WORKERS, OPPRESSED NATIONS AND PEOPLE OF THE WORLD, UNITE!
NEWSPAPER OF THE CENTRAL ORGANIZATION OF U.S. MARXIST-LENINISTS
P.O. BOX 11942, CHICAGO, ILL. 60611
SPECIAL ISSUE 100,000 copies
Vol. 6, No. 8
October 8, 1976
TO HELL WITH THE CAPITALIST POLITICAL PARTIES!
DON'T VOTE - THEY'RE ALL THE SAME!
ANALYSIS OF THE CAPITALIST POLITICAL PARTIES
THE CAPITALIST PARTIES ARE THE ENEMIES OF THE AFRO-AMERICAN PEOPLE
Democrats' "Anti-Inflation" Program Means Increased Exploitation of Working Class
THE DEMOCRATS' IMPERIALIST FOREIGN POLICY
MAO TSETUNG THOUGHT WILL SHINE FOREVER
Another sham presidential election is approaching. All the political parties running their candidates in this election are monopoly capitalist parties, parties of the very biggest capitalists who are exploiting the workers and crushing the people. They are parties of the rich, parties of starvation, economic crisis and war, of rabid chauvinism, of segregation, of high taxes, massive unemployment and runaway inflation. Comrade Lenin got to the heart of the matter:
"TO DECIDE ONCE EVERY FEW YEARS WHICH MEMBER OF THE RULING CLASS IS TO REPRESS AND CRUSH THE PEOPLE THROUGH PARLIAMENT -- SUCH IS THE REAL ESSENCE OF BOURGEOIS PARLIAMENTARISM..."
This is also the essence of the U.S. presidential elections.
The capitalist parties are singing lullabies about "full employment" and "recovery from the economic crisis" in order to put the masses to sleep in the face of a fierce capitalist offensive of wage-cutting, speedup, and lay-offs. The capitalist parties are trying to "restore confidence in the government" in order to secure a quiet rear for military adventures against the oppressed nations and socialist countries and for a new imperialist world war to redivide spheres of influence with the other superpower, the imperialist New Tsars of the Soviet Union. The monopoly capitalists are using the elections to put up a fake facade of "democracy" while actually they are stepping up the all-round fascization of American society.
Workers, oppressed nationalities and all progressive people: Answer the mountains of political lies and empty words in this election by refusing to vote! DON'T VOTE! There are no solutions to the problems of the workers and oppressed nationalities inside the capitalist system! Use the election campaign to denounce the sold-out politicians and to heighten the political consciousness of the masses of the need for revolutionary class struggle against the monopoly capitalist dictators! Take up the path of active resistance to all oppression, exploitation and growing fascism!
A TIME OF GREAT UPHEAVALS
We are privileged to be living in a time of great upheavals. U.S. monopoly capitalism is on the decline and is dying. It is facing opposition everywhere and is beset by every type of crisis known to man -- industrial crisis of over-production, fiscal crisis of the cities, political crisis of "confidence", rising social crime, utter spiritual decay, etc., etc.
The nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America are rising up to oppose U.S. imperialism. Since the last election, U.S. imperialism has met defeat after defeat around the world. A glorious festival of national liberation is taking place. Viet Nam is liberated! Laos is liberated! Cambodia is liberated! U.S.-backed Portuguese colonialism is dead! Southern Africa is in flames! Armed agrarian revolution in India is again striding forward! In the world of today, it is not the,people of the world who fear U.S. imperialism, it is U.S. imperialism which fears the people of the world!
The international economic crisis of the capitalist and revisionist world is deepening daily. The U.S. is gripped by rising inflation and massive unemployment. The budgets of city after city and many states have gone into the red. The federal deficit is at unprecedented levels. As winter approaches, the oil companies are still holding the whole of society to ransom. The U.S. economy is in a complete mess! The working class, braving the threat of firing and unemployment, has launched a vigorous strike struggle against the effects of the crisis.
The New Tsars of the Soviet Union are challenging the U.S. for world domination. The Soviet Union, once a bright red land of socialism and the bastion of world revolution under the great leaders Lenin and Stalin, has become a dark fascist state where capitalism has been restored under first Khrushchev and then Kosygin and Brezhnev. Today the two superpowers, U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, are the main enemies of the world's people. The superpowers are preparing for a new world war, more terrible than the last, to fight for world domination. Either revolution will prevent this war, or war will give rise to revolution. In either case, world imperialism is doomed.
All the contradictions in the present world are sharpening, independently of anyone's will. U.S. capitalism is sinking fast. No bills in Congress or minor tinkering can change the course of world history. Worried stiff, the capitalist parties are breaking up, splitting and fighting among themselves. The world is in increasing disorder and an excellent situation exists for the oppressed masses to rise up against their exploiters.
WHAT THE CAPITALIST PARTIES HAVE TO OFFER -- A FASCIST OFFENSIVE AGAINST THE PEOPLE
It is a matter of great joy for the people of the whole world that U.S. monopoly capitalism is sinking. But everything reactionary is the same: if you don't hit it, it won't fall. The weaker the U.S. ruling class becomes, the more vicious it gets in its death-bed struggles. The lessons of history should never be forgotten. In the early 1930's when German capitalism was near the end of its rope, the German capitalists turned to Hitler and Nazism. Today, the American capitalists, beset with crisis and decay, are in the midst of a fascist offensive against the people. They are intensifying the exploitation of the American workers so as to push the burden of the crisis onto the people via lay-offs, wage-cuts and speed-up. They are seeking to develop a racist mass movement to attack the Afro-American people, and with the fascist anti-busing movement on the skids in many areas they are intensifying their campaign of hysteria on the question of social crime. They have ordered the U.S.-dominated Canadian government to implement wage-price controls so as to deepen the U.S. imperialist plunder of Canada and as a dress rehearsal for renewing wage-price controls in the U.S. And U.S. imperialism is running in a frenzy around the world trying to hold back the surging tide of national liberation. This is the common fascist program of all the capitalist parties.
THE REPUBLICANS -- OPEN TOOL OF MONOPOLY CAPITAL
The Republican Party, the party of the Nixon-Ford administration, is known to the masses as the "party of big business". The Nixon-Ford administration openly calls for letting the masses starve, while showering the oil companies and big monopolies with one tax break, price increase, protective tariff and out-right subsidy after another. Since the drop in the real value of workers' wages, combined with intensified workloads, has resulted in huge profits in this last year for the large monopolies, the Republican Party cannot at all see why anyone should be dissatisfied with "recovery".
The Republican Party carries out this program under cover of a number of demagogic phrases.
Ford talks of "fighting inflation". By "fighting inflation", he means cutting wages. He has no interest in stopping inflation. In the last few' years, the real value of wages has declined while inflation has soared.
Ford talks of "small" government and of "balanced budgets". This is sheer deception. The Ford administration has expanded the government at record speeds and increased the tax burden on the masses. The last two federal budget deficits are equal to the federal deficit for all the previous TEN years combined.
Ford talks of America being "at peace". Meanwhile the U.S. military budget is growing astronomically and there is a frenzied arms race with Russia. In 1975 the U.S. spent $426. 50 per person on the military budget. After allowing for inflation, this is 50% larger than Nazi Germany's per capita military expenditure in 1938, just prior to World War II. All these arms are not being produced "for peace". In fact Ford is a frenzied war-monger who in his short reign of office has committed such aggressions as the brutal surprise attack on Cambodia in the "Mayaguez incident" and the war provocations against People's Korea supposedly over a tree.
THE DEMOCRATS -- MONOPOLY CAPITAL'S MAIN PARTY FOR DECEIVING THE WORKERS
The Democratic Party is the main tool of monopoly capital for political deception of the working masses. The Democratic Party has the same program as the Republican Party, but they parade themselves as the "party of the workers and minorities". The smooth-talking Democratic liars have at their disposal an army of sold-out labor bureaucrats to deceive the workers. To prepare for war and more exploitation of the American people, the monopoly capitalists need to "restore confidence" in the government, and so a large section of the big bourgeoisie is backing the Democrats for this reason.
