angeles against Iran-Iraq bombardments

The eight-year-old war between Iran and Iraq is reaching new levels of horror with the rocket attacks against civilian targets and the use of chemical weapons against the Kurds. Last month, people in the Iranian community in California responded to this escalation with a series of protests.

Thousands Rally in Los Angeles Against the War

The protests were centered in Los Angeles with its several hundred thousand strong Iranian community. In late February and early March there were almost daily rallies and sit-ins at the Westwood Federal Building. The protests grew on the weekends, up to 8,000 people on Sunday, March 13.

The slogans for these events were for stopping the Iran-Iraq war, for stopping the bombing of civilians, and generally for peace. However, behind these general slogans the protests were sharply divided politically.

The largest single force in the Sunday rally were supporters of the overthrown monarchy of the late Shah and other pro-U.S. and bourgeois elements. It appears that these wealthy monarchist exiles want to seize on the hatred against the war to regain some political ground. Or, to be more precise, they want to convince the U.S. government to not give up on them altogether by showing that they still have some relevance.

There was also a section of left-wing Iranians that was about a thousand strong in the Sunday rally. Among the left there were supporters of the Communist Party of Iran. Supporters of the MLP,USA also took part, distributing The Workers' Advocate with its "Report from Kurdistan" and a leaflet in support of the Communist Party of Iran and the revolutionary movement of the workers and toilers.

That same weekend there were also protests of about a thousand people in San Jose and 800 in San Francisco. Reportedly, these protests were dominated by the monarchist-bourgeois forces.

On Thursday, March 17 there was a spirited march of about 100 people along the edge of the Berkeley campus of the University of California. The slogans were: "Stop the Iran-Iraq war! " "We want peace!" "Stop the arms sales!" and "Down with Khomeini! Down with Saddam!" (Saddam Hussein is Khomeini's counterpart in Iraq, a brutal and ruthless dictator.)

In the Berkeley action supporters of the MLP carried picket signs declaring: "Fight against the Iran-Iraq war! Support the revolution of the workers and poor!" and "Down with the Iran-Iraq war and its U.S.-USSR imperialist backers!"

How Must We Fight Against the War?

These protests are a good development. They are a sign of the mass response to the Iran-Iraq carnage which is long overdue. Moreover, they have sharply posed the question of political orientation for this anti-war struggle.

The monarchist and bourgeois elements say they want to keep banners and politics out of the movement -- that everyone should just march for peace under the Iranian flag. But this is just a shield for their monarchist politics, for their reactionary orientation.

These forces do not want a break with the Iranian bourgeoisie which is responsible for the war. They represent the monarchist faction of the bourgeoisie, and they want to line people up behind the flag because they will only accept peace on terms agreeable to this faction of the exploiters. In fact, there is an undercurrent among the monarchists that peace should come through pushing aside Khomeini and the mullahs and allowing the generals and professional military men (many with monarchist leanings) a free hand to finish off the Iraqi army. Of course, this isn't the road to peace, but to a more "professional" slaughter.

The monarchist, bourgeois and reformist elements also promote that peace should come through an arms embargo and other means enforced by the United Nations and the big powers. They preach the illusion that the U.S. government is a potential enforcer of peace. This is because their whole monarchist and bourgeois program is inseparable from their links to U.S. imperialism -- the bayonet which propped up the hated Pahlevi monarchy for so many decades.

What does this mean for the left? It means that it is impossible to leave the appeal against the war at the level of peace in general. This would mean handing over the movement to the wealthy monarchist forces, the forces that control the Iranian TV and radio stations and other means to gain a political grip on the Iranian community in the U.S.

The left needs to interject itself in this movement with its own orientation. In the first place, in one form or another, the struggle against the war must be connected with the revolutionary movement of the workers and toilers against the governments. Any other approach is a pacifist illusion that will end up a plaything in the hands of the monarchists. Or it plays into the hands of bourgeois nationalists like the Mojahadeen leaders who are in bed with Iraq's Saddam Hussein and want to bring peace at the end of Iraqi artillery.

The last eight years have shown that there is no other force counteracting this war except for the revolutionary movement of the working class, of the Kurds, and of all the toilers and oppressed. If we are to wage a serious fight against the war, we must find ways to point to this struggle against the regime and the exploiters as the best hope for raising the masses out of their present hell and putting an end to the slaughter. This includes support for the struggle of the Communist Party of Iran to organize the proletariat for revolution.

This cannot be done under the flag of the Iranian bourgeoisie. It can only be done in the spirit of a common internationalist struggle with the workers and oppressed of Iran and Iraq against the brutal capitalist tyrannies of Saddam and Khomeini.

Likewise, we must tell the truth about the role of American imperialism and the other big powers in perpetuating the carnage in the Gulf war. The U.S. and other big imperialist powers (the Soviet Union, China, France, etc.) spur on this war because they find it both politically and military useful and highly profitable. And the UN has always been a talk shop in the hands of the most powerful imperialists.

