The Workers' Advocate

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

Vol. 8, No. 2, February 10, 1978 25¢

[Front Page:

COAL MINERS DEMONSTRATE THEIR STRENGTH;

CARTER PRESENTS PROGRAM OF ROBBERY, FASCISM AND WAR;

Farmers' Struggle Intensifies;

ANTI-FASCISTS HEROICALLY RESIST POLICE ATTACK IN SEATTLE: FIGHT THE FASCIST ANTI-BUSING MOVEMENT!;

The Bakke Case: A Signal for Increased Attacks on the Black People Under the Banner of Ending a Mythical "Reverse Discrimination";

How to Advance the Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism(SEE CENTERFOLD)]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COAL MINERS DEMONSTRATE THEIR STRENGTH

CARTER PRESENTS PROGRAM OF ROBBERY, FASCISM AND WAR

Farmers' Struggle Intensifies

ANTI-FASCISTS HEROICALLY RESIST POLICE ATTACK IN SEATTLE:

FIGHT THE FASCIST ANTI-BUSING MOVEMENT!

The Bakke Case: A Signal for Increased Attacks on the Black People Under the Banner of Ending a Mythical "Reverse Discrimination"

Carter-Begin "Peace" Plans: Aggressive Plots Against the Palestinian and Arab Peoples

FURTHER BANKRUPTCY OF THE "THREE WORLDS" THEORY:

How the OL Social-Chauvinists Praise Scabs in the Fold of OPEC

THE STRIKE MOVEMENT IN 1977: A POWERFUL VEHICLE IN PREPARATION FOR THE REVOLUTION

Down With U.S. Imperialist Domination of Panama!

The Stand of the Party of Labor of Albania and Socialist Albania on the Cambodian-Vietnamese Conflict

A Conflict Which is Alien to the Lofty Interests of the Peoples of Viet Nam and Cambodia

CARTER'S PLAN TO "HELP THE STEEL INDUSTRY" AGAINST FOREIGN IMPORTS MEANS MORE EXPLOITATION FOR STEELWORKERS

Primary Care - An Attempt by Monopoly Capital to Reduce Staff and Further Overwork Nurses

Down With the Frame-Up of Comrade Hardial Bains!

Banks Squeeze Cleveland Schools While Teachers Go Without Pay

DOWN WITH CARTER'S ENERGY FRAUD!

ANTI-FASCIST STUDENTS IN NEW JERSEY FIGHT STATE-ORGANIZED ATTACKS THROUGH ACTIVE RESISTANCE!

Opening Statements in Court

STUDENTS DENOUNCE "SKILLS TEST" AT CCNY

IAN SMITH'S "MAJORITY RULE" FRAUD WILL NOT STOP THE ARMED STRUGGLE IN ZIMBABWE

New Year Message by Comrade Mugabe, The President of ZANU

ZIMBABWE AFRICAN NATIONAL UNION WAR COMMUNIQUE

Angolan People's Struggle Surges Forward!

UNITA Communique - Angola's Ailing Economy

U.S. Imperialist Ambassador Andrew Young Again Praises Cuban Invasion of Angola

ERITREA, 1977: A HISTORIC YEAR

Zionist Israel Escalates Support for Fascist Ethiopian Junta

RADIO LIBERATION - ERITREA

EPLF, ELF Sign an Important Agreement on National Unity

How to Advance the Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism

Resolutions of the East Indian Defense Committee Convention

"We will form a center for the entire India"

Powerful Outburst of the Chilean People's Resistance

PINOCHET'S FARCE

COAL MINERS DEMONSTRATE THEIR STRENGTH

The powerful national strike of the coal miners, the longest coal strike in U.S. history, has reached a turning point. The miners' heroic mass struggle has succeeded in reducing coal production to 32 per cent of what it was before the strike, cutting the coal supplies to the electrical utilities monopolies in Appalachia and the Midwest. This threatens to bring a large portion of production in the industrial heartland of the U.S. to a halt, slashing profits of the biggest monopoly capitalists in steel, auto, rubber and others. The miners have the capitalists by the throat.

Frightened, the capitalists are bringing tremendous pressure to bear on the miners in order to impose a sell-out settlement on them and end the strike on terms favorable to capital. A campaign of hysteria blaming the miners for an "energy shortage" has been launched by the capitalist government and news media. Carter, chief of the monopoly capitalist government, has openly intervened, raising the specter of a Taft-Hartley court injunction to end the strike and bullying the miners' negotiators, not to mention managing the negotiations all along via federal mediators. And through the agents of the capitalists in the miners' movement, Arnold Miller and the top leaders of the United Mine Workers' union, the capitalists are attempting to take the miners' fortress "from within", to use the union leadership to impose a treacherous sell-out settlement on the workers. Such a reactionary agreement has been "tentatively" reached by Miller, the BCOA (Bituminous Coal Operators' Association -- organization of the coal capitalists) and the government.

The central issue of the strike has now become crystal clear: whether or not the capitalists can suppress the miners' militant strike movement, the weapon they use to defend themselves against the vicious attacks of the rapacious coal capitalists. The miners' raging struggle of the past five and more years has terrified the reactionary capitalists. All the maneuvers of the capitalists and their flunkeys are aimed at crushing this movement and turning the miners into docile slaves, peacefully submitting to cold-blooded exploitation and even murder in the mines to produce coal for the U.S. imperialist war machine and realize maximum profits for the big money-bags. To suppress the miners' movement, the government and company negotiators propose, with Miller's agreement, to fine wildcat strikers and fire their leaders, in effect imposing a virtual no-strike clause on the workers. This is a vicious slap in the face for the coal miners, who have been fighting for the right to strike against the coal capitalists' attacks.

But the capitalists are mistaken if they think that they can easily suppress the struggle of the fighting miners. Never in recent years have the miners been so aroused, so militant, so mobilized to fight in a mass way, as they are today. If the miners reject the settlement agreed to by the capitalists and Miller, then the struggle will immediately escalate to a new level. The capitalists and their government, with the labor traitors mobilized as their front-rank defenders, will go on a frenzied onslaught of violent and other attacks on the miners and whip up a huge hysteria campaign in the mass media blaming the miners for large-scale "energy shortages". The miners, for their part, will surely rise in a powerful struggle in response.

TREACHERY AT THE NEGOTIATING TABLE

According to the most recent reports available at press time, the tentative settlement agreed to by Miller, the capitalists and their government and tabled by the UMW Bargaining Council, amounts to a crumb of economic benefits (about 10 per cent a year cost of-living included, hardly enough to keep up with the real present rate of inflation) to sweeten up a poisonous attack on the miners' strike movement. According to the capitalist press, agreement was reached between the BCOA and Miller a while ago on the two main issues in the strikes, the question of the right to strike and the question of the restoration of health and pension benefits. Miller was said to be holding out for a higher wage increase, for $2.60 an hour over three years compared to the BCOA's offer of $2.30. On February 6 it was announced that Miller had agreed to $2.35 an hour and a tentative settlement had been reached. Thus Miller capitulated to the companies' "offer" even on the question of wages and accepted the tiniest crumb. The propaganda of the capitalist press about a "high" union demand on wages is merely a fraud to cover up the other reactionary provisions of the pact.