The main way the Democrats try to regain the "confidence" of the people is by talking about "full employment" and "jobs" and viciously capitalizing on the suffering of the masses. The Democrats are promoting the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill with its "national economic planning" and other legislation that they claim can do away with the evils of capitalism. Under the guise of "reform", these bills actually provide for further fascist attacks on the workers movement by:
1) forcing the unemployed to take jobs at slave-labor wages and to replace union labor, thus implementing Nixon's reactionary "welfare to workfare" plan under the more high-sounding name of "putting America back to work";
2) providing a cover of "national economic planning" to revive wage-price controls (recall that the Democratic Congress voted for Nixon's wage-price controls);
3) tightening government control over the trade unions by "national economic planning" and rewarding some labor bureaucrats with comfortable government posts for their services to the capitalists in suppressing the workers' class struggle; and
4) continuing to expand the over-bloated government bureaucracy and to tax the people to death. Behind the Democrats' "concern for the people's suffering" stands a newversion of the hated programs of fascist Nixon.
In short, the Democrats criticize Ford simply for lacking the "strong leadership" needed to carry out Nixon's legacy. As Carter put it in the first TV debate with Ford: "It's a matter of leadership or no leadership.... Even President Nixon, because he was a strong leader at least, worked with a Democratic Congress very well." Thus the Democrats pledge to use a strong hand in carrying out the fascist offensive of the monopoly capitalist dictators.
SHAM "SOCIALIST" PARTIES --
MORE ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT CAPITALISM THAN THE CAPITALISTS THEMSELVES
A number of sham "socialist" parties are running candidates in this election. All of these parties have betrayed the class interests of the working class. They are all more enthusiastic about capitalism than the capitalists themselves. They compete with each other in their eagerness to make even more extravagant promises than the straight-forward capitalist parties about how the workers can achieve all the good things of life under capitalism -- if only they elect the sham "socialists" to office. These parties oppose the path of active resistance to the attacks of the capitalists and regard the revolutionary struggle as "ultra-left", and "provoking" the reactionaries. They are rabid American chauvinists and worshippers of the facade of "American democracy". The U.S. bi-centennial flopped, but these sham "socialists" are still draping themselves in the red-white-and blue praising the Constitution, Bill of Rights and American "democracy". The Constitution and the Bill of Rights were the legal basis for capitalist exploitation, chattel slavery, and the inequality of women. Yet one sham "socialist" party is raising the call to "defend the Constitution" while another is calling for a new "Bill of Rights for the working people". What boot-lickers of the capitalists!
A revolutionary party might or might not, depending on the circumstances, run candidates in any particular capitalist election. But in either case a revolutionary party must tell the masses that the election cannot solve the problems of the people, that Congress is a miserable talk-shop where corrupt politiciansmake speeches to fool the common people while the real business of government is decided behind closed doors by the monopoly capitalists. A revolutionary party uses the election platform to expose the election "democracy" as a fraud and to encourage the revolutionary class struggle of the masses. When the sham "socialist" parties promise the people jobs, social welfare, outlawing racism, even cures for cancer -- the sky's the limit -- they are behaving just like the ordinary smooth-talking bourgeois political liars. No, they are worse, because they swear in the glorious name of socialism and communism about how good life can be under capitalism. Hence all the sham "socialist" parties in this election are social-fascist parties -- they are socialist in words, but in practice they support the fascist program of the capitalists.
THE PROGRAM OF THE WORKING CLASS -- ANTI-FASCIST PROLETARIAN SOCIALIST REVOLUTION
All the problems of American life spring from the evil system of monopoly capitalism. There are no solutions to the problems of the working and oppressed masses within the confines of the capitalist system. The only real solution is for the masses to wage revolutionary struggle directed at the monopoly capitalist exploiters, make them bear the burden of all the evils they have created and overthrow them altogether. Today the masses are rising up. New mass movements are breaking out against the growing exploitation and fascism of the monopoly capitalist dictators.
The working class has launched a powerful strike wave against the shifting of the burden of the economic crisis onto its back by the capitalists. This year the rubber workers struck for over four months to gain victory against the big tire companies, 100,000 miners staged a successful wildcat strike against the federal courts, and the Teamsters managed to wage their first nationwide strike for three days despite treachery by the top Teamster bureaucrats and repression by the government. 170,000 auto workers are presently on strike against Ford Motor Co. There are new upsurges among public-sector workers, comprising 1 out of 6 workers, who face the capitalist government as their employer. Health care workers are also stirring. With the deepening of the crisis, many new sectors of workers previously passive are being drawn into struggle.
The oppressed nationalities and immigrants are struggling against the terrorist attacks of the government. The heroic Afro-American people have given the fascist anti-busing movement setback after setback. The Native Indians are continuing their struggle.
The student movement is reviving. Numerous demonstrations and strikes have been held against cutbacks in education and increases in tuition and fees.
Other sections of the people are also stirring. Scared of the American youth, the capitalists and their government are increasing their attacks on the youth, pushing drugs and decadence at them on the one hand, while attacking them with curfews, stricter laws and a police-state regime on the other. This is giving rise to a new upsurge of youth. Women, who will never get true equality under capitalism whether or not the ERA passes, are particularly feeling the effects of the crisis.
The program of the working class is to develop nonstop all the resistance struggles of the American people. The working class is the most powerful revolutionary class and the only class capable of rallying all the oppressed and toiling people around it. The working class is the only class with absolutely no interest in exploitation of any type and which is disciplined by large-scale factory production and welded into a mighty force. The working class must establish its own political party, a communist party based on Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, in order to lead the mass movements and combine them into one great revolutionary storm. The working class, headed by its Party, must lead this storm to the goal of an anti-fascist proletarian socialist revolution. It will be a proletarian socialist revolution because it will replace capitalism by socialism, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie by the dictatorship of the proletariat, where the working class will become the ruling class and will lead all of society forward and where the large-scale means of production will be owned by the people. It will be an anti-fascist revolution, because it will destroy the growing fascism of the present government, abolish the over-grown, oppressive system of a huge standing army, police and arrogant bureaucracy, and replace them by the armed people themselves. For the first time in American history, there will be freedom and democracy for the overwhelming majority of the people, the formerly oppressed masses, and dictatorship will be exercised over the small handful of exploiters. At that time there will be genuine elections to government positions, in which the American people will choose which of their representatives is best able to serve them and to suppress the remnants of the exploiting classes.
Workers, oppressed nationalities and all progressive people:
Let us say NO! to the capitalist election fraud and refuse to vote in this election! This will strike a blow at the deception of the capitalist parties, which the monopoly capitalists rely on heavily for their rule. The capitalists are already crying about the large number of people who will not vote. Boycott the election under the slogan "DON'T VOTE -- THEY'RE ALL THE SAME!" and denounce the capitalist political parties! This will be an encouragement to all oppressed people who are struggling actively against the capitalist offensive. The ultimate aim of this resistance is the anti-fascist proletarian socialist revolution.
DON'T VOTE -- THEY'RE ALL THE SAME! End.
Open Tool of the Rich
The Republican Party, headed by Gerald Ford, is the open tool of the rich, of the monopoly capitalist class, in its offensive against the working masses.
It is greatly discredited by the war of aggression against Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, the Watergate scandal, the "energy crisis" and by the continuing economic crisis with its massive unemployment, cutbacks of essential services, attacks on city and state workers, fascist anti-busing movement, etc. Nevertheless, Ford is declaring with a deadpan face that under his administration America has made an "incredible comeback", that "America is at peace" and is "in the full surge of sound recovery to steady prosperity and that, as a result, "confidence (in the government) has returned". He is using the election platform to promise a balanced budget by 1978 with tax breaks for the masses and no inflation, smaller government, "peace through strength", etc. This robot Ford must be programmed to completely ignore the real world! The Democrats are even basing their propaganda on the fact that the masses have no confidence in the government and are claiming that they will "restore confidence" once Carter is elected. Actually, Ford's big talk is aimed at hiding the ongoing capitalist offensive to place the entire burden of the economic crisis onto the working class and people and prepare for aggressive war.