At the same time, the protests in the Iranian community against the Iran-Iraq war will be strengthened if they reach out to the American working class and revolutionary activists. The struggle in Iran has historically gained much support among revolutionary-minded workers and activists in the U.S. Here too, this support will not be rebuilt just with humanitarian appeals against a terrible slaughter. What is needed is to inspire the activists with the example of the working class underground across Iran and the armed resistance in Kurdistan -- to bring out the revolutionary alternative to the seemingly endless swirl of bloodletting gripping the Persian Gulf region.

Of course, we are not saying that every leaflet against the Iran-Iraq war must give the full revolutionary program. But they should be written with an eye to have a cutting edge against the pro-imperialist ties of the bourgeois and monarchist forces. What is needed is effective means to combat the influence of the monarchist and bourgeois forces. Otherwise the left wing will be reduced to a tail of these forces. And to do this, militant work is needed to link the fight against the Iran-Iraq butchery to the revolutionary movement of the Iranian workers and oppressed and to the international struggle against reaction and imperialism.

[Photo: March in Berkeley, California against the Iran-Iraq war on March 15.]

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Meeting in Berkeley on MLP trip to Kurdistan

[Photo.]

On Tuesday, March 15 the MLP organized a meeting on the Berkeley campus of the University of California to present an eyewitness account of what's going on in revolutionary Kurdistan.

A member of the MLP medical team that recently returned from Kurdistan gave a presentation on the revolutionary lessons to be drawn from the upheaval in Kurdistan over the last decade. There was also a slide show that was taken by the MLP team in the mountain camps of the Communist Party of Iran and its Kurdish organization Komala.

Afterwards there was a long question and answer period. The questions mainly came from campus anti-imperialist activists and a number of Iranians who attended. There were questions about the evolution of the Iranian left and the creation of the CP of Iran; about what's on the minds of the Kurdish communist fighters; about the perspectives of their struggle; and about the Iran-Iraq war.

One Kurdish woman commented that the meeting meant a lot because it gave her new hope in the revolutionary movement. Indeed, the meeting was another step in spreading the word about the revolutionary struggle of the communists, workers, and toilers in Kurdistan and Iran.

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The uprising goes on...

Support the Palestinian people!

For four months now, the heroic Palestinian youth have been standing up to the guns of the Israeli occupiers in the occupied territories. Over a hundred have been shot and killed. The zionist troops have beaten hundreds, breaking their arms and legs and bludgeoning some to death. But the uprising goes on, strengthened by hatred for the Zionists' brutality.

In desperation the Zionists are asking: how long can the uprising go on? They have given up charging that it is simply the work of a few "outside agitators" that will go away as soon as the "proper force" is applied. Now they are simply hoping that the uprising will run out of steam.

But in the last month the uprising continued to gather momentum. The demonstrations and rock-throwing have reached remote villages previously untouched by political agitation. Strikes of workers and shopkeepers are growing ever more frequent. New sections of the occupied population have been drawn into the protest actions. Organized actions have been more disciplined and more powerful.

The Uprising Gathers Steam

One sign of the uprising's growing strength is the series of demonstrations organized on International Working Women's Day. On March 8 Palestinian women marked this event by marching in large, powerful demonstrations throughout the towns and villages of the West Bank. In many cases they were attacked by Israeli soldiers, and they fought back with stones.

Another manifestation of the uprising's strength is the resignation of hundreds of Palestinian policemen and town councilmen. These were appointed to their positions by the Israeli occupiers. They have not been directly used in the repression; nonetheless, they participate in the occupation's civil administration. When the demand was voiced that they resign, hundreds responded.

Still another sign of the uprising's strength is the stone wall encountered by George Shultz when he visited Jerusalem with his new "peace plan." Shultz is working to pacify the Palestinians to make the Mideast safe for U.S. imperialism. The strength of the uprising, however, made it impossible for any reformist-minded Palestinians to come out in support of the Shultz plan.

The uprising also continues to gather sympathy inside Israel. On March 12 a huge rally of 50,000 was held in Tel Aviv protesting the Israeli occupation and its savage repression of Palestinian demonstrations. And Palestinian workers inside Israel are planning another one-day general strike to commemorate Palestine Land Day, March 30.

The Israelis continue to hope and predict that the demonstrators are becoming exhausted. But every Friday, as the Palestinian masses pour into the streets, they are proved wrong. And as the weeks go by the Palestinian strikes and consumer boycotts exact a heavier toll on the Israeli economy. Even U.S. newspapers and magazines have articles showing the impact the Palestinian uprising is having on the Israeli economy.

More Outrages by Israel

As the uprising deepens, the desperation of the Israeli occupiers gets even worse. They continue to shoot demonstrators both with metal and rubber (actually rubber-coated metal) bullets.