The capitalist press claims that health and pension benefits would be''restored'. But some form of company control over these funds, which are presently jointly administered by the union and management, has been agreed to. This would allow the capitalists to declare a new "emergency" caused by "lack of money" in these funds even more freely than they did last year, an act of blackmail to get the miners to stop their strike movement. That act by the capitalists precipitated last summer's national wildcat strike. So the new tentative agreement actually strengthens the hand of the capitalists in blackmailing the miners to give up their struggle under the threat of deprivation of health and pension benefits. Not only this, but part of this "restoration" of health benefits is to require miners to pay deductible amounts which were free in the past.

But the real heart of the treacherous Miller-BCOA-Carter settlement does not lie in the economic issues but in ts brutal attack on the strike movement of the miners. The capitalists are very worried that the miners will not accept the contract because of the provisions dealing with the right to strike. The miners want the right to strike over grievances between contracts, unhampered by bureaucratic restrictions. Miller has been proposing a so-called "limited right to strike", a plan to shackle the strike movement by requiring a vote by the entire membership of a local union before it could strike. But even this "limited" right to strike has apparently gone down the drain and Miller has agreed to a company proposal to fine wildcat strikers $20 a day for up to 10 days for striking, after which they could be suspended. The fine is to be withheld from future wages and paid into the health and pension funds. Leaders of the wildcats could be summarily fired. The capitalist press states that dismissals will be in store for miners who picket and close mines other than where they work, and those who honor these picket lines, of course, would be subject to the fines and suspensions already mentioned -- an obvious blow at the roving picket lines which the miners use to spread their wildcat strikes. Miller's agreement, in fact, requires the workers to scab!

Thus the tentative agreement reached between Miller and the capitalists amounts to a vicious anti-strike contract. Not only would a striker lose his pay for every day striking, but he could be fined nearly the same amount on top of that and later suspended. The trusted militant workers who form the core leading the strike movement would be threatened with outright loss of jobs and blacklisting throughout the coal fields. The wildcat strike weapon, which these provisions are aimed at eliminating, is absolutely necessary to the miners. The union apparatus is controlled by labor traitors and tied closely to the government. It allows the workers no means to fight against the everyday attacks of the coal capitalists. The very moment the 1974 contract was signed the capitalists began to violate it, endangering the very life and limb of the miners with safety violations, not to mention speed-up and overwork. The only recourse for the miners is to band together and fight, relying on their own mass efforts. This they have done, waging as many as 5,500 strikes over the past three years andcarrying out five major national strikes in the past four years, three of them wildcat strikes. The fighting strike movement of the coal miners threatens the profits and war preparations of the monopoly capitalists and inspires the entire working class to rise in struggle against the capitalist exploiters and their government. The capitalists, therefore, are out to suppress this movement at all costs.

To give the anti-strike provisions of the new tentative settlement the appearance of "even-handedness", the company negotiators agreed to Miller's proposal to include so-called "mutual responsibility" provision which would levy penalties against the capitalists for wildcat strikes if they were found guilty of provoking them. And who would judge whether or not the capitalists were guilty of this? An "independent" arbitration board, the very same arbitration review board set up in 1974 which continually rules on grievances in favor of the companies, creating the very situation in which the miners must wage wildcat strikes to win their demands. So Miller, the BCOA and Carter propose to put the ball right back where it started from! This is clearly a fraud intended to hide the proposed contract's vicious attacks on the miners' strike struggle. And what if a capitalist were found guilty of provoking a wildcat? Would he be "fired" and deprived of his means of living, his company, just as a worker found guilty of "provoking", i.e., leading, a wildcat strike would lose his means of living, his job? Obviously not -- the capitalist would suffer a mere hand-slapping and be free to continue merrily reaping profits from the sweat and blood of the miners.

This vicious anti-strike provision is the heart of the Miller-BCOA-Carter agreement. All three parties are trying to hide its nature by claiming that the pact includes a big wage increase and restored benefits. It is very interesting that the capitalists last year cut the health benefits in hopes of smashing the strike movement of the miners, claiming that the wildcat strikes of the past few years had depleted the funds, while now they are "restoring" them -- again with the motive of destroying the strike movement by using their restoration to sugar-coat the anti-strike provisions of the tentative settlement. And this "restoration" is full of holes. The treachery of the capitalists and their stooges in attempting to smash the miners' strike movement knows no end!

But the sentiment of the coal miners is to reject the sell-out contract cooked up by Miller, the BCOA and Carter. A wave of fury went through the miners when they heard of the anti-wildcat strike provisions agreed to by Miller. By February 9 the capitalist press was reporting that the end-the-strike plan of Carter and his federal mediators was coming apart at the seams.

THE FRENZY OF THE CAPITALISTS SHOWS THAT THE MINERS HAVE THEM BY THE THROAT

The frenzy of the capitalists and their government headed by Carter shows that the miners' mass struggle has caught these robbers by the throat. One half of the country's electricity is generated by coal burning, and the miners' strike has cut off over two-thirds of the coal supply. The electrical utilities monopolies, who two months ago could not stop arrogantly bragging about the big stockpiles of coal they had built up to allegedly make them immune to the effects of a coal strike, are crying and moaning today. Lack of electricity could force the shut-down of a wide circle of major industries such as steel, auto, rubber, etc., in the Midwest and elsewhere.

These developments expose the falsity of the predictions of doom and gloom for the miners spread by the capitalists and their flunkey Miller prior to the strike. At that time these dogs raised a deafening chorus of yelps that "the union is weak", "the miners are divided", "UMW only mines half the U.S. coal", "western non-union mines are expanding, therefore a strike is hopeless", etc. But the mass struggle of the miners has shut the mouths of these yelping curs. The miners have shown who it is that is really powerful: the workers, not the capitalists. As the old workers' song goes: "Without our brain and muscle not a single wheel would turn." Now is the time for the miners to continue their struggle just when the capitalists are bleeding.

There is no better evidence that the capitalists are bleeding than their frenzied cries of "energy shortage". Suddenly the "weak", "disunited", "outnumbered and outmoded by non-union labor" coal miners are the cause of a tremendous "energy shortage". It seems that overnight these workers have changed from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde! Today the capitalists are spreading the hysteria that the miners are the cause of "energy shortages". They are telling the working class and oppressed people that their fellow workers, the miners, will be the cause of massive lay-offs and even cut-offs of electricity to homes if they do not give up their strike. This is an admission of the power of the workers and completely refutes the gloom and doom propaganda of the capitalists and Miller. It shows the power of the workers' struggle to bring the capitalists to their knees.

CAPITALISTS' FRENZY ABOUT "ENERGY SHORTAGE" IS A SIGNAL FOR NEW ATTACKS ON THE WORKERS

Not only does the hysteria about an "energy shortage" reflect the strength of the struggle of the miners, but it is a signal, a call, by the capitalists for a new wave of attacks on the miners. It is aimed at compelling the miners to accept the present tentative settlement and to prepare public opinion for greater attacks on the miners if they refuse to accept Miller's betrayal and continue their strike. The capitalists, of course, could prevent any such energy shortage almost overnight, simply by granting the miners' just demands. But naturally this is the last thing they want to do. So they portray the workers' struggle as the cause of the lengthy strike and dwindling supply of electricity. Blaming the workers for the shortage, the capitalists are going on a rampage of attacks on the, miners.

The capitalist state at all levels, from Carter on down to the lowest deputized gun thug, is viciously attacking the miners. Carter has threatened to use the Taft-Hartley Act to bring a court injunction to order the miners back to work (he stated he is not considering using it "at this time", but the fact that he chose a key moment in negotiations to speak of it, just before Miller presented his sell-out settlement, shows that Carter was indeed issuing a threat). Carter even ordered Miller to postpone the meeting of the UMW Bargaining Council in order that the negotiations could finalize the economic sweetener in the pact in hopes of getting it through. State troopers in many states have been sent on a large scale to attack the miners' roving picket lines. Gun thugs and other reactionaries have by now killed three striking miners. The state and its flunkeys are gearing up for a more frenzied wave of attacks if the miners reject Miller's betrayal.