Take the economy, for instance. Ford claims to have "turned the economy around" and to have "cut inflation in half. But what does this really mean? The workers are suffering from a real rate of unemployment of over 13 per cent (officially 7.9 per cent), intense speed-up of their labor in the plants coupled with grueling overtime, wage-cuts or "moderate" (meager) contract settlements, etc. The capitalist government is attacking the workers' strike struggles with injunctions, as in the coal miners' strike, and with police attacks and federal government pressure, as in the rubber workers' strike. The Afro-Americans and other oppressed nationalities are hit with increased racist attacks by the state machine, including the government-organized fascist anti-busing movement. The immigrant workers face fresh state attacks and deportations. The broad masses face cut-backs in essential government services while utility rates and taxes sky-rocket and the inflation rate is still higher than at any time before the Nixon-Ford administration. All this is accompanied by propaganda for white chauvinism and American big-nation chauvinism and calls for war preparations, increasing war production and militarization and fascization of the whole society. And all this is called ''turning the comer"!
As for a "balanced budget" to avoid inflation, take a look at the deeds of this "inflation-fighter" Ford. Ford's government deficits in the last two years -- $45 and $70 billion -- have far outstripped those of his predecessors, equaling the total of all of the previous ten years, l965-'74 inclusive. And the Republicans plan to increase military spending to serve stepped-up rivalry for world domination with Soviet social-imperialism, the other superpower. This will necessitate printing of more paper money in excess of goods produced, resulting in still more inflation. Plus Ford plans big subsidies and removal of price controls on the all-dominant oil and energy industries. This is how Ford will continue the "fight" against inflation and for "prosperity", a balanced budget and "small government". This is like fighting a fire with gasoline.
In fact, the present economic "recovery" is merely a recovery in profits for the capitalists at the expense of the masses. While prices continue to spiral, all this talk about "fighting" inflation as the "number one problem" has only one real aim: to cut the wages of the working class to increase the capitalists' profits. Every lying bourgeois economist says that the real cause of inflation is wage increases. So if wage increases "cause" inflation, then to "fight" inflation means to fight wage increases, that is, to undermine and suppress the workers' economic struggles. This is precisely what Ford and the Republicans are doing, with the collaboration of the big labor bureaucrats. The capitalist state has attacked and tried to suppress every important strike this year, from the Teamsters' strike to the rubber workers' strike. Federal injunctions have been issued to suppress the Detroit area Teamsters and against the coal miners. (And while swearing opposition to a wage freeze program of controls, the Republicans will not hesitate to use one as Nixon did in 1971-2.) Using high unemployment as a threat against the employed workers, by these means the monopoly capitalists have forced "moderate" wage settlements, on the workers in the past two years.
Using unemployment as a club, the monopoly capitalists have simultaneously stepped up the labor intensity of the employed workers through speed-up, which they deceptively call "productivity", at a rate unsurpassed since World War II. The result has been a big upsurge in the profits of the capitalists. But the workers are supposed to sit with folded arms while prices continue to spiral out of sight and profits soar. This is "fighting" inflation!
In fact, wage increases do not cause prices to rise but merely cause profits to fall. This is a fate worse than death to the monopoly capitalists, who try to avoid it by using their monopoly control of markets to jack up the prices. They call this "passing on" the wage increase, thus trying to blame the workers for their own crimes.
As for "tax breaks" for the "little man", has such a wonder ever been seen in modern times in the United States? The taxes paid by the working masses amount to close to one-third of their income, while the capitalists pay almost nothing. In light of practical experience, no one can believe Ford's claim that he will significantly cut taxes for the masses. In fact, the Republicans plan big tax subsidies to finance the capitalists' installing new machinery to put more workers out of work (this is called "job-producing expansion of our economy") and to otherwise lighten the "heavy" tax burden on the rich. So if Ford is going to cut taxes on the rich while increasing military spending, how can he balance the budget without increasing the taxes on the poor?
Thus the "debates" between the Republicans and the Democrats over which is the number one problem, unemployment or inflation, really boil down to a squabble over what is the best way to step up the exploitation and plunder of the working people to make them pay for the economic crisis of the monopoly capitalist system.
As for Ford's claim that "America is at peace" and that he will provide "peace through strength", this is merely the imperialist pacifism Stalin spoke about when he said: "IMPERIALIST PACIFISM IS AN INSTRUMENT FOR THE PREPARATION OF WAR AND FOR DISGUISING THIS PREPARATION BY HYPOCRITICAL TALK OF PEACE." ("Results of the July Plenum of the Central Committee, Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik)", 1928). No sooner were those words out of Ford's mouth than the U.S. imperialists nearly provoked a new war in Korea, where they have intruded for over 25 years. Meanwhile, the U.S. imperialists are provoking and backing wars of aggression against the Palestinian and Lebanese masses in Lebanon, against the Zimbabwe people in "Rhodesia", the violent suppression of the Azanian people by the South African racists, the invasion of East Timor by the Indonesian reactionaries, the murder of striking Spanish workers by the Spanish fascist monarchy, etc. Quite a list for "America... at peace"!
In fact, the Republicans' foreign policy is an open policy of striving for world domination (the Democrats do the same thing but cover it with honeyed words). This policy includes: threatened armed invasion of southern Africa to back up Kissinger's "shuttle diplomacy" aiming at preserving U.S. capital investment there, managed by black rather than white faces; continuation of aggressive bases in Korea, China's Taiwan province, the Philippines, Japan, Western Europe; continued control of the Panama Canal; armed threats against the oil-producing nations, etc; and, above all, military and other preparations for a reactionary world war against their Soviet rivals. In this respect, Ford plans a new SALT (Strategic Arms Limitations Talks) agreement with the Soviet Union to again legitimize the frantic nuclear arms race by hiding it with the deceptive words of "peace" and "detente". As Comrade Stalin also said:
"THE BOURGEOIS STATES ARE FURIOUSLY ARMING AND REARMING. WHAT FOR? NOT FOR FRIENDLY CHATS, OF COURSE, BUT FOR WAR. AND THE IMPERIALISTS NEED WAR, FOR IT IS THE ONLY MEANS BY WHICH TO REDIVIDE THE WORLD, TO REDIVIDE MARKETS, SOURCES OF RAW MATERIALS AND SPHERES FOR THE INVESTMENT OF CAPITAL." ("Political Report of the Central Committee to the 16th Congress of the C.P. S.U. (B.)", 1930)
Thus the Ford policy of "peace through strength" means to strive for world domination, a program of aggressive imperialism.
Thus the Republicans' over-all program is the same, in essence, as the Democrats' program -- stepped-up exploitation and plunder of the American people to shift the burden of the economic crisis onto them, increased fascization of American society to suppress the people's struggles, and preparations for aggressive war against the oppressed nations and peoples and against the rival slavemasters, the New Tsars of the Kremlin. All progressive people should strike a blow against the reactionary capitalist political parties and capitalist system by boycotting the election farce.
DON'T VOTE -- THEY'RE ALL THE SAME! End.
"Full Employment" Program - An Attack on the Working Class by the "Friends of Labor"
In this election year the Democrats are promising to "Put America Back To Work". This promise is nothing new. The Democratic Party always tries to present itself as the "friend of the working man", the party which will reduce unemployment. This is quite a trick for a monopoly capitalist party. But this year the Democrats have outdone themselves. They are openly promising legislation to provide "full employment" (which they conveniently define as 3% adult unemployment, or 4.5% official unemployment).
The last time the Democrats sang sweet love songs about "full employment" via legislation was at the end of World War II. At that time the Democrats promised that they would reform capitalism, abolish unemployment, and guarantee all workers jobs at "fair and decent wages". This hoopla about full employment went on through the summer and fall of 1945. Finally in February, 1946, in the midst of the largest strike wave in the history of the United States, these promises -- suitably watered down of course -- were enacted into law in the form of the Employment Act of 1946. Of course, this Act, which is still in effect, did not eliminate unemployment. In fact, since 1946 unemployment has almost quadrupled. The Act did not even relieve the conditions of the unemployed. The only thing the Employment Act of 1946 did do was establish a bureaucracy to plan the government budget in such a way as to maximize the profits of the monopoly capitalists.