The Zionists are also continuing the official army policy of beating demonstrators (or anyone they meet in their nighttime raids on Palestinian homes). Soldiers are given instruction on how to smash arm, wrist and leg bones. And they are issued wooden and plastic clubs to carry this out. Hundreds of such fractures have been treated in Palestinian hospitals and clinics, but many have gone unreported; many Palestinians stay away from medical facilities, since they are a target of constant raids by Israeli troops.

The Israelis' use of tear gas remains a hazard in Palestinian towns and villages. At least two people have suffocated to death from tear gas. And in Nablus, where protests have been the most concentrated and militant, there are reports that the Israelis are using a new, more noxious kind of green gas.

The Israelis continue to use collective punishment as a way to try and crush the uprising. The city of Nablus is shut down for days at a time by the army. Food deliveries are choked off. All intercourse between the West Bank and Gaza has been halted.

The Israelis' latest method for stamping out protest is 10 simply throw into jail anyone faintly suspected of having anything to do with political agitation. In late March the Israelis began implementing South Africa-style administrative detention, under which Palestinians can be jailed for six months on the order of any low-level military officer. The officer does not have to charge the person with any crime, or give any reason at all for the person to be detained. As of now 3,000 people are being held in this kind of detention.

U.S. Imperialism -- Main Prop for Zionist Fascism

The military suppression of the Palestinians is backed up by U.S. aid, the biggest international backer of the Zionists. A good part of the military hardware is also supplied by the U.S.

Why is the U.S. government the most diehard defender of Israel? Because Israel is a crucial part of U.S. imperialism's strategic positions in the Mideast. This is why every administration, Republican and Democrat, of the past forty years has made support for Israel a basic principle of U.S. foreign policy. This is why the Reagan administration, with approval from the Democratic-controlled Congress, gave over $3 billion in aid to Israel last year. This is why none of the candidates running for president will come out against support for Israel. Most of them are fierce defenders of Israel and Jesse Jackson, who alone pretends to be friendly to the Arabs, won't go beyond vague talk about peace and negotiations. None of them, Jackson included, will support the just uprising of the Palestinians.

Support the Palestinians!

With the exposures of Israeli brutality going on every day, now is a good time to push forward the movement in solidarity with the Palestinian revolution. News of zionist atrocities should be used to broaden the exposure of the racist, theocratic state of Israel. Support for the Palestinian uprising should be taken to other mass actions protesting U.S. militarism and intervention abroad. The Democrats' refusal to condemn Israeli brutality should be used to drive a wedge between the bourgeois politicians and the mass of progressive activists.

[Photo: "March against the occupation" mobilized both Arabs and Jews in a march through Israel protesting the Zionist government's policies in the West Bank and Gaza.]

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Israeli military recruiter thwarted at Amherst College

It may sound hard to believe, but the Israeli Zionists are going around U.S. campuses trying to recruit "volunteers" to help the military efforts in Israel. And this attempt is going on right now, when Israel is facing worldwide condemnation for its brutal oppression of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

But the Israelis are not having an easy time with this crusade. Where revolutionary and progressive activists have discovered these recruiting efforts, the Zionists have faced angry demonstrations.

Recruitment Meeting Sparks Protest in Amherst

On March 6 a meeting was advertised to take place on Amherst College in western Massachusetts to recruit "volunteers for Israel." The featured speaker was described as an Israeli paratroop officer and commander of an "anti-terrorist outfit." Students were being asked to sign up for "work on Israeli army bases."

A few days before the scheduled event, supporters of the Marxist-Leninist Party who live in the area found out about the campaign and immediately began to organize a protest against it.

They talked to activists and students in the area, spreading the word that an attempt was being made to recruit support for the Israeli military. A leaflet was put together which boldly declared, "NO! Recruitment of Israeli mercenaries! NO! Suppression of the Palestinian People!"

The flyer was posted at the University of Massachusetts and in downtown Amherst. The call for the protest was also taken to events such as a rally and discussion meeting organized by the Jesse Jackson campaign. But the Jackson campaign honchos did not show any interest in protesting the zionist recruiting meeting.

Militant Picket Line Set Up

On the evening of the zionist meeting, demonstrators gathered and started a picket line. Placards had been made earlier and these were distributed to the gathering. The picketers took up the chant, "Revolution Yes! Zionism No! Israeli troops have got to go!"

Twenty people had come to join the protest. A couple of speeches were given. During a speech by a Palestinian student, one of the zionist student organizers tried to attack the picket line.

But the line was reformed and the rally continued with the reading of a poem called "Falcons of Gaza" which saluted the Palestinian uprising.

Zionists Justify Brutality

When the zionist meeting began, demonstrators went inside. The Israeli paratrooper was repeatedly denounced during his speech. He tried to come up with outrageous justifications for the suppression of the Palestinian uprising. For example, he justified the violence against the Palestinians in the occupied territories by referring to the suppression of the black people's rebellion in Detroit in 1967!