But the capitalists will not find it easy to suppress the striking coal miners. All attacks till now have not only failed to deter them from their course, but have only provoked them to escalate their mass struggle. If the Carter regime invokes the fascist Taft-Hartley Act and orders the miners back to work, it will likely arouse the miners to a still - more powerful struggle. There is an old saying in the coal fields that "you can't mine coal with bayonets". The federal court injunctions in 1976 not only failed to intimidate the miners but aroused them to carry out a large-scale national wildcat strike, defeating this attempt to suppress their struggle. A Taft-Hartley injunction at present would be a big gamble for Carter and the capitalists, a gamble in which they risk a spectacular failure.

At the same time as the capitalists and their state machine step up their attacks on the miners, the labor bureaucrats headed by Miller are stepping up theirs. The outright sell-out character of the tentative settlement is an indication of what lengths these opportunists will go to serve the ends of the capitalists. The anti-strike provisions of this proposal prove that Miller was not kidding when he told the Louisville Courier-Journal in an interview before the strike that he was interested in "bringing) stability to the industry" to solve what the Courier- Journal called "wildcat strikes that have plagued the industry". If the miners continue their struggle, there can be no doubt that the reactionary activities of Miller and the other labor traitors to undermine and sell out the struggle will increase.

ENERGY CRISIS LIES BEHIND ATTACKS OF THE CAPITALISTS ON THE COAL MINERS

The present energy crisis, which is a product of the deepening economic crisis of the capitalist and revisionist world, lies behind the capitalists' frenzied attacks on the miners. In order to maximize their profits and control the world oil market, the capitalists have stepped up the plunder of oil from the Middle East and elsewhere, importing massive amounts of oil, creating a huge trade deficit which puts a further strain on the economy. At the same time, the monopoly capitalists need to develop U.S. energy resources to prepare for the war they are planning against the Soviet social-imperialist slave-owners for domination of the world. To prepare for this war and make the miners pay for the economic and energy crises, the capitalists desperately need a quiet, submissive labor force in the coal fields to give them a secure source of energy. The capitalists intend to double coal production in the next ten years. And in order to have such a workforce of slaves, the capitalists must suppress the coal miners' strike movement. This is the cause lying behind the present frenzied attacks of the capitalists and their government on the coal miners' strike movement.

MASS STRUGGLE IS THE ONLY PATH FOR THE MINERS

The only reason that the coal miners have the capitalists by the throat today is that they have persisted in waging a militant, active mass struggle to enforce their demands. They have not sat back and waited for the labor bureaucrats to beg the capitalists for a few crumbs or pinned their hopes on the loud talk of a handful of windbags at the negotiating table. They have taken the line of settling accounts with the coal operators on the battlefield of class struggle.

With every passing day, inspiring news arrives of a new heroic action by the masses of miners. The miners have undertaken to close down the non-union coal mines and transport facilities which handle nonunion coal. They have massed in car caravans numbering sometimes a thousand miners and have employed flexible, wide-ranging roving-picket tactics to close scab operations throughout the coal fields. Armed with clubs, guns and explosives they have forcibly closed scab operations and have fought pitched battles with the police sent by the capitalists to suppress them, punishing them severely and sacrificing the lives of three miners for the cause. Despite every obstacle placed in front of them by the capitalists, the miners have waged a heroic struggle, setting an inspiring example for the rest of the working class to rise up against the oppression of the capitalist exploiters.

An outstanding example of the heroic mass struggle of the miners is the resistance waged by the miners of Alabama, who have been shutting down non-union strip-mining operations. At one point recently, 1,000 miners set up a picket line-road- block on a road leading to a non-union mine. They were soon attacked by the Alabama state police and a pitched battle ensued. The miners used clubs and ax handles to defend their picket line. Numerous injuries were reported on both sides. Later police were forced to use tear gas against the miners in an attempt to free seven scabs the miners had trapped on company properly. The police were forced to run a gauntlet of rifle fire, rocks and dynamite to attempt to free the trapped scabs. Fifteen police cars were reported riddled with rifle fire.

VICTORY TO THE HEROIC COAL MINERS!

Today in the U.S. the workers' movement is on the rise. The workers are fighting fierce battles daily against the increasing exploitation by the capitalists and their state, which are trying to shift the entire burden of the economic crisis onto their backs. More and more sections of the workers, like the miners, are breaking out of the bounds of official government legality, casting off the chains placed on their struggle by the treacherous labor bureaucrats, valiantly fighting police suppression and taking their struggles into their own hands. The coal miners' strike is a focal point in this great class battle. It is a vivid example of the growing mass revolt of the U.S. proletariat against the class enemy. Whatever the outcome of the present phase of the coal miners' struggle, it is certain that the miners will never give up their struggle against the murderous capitalists but, together with the rest of the working class, will carry this struggle through to the end.

VICTORY TO THE FIGHTING COAL MINERS!

DOWN WITH THE CAPITALIST HYSTERIA CAMPAIGN OF "ENERGY SHORTAGE"! End.

[Box: The coal capitalists and the bourgeois government have murdered two more coal miners in their frantic attempts to suppress the miners' strike. Robert Lee Marshall of Pentress, Kentucky, was thrown into the path of a tractor-trailer rig on a highway in West Virginia by two men on January 12. A Kentucky State Senator is being held in the case, but the capitalist press is hushing up this murder, claiming that it was not connected to the strike. On February 4, John G. Hall of Patoka, Indiana, was shot to death by the capitalists' agents in a struggle to close down a non-union mine at Petersburg, Indiana.

The proletariat can only become a revolutionary force when its sons and daughters sacrifice their lives in strikes. The reactionary violence of the capitalists and their government will only provoke the miners to intensify their struggle and continue until victory. The murders of Robert Lee Marshall and John G. Hall are a new blood debt owed by the criminal U.S. monopoly capitalist class to the working class, a debt that will surely be paid in blood!]

[Back to Top]

CARTER PRESENTS PROGRAM OF ROBBERY, FASCISM AND WAR

With great fanfare, Carter has presented to Congress his State of the Union and Economic Messages and his budget for the fiscal year 1979 and has called for a $25 billion tax "cut".

These messages and proposals reveal the over-all program of the monopoly capitalist ruling class and its government, represented by the smiling "human rights" preacher Carter. Carter's program is a Hitlerite fascist program of unprecedented robbery and vicious suppression of the working masses, of stepped-up preparations to use the working people as cannon fodder in a reactionary world war to plunder still more of the world's people. It is the old U.S. imperialist program on a new scale of criminality: shower the capitalists with the workers' tax dollars for the supposed purpose of "creating jobs", deceive the workers with a sham tax "cut", suppress the workers' struggle for higher wages in the name of "fighting inflation", and pour out further tax dollars to the capitalists to build up the aggressive military machine of U.S. imperialism to attack the people of the world in the name of "defense" of U.S. "security" Carter's proposals reveal once again that the monopoly capitalists are attacking the people with Nixonite fascism without Nixon, with a fascist offensive ill- concealed behind a "human rights" and "liberal" mask and peddled by the Democratic Party's army of sold- out labor bureaucrats and other opportunists.