The real purpose of the hoopla about full employment at that time was political deception to lull the workers to sleep in the face of the new capitalist offensive against the workers' movement which began after WWII. In April 1946, President Truman used the federal courts to break up the miners' strike. Later the same year Truman threatened to use federal troops against the railroad workers. In June of 1946 the cold war was officially launched. The following year the fascist Taft-Hartley anti-labor Act was passed and a full-fledged assault was launched on the workers' movement. The government and the trade union bureaucrats collaborated to force thousands of communists and other militant workers out of the trade unions. The trade unions were further brought under government control and the right to organize strikes and to picket were viciously suppressed. This fascist offensive against the American workers was launched to establish a quiet home front for U.S. monopoly capitalism's drive for world domination, its drive to control the vast intermediate zone of countries between it and the then-socialist Soviet Union.
Today, 30 years later, the Democratic Party is again making promises of "full employment". These promises are made at a time when the monopoly capitalist system is in the midst of the most severe economic crisis since the end of World War II, at a time when U.S. imperialism has suffered numerous defeats at the hands of the world's people and finds the going rougher and rougher, and at a time when the contention between U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism is escalating daily and the two are preparing for world war. At this time the objective needs of the monopoly capitalist class are to intensify the exploitation and oppression of the American working class so as to maximize its profits, shift the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the workers and strengthen its hand in contention for world hegemony. In other words, the objective conditions call for the monopoly capitalists to escalate their program of fascist suppression to make the workers and people pay for the capitalists' crisis. The Democrats' promises of full employment serve this program in two ways: 1) to lull the masses to sleep, and 2) the actual "full employment" programs of Democrats are vicious attacks on the workers, to suppress them and increase profits.
The current economic crisis has brought economic stagnation and large-scale unemployment. Among monopoly capitalist circles there has been a great deal of discussion on how to more efficiently use the huge army of unemployed so as to increase the exploitation of the entire working class. One view expressed openly by such conservative Republicans as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Arthur Bums is that, instead of receiving straight unemployment compensation or welfare payments, the unemployed should be forced to work at minimum wages on "public service jobs". It is this plan which the Democrats are now taking up. This idea was presented by Nixon in his "workfare" proposals in 1970 and '71. Reagan implemented this program in California as Governor. In September, 1975, Arthur Burns, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board proposed that unemployment compensation be reduced to 13 weeks and that after that workers be forced to work on public service jobs at below the minimum wage. According to Bums this would force workers to accept the lowest-paying jobs available, thus forcing the unemployed into slave-wage jobs, forcing down the wages of the employed workers by competition and maximizing capitalist profits. These ideas of the Republicans are not new but have their precedent in the "work relief programs of the capitalist government in the U.S. in the 1930's and in Hitler's forced labor camps for the unemployed. The Democrats are quite enthused about the Republicans' welfare and unemployment compensation "reforms", but being more skilled in the art of political deception they realize that such "reforms" must be presented as a "benefit" to the workers.
Let us look at how the liberal Democrats develop this deception. In 1973 and '74 the Democratic economists began a big discussion about how unemployment and idleness demoralize the workers and about the need to make the federal government the "employer of last resort" by providing "public service" employment at "fair and decent wages" as an alternative to existing welfare and unemployment compensation systems. In January, 1975, Senator Hubert Humphrey and Congressman Augustus Hawkins introduced the first version of the Democrat's "full employment" program, known as the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill. In this first version these so-called "friends of labor" promised that workers would be guaranteed jobs by the federal government. In fact the Bill even provided a worker with legal recourse to sue the government if it did not provide him a job.
But all these promises turned out to be mere window-dressing. The wages to be paid on these jobs were left deliberately vague -- proportional to job experience and skills but low enough to encourage acceptance of other employment. Still the proposal of Humphrey and Hawkins remained an alternative to existing welfare and unemployment systems. Then, after much debate between Democrats and Republicans about the "inflationary impact" of such a proposal, Humphrey and Hawkins introduced a new version of 'their bill in March, 1976, in which numerous changes had been made. Most important of these were: 1) unemployment compensation and welfare payments were to be integrated with the program of public service jobs in such a way as to substitute the public service jobs for welfare and unemployment compensation to the "maximum extent feasible", and 2) the public service jobs were no longer guaranteed, but workers must prove they were desperate, i. e., their unemployment compensation had run out, etc.
Thus the Humphrey-Hawkins full employment program became a program of forced labor for the unemployed. The only thing left to distinguish the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill from the Arthur Burns proposal was the level of wages to be paid. The Democrats said the "prevailing wage" for the particular kind of work while Burns said below the minimum wage. No sooner was the second version of the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill introduced than Humphrey indicated that he was willing to compromise on the "prevailing wage" provision. By the time the Democratic platform was written, the Democrats were saying: "clearly useful public service jobs are far superior to welfare and unemployment payment" and speaking of welfare reform as follows: "Those persons physically able to work (other than mothers with dependent children) should be required to accept appropriate available jobs or job training.." If welfare recipients must be required to accept the Democrats' public jobs, the wages the Democrats are planning to pay must be absolutely at starvation level. Arthur Burns must be proud.
The Democrats are capable of shedding big crocodile tears about the conditions of the unemployed workers, and they are capable of promising all kinds of "reforms". But when the Democrats actually get explicit, and the closer they get to implementing such "reforms", the more we find that the Democrats' "reforms" are the same thing as the fascist forced labor programs of the arch-reactionary Republicans.
There are no cures from the gods of plague. Unemployment is inherent in the system of monopoly capitalism and is bound to increase as monopoly capital sinks deeper into economic crisis. At the same time, the big bourgeoisie is seeking to find better ways to use the unemployed workers to force down the wages of the employed workers and to turn the unemployed workers into outright slaves so as to maximize profits.
The working class must resolutely oppose all the "reforms" (hidden attacks) and the open attacks by the monopoly capitalists designed to further enslave the employed and unemployed workers. The working class must oppose the program of the monopoly capitalists, which is to make the workers bear the entire burden of the economic crisis, with the program of the working class, the program of waging revolutionary struggle to force the burden of the economic crisis entirely back onto the shoulders of the monopoly capitalists and to overthrow the monopoly capitalist system itself. This is the only way to fight unemployment and finally eliminate it.
In the elections the reactionary political parties of the capitalist class are all trying to win support for the reactionary program of monopoly capital. The Democrats are merely among the more skillful political tricksters trying to win the workers' confidence so as to stab them in the back.
The workers and oppressed people should oppose the bourgeois election fraud. "Don't Vote, They're All the Same!" Boycott the bourgeois elections. Wage revolutionary struggle against capitalist exploitation, growing fascism and imperialist war preparations. End.
More Enthusiastic about Capitalism than the Capitalists Themselves
The slogan "DON'T VOTE -- THEY'RE ALL THE SAME!" applies to all of the capitalist parties: not only the Democrats and Republicans, but also their junior partners, the sham "socialist" parties -- the revisionists and trotskyites. The revisionist "Communist" Party USA, the trotskyite "Socialist Workers" Party, the revisionist-trotskyite "Communist" "Labor" Party, and others are fielding candidates in the capitalists' election circus. These parties are putting forward their own treacherous programs to serve the monopoly capitalists' offensive against the people and to help save U.S. imperialism from its doom. Disguised in the cloak of being "revolutionaries", "socialists" and "communists", these opportunists have the special mission of diverting the workers and other revolutionary masses, who have lost faith in the Democrats and Republicans, away from the path of revolutionary struggle, spreading illusions that U.S. monopoly capitalism can be reformed and thus demoralizing and pacifying the masses.
Gripped by severe all-round crisis, the U.S. monopoly capitalists have launched a ferocious campaign to make the people pay for the crisis. The multi-milliondollar presidential election fraud is intended to dupe the masses into accepting this campaign. To make the fraud complete, the capitalists have marched out these sham "revolutionaries" to heap praise on "American democracy" and to beautify the reactionary U.S. government. While the majority of the people are spuming the elections in disgust, the revisionist "Communist" Party USA, for example, is lecturing them: "Don't stay away from the elections. Get into the fight". Through the elections we will "put our country back on the road to peace and sanity". The "Marxist-Leninist" heroes of the "Communist" "Labor" Party, for their part, are preaching that "the right to vote is the basis of U.S. democracy".