The organizers of the meeting cut short the paratrooper's speech and opened the floor to questions. But this only brought out a number of sharp questions hitting against Israel. When the paratrooper's student flunkies jumped in to help him out, they only exposed the reactionary character of zionism even more. For example, the zionist who had attacked the picket line asked the paratrooper how many bullets there are in an Uzi clip. When the paratrooper answered 25, the student said triumphantly, "See the restraint of the Israelis. They have ONLY killed two and a half clips worth of Palestinians!"

Soon after that, the whole session was declared closed and an Amherst College official announced that the meeting would be convened elsewhere open only to Amherst students. But during the breakup of the meeting, the Zionists came under further denunciation.

Those who had organized the protest were pleased at the outcome of the action. Zionism had definitely suffered a blow. One demonstrator who had not felt comfortable with the idea of disrupting the meeting spent a long time angrily denouncing the Zionists afterwards. She said later, "I had no idea they would be like that."

Later the Amherst College student newspaper complained that this disruption had been a terrible thing. From the security of their ivory tower pedestal they editorialized, "Tower of Babble: Intolerance, Yet Another Time." They lamented the absence of a "civil exchange of ideas." It is bad enough that these bourgeois journalists-in-the-making consider that zionism -- which is oppressing and murdering the Palestinians -- to be something that can be dealt with by "exchanging ideas" with it. But they completely ignored the fact that this wasn't even supposed to be a discussion forum, it was a straight-up attempt to recruit support for the Israeli military!

But the newspaper did reveal some interesting facts. It quoted the Israeli paratrooper saying that in previous meetings at other schools he had encountered protests as well. And the college police chief remarked that a similar event at Columbia University had been totally disrupted.

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The World in Struggle

[Graphic.]

Dominican working masses in the streets

[Photo: Workers in the Dominican Republic set the streets ablaze during a strike that shut down this part of Santo Domingo.]

On March 9 a nationwide strike swept through the Dominican Republic. This continued the mass rebellion that swept the streets of the Dominican Republic during February.

Strikes and protests broke out throughout the country. The toilers set up roadblocks and barricades. Angry people attacked markets and food stores to seize food. They firebombed and attacked government offices. And they stood up against the police and army.

The workers and poor of the Dominican Republic are rising up against hunger and poverty. They demand food and the lowering of food prices. They demand improvements in neighborhood services. They are saying no to the hellish existence imposed on them by capitalism.

Right-Winger Balaguer Gives People Austerity and Repression

For several years an economic depression has devastated the workers and unemployed. The masses have been forced under one austerity plan after another. These plans have been demanded by the International Monetary Fund and have been carried out by the present right-wing government of Balaguer as well as the previous administrations of the social-democratic PRD party.

To enforce its dictate over the masses, Balaguer has met the mass rebellion with repression. Already at least five people have been killed, dozens wounded, and more than a thousand arrested.

Bourgeois Opposition Denounces the Protests

While Balaguer sends police to shoot down protesters, his loyal opposition is calling upon the people to stop the protests. Notable are the stands of the social-democrats of the PRD and the national-reformist PLD. Pena Gomez, leader of one of the main factions of the PRD, and Juan Bosch, leader of the PLD, have taken the lead in demanding that the people withdraw from the demonstrations.

Pena Gomez rails against the protests because he says these may "produce political actions intended to modify the political order of the country." Obviously this unjust "political order" must be safeguarded at all costs. We must not forget that it was Mr. Pena Gomez's own party which massacred people protesting the high cost of living in April 1984. That is how the PRD preserved the "political order" when it was in power.

Meanwhile Juan Bosch has denounced the so-called "violent" character of the demonstrations because "we (the PLD) never cause disturbances, for with disturbances one gets nowhere."

Of course, neither of these bourgeois politicians have uttered a single word against the repression by the police and army.

For the Independent Struggle of the Workers

The Dominican people cannot expect anything from Balaguer except hunger and repression. Neither can they expect anything from the bourgeois opposition except fraud and sabotage of their struggle.

The street demonstrations are just and deserve our full support. It is only the independent struggle of the workers and poor for their own demands that holds any future for the toiling masses. And it is only by breaking up the unjust "political order of the country" and putting an end to the power of the Dominican bourgeoisie and the imperialists that the workers will finally be able to cast off the chains of hunger and repression.

(Based on a March 15 leaflet of the MLP-New York.)

Truck drivers strike in Mexico City

Four hundred and fifty tanker truck drivers in Mexico City have been on strike since January 1. A group of these strikers was recently interviewed by activists of the MLP for The Workers' Advocate.

These drivers work for a company owned by Rafael Huerta. The company decided to change the manner in which the workers are paid. They used to be paid per trip; now the boss wants to pay by kilometer. The workers figured out that this would mean a big wage cut, as much as 50%. The workers struck and many strikers took their trucks with them.