Carter's recent proposals show the preoccupation of the capitalists with finding a way out of the deep economic crisis gripping not only the United States but the whole capitalist and revisionist world. For 35 months now the capitalists have been claiming that the economy is "recovering". Now they admit that this "recovery" has failed to heal the deathly ill patient and that a new relapse is expected in the second half of 1978. The capitalists are unable to keep any of the rosy promises made by Carter during his election campaign. Carter's rhetoric that the "government cannot" do this and "cannot" do that, together with his budget proposals, are a program of cutbacks, a: la Gerald Ford, in the meager social services now provided by the government to the masses, alongside of big tax breaks and subsidies to the rich. They are a big part of the campaign of the monopoly capitalist class to shift the entire burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the workers and oppressed people at home and onto the working masses of other countries, and to prepare for a new world war to redivide the world with the Soviet social-imperialist slave-owners. But rather than bring capitalism out of its crisis, these measures are only arousing the furious resistance of the oppressed and exploited masses and are pushing capitalism closer to its doom.

SHAM ANTI-INFLATION: WAGE CONTROLS FOR THE WORKERS, BIG BUDGET DEFICITS AND FINANCIAL SPECULATION TO CREATE MORE INFLATION

Inflation and soaring prices speeded up last year. The official Consumer Price Index rose from the 4.8 per cent 1976 rate to a 6.8 per cent annual rate and food prices jumped 8 per cent. This has sharply raised the cost of living for the working people and impoverished them still further. Carter, in his recent declarations, is also saying that inflation is a problem. In his State of the Union Message he declared that the "main task" of the American people is economic "recovery", In his Economic Message he stated that the people are to bring about "recovery" by "fighting inflation". He stated that "we cannot achieve full prosperity unless we deal effectively with inflation". But what does Carter mean by "dealing effectively with inflation"? He does not mean raising the workers' wages to compensate for soaring prices. On the contrary, he means suppressing the workers' struggles for higher wages with various forms of wage controls on the false grounds that wage raises are the cause of inflation and soaring prices. Not only this, but the financial dealings of the Carter administration with its budget are themselves a major cause of inflation. Thus Carter's program will give inflation added fuel while the workers will be attacked and robbed, prevented from fighting inflation. This is how Carter will fulfill his election promise of "reducing" inflation!

Carter's "fight" against inflation begins with the establishment of "voluntary" wage "constraints". Industry by industry, the government, the capitalists and the top labor bureaucrats will collaborate to hold wage increases below the average of the last two years, that is, below 6.1 per cent annually for the life of the contracts. If the workers in any one industry threaten to wrench a higher raise from the bourgeoisie by their struggle, then the government will "assert the public interest" and publicly attempt to suppress it with the aid of the labor bureaucrats. This plan of Carter's is aimed at crushing the intensifying and broadening strike movement of the working class, which is clashing powerfully with the greedy exploiters in every comer of the land. The capitalists hope to cram low-wage settlements down the workers' throats this year, when the contracts of only a few major sections of the organized workers expire, so as to set a precedent for 1979, when major contract struggles loom in trucking, auto, rubber, etc.

Carter's "voluntary" "constraints" are admitted by the capitalist press to be a preparatory device for full wage controls to further suppress the workers and cut wages. The big capitalist organ, The New York Times, explained the tactics of the government as follows: "The economists (in the Carter administration -- ed.) believe that once labor and business commit themselves to a voluntary approach, public attention will be focused on whether such an approach is effective -- and if it is not, what else needs to be done to curb inflationary price and wage actions." (January 3, 1978) While hypocritically disavowing controls (just as Nixon did prior to imposing them in 1971), Carter made a veiled threat of this tactic in his State of the Union Message: "A sincere commitment to voluntary constraint provides a way -- perhaps the only way -- to fight inflation without government interference." (emphasis ours -- ed.) Already the "liberal" monopolists, such as The New York Times, are egging Carter on to impose outright controls with complaints that his program is "toothless" and should attack the workers harder.

Nothing shows the falsity of these worthies' claim to "fight" inflation more clearly than the huge federal budget deficit planned by Carter (he was elected on a promise to "balance the budget"). At $61 billion, it will be one of the three biggest in history. To finance the budget deficit, the government does not tax the rich. Instead it cuts the wages of the workers indirectly by creating inflation. It issues massive amounts of paper money, exceeding the growth of actual production, thus inflating the currency and sending prices soaring. Additionally, the government takes no steps to stop the financial speculation of the big financiers, another major cause of inflation. Instead, the billions handed directly to monopoly capital by the government via the federal budget will be volatile fuel for the colossal speculations of these big-time gamblers of Wall Street, many of whose risky ventures are unconnected to production and further inflate the currency. So Carter's "fight" against inflation is thus a complete fraud; in fact, it means to fight against the workers, who are blamed for the very crimes committed by the capitalist government, while the government is actually creating still more inflation!

LIES AND SINISTER PROGRAMS ON UNEMPLOYMENT

Carter hinges "solving" unemployment on "dealing effectively with inflation": "Unless we gain better control over the inflation rate, the prospects for regaining a fully employed economy will be seriously reduced. " (Economic Message) So jobs for the unemployed workers also rest on the acceptance of wage controls by the employed workers. The unemployed are supposed to clamor for wage-cuts for the employed so as to get jobs! In fact, the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill, which sets a goal of reducing unemployment to 4 per cent, explicitly declares that this can only be done by "fighting" inflation in exactly this manner, which it calls "structural measures to improve functioning of markets.''

To pacify the workers, Carter makes sweet talk about how unemployment is being "cut", allegedly fulfilling his election promises. Using smooth-talking demagogy, this liar points out that "four million new jobs were created" in 1977 and "not since World War II has such a high percentage of American people been employed". (State of the Union Message) Yet the official unemployment figure still stands at 6.4 per cent, and everyone knows that literally millions of unemployed are not included in the government statistics. What is the explanation of Carter's sweet talk? It merely reflects the fact that the ever-more impoverished condition of the American workers is sending still more members of the workers' families -- wives, children forced out of school -- into the workforce to take low-wage jobs (so-called "new jobs") out of desperation. Carter's "cut" in unemployment, then, does not represent the re-hiring of fired or laid-off workers but an actual worsening of the workers' condition.

Carter's program for unemployment relies on tax breaks for the capitalists and on his so-called "welfare reform". He justifies tax-cuts for business on the grounds that this will create jobs in the private sector by increasing the funds the capitalists have available for new investments. But this is also a fraud. The capitalists want to rationalize and modernize industry, to develop more efficient facilities, so as to better exploit the workers, and they want the working people to pay for this with their tax dollars. So Carter, the chief political representative of the monopoly capitalist class, presents to the masses the hoax that footing the bill for capitalist rationalization is "creating jobs". In fact, historical experience shows that this rationalization inevitably leads to intensified labor and stepped-up exploitation of the employed workers, together with large-scale lay-offs and firings. Over the past 20-30 years hundreds of thousands of steel workers and coal miners, for example, have lost their jobs due to such programs of modernization and automation in the steel and coal industries, while the over-all rate of unemployment, even in the "best" of years, has steadily crept upward. Carter's tax-cuts for business have nothing to do with solving the problem of unemployment.