These false "revolutionaries" are opposed to active resistance and revolutionary struggle against capitalist oppression, instead relying on legislation to "save" the masses. They are completely opposed to revolution, to the smashing of the capitalist state machine (government) by the working class and the setting up of the workers' state of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The U.S. government, with its huge military, police and bureaucracy, is more militarized and ferocious than that of Hitlerite Germany. The U.S. state is an instrument of capitalist dictatorship which brutally suppresses the workers, the Black people and all the progressive people at home and continually commits barbarous aggression against the oppressed nations and people abroad. However, the revisionists and trotskyites try to create the maximum confusion on the character of the capitalist state, whitewashing its crimes against the people and its growing fascism. They cannot open their mouths without lauding U.S. "democracy", the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
At a time when the capitalists are waging a furious offensive against the broad masses, attacking their struggles and their very livelihood, the sham "socialists" are trying to lull the masses to sleep with fairy tales about the capitalist state changing its nature. In a campaign speech this June, Gus Hall, the revisionist "C"PUSA candidate for president, echoed Carter's call to make the "people run the government":
"But if this is to be a government of, by and for the people, we the people must begin to respond. We must demand, loudly and clearly... (he goes on with a long list of reforms)."
What an incredible fantasy! If "we the people" "demand, loudly and clearly", the entire monopoly capitalist dictatorship and its state machine will collapse out of fright and the state will become "a government of, by and for the people". So why make revolution? Simply ask and ye shall receive....
The sham "socialists'" propaganda on the great things that can be made out of the capitalist dictatorship through reform exposes their complete bankruptcy, their admiration and love for bourgeois rule. The capitalist state machine will never change its nature; it must be completely destroyed in a violent anti-fascist proletarian socialist revolution if the masses are to win liberation. However, the opportunists want the working masses to be enslaved forever, telling them to rely on this capitalist state to "guarantee" them "human welfare not inhuman warfare", etc., etc.
The revisionist "Communist" Party and the trotskyite "Socialist Workers'" Party have advanced in unison the "demand" that the capitalist government should "abolish all repressive laws". In their election propaganda, the revisionists call on the racist and fascist state, which is presently organizing the fascist anti-busing movement to attack the Afro-Americans, to "outlaw racism" to "make racism a crime". On their part, the "Socialist Workers'" Party has proposed an entire "Bill of Rights for working people" whereby the capitalist state will "guarantee" that the monopoly capitalist exploiters provide for the working masses a job, an "adequate income" and everything else one might desire.
Furthermore, all of these great things that can be made out of the capitalist dictatorship, the opportunists swear can be achieved only through the elections and that voting in November is the only worthwhile activity left for the working masses. The revisionist "Communist" Party scolds that:
"if you want to make waves, if you want to rock the establishment boat, you can do that only by voting for the Communist candidates in '76".
They are desperately pleading to the masses not to make revolution but "to make waves", not to smash the capitalist state machine but "to rock the...boat" and to give up the class struggle, to become paralyzed, with one's only hope for salvation a vote for their particular bourgeois faction.
The actual political program of the revisionist and trotskyite parties is to outdo the treacherous program of the Democrats. They are putting forward social-fascist programs, socialist in words, but in deeds serving the monopoly capitalists' fascist offensive against the working masses. Following in the wake of Carter's campaign to "restore confidence" in U.S. monopoly capitalism, these social-fascists are trying to fool people into thinking that the monopoly capitalist system will and can provide "jobs, peace and an end to racism". The Democrats' program of sham reforms and real attacks on the working class, the forced-labor Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Bill, the national health insurance scheme of plunder, etc., all enjoy the full support of the revisionists and trotskyites. In fact, they persistently whine that these attacks on the masses "do not go far enough".
What does the revisionist "C"PUSA mean when they say that a vote for them is a "vote with clout"? They mean that it is the best way to vote for the implementation of the Democrats' program of making the people pay for the crisis. According to their election propaganda:
"Democrats also bear responsibility for the present mess. The present Congress was elected as 'veto proof', yet Democratic Congressmen have failed to override the numerous presidential vetoes. Why? Because when it comes down to a showdown many of them will not collide with the White House. After all, many of them are also beholden to big business and to the slush funds of the huge corporations.
"But what will concern these fatcat politicians, what will get them off their cans, what will get action is a big vote for Gus Hall and Jarvis Tyner, the Communist Party presidential ticket."
Thus, by their own admission, these "communists" are nothing but a "left"-sloganeering cheering squad for the Democratic Party. The other sham "socialists" are basically no different.
As a result of the deep crisis, the capitalist parties are breaking up, their unity is falling apart and they have taken to fighting among themselves. While Carter is satisfied with the deal he is getting from the U.S. imperialists, Gus Hall's party, in addition to serving the U.S. bourgeoisie, has sold itself to the Russian imperialists (as has the "Communist" "Labor" Party). The revisionist "Communist" Party, acting as a public relations firm for the Kremlin, is producing a nauseating chorus for "detente" and "disarmament". At a time of great upheaval, when the superpowers are wildly committing aggression and preparing for world war, Gus Hall is trying to lull the masses to sleep with the illusion that lasting peace is just around the comer. Gus Hall promises, if elected, to cut the "defense" budget by 80 per cent. So this "socialist", if elected, will give the people of the world 80 per cent less aggression by U.S. imperialism.... (The "C"LP has joined Gus Hall in this chorus and even urges people to vote for the revisionists in all areas outside of the single state representative district where they are running a candidate.)
The revisionists are trying to sell "detente" as the universal cure-all for all the ills of capitalist society. They claim that "detente" will end unemployment, that "Scoop Jackson (who is supposedly against "detente") is the main obstacle to millions of jobs in this country". They claim that "detente is, in fact, the key to solving the problems of our bankrupt cities". According to them, "detente" will even cure cancer! (In a speech given by Gus Hall this June in New York, he claims that: "Detente is--combining the science and technology of all lands to find the cure for cancer, for heart disease and for the hundreds of ailments plaguing the human race".)
In fact, we have been living under so-called "detente" for at least three years now. During that time, the most severe economic crisis since the Depression of the '30's has broken out, severe financial crisis has hit the public sector and there are now over 10 million unemployed workers in the U.S. This is how Gus Hall's "detente" panacea "cures" unemployment and the ills of capitalism. Instead, the rivalry between the superpowers is heating up and leading to war, while unemployment, inflation, economic crisis in general continue and grow. The "detente" nausea of Gus Hall and his imperialist masters is a big dose of political deception to hide the reactionary, war-mongering nature of U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism and to cover up their preparations for world war.
The revisionist and trotskyite parties are capitalist parties, social-imperialist parties, social-fascist parties, and are rotten to the core. These "revolutionaries" are extremely repulsive to the revolutionary masses who are casting away illusions about the capitalist system and want a basic change, want revolution. The slogan of the social-fascists -- "don't boycott" is directly against the slogan of the revolutionary masses -- "DON'T VOTE -- THEY'RE ALL THE SAME!" -- which reflects their contempt for the capitalist parties and their desire for revolutionary class struggle. End.
The capitalist political parties are deadly enemies of the Afro-American people and other oppressed nationalities and are the worst promoters of segregation and Jim Crow slavery and other forms of barbarous oppression.
Ford declared at the Republican Convention that the Republicans would "remain the party of equal rights". What arrogance! The Republicans are the party which openly organizes the fascist anti-busing movement to violently attack the Black people and deprive them of their right to attend integrated public schools. Today the Republican platform swears on the racist gospel of opposition to "forced busing" (as if racial discrimination were voluntary for Black people!) "to achieve racial balance". The Republican platform piously utters the white chauvinist psalm about "attending schools in their own neighborhoods" and ends by calling for a Constitutional Amendment to uphold school segregation. As the examples of Louisville and Boston illustrate, such calls by the monopoly capitalists are merely the signal to bring out the burning cross and lynch rope.