The tanker drivers are organized in a union which is outside the CTM, the official labor federation connected to the ruling PRI party. The drivers used to be part of CROC, another pro-government union federation. But they fought a bitter struggle to break away from CROC in 1986. Several people were killed in fighting caused by armed attacks by CROC thugs.

The drivers hope to spread their struggle throughout the industry. In the course of their strike; they have taken their struggle to other companies, organizations, etc. They also organized a planton, a form of struggle in which workers take banners and literature and keep up a continuing presence near the Government Palace.

The striking workers denounced the ruling party and the CTM. The CTM union leaders recently signed the National Social Pact which enforces still more austerity measures on the Mexican workers. The strikers condemned this treachery as "CTM negotiating poverty for the workers."

The striking tanker drivers appealed for support for their fight. Letters of support can be sent to them at:

Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores del Transporte, S.Y.C.

"Ricardo Flores Magon" "Delegacion Xalostoc"

Manzana 1 Lote 57 Calle Venustiano Carranza Colonia Jardes de Xalostoc Mexico D.F.

Strike wave in Portugal

For the first time in several years a strike wave is rolling through Portugal. Traffic in Lisbon has been disrupted by walkouts of public transit workers, and tens of thousands have protested in Lisbon and other cities.

The unrest began at an arms factory in January. Workers who had not been paid for weeks took over the plant and held some management personnel hostage. Since then there have been slowdowns, protests and work stoppages by subway workers, dock workers, bus drivers, railway workers, and ferry operators.

The unrest is building momentum as a nationwide protest against the reactionary legislative proposals of Prime Minister Anibal Cavaco. Cavaco is insisting that wage raises be limited to 6%, which he says is the inflation rate. But workers, familiar with lying government statistics on inflation, are demanding higher raises. Cavaco is also proposing big changes in labor law to boost the power of the employers; for example he wants to make it easier for them to fire workers.

There are plans for a nationwide general strike on March 28 as a protest against Cavaco's anti-worker proposals.

Reagan, Botha and Shamir burned in effigy

Torchlight march in Berkeley against apartheid

[Photos: Effigies of Reagan, South African Prime Minister Botha, Israeli Prime Minister Shamir, and University of California Chancellor Heyman were burned on Biko Plaza.]

A militant torchlight march of 500 against apartheid was held March 9 at the University of California at Berkeley. This protest was sponsored by the Campaign Against Apartheid (CAA). It kicked off CAA's spring campaign of action. The Berkeley march was also supported by the San Francisco Bay Area branch of the MLP.

The action began on campus with an early evening rally of about 200 at Biko Plaza. A series of speakers denounced U.S. imperialism, South African apartheid, Israeli zionism, and racism in the U.S. Speakers supported the revolutionary movements in South Africa, Palestine and Central America.

Speakers sharply denounced the University of California's ties to apartheid. The CAA speaker exposed UC's phony divestment and the fake pullouts of American corporations from South Africa. UC refuses to sell its stock in companies like IBM, GM and Xerox, which have engineered fake pullouts from South Africa. UC actually has bought more stock in IBM and now holds $345 million worth of IBM shares. IBM has sold its South African subsidiary to a dummy corporation called ISM, but ISM manufactures nothing at all -- its only function is to sell IBM-made products inside South Africa.

A speaker from the MLP gave a fiery call to build the solidarity movement in the U.S. The speech called for a militant mass movement in the U.S., a movement like the struggle in the 1960's. He said, "Tonight's march is a step towards building such a movement. It is not a march to say how sorry we are about apartheid or Israel's savagery against the Palestinians. It is a march which says, 'We see what the hell is going on and we won't stand for it.' It is a march that condemns U.S. imperialism.''

By this time it was dark, and the protesters began to march through the streets. Nearing the dormitory areas, the march picked up its first supply of burning torches. With blazing torches held high, protesters went through dormitory courtyards shouting, "UC, USA, Out of South Africa!" When students looked out of windows, the marchers shouted, "The anti-apartheid movement is back! Victory to the revolution in South Africa! Join us!" The dorm residents cheered, and hundreds came down to join the march.

The marchers then headed back to Biko Plaza for another rally. Effigies of Reagan, Botha, Israeli Prime Minister Shamir and UC Chancellor Heyman were thrown into a bonfire with the torches.

At the end of the demonstration the bullhorn was given over to a homeless activist. He called for support for a militant homeless action which had just gotten under way -- taking over a vacant house owned by the university. Many demonstrators left immediately for the homeless action.

The Berkeley action was a rebuff to the UC administrators who were hoping the anti-apartheid movement was snuffed out. It was also a repudiation of opportunist misleaders who are opposed to militant politics. At the UC campus there have been those who have carped that actions which come out against U.S. imperialism will turn off people. Other reformists like the leaders of the Northern California Mobilization for Peace, Jobs and Justice say that "it will split the movement" to bring anti-zionist politics into anti-intervention actions planned for this spring, such as a demonstration set for April 30 in San Francisco.