Carter's "welfare reform" bill also figures prominently in his proposed budget. Allegedly it will create 1.4 million jobs over the next two years. This is a straightforward Nixonite-"workfare" slave-labor scheme. It will force unemployed workers now on welfare to accept whatever job at whatever wages and conditions the government bureaucracy dictates, on pain of losing their right to benefits. Anyone who refuses a job, either private or government, will lose his welfare check. In his budget summary, Carter calls this tyranny "effective work requirements and strong work incentives". The government jobs will pay no more than 10 per cent above the minimum wage. The aim of this "reform" is to attack both the unemployed and employed workers, setting the first against the second by throwing massive numbers of low-wage, unorganized workers into the labor force. These workers would be under the thumb of the welfare bureaucracy which can pressure them in a thousand ways, such as cutting off their benefits if they are fired for joining in the workers' struggle. Thus the organization, wages and working conditions of the other workers would be undermined. Carter's "welfare reform" is, in fact, a Hitlerite program of slavery masquerading as an anti-unemployment "reform", a Nixonite fascist plan on a scale Nixon could only dream of.

TAX-"CUTS": A SHAM "CUT" FOR THE WORKERS, A RAIN OF GOLD FOR THE CAPITALISTS

Carter piously announced a "major" tax-"cut" of $25 billion. This is alleged to "cut" the taxes of a worker making $10,000 a year by about $250. Yet this worker's social security tax has just been raised, he may have just had his tax rate increased by being forced into a higher tax bracket since he fought to raise his wages in response to inflation, and he faces tax-caused rises in gasoline and heating oil prices if the present energy bill goes through Congress. The proposed tax-'cut" admittedly will not even compensate for the first two of these tax increases. And one week after Carter called for the "cuts", he had already warned that they may be partially withdrawn if he does not get Congress's cooperation on tax "reforms"! Fraudulent tax-"cuts" of this sort have taken place seven times between 1964 and 1978 -- and with what result? The tax burden on the working people has only grown more and more intolerable. Moreover, the recent Social Security Bill radically cuts the ratio of a worker's benefits on retirement to his earnings during his lifetime, nearly cutting it in half for workers presently earning $10,000 a year. According to the Carter administration economists, the present social security rates have been "overly generous" and this "problem" must be speedily rectified. How impressive is this tax-- "cutting"!

At the same time, the capitalists, whose profits have just registered "a broad advance" at a high rate in almost every industry, have gotten the actual tax- cuts they have been clamoring for. These cuts are explicitly aimed at providing the poor, deprived tycoons with some workers' tax money to use to invest and stimulate in their breasts a patriotic flush of "business confidence". Ah, how intoxicating it must be! -- the prospect for a capitalist of joining the elite ranks of the 17 major corporations, including such giants as Chase Manhattan Corp., U.S. Steel and Pan American World Airlines, who paid no income taxes at all in 1976! How much easier it will be with Carter's cut in the alleged tax rate from 48 to 44 per cent (and other cuts) to join the select fraternity of 150 firms actually paying only 13 per cent or less! How simple it will be to raise capital to modernize or move a plant and thus lay off or fire a few thousand workers and eliminate that irritating part of the payroll from the books! As for the increase in social security and unemployment insurance taxes, those can simply be passed along to the (working class) consumers in the form of higher prices.

Thus -- a little crumb for the workers (a non-existent tax-cut) just at the time of Congressional elections next fall (and another planned for the next election in 1980), a big windfall tax-cut for the capitalists -- this is Carter's tax program for economic "recovery", for solving unemployment, etc. It amounts to robbing the workers to bankroll the capitalist parasites.

EXPANDING U.S. IMPERIALISM'S "HUMANITARIAN" WAR MACHINE

A major theme of Carter's messages and proposals is the necessity of "national (i.e., military -- ed.) strength and security". Since the days of Harry Truman, every school boy has known what this means: beef up the U.S. military juggernaut with the workers' tax dollars. Carter the peacenik paints this as concern for "peace" and a "firm commitment to human rights". Such a noble "commitment" merely means beefing up the U.S. and NATO bloc military machine with better conventional weapons and cruise nuclear missiles to prepare for an inter-imperialist war of mutual slaughter with the social-imperialist bloc led by the Soviet New Tsars. This lofty "commitment" also means arming such "humane" regimes as that of the Shah of Iran at a stepped-up rate.

To pay for all this humanitarianism, Carter's over-all budget includes the largest military budget in U.S. history. Arms take a bigger percentage of the budget than previously, and this section of the over-all budget will be the fastest-growing. Thus another of Carter's election promises, to cut the military budget, is exposed as a fraud. The arms budget is actually bigger than stated in the budget figures because one-half of the non-military basic research budget, which showed a rise of 10 per cent, is, in fact, military research.

Carter's messages and proposals reveal that his military strategy is to rely on the cruise missile for nuclear deterrence of his Russian rivals, build up conventional weaponry and troops in Europe to occupy the European countries and oppose the big Russian ground force there, and give expanded "aid" and arms to the numerous lackey regimes in U.S. imperialism's vast neo-colonial empire, for use in suppressing the anti-imperialist revolutionary struggles in Asia, Africa and Latin America and also to contend with the New Tsars for influence there. Production of helicopters, jet fighters and bombers is to be stepped up, using the tax dollars of the U.S. workers to build machines to kill the workers and peasants of other countries. "Aid" to the puppet regimes is budgeted to increase by 23 per cent. And arms sales by the smiling merchant of death, Jimmy Carter, who promised at election time to cut them, are undergoing a rapid rise. This rise is being covered up by a new method of figuring their total. The new method does not count in the total amount sales to countries with which the U.S. has major "defense" treaties, such as the NATO countries, Japan, Australia, New Zealand. By this sleight-of-hand, $2 billion in arms sales last year are wiped off the books. How simple it is to turn U.S. imperialism into a gentle lamb, just by changing the entries in a bookkeeping ledger!

COMBAT THIS GROWING FASCISM!

Carter's messages and proposals outline a fascist program of attack on the working class and oppressed people at home as well as abroad by the war-mongering robbers of U.S. monopoly capital. But the capitalists are lifting a rock only to drop it on their own feet. A storm of resistance struggle by the working class and oppressed masses lies ahead. Today the coal miners and farmers are fighting energetically. Tomorrow other sections will join the fray. Let the masses rise up! Fight against the monopoly capitalist dictators! Fight against the shifting of the burden of the economic crisis onto the people's backs, fight against the war preparations of the imperialist bourgeoisie, fight for revolution and against imperialist war! End.

[Back to Top]

Farmers' Struggle Intensifies

American small farmers are continuing their struggle against the monopoly capitalists and their government, who have driven the small farmer into direpoverty, massive debt and ruin. The present strike by the farmers against the deteriorating conditions they face confirms the fact that the economic crisis gripping the United States has extended and deepened into every sector of the economy, including agriculture. The farmers' strike, with its militant demonstrations, is part of the growing resistance movement of the masses of working people in the U.S. against the attempts of the rich to shift the burden of their crisis onto their backs. It is a response by the farmers to the monopolization of the market by the big food-producing barons, the grain speculators and food-wholesaling capitalists who force the farmers to ''accept" starvation prices, a response to the banks who are sucking the farmers dry through high interest rates and to the greedy tractor monopolists and fertilizer and seed conglomerates who are raising the prices they charge the farmer to the maximum. The strike is also a response to the federal government, whose programs enrich the coffers of the big capitalists and empty the pockets of the small farmer.