The most recent revelation of the racist nature of the Republicans is the slanderous remarks about Black people by then-Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz. However, this was not an isolated incident but merely gave a glimpse of the basic attitude and stand of the Republican Party in executing the monopoly capitalists' program of racial discrimination and violent repression.
The Democrats are far more skillful at hiding their white racist, chauvinist nature behind a mask of "civil rights", etc. While the Republicans are the outright segregationist party of monopoly capital, the Democrats are just as much in favor of racial discrimination and violent repression and just as opposedto freedom and equal rights for the Afro-American people.
Chairman Mao exposed the treacherous nature of the Democrats when he commented on the Kennedy administration in 1963:
"THE KENNEDY ADMINISTRATION IS INSIDIOUSLY USING DUAL TACTICS. ON THE ONE HAND, IT CONTINUES TO CONNIVE AT AND TAKE PART IN DISCRIMINATION AGAINST NEGROES AND THEIR PERSECUTION, AND IT EVEN SENDS TROOPS TO SUPPRESS THEM. ON THE OTHER HAND, IN THE ATTEMPT TO NUMB THE FIGHTING WILL OF THE BLACK PEOPLE AND DECEIVE THE MASSES OF THE COUNTRY, THE KENNEDY ADMINISTRATION IS PARADING AS AN ADVOCATE OF 'THE DEFENCE OF HUMAN RIGHTS' AND 'THE PROTECTION OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF NEGROES', CALLING UPON THE BLACK PEOPLE TO EXERCISE 'RESTRAINT' AND PROPOSING 'CIVIL RIGHTS LEGISLATION' TO CONGRESS. BUT MORE AND MORE AFRO-AMERICANS ARE SEEING THROUGH THESE TACTICS OF THE KENNEDY ADMINISTRATION. THE FASCIST ATROCITIES OF THE U.S. IMPERIALISTS AGAINST THE BLACK PEOPLE HAVE EXPOSED THE TRUE NATURE OF SO-CALLED AMERICAN DEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM AND EXPOSED THE INNER LINK BETWEEN THE REACTIONARY POLICIES PURSUED BY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT AT HOME AND ITS POLICIES OF AGGRESSION ABROAD. " ("Statement Supporting the Afro-Americans in their Just Struggle Against Racial Discrimination by U.S. Imperialism", 1963)
Today the Democrats are playing the same deceptive tricks. They even have a former assistant to Martin Luther King, Rev. Andrew Young, running interference for Carter, saying Carter "personally understands the problems of race and poverty as only a Southerner can". What this means in practice can be seen by Carter's stand on the simple democratic demand of school integration. Like Ford, he is against it. In his acceptance speech Carter declared that "it is time to honor and strengthen our families and our neighborhoods and our diverse cultures and customs". This is a segregationist statement, akin to his "ethnic purity" "slip". The issue is not "strengthening" "our neighborhoods"; the issue is that the monopoly capitalists and their state have created segregated neighborhoods and schools in order to maintain their class and national oppression of the Black people.
Carter then adds: "We can have an America where freedom, on the one hand, and equality, on the other hand, are mutually supportive and not in conflict, and where the dreams of our nations' first leaders are fully realized in our own day and age." We would merely like to point out that "our nation's first leaders", Washington and Jefferson, were slave-owners. Even today, neither freedom nor equality exist for the Afro-American people and other oppressed nationalities. Carter means that the struggle of the Black people for freedom and equality has come into conflict with the "freedom" of the monopoly capitalists to discriminate against and oppress the Black people. Carter proposes to solve this "conflict" by "realizing" the "dreams" of the slave-owners Washington and Jefferson. What can this mean but maintaining the present-day system of Jim Crow slavery-- racial discrimination and violent repression? For example, Carter has vowed to give funds to segregated Afro-American schools in the inner cities as "an alternative to busing for racial integration" ("What Carter Would Do as President", U.S. News andWorld Report, July 26,1976). Thus Carter proposes to develop schools on the segregationist basis of "separate but equal", which has been proven inherently unequal by over 100 years of historical experience of the Black people.
Thus the Democratic Party, like the Republicans, proposes to strengthen racial discrimination and violent repression against the Black people and other op pressed nationalities. The propaganda of both parties for segregation shows the falsity of the idea that the courts, etc., are interested in bringing about equality and integration through busing and other means. In fact, these agencies of the state only take up the democratic demand of integration for the purpose of distorting and mutilating it in practice in order to create conditions to build a fascist anti-busing movement to attack the Black people. The aim of the two parties is the same: drive the Afro-Americans back towards the worst Jim Crow segregation and deepen the split in the working class in order to strengthen monopoly capitalist rule.
In fact, Carter acts as if the Black people are in his back pocket and he can slander them at will by labelling them spoilers of "ethnic purity", while Ford is not the least bit concerned about Blacks either, as his delayed reaction to the Butz remarks shows. But the uproar caused by both so-called "slips" shows that the Afro-Americans and progressive whites will not stand for such anti-democratic trash. As Chairman Mao teaches, the Afro-American struggle and the American workers' movement are bound to merge and this will eventually bring an end to the criminal rule of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class, including its reactionary political parties. End.
When a capitalist party talks of "controlling inflation" it means only one thing: "controlling wages", i. e. cutting the workers' wages while enforcing speedup. This is just as much true of the Democratic "friends of labor" as of the Republican "party of big business".
Let us look at what the present Democratic platform has to say on this:
"A comprehensive anti-inflation policy must be established to insure relative price stability. Such a program should emphasize increased production and productivity and should take other measures to enhance the stability and flexibility of our economy."
and further:
"It will require that business and labor meet fair standards of wage and price change."
or as Carter summed it up in his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention:
"...I see clearly the value of a strong system of free enterprise based on increased productivity and adequate wages."
According to the Democrats (and the Republicans) the cause of inflation is that the workers supposedly win wage increases larger than the increase in their productivity and this supposedly causes prices to rise. Thus, according to them, in order to prevent inflation, the workers' wage increases must not exceed the increase in productivity (output per man hour). So -- to "fight inflation" there must be "increased production and productivity ", i.e., increased speed-up of the workers' labor along with throwing many workers out of work by introducing new machinery. At the same time, the workers will be required "to meet fair standards of wage change" -- in other words, to swallow wage settlements acceptable to the capitalist state machine (government). Thus, to "fight inflation", the Democrats claim, the workers must accept cuts in their real wages, while profits soar as a result.
Thus the Democrats' "anti-inflation" program is based on a bourgeois, anti-working class theory which seeks to blame the workers for the problems caused by the monopoly capitalist system itself. This theory aims at justifying the increased exploitation of the workers and has nothing to do with preventing inflation. It aims at preparing public opinion for the monopoly capitalists to shift the entire burden of the present economic crisis onto the workers' backs through increased exploitation.
The working class has rich experience with what this "anti-inflation" theory means in practice. In 1962 the Kennedy Administration made this theory official government policy by establishing "wage guideposts" which were supposed to correspond to annual increases in productivity. Actually, the "guideposts" corresponded to the minimum wage increases that the capitalists thought the workers could be forced to accept. The Democratic Kennedy and Johnson Administrations exerted great pressure on. the workers to hold wage settlements within the official "guideposts". But by the end of the '60's these pressure tactics, known as "jaw-boning", were no longer able to hold the workers to the "guideposts", so in 1970 the Democratic Congress passed a bill authorizing wage-price controls. These controls were implemented by Nixon in 1971, again under the theory of combatting inflation through "increased productivity" and "fair wage change" or "adequate wages".
What was the result of all this "increased productivity" and so-called "fair" and "adequate" wages? Did inflation stop? No, far from it. From 1960 to 1973, prices of consumer goods increased over 50%. Over this same period the average manufacturing worker's output per hour increased 61% but his real wages increased only 28%. Thus, over this period the workers' wage increases fell far behind the increase in their productivity. What actually happened was that workers were able to win in wages a much smaller portion of the value they produced in 1973 than in 1960, while the monopoly capitalists gobbled up, in the form of profits, interest and taxes, an ever-increasing portion of the products of the working class. Since 1973 the average worker's wages have not even kept pace with inflation.