But in fact, as the Berkeley example shows, there is a strong current of activists and other youth who are eager for militant struggle against U.S. imperialism. And those who have learned to stand up against racism and U.S. intervention are also eager to denounce the crimes of Israeli zionism.

Chicago rally to free Moses Mayekiso

[Photo.]

Two hundred people turned out for a midday rally against South African apartheid on March 18 in Chicago.

The demonstration was called to protest the South African racists' attacks on the trade union movement. The action denounced the persecution of Moses Mayekiso and other jailed union activists in South Africa. Moses Mayekiso is known as a militant trade unionist and community activist. He is a leader of the National Union of Metalworkers in South Africa. As part of its fascist state of emergency the Botha government has imprisoned Mayekiso for over a year.

The rally was officially sponsored by a group of trade union bureaucrats. The union sellouts here in the U.S. have piled up a big track record in stabbing the workers in the back, but they have used the Free Moses Mayekiso campaign to look for some credibility as anti-apartheid fighters. But even where they call rallies like this one in Chicago, the trade union bureaucrats work hard to sabotage the solidarity movement.

Because they actually oppose mobilizing the masses, they organized this demonstration in Chicago at a time of day when few people could attend. They opposed anyone shouting militant anti-apartheid slogans and insisted that they be restricted to the bureaucrats' own reformist slogans. At the same time the bureaucrats would not even shout their own slogans. Even play-acting at international labor solidarity does not come easy for the union bosses.

However, the MLP was able to send a group of comrades to the action and they worked to give the demonstration a militant spirit. Other activists joined with the MLP to form a contingent. This section of the demonstration shouted such slogans as:

"Free Mayekiso, jail Botha!"

"Boycott South Africa, not Nicaragua!"

"Apartheid in South Africa, burn it to the ground!"

''Revolution yes, apartheid no!"

One million workers strike to mark Sharpeville Massacre

Black workers brought industry to a halt throughout South Africa on March 21. The workers commemorated the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 and protested the government's latest repression of anti-apartheid organizations.

Last month the South African government banned the activities of 17 anti-apartheid organizations. It also prohibited the COSATU trade union center from carrying on any political activities. Despite this latest repression, workers and anti-apartheid activists were able to successfully spread the word and organize a defiant general strike.

Schools and shops in Soweto were closed. Four buses near Durban were firebombed. In Port Elizabeth the auto industry was forced to shut down for the day. Ninety percent of the black workers in that city stayed away from their jobs. Most workers also stayed home from their jobs in Johannesburg and the eastern Cape. Buses running between cities and the black townships were mostly empty. At least one million workers participated in the strike nationwide.

Coinciding with the strike, a militant meeting protesting apartheid repression was also organized in Sharpeville this March 21 by NACTU, another black trade union federation.

The massive strike marked the 28th anniversary of the massacre of black protesters by the South African racists. On March 21,1960 blacks protesting the racist pass laws held a march in the township of Sharpeville. Police opened fire, killing 69.

Botha's racist regime has stepped up its repression, but the latest massive strike shows they cannot kill the spirit of anti-apartheid struggle.

[Photo: Students at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg demonstrate on the same day as the massive general strike by black workers.]

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Dominican working masses in the streets

[Photo: Workers in the Dominican Republic set the streets ablaze during a strike that shut down this part of Santo Domingo.]

On March 9 a nationwide strike swept through the Dominican Republic. This continued the mass rebellion that swept the streets of the Dominican Republic during February.

Strikes and protests broke out throughout the country. The toilers set up roadblocks and barricades. Angry people attacked markets and food stores to seize food. They firebombed and attacked government offices. And they stood up against the police and army.

The workers and poor of the Dominican Republic are rising up against hunger and poverty. They demand food and the lowering of food prices. They demand improvements in neighborhood services. They are saying no to the hellish existence imposed on them by capitalism.

Right-Winger Balaguer Gives People Austerity and Repression

For several years an economic depression has devastated the workers and unemployed. The masses have been forced under one austerity plan after another. These plans have been demanded by the International Monetary Fund and have been carried out by the present right-wing government of Balaguer as well as the previous administrations of the social-democratic PRD party.

To enforce its dictate over the masses, Balaguer has met the mass rebellion with repression. Already at least five people have been killed, dozens wounded, and more than a thousand arrested.

Bourgeois Opposition Denounces the Protests

While Balaguer sends police to shoot down protesters, his loyal opposition is calling upon the people to stop the protests. Notable are the stands of the social-democrats of the PRD and the national-reformist PLD. Pena Gomez, leader of one of the main factions of the PRD, and Juan Bosch, leader of the PLD, have taken the lead in demanding that the people withdraw from the demonstrations.