The farmers launched their strike on December 14. Since then the ranks of the striking farmers have grown enormously. Today the strike encompasses farmers from almost every section of the country. No more is the common scene in rural areas quiet and serene, with the individual farmer plowing his land from dawn to dusk, worrying about how to make ends meet. Instead, it is a scene of militancy -- of masses of farmers tractor to tractor, shovels and pitchforks raised, encircling stock-yards, grain elevators, produce-buying companies, supermarkets, Senators, Congressmen, the Secretary of Agriculture and the President himself, denouncing the capitalists and their government for creating all the ills that face the farmer. No more can the bourgeoisie portray the individual farmer as someone who is silent and stoic, who will blindly follow the dictates of the government, as someone who will accept mere crumbs for his toil in the field. Today from Washington, D. C., to California, from the Texas Panhandle up to Montana, this image is being drowned in the shouts of thousands of farmers marching shoulder to shoulder, demanding a decent living and sending the capitalists and their representatives in government scurrying in every direction.

Demonstrations and rallies have become a daily occurrence. In Washington, D.C., nearly 10,000 farmers, shouting "Hell no, we won't grow!" gathered for seven days to protest the government's program to strangle the farmer. Approaching the Capital from Virginia, the farmers driving four-abreast were met by a state trooper who ordered them into single file. Showing the disdain the farmers have towards the armed force of the capitalist government and its orders to liquidate the demonstration, the militant farmers promptly drove the state trooper's patrol car off the road and into a guard-rail, causing him minor injuries. They then continued their march into Washington. Closer to the Capital, the police again attempted to end the tractor demonstration by setting up a blockade. This time the farmers rammed a police car and several shots were reportedly fired. Undaunted by the attempts of the government to use its ''might" to end the march, the farmers drove into Washington, D. C.

Once they were there, the farmers picketed President Carter's State of the Union message, knowing that Carter's agricultural program is to aid the rich and bury the struggling farmers. Farmers also staged a take-over of Agricultural Secretary Bergland's office to demand a meeting with him. At this meeting it became very clear that the government has been shaken by the present waves of farmer protests. Trying to extinguish the militancy of the protests, Sec. Bergland said to the demonstrating farmers, "Don't block highways and don't tear up the town" and declared that their strike is "a spectacular success as long as you stay within the law". To the striking farmers, Bergland's words must have had a curious ring, considering that just a day before, in order to carry out their tractor-cade into Washington, the farmers had to break the capitalists' law and fight the capitalists' police and then they had to break the capitalists' law again by taking over Bergland's office, just to get him to meet with them!

Actions by farmers in other parts of the country also showed that farmers are not heeding Bergland's advice at all. In Lubbock, Texas, 2,000 farmers prevented distribution of the early edition of Avalanche Journal, the city's daily newspaper, in protest against the paper's editorial referring to them as "goons". The farmers finally ended the demonstration when the editor apologized to them using a public address system in a police car. In other protests, tractors blocked shipments from Affiliated Food Stores, Safeway and Borden Milk warehouse in the Texas Panhandle. In Oklahoma City, the stockyard capitalists called out the police in their attempts to stop farmers from picketing the gates, In Mayfield, Kentucky, striking farmers closed packing plants and stockyards. In Montana, the Western Grain company was forced to shut down and cattle and hog sales were stopped, In South Carolina, farmers closed down warehouses. This action resulted in the Farmers Market in this state nearly running out of vegetables. In Champagne, Illinois, the largest com-producing county in the world, farmers on 600-700 tractors participated in a rally. And in the state of Washington, farmers with the aid of the longshoremen have stopped the loading of grain barges. These demonstrations and the many others which have taken place throughout the country, fly in the face of the lies of the government that the farmers' strike, "is small", "will die out soon", "has no support among the working class" and "has no effect on the food supply". They show that just the opposite is true, that if the farmers persist in their struggle and continue their resistance, they will win victory.

Farm strikes and demonstrations are not something new to the U.S. Farmers have waged many successful struggles to prevent eviction and sales of small farmers' lands, and have engaged in armed clashes with government forces, who work in the interest of the big money-bags. In the 60's and 70's, on numerous occasions throughout the U.S., farmers have either witheld their crops or animals from the market or destroyed them in protest against low prices.

The rich and their government try to pass off as truth the fraud that farmers are the chief cause of higher food prices for the working class. They shame-facedly point to the 56% rise in the cost of food over the last five years and make the claim that the small farmer must be lining his wallet from the pay checks of the working class. Nothing could be further from the truth. The prices which the farmers receive for their crops and livestock have only the most remote relationship with the city-market prices of foodstuffs. There is an enormous gap. This gap represents the tremendous profits of monopoly capital which controls the marketing machinery (packing houses, creameries, grain elevators, transportation, etc.). It is monopoly capital which follows the policy of driving down the prices it pays to the farmer for his products and to keep up the prices it charges to the working class.

In 1977 food prices soared 8%, rising 2. 3% alone in the month of December. At the same time, the prices farmers received for their crops dipped 1.6% below 1976, to the lowest level in four years. This price level and subsequent loss in income imposed by the monopoly vultures affects farmers in general. But for the food wholesalers, processors and supermarkets, the story was quite different. Profits in the food-processing industry were expected to be 55% higher than 1973 and 8.8% higher than 1976. For the meat-packing industry the situation is the same; profits will rise 78.2% from 1973. The food-wholesaling industry continues to reap windfall profits from the sweat and toil of the farmers and workers, with three of the largest companies, Malone and Hyde, Super Value Stores and Fleming Co., expected to rake in 139% higher profits in 1977 than in 1973 and 22.5% higher than last year.

In 1977, according to the Department of Agriculture figures, the American people spent an estimated $180 billion on farm-produced food. Of that farmers were expected to receive $56 billion, while the food-processors, wholesalers, etc., will glean the other $124 billion. On this basis, farmers are receiving a mere 31.1£ out of $1.00 the people spend on food, and the food-processors, wholesalers, meat-packing industry, etc., will get the other 68.9£. From 1975 to the present, the percentage of the food dollar going to the farmer has decreased from 42% to 31.1%, and increased from 58% to 68.9% for the "middlemen".

The facts clearly show it is the food-processors, wholesalers, grain speculators, etc., that is, the big monopoly capitalists, who are the common enemies of the small farmer and the working class. They are the cause of both low prices to the farmers and high prices to the working class. It is they who continue to harvest maximum profits at the expense of the small farmers and the working class. It is no wonder that the striking farmers have targeted these extortionists for their wrath. But only when the movement of the small farmers merges with that of the working class and overthrows the rule of monopoly capital will these birds of prey vanish from the earth. And then, under a system of voluntary collectivization of agriculture, will the small farmer achieve a decent living and liberation. End.

[Back to Top]

ANTI-FASCISTS HEROICALLY RESIST POLICE ATTACK IN SEATTLE:

FIGHT THE FASCIST ANTI-BUSING MOVEMENT!

Active resistance is the only path to defeat growing fascism!

On January 26, anti-fascist and anti-racist workers in Seattle waged a heroic resistance battle against a savage attack by the fascist police. The police violently attacked seven anti-fascists as one of them denounced a meeting of the racist and fascist anti-busing movement in the Rainier Valley community of Seattle. In a 25-minute battle the anti-fascists fought heroically, never capitulating to racism and fascism. Several police were severely punished before the seven Afro-American, Filipino and white workers were arrested. The anti-busing movement was thoroughly denounced and exposed before the 250 people present, many of whom vigorously opposed the cowardly attack. The government-organized nature of this movement, which openly showed itself to be police-protected and police-organized, was demonstrated for all to see. The attempt of the capitalists to demoralize the anti-fascist masses and paint the anti-busing movement as "anti-racist" by organizing a successful meeting in a national minority area -- using the Filipino Community Center located in a largely Black community -- was utterly smashed. The militant struggle of the Seattle Branch of COUSML and other anti-fascists won the warm support of the Seattle working class, of the Afro-American people and all progressive people, who have been animatedly discussing the struggle at work, in the community and in the schools ever since it took place. This powerful blow at the government's efforts to organize a fascist anti-busing movement in Seattle has thrown the capitalists into a frenzy. Like a guilty criminal, they can't stop talking about it in their news media.