Thus Carter's "increased productivity and (so-called) adequate wages", which he announced in his acceptance speech, is a program to intensify exploitation of the working class. It is a continuation of the anti-working class policies of the Democratic Party in the past. It is no wonder that "as a businessman" Mr. Carter can "clearly see the value" of such a system.
How do the Democrats plan to enforce "increased productivity and (so-called) adequate wages"? Their attack on the workers is two-pronged. On one hand, the Democrats are planning to further fascize the state control of the trade unions, by drawing trade union leaders into government bodies to sit with the monopoly capitalists and "plan" the economy. This is to be accomplished through the hoax of "National Economic Planning" provided by the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act. This bill is a central feature of the Democratic platform and it is the feature which the trade union bureaucrats, pining for soft lucrative jobs on government boards, are most eagerly promoting among the workers. It sets up national, regional and industrial "Advisory Committees" and sub-committees consisting of capitalists, government officials and trade union officials to help the President establish "annual numerical goals for employment, production and purchasing power (i.e., wages -- Ed.) " and otherwise plan the economy (Section 103 of the bill).
In return for soft jobs with the government, the labor lieutenants will be expected to keep wages down to the planned goals of "purchasing power" and to increase productivity. The Humphrey-Hawkins Bill, in the section entitled "Anti-Inflation Policies", specifically calls for "Encouragement to labor and management to increase productivity within the national framework of full employment through voluntary arrangements in industries and economic sectors" (Section 107). Thus the Democrats plan to mobilize the trade union mis-leaders to "voluntarily" join the capitalists in an assault on the work rules and standards won by the struggles of the workers, which limit the intensity of labor and degree of exploitation and offer a minimum protection for the workers' health and safety.
Leonard Woodcock, president of the United Auto Workers and the most enthusiastic supporter among the labor mis-leaders of the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill and the Democratic Party, revealed the real intent of the "National Economic Planning" the Democrats are talking about at a press breakfast in Washington on May 28. He stated that if the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill is passed, labor unions will have to change their approach to wage setting. No longer could "each union take its own best hold" because this would supposedly contribute to inflationary pressure. "We'd be part of the planning process" with government and business, says Woodcock, which means not wage controls imposed by the government but "self-control" by the labor bureaucrats over the workers (New York Times, May 29, 1976). Woodcock has completely let the cat out of the bag. In return for government jobs, he is admitting, the labor lieutenants will systematically use the trade union apparatus (bureaucracy) to exercise "self-control" over the masses of workers so as to prevent the workers' struggles from upsetting the goals for "purchasing power" established in the "planning process" with government and business. This is intended to prevent the workers from reducing the profits of the monopoly capitalists and upsetting the economic base of U.S. imperialism's drive for world domination. Mr. Woodcock here has practically admitted that the Democrats' "National Economic Planning" and the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill mean consolidation of fascism. In fact, Woodcock's ideological line comes straight from Adolf Hitler, who said:
"Upon the economic chambers themselves it will be incumbent to keep the national economy functioning and eliminate the deficiencies and errors which damage it. The things for which millions fight and struggle today must in time be settled in the Chambers of estates and the central economic parliament. Then employers and workers will not rage against one another in struggles over pay and wage scales, damaging the economic existence of both, but solve these problems jointly in a higher instance, which must above all envision the welfare of the people as a whole and the state in gleaming letters." (Mein Kampf)
The Democratic Party's and Hitler's lines are the same: the union mis-leaders will participate in the government, together suppress the workers and guarantee the capitalists' profits. What wishful thinking!
In case the increased fascization of the trade unions fails to suppress the workers' struggle for higher wages (which it will fail to do), the Democrats are calling for "wage-price controls" so the state can dictate minimum wages to the workers. Thus Carter has said that he does not see the need for wage-price controls at this time, but that he would like standby controls just in case.
Currently wage-price controls are being implemented in Canada by the U.S. imperialist-dominated Trudeau Government. There is much talk among the monopoly capitalists that if wage-price controls are successful in Canada in forcing workers to accept the minimum wage, they will be tried out in the U.S. again.
The workers have bitter experience with wage-price controls under the Nixon administration. Wage increases were limited to 5.5% per year while prices soared. Today the Democrats try to deceive the workers by saying that Nixon's wage-price controls were "unfair" because wages of the workers were controlled, while profits of the big corporations were not controlled. The Democrats, we are told, will be "fair" and will control not only wages but "prices, profits, executive compensation and rents" (Statement of Economic Policies adopted by the Democratic Conference, Dec. 8, 1974). In other words, the Democrats will control the "incomes" of the workers and the monopoly capitalists equally. What "equality" ?! The workers, who have to wage a militant struggle just to get a meager living wage, are to be equally controlled along with the monopoly capitalists, who live by sucking the blood of the workers! How can there be any equality between workers and capitalists? We suppose that next the Democrats will tell us that they are going to control the incomes of robbers and their victims equally. Furthermore, wages have nothing to do with prices. An increase in wages does not cause prices to rise; it only causes profits to fall. It is the monopoly capitalists alone who are responsible for jacking up prices to save and increase their profits.
If the Democrats were really serious about controlling inflation and profits, then why don't they encourage the workers to fight for the highest possible wages so as to reduce the profits of the monopoly capitalists? But the fact is that the only reason to have wage-price controls, no matter how "fair", is to force the workers to accept the minimum possible wages.
WHY THE MONOPOLY CAPITALISTS MUST FORCE THE WORKERS' WAGES DOWN TO THE MINIMUM
The U.S. monopoly capitalist class cannot help but intensify the exploitation of the American workers and try to suppress their struggle against it. It does not matter which bourgeois party is in power; the objective, class interests of the monopoly bourgeoisie call for such a program.
The actions of the monopoly capitalist class are governed by the basic law of modern capitalism, pointed out by Comrade Stalin in 1952:
"THE SECURING OF THE MAXIMUM CAPITALIST PROFIT THROUGH THE EXPLOITATION, RUIN AND IMPOVERISHMENT OF THE MAJORITY OF THE POPULATION OF THE GIVEN COUNTRY, THROUGH THE ENSLAVEMENT AND SYSTEMATIC ROBBERY OF THE PEOPLES OF OTHER COUNTRIES, ESPECIALLY BACKWARD COUNTRIES, AND, LASTLY, THROUGH WARS AND MILITARIZATION OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMY, WHICH ARE UTILIZED FOR THE OBTAINING OF THE HIGHEST PROFITS." (Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R., 1952)
Since the end of World War II the U.S. imperialists have been able to secure maximum profits only through a feverish policy of striving for world domination while expanding government expenditures at home to underwrite the investments and consumer markets for the capitalists.
In order to carry out its global expansion, U.S. imperialism has built a huge military machine, on which it has spent almost $1.5 trillion since 1946. It has carried out numerous wars of aggression and established over 2,000 military bases around the world. This has resulted in massive deficit spending. Domestically, too, the monopoly capitalists have become increasingly dependent on huge government spending, especially deficit spending and expansion of credits to underwrite their markets. To finance global military expansion and artificial stimulation of the domestic economy, the U.S. government has printed paper money far in excess of the production of goods, resulting in galloping inflation as well as deterioration of U.S. imperialism's financial strength. This is an inherent result of the monopoly capitalist system.
Today the U.S. monopoly capitalist class is in an all-round crisis, economic, political, cultural, etc., confronted with unsolveable contradictions from every angle. Yet by its very nature it will not give up its ambitions of maximizing its profits, but instead is bound to further attack the American working class so as to be better able to contend for world domination abroad. In fact, the monopoly capitalists are very conscious that their ability to seize world domination depends on suppressing the working class at home. In November, 1960, Walter W. Rostow, an advisor and later Under Secretary of State to Kennedy, wrote in a report to the President-elect Kennedy:
"I cannot emphasize too strongly that the capacity of the new administration to do what it wants at home and abroad will depend on promptly breaking the institutional basis for creeping inflation, notably in the key steel and automobile industries; and on driving hard to earn more foreign exchange and to increase productivity over a wide front. Without determined action in these areas it will be extremely difficult to bring the domestic economy back to reasonably full employment without inflation; and this means we will not have the federal revenues to give needed extra thrust in military and foreign policy. If we do not evoke American effort to sacrifice for communal goals at home, we run the danger of being forced by the balance of payments position and inflation into substituting rhetoric for action abroad."