Pena Gomez rails against the protests because he says these may "produce political actions intended to modify the political order of the country." Obviously this unjust "political order" must be safeguarded at all costs. We must not forget that it was Mr. Pena Gomez's own party which massacred people protesting the high cost of living in April 1984. That is how the PRD preserved the "political order" when it was in power.

Meanwhile Juan Bosch has denounced the so-called "violent" character of the demonstrations because "we (the PLD) never cause disturbances, for with disturbances one gets nowhere."

Of course, neither of these bourgeois politicians have uttered a single word against the repression by the police and army.

For the Independent Struggle of the Workers

The Dominican people cannot expect anything from Balaguer except hunger and repression. Neither can they expect anything from the bourgeois opposition except fraud and sabotage of their struggle.

The street demonstrations are just and deserve our full support. It is only the independent struggle of the workers and poor for their own demands that holds any future for the toiling masses. And it is only by breaking up the unjust "political order of the country" and putting an end to the power of the Dominican bourgeoisie and the imperialists that the workers will finally be able to cast off the chains of hunger and repression.

(Based on a March 15 leaflet of the MLP-New York.)

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Truck drivers strike in Mexico City

Four hundred and fifty tanker truck drivers in Mexico City have been on strike since January 1. A group of these strikers was recently interviewed by activists of the MLP for The Workers' Advocate.

These drivers work for a company owned by Rafael Huerta. The company decided to change the manner in which the workers are paid. They used to be paid per trip; now the boss wants to pay by kilometer. The workers figured out that this would mean a big wage cut, as much as 50%. The workers struck and many strikers took their trucks with them.

The tanker drivers are organized in a union which is outside the CTM, the official labor federation connected to the ruling PRI party. The drivers used to be part of CROC, another pro-government union federation. But they fought a bitter struggle to break away from CROC in 1986. Several people were killed in fighting caused by armed attacks by CROC thugs.

The drivers hope to spread their struggle throughout the industry. In the course of their strike; they have taken their struggle to other companies, organizations, etc. They also organized a planton, a form of struggle in which workers take banners and literature and keep up a continuing presence near the Government Palace.

The striking workers denounced the ruling party and the CTM. The CTM union leaders recently signed the National Social Pact which enforces still more austerity measures on the Mexican workers. The strikers condemned this treachery as "CTM negotiating poverty for the workers."

The striking tanker drivers appealed for support for their fight. Letters of support can be sent to them at:

Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores del Transporte, S.Y.C.

"Ricardo Flores Magon" "Delegacion Xalostoc"

Manzana 1 Lote 57 Calle Venustiano Carranza Colonia Jardes de Xalostoc Mexico D.F.

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Strike wave in Portugal

For the first time in several years a strike wave is rolling through Portugal. Traffic in Lisbon has been disrupted by walkouts of public transit workers, and tens of thousands have protested in Lisbon and other cities.

The unrest began at an arms factory in January. Workers who had not been paid for weeks took over the plant and held some management personnel hostage. Since then there have been slowdowns, protests and work stoppages by subway workers, dock workers, bus drivers, railway workers, and ferry operators.

The unrest is building momentum as a nationwide protest against the reactionary legislative proposals of Prime Minister Anibal Cavaco. Cavaco is insisting that wage raises be limited to 6%, which he says is the inflation rate. But workers, familiar with lying government statistics on inflation, are demanding higher raises. Cavaco is also proposing big changes in labor law to boost the power of the employers; for example he wants to make it easier for them to fire workers.

There are plans for a nationwide general strike on March 28 as a protest against Cavaco's anti-worker proposals.

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Reagan, Botha and Shamir burned in effigy

Torchlight march in Berkeley against apartheid

[Photos: Effigies of Reagan, South African Prime Minister Botha, Israeli Prime Minister Shamir, and University of California Chancellor Heyman were burned on Biko Plaza.]

A militant torchlight march of 500 against apartheid was held March 9 at the University of California at Berkeley. This protest was sponsored by the Campaign Against Apartheid (CAA). It kicked off CAA's spring campaign of action. The Berkeley march was also supported by the San Francisco Bay Area branch of the MLP.

The action began on campus with an early evening rally of about 200 at Biko Plaza. A series of speakers denounced U.S. imperialism, South African apartheid, Israeli zionism, and racism in the U.S. Speakers supported the revolutionary movements in South Africa, Palestine and Central America.

Speakers sharply denounced the University of California's ties to apartheid. The CAA speaker exposed UC's phony divestment and the fake pullouts of American corporations from South Africa. UC refuses to sell its stock in companies like IBM, GM and Xerox, which have engineered fake pullouts from South Africa. UC actually has bought more stock in IBM and now holds $345 million worth of IBM shares. IBM has sold its South African subsidiary to a dummy corporation called ISM, but ISM manufactures nothing at all -- its only function is to sell IBM-made products inside South Africa.