The Seattle events show that the monopoly capitalist class is still trying to organize the fascist anti-busing movement in order to attack the Black people and to split the working class. Despite the setbacks the anti-busing movement has received everywhere at the hands of the Afro-Americans and the progressive movement of all nationalities, the Seattle events show that the capitalists have not given up their nazi plans. The government continues to send its police to organize and protect the fascist movement. Therefore the people must step up their struggle to smash the anti-busing movement and defeat all government-organized racist and fascist attacks.

The Workers' Advocate enthusiastically hails and warmly supports the fighting spirit and heroic deeds of the anti-fascists of Seattle. Their struggle shows how to fight growing fascism: by active resistance -- not by relying on an allegedly pro-people aspect of the state and pinning one's hopes on the capitalist courts and fancy-Dan lawyers, on the Democratic Party, Jimmy Carter and the sold-out labor bureaucrats, but on mobilizing the masses for active fighting, fighting tit-for-tat against racist and fascist attacks. Only by active resistance can the fascism organized by the government be defeated.

The Workers' Advocate reprints below the important statement issued by the Seattle Branch of the COUSML on February 1, 1978, clarifying the events in Seattle, along with the leaflet issued by the Seattle Branch and distributed in large numbers prior to the January 26 meeting, calling on the masses to struggle against the fascist anti-busing movement. The full text of both the statement and the leaflet follow:

STATEMENT OF THE SEATTLE BRANCH OF CENTRAL ORGANIZATION OF U.S. MARXIST-LENINISTS (COUSML) ON THE COWARDLY FASCIST POLICE ATTACK OF THE STATE-ORGANIZED "ANTI-BUSING" MOVEMENT AT THE FILIPINO COMMUNITY CENTER (JANUARY 26)

FOLLOW THE HEROIC EXAMPLE OF ACTIVE RESISTANCE TO STATE-ORGANIZED RACIST AND FASCIST ATTACKS!

(Note by Seattle Branch: After intensive and painstaking investigation, the Seattle Branch, COUSML, issues this important statement. Below we will detail the crimes of the fascist police at the so-called "anti-busing" meeting in Rainier Valley, as well as uphold the spirited and courageous active resistance of the progressive and revolutionary people who defended themselves against the gestapo-like attack. Also, we will deepen our exposure of the "anti-busing" movement in Seattle as government-organized and racist to the core. Lastly, we call on the workers, the Afro-American and other oppressed nationalities, all downtrodden and oppressed people to actively participate in the anti-fascist, anti-racist mass movement.)

I. TURNING TRUTH ON ITS HEAD CANNOT SAVE THE GOVERNMENT-ORGANIZED "ANTI-BUSING" MOVEMENT

Recently in Seattle, the government-organized racist and fascist "anti-busing" movement suffered its first major setback. The cowardly and fascist police attack on the Marxist-Leninist militants of COUSML and the other progressive anti-fascist and anti-racist workers has demonstrated in the clearest way that the "law-abiding", "respectable" anti-busing movement is nothing but a tool of the government of the rich to intensify the attacks on the Black people and to weaken and divide the working class on a racial basis in the midst of the developing revolutionary upsurge. The large-scale police attack, coordinated with the leaders of CIVIC, at the Filipino Community Center on January 26th made it clear as a bell that the "anti-busing" movement is state-organized.

The seven Marxist-Leninists and anti-fascists who were arrested for practicing self-defense have provided the Afro-American people, other oppressed nationalities, workers of all nationalities, and all progressive people with a self-sacrificing example on how to oppose the racist and fascist movement in its early stages of development. Tremendous support has been given to them by the oppressed people because active resistance to state-organized racist and fascist attacks reflects the deepest heartfelt desire of the masses. At a time when the government attacks on the Black people and the immigrants is the cutting edge of the attempt to organize fascist mass movements, and at a time when the economic crisis is being shifted onto the backs of the working class, a revolutionary upsurge in the U.S. is brewing. How this class struggle is conducted is a crucial question. Fascist violence, political deception and demagoguery are used by the state to suppress this developing upsurge. The COUSML firmly advocates that revolutionary struggle against the monopoly capitalist dictators and their government is the order of the day. It is the duty of the Marxist-Leninists to provide leadership to the anti-fascist movement and to the class struggle of the working class on all fronts. It is this uncompromising, revolutionary struggle that scares the rich out of their wits. The monopoly capitalist class lives in daily fear of the working and oppressed people, (and especially of the revolutionary Afro-American workers and youth), rising up to defend their basic interests. For this reason, the capitalist bloodsuckers organize and incite fascist movements to suppress the American working class and people. This is the motive behind the racist and fascist "anti-busing" movement.

Locally, the leaders of the "anti-busing" movement (deceptively calling itself Citizens for Voluntary Integration Committee - CIVIC) made a big gamble in trying to organize in Rainier Valley. They reasoned that if they could establish influence right in the midst of the very people who are the immediate target (the Afro-American people) of this segregationist movement, their political fortunes would greatly increase in every other part of the city. If their "anti-government" rhetoric ("against forced busing", "freedom of choice", etc.) and poison could take root here, then it would be easier to cover up their real aims and to organize a big fascist mass movement. But unable to fool the Afro-American and other oppressed people, the CIVIC leaders in coordination with the police launched a violent attack on progressive and revolutionary Afro-Americans, Filipino, Chinese, and white workers. As a result, these political gamblers lost their shirts.

Because the Afro-Americans and other progressive people actively resisted this gestapo-like attack and displayed the utmost heroism in denouncing the crimes of the fascists, the monopoly capitalist class (through the news media and numerous government spokesmen) became hysterical. They immediately turned truth on its head about what actually occurred at the meeting. They feebly blamed the COUSML as the cause of the "disturbance". David Moberly, Superintendent of Public Schools, never tired of describing COUSML as "bent on violence and destruction", "political crazies", etc., and immediately ran off into the arms of the CIVIC leaders (where he's actually been all the time!) and praised them for being law-abiding, reasonable, etc. The real reason that this wild attack has been launched on the COUSML is that the COUSML not only has exposed how the government (mainly through its agent, Moberly) has organized and incited the "anti-busing" movement, but also has provided the leadership on how to fight state-organized racist and fascist attacks.

Literally hundreds of thousands of people in the Seattle area witnessed first-hand the violent police provocation and attack on TV. The capitalist state has become panicky because of the exposure of the police link with CIVIC. The ''anti-government" mask of the "anti-busing" movement has been ripped off. Now the capitalist state is desperately trying to keep their "anti-busing" movement from immediately going on the skids.

II. ACTUAL COURSE OF EVENTS AT THE "ANTI-BUSING" MEETING IN RAINIER VALLEY

Prior to the meeting, numerous unmarked police cars were parked outside the meeting hall in about a six-block radius. Regular SPD patrol cars heavily patrolled the area, from Rainier Vista to the north and in the Holly Park area to the south. Harassment of the masses in the area was a common sight. Plainclothes police flipped their badges on people outside the hall who voiced opposition to this police- state surveillance (including police with unmarked cameras who took pictures of everyone entering the hall). Following the meeting, a group of Black youth, including two Black girls from Rainier Vista, were also assaulted by the police.