In the same report Rostow called for wage freeze on the workers. (Report, Walter W. Rostow, as quoted in Exhortation and Controls, pg. 137.) This is how the "fight against inflation" of the Democrats (as of the Republicans) is in fact a fight by the monopoly capitalists against the workers to aid their aggression and expansion abroad.
The only reason either the Democrats (or Republicans) talk about inflation is to prepare public opinion for using the state machine to force the workers to "sacrifice" for the "national interest" of the monopoly capitalists. "National interest" means the interests of the rich, not of the working class. It means to maximize the profits of the monopoly capitalists, by cutting the wages of the workers to the minimum, so as to be better able to carry out expansion and aggression abroad and prepare for a world war with Soviet social-imperialism to decide which gang of bandits will get the lion's share of the profits from the plunder of the world.
Thus the Democrats' "anti-inflation" policies are no different in essence from the Republicans' -- serve monopoly capital and further exploit the workers by cutting wages while allowing prices to skyrocket. The two main capitalist political parties are both the same, whether they pose as the "friends of labor" or not.
But the capitalist political parties' dream of suppressing the workers and exploiting them forever will certainly be smashed by the workers themselves. Whether the capitalists' attacks on the workers are carried out under the signboard of the "friends of labor", the Democrats, or by the open "party of big business", the Republicans, the resistance of the American working class is bound to grow. The workers are bound to completely disregard the "national interests" of the bourgeoisie and fight for the highest wages, resist growing fascism and war preparations and carry out the proletarian revolution to overthrow the monopoly capitalist dictators altogether. End.
[Photo: One big, happy family -- (1. to r.) Pete Estes, president of General Motors Corporation; Leonard Woodcock, president of the United Auto Workers; Jimmy Carter, Democratic presidential candidate; Coleman Young, Mayor of Detroit; John Riccardo, chairman of the Board of Directors of Chrysler Corporation; and Henry Ford H, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Ford Motor Co., at a Carter fund-raising dinner in Detroit, May 7, just before the Michigan primary. All three auto monopolists paid $500 to attend the banquet and support the Democrats' deception of the workers and oppressed people. The Democrats' "National Economic Planning" proposal wall bring these monopoly capitalists, their political representatives and top labor bureaucrats still closer together to speed up production, control wages and suppress the workers.]
The Democrats' foreign policy serves the same basic striving of the U.S. monopoly capitalists for world domination as does the Republicans'.
According to Carter's acceptance speech, the Democrats' goal is "an international framework of peace within which our own ideals gradually can become a global reality". This reveals the U.S. imperialists' desires to practice their domestic policy of capitalist exploitation, racial discrimination, etc., in other countries and suck the blood of the people of the entire world. The monopoly capitalists themselves are admitting that the difference between the Democrats' and Republicans' foreign policy would be a "change more in style than in substance". (U.S. News and World Report, July 26, 1976) Trying to appear different from Ford, Carter said recently: "I think I would be much tougher in bargaining with the Soviet Union." That is, Carter would have the same basic imperialist foreign policy as Ford -- striving for world domination through rivalry with the Soviet Union, preparation for a new world war, and suppression of the oppressed nations. What a lovely "choice" in November!
Look at the Democrats' platform. It lists nearly all the same focal points as the Republicans for U.S. indirect or direct aggression. Israeli attacks on the Arab and African people, China's Taiwan province, Panama, Korea, NATO, etc. -- these indicate the irreconcilable hostility of the U.S. imperialist Democratic Party towards the oppressed nations and peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America and towards the socialist countries. In fact, Carter would be better able to invade southern Africa, for instance, than Ford, since Carter could more successfully hide the reason for such actions under "liberal" or religious rhetoric.
At the same time, Carter's campaign promises to cut military spending boil down to "cuts in support and staff strength in favor of building up combat elements". (U.S. News and World Report, July 26, 1976) In light of this, how ironic that Carter recently stated:
"I would never again get militarily involved in the internal affairs of another country, unless our own security was directly threatened."
If so, then let him publish U.S. imperialism's secret treaties to invade certain European countries (and others) in the event of such "threats"! In fact, Carter himself rendered his statement utterly meaningless in his next breath:
"A sharp and difficult balancing of an expression of concern on the one hand, and the interference in the electoral process of a sovereign nation on the other, would require very careful judgement."
Thus the Democrats are an imperialist party, a party of war and aggression, a party preparing world war with the Soviet New Tsars, the same as the Republicans, but a party better able to hide its war-mongering nature by providing the workers with deceptive "reforms" on the economic front. End.
Statement in Support of the Afro-American Struggle Against Violent Repression
(April 16, 1968)
[Photo: DEEPLY MOURN THE DEATH OF CHAIRMAN MAO TSETUNG, THE GREAT TEACHER AND LEADER OF THE WORKERS, OPPRESSED NATIONS AND OPPRESSED PEOPLE OF THE WHOLE WORLD!]
Some days ago, Martin Luther King, the Afro-American clergyman, was suddenly assassinated by the U.S. imperialists. Martin Luther King was an exponent of non-violence. Nevertheless, the U.S. imperialists did not on that account show any tolerance towards him, but used counter-revolutionary violence and killed him in cold blood. This has taught the broad masses of the black people in the United States a profound lesson. It has touched off a new storm in their struggle against violent repression sweeping well over a hundred cities in the United States, a storm such as has never taken place before in the history of that country. It shows that an extremely powerful revolutionary force is latent in the more than twenty million black Americans.
The storm of Afro-American struggle taking place within the United States is a striking manifestation of the comprehensive political and economic crisis now gripping U.S. imperialism. It is dealing a telling blow to U.S. imperialism, which is beset with difficulties at home and abroad.
The Afro-American struggle is not only a struggle waged by the exploited and oppressed black people for freedom and emancipation, it is also a new1 clarion call to all the exploited and oppressed people of the United States to fight against the barbarous rule of the monopoly capitalist class. It is a tremendous support and inspiration to the struggle of the people throughout the world against U.S. imperialism and to the struggle of the Vietnamese people against U.S. imperialism. On behalf of the Chinese people, I hereby express resolute support for the just struggle of the black people in the United States.
Racial discrimination in the United States is a product of the colonialist and imperialist system. The contradiction between the black masses in the United States and U.S. ruling circles is a class contradiction. Only by overthrowing the reactionary rule of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class and destroying the colonialist and imperialist system can the black people in the United States win complete emancipation. The black masses and the masses of white working people in the United States share common interests and have common objectives to struggle for. Therefore, the Afro-American struggle is winning sympathy and support from increasing numbers of white working people and progressives in the United States. The struggle of the black people in the United States is bound to merge with the American workers' movement, and this will eventually end the criminal rule of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class.
In 1963, in my "Statement Supporting the Afro- Americans in Their Just Struggle Against Racial Discrimination by U.S. Imperialism" I said that "the evil system of colonialism and imperialism arose and throve with the enslavement of Negroes and the trade in Negroes, and it will surely come to its end with the complete emancipation of the black people". I still maintain this view.
At present, the world revolution has entered a great new era. The struggle of the black people in the United States for emancipation is a component part of the general struggle of all the people of the world against U.S. imperialism, a component part of the contemporary world revolution. I call on the workers, peasants and revolutionary intellectuals of every country and all who are willing to fight against U.S. imperialism to take action and extend strong support to the struggle of the black people in the United States! People of the whole world, unite still more closely and launch a sustained and vigorous offensive against our common enemy, U.S. imperialism, and against its accomplices! It can be said with certainty that the complete collapse of colonialism, imperialism and all systems of exploitation, and the complete emancipation of all the oppressed peoples and nations of the world are not far off. End.