A speaker from the MLP gave a fiery call to build the solidarity movement in the U.S. The speech called for a militant mass movement in the U.S., a movement like the struggle in the 1960's. He said, "Tonight's march is a step towards building such a movement. It is not a march to say how sorry we are about apartheid or Israel's savagery against the Palestinians. It is a march which says, 'We see what the hell is going on and we won't stand for it.' It is a march that condemns U.S. imperialism.''

By this time it was dark, and the protesters began to march through the streets. Nearing the dormitory areas, the march picked up its first supply of burning torches. With blazing torches held high, protesters went through dormitory courtyards shouting, "UC, USA, Out of South Africa!" When students looked out of windows, the marchers shouted, "The anti-apartheid movement is back! Victory to the revolution in South Africa! Join us!" The dorm residents cheered, and hundreds came down to join the march.

The marchers then headed back to Biko Plaza for another rally. Effigies of Reagan, Botha, Israeli Prime Minister Shamir and UC Chancellor Heyman were thrown into a bonfire with the torches.

At the end of the demonstration the bullhorn was given over to a homeless activist. He called for support for a militant homeless action which had just gotten under way -- taking over a vacant house owned by the university. Many demonstrators left immediately for the homeless action.

The Berkeley action was a rebuff to the UC administrators who were hoping the anti-apartheid movement was snuffed out. It was also a repudiation of opportunist misleaders who are opposed to militant politics. At the UC campus there have been those who have carped that actions which come out against U.S. imperialism will turn off people. Other reformists like the leaders of the Northern California Mobilization for Peace, Jobs and Justice say that "it will split the movement" to bring anti-zionist politics into anti-intervention actions planned for this spring, such as a demonstration set for April 30 in San Francisco.

But in fact, as the Berkeley example shows, there is a strong current of activists and other youth who are eager for militant struggle against U.S. imperialism. And those who have learned to stand up against racism and U.S. intervention are also eager to denounce the crimes of Israeli zionism.

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Chicago rally to free Moses Mayekiso

[Photo.]

Two hundred people turned out for a midday rally against South African apartheid on March 18 in Chicago.

The demonstration was called to protest the South African racists' attacks on the trade union movement. The action denounced the persecution of Moses Mayekiso and other jailed union activists in South Africa. Moses Mayekiso is known as a militant trade unionist and community activist. He is a leader of the National Union of Metalworkers in South Africa. As part of its fascist state of emergency the Botha government has imprisoned Mayekiso for over a year.

The rally was officially sponsored by a group of trade union bureaucrats. The union sellouts here in the U.S. have piled up a big track record in stabbing the workers in the back, but they have used the Free Moses Mayekiso campaign to look for some credibility as anti-apartheid fighters. But even where they call rallies like this one in Chicago, the trade union bureaucrats work hard to sabotage the solidarity movement.

Because they actually oppose mobilizing the masses, they organized this demonstration in Chicago at a time of day when few people could attend. They opposed anyone shouting militant anti-apartheid slogans and insisted that they be restricted to the bureaucrats' own reformist slogans. At the same time the bureaucrats would not even shout their own slogans. Even play-acting at international labor solidarity does not come easy for the union bosses.

However, the MLP was able to send a group of comrades to the action and they worked to give the demonstration a militant spirit. Other activists joined with the MLP to form a contingent. This section of the demonstration shouted such slogans as:

"Free Mayekiso, jail Botha!"

"Boycott South Africa, not Nicaragua!"

"Apartheid in South Africa, burn it to the ground!"

''Revolution yes, apartheid no!"

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One million workers strike to mark Sharpeville Massacre

Black workers brought industry to a halt throughout South Africa on March 21. The workers commemorated the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 and protested the government's latest repression of anti-apartheid organizations.

Last month the South African government banned the activities of 17 anti-apartheid organizations. It also prohibited the COSATU trade union center from carrying on any political activities. Despite this latest repression, workers and anti-apartheid activists were able to successfully spread the word and organize a defiant general strike.

Schools and shops in Soweto were closed. Four buses near Durban were firebombed. In Port Elizabeth the auto industry was forced to shut down for the day. Ninety percent of the black workers in that city stayed away from their jobs. Most workers also stayed home from their jobs in Johannesburg and the eastern Cape. Buses running between cities and the black townships were mostly empty. At least one million workers participated in the strike nationwide.

Coinciding with the strike, a militant meeting protesting apartheid repression was also organized in Sharpeville this March 21 by NACTU, another black trade union federation.

The massive strike marked the 28th anniversary of the massacre of black protesters by the South African racists. On March 21,1960 blacks protesting the racist pass laws held a march in the township of Sharpeville. Police opened fire, killing 69.

Botha's racist regime has stepped up its repression, but the latest massive strike shows they cannot kill the spirit of anti-apartheid struggle.

[Photo: Students at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg demonstrate on the same day as the massive general strike by black workers.]

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