Inside the meeting itself, the two plainclothesmen who were supposedly "hired" by the CIVIC leaders to suppress "disruptions", were setting up the hall, stapling together leaflets, and handing them out to people as they entered the hall. They were well acquainted with all the "anti-busing" organizers. Robert Dorse, demagogic leader of CIVIC, had conversations with three plainclothesmen about their duties at the meeting. Both the police and the CIVIC leaders regularly used the phone on the northeast side of the hall. Just as the meeting started, a CIVIC leader was overheard on the phone saying, "OK, bring them in". At this time at least a half dozen more plainclothesmen entered the hall, most of them fully equipped with pistols and handcuffs.

Those who attended the meeting were mainly people organized from the north end and West Seattle by CIVIC (about 200). Only about 30 people from the area attended, and most of them came to oppose the segregationist leaders of CIVIC. The participation of Afro-Americans was very low, primarily because the Black people know that this "anti-busing" movement is up to no good. However, many Afro-Americans who did attend took an active part in the denunciations, together with the Marxist-Leninists and progressive people, against the police when they launched their cowardly attack. CIVIC's leader addressed the meeting. After a few sentences (the last being, "With CIVIC's efforts to stop busing, we will definitely win"), an Afro- American worker stood up to tell the truth about the "anti-busing" movement. He boldly stated: "I have to interrupt you at this time, because it is important that a few things be clarified before the people tonight. The real aim of CIVIC is to prepare conditions for attacking the Afro-American people. The Afro- American people have a long and bitter experience with the fascist 'anti-busing' movement". At this point, the two plainclothesmen jumped up and grabbed him. When he continued to speak despite this harassment, one of the cops said, with a sadistic laugh: "I am a police officer and you're under arrest for disturbing a lawful meeting." Meanwhile, Dorse was haranguing the Black worker to sit down, to wait like a "good" slave for the "question and answer" period, which the expert quickly resorted to under the pressure of the masses. CIVIC is, like any fascist organization, tightly controlled at the top by the dictators (in this case, by a handful of racist businessmen), who keep their members in ignorance (except the police members, of course), who do not allow democratic discussion inside their organization nor in public meetings they sponsor. Extremely fearful of being exposed, the CIVIC police goon squad was unleashed. Many of the police goon squad were CIVIC members (which was even admitted in the bourgeois press).

As the two plainclothesmen dragged the worker backwards and tried to arrest him, the progressive and revolutionary people in the meeting were demanding his right to speak and also demanding his release from the clutches of the police. A few went to where the struggle was taking place. About a dozen plainclothesmen rushed to the scene and began kicking and slugging the anti-fascists. Dorse, frightened, scampered off the stage and huddled together with his CIVIC cronies, who were praying that the police would make a "quick job" of the arrest. Though greatly outnumbered by the fascists the progressive people stood as firm as a rock and continued to denounce the fascist police attack and the state-organized "anti-busing" movement. The fight quickly spread in the area where it originally occurred. Three or four cops ganged up on each of the heroic anti-racist, anti-fascist fighters, who defiantly slipped their grasp and answered their fascist violence with militant self-defense.

At the start of the police provocation and attack, an Afro-American youth went to the stage and denounced the racist police over the microphone. He militantly stated that, "This is exactly what he (the Afro-American who first exposed the fascist "anti-busing" movement -- ed.) said was going to happen. You can see for yourself." CIVIC leaders quickly turned on him and threatened him with arrest!

By this time, the fascists were going wild. One of the police members of CIVIC was punching and kicking the Afro-American worker in the groin and using gutter racist abuse against him. The three Afro- American, Filipino, and white workers who were later arrested were continually choked, kicked, and struck on the head with hard weapons. Still the fascists could not subdue their fighting will! Others in the meeting denounced the racist and fascist police and defended themselves from the cowardly attack of the police. The fighting heroism of the glorious Afro-American struggle, of the immigrant peoples, and the American working class was valiantly upheld. Never once was there capitulation to the nazis.

At one point, the Filipino manager of the hall demanded the release of the anti-fascist Filipino (who is widely known and respected among the Filipino masses as a revolutionary organizer) who had been pinned against the wall. Shortly thereafter, an undercover fascist attempted to murder him, right in the Filipino Community Center, by choking him unconscious. But the heroic fighter regained his balance and continued to resist, and denounce the crimes of the police. Also, an anti-fascist worker disarmed one of the undercover police and held his gun up in full view as an exposure of the fascist police as the terrorist, armed instrument of the government of the rich. He then tossed the gun across the room so as to prevent the police from using it against the progressive people. Contrary to the Hitlerite big lies of the capitalist politicians, this once again illustrated that it is the fascist police, not the Marxist-Leninists and progressive people, who terrorize the masses and carry guns into public meetings.

Even the hard-core CIVIC people were stunned by the fascist attack. About 30 people immediately left the hall in disgust. Black youth in the back of the hall were outraged. At the same time, the racists and fascists were agitating for arrests and were stating that these people only want publicity (!) and don't have manners (!). In other words, these reactionaries are propagandists for Hitlerite fascism and suggest that the people should accept being beaten silly by the fascists and blissfully accept being deceived by the rhetoric of the government-organized fascists.

After about twenty-five minutes of valiant active resistance, the fascist police finally succeeded in arresting six progressive and revolutionary workers. At the time of the arrests, there were well over 25 police (uniformed and plainclothes) manhandling the fighters. Unafraid to speak the truth, the denunciation of the racists and fascists continued: Down with the Fascist "Anti-busing" Movement! Long Live the Afro-American Struggle Against Racial Discrimination and Violent Repression! The American Working.Class Will Never Accept Fascism! Long Live Active Resistance to Fascism! Strengthen the Revolutionary Unity of the Working Class!

As another expression of the attack being racist, the police arrested an Afro-American youth who demanded to see the badge number of one of the fascists. Later at the Georgetown precinct, he was slugged in the face by a policeman, who held his badge in his fist.

The fascist police were badly shaken, and a number of them had received their just rewards. Their "invincibility", which is so widely promoted in the media, proved to be sham. It was proven in practice that the Black people and all oppressed people have only contempt for racism and fascism, and a genuine burning desire for freedom and revolution.

While the police "bravely" beat the anti-fascists after handcuffing them and throwing them into the squad cars, a few dozen Afro-Americans in the area started to gather outside the hall. By this time, there were at least 30 squad cars surrounding the hall, traffic on Empire Way was backed up for blocks, and fascists converged on the area in large numbers. The police blocked the entrance to the hall and sealed off the rear of the meeting hall itself.

In order for the racist meeting to re-convene, a police sergeant had to chair the meeting. He threatened to arrest anyone who dared speak out against the CIVIC leader. This was a symbolic proof of the state-organized racist and fascist nature of the "anti-busing" movement. Even after the threat, the Marxist-Leninists and progressive masses levelled denunciations at the anti-busingleaders and condemned in militant terms the real aims and motives of the fascist "anti-busing" movement, ridiculed the rhetoric of "freedom of choice" as pure deception to hide the segregationist aims and the flag-waving racism and fascism of the state-organized "anti-busing" movement.

Those who refused to submit to the all-out fascist attack in no uncertain terms upheld the spirited and death-defying heroism of the Black people's struggle for freedom and complete emancipation, and the powerful driving force of the American workers' movement. The everyday beatings and harassment of the people by the police are not so easily forgotten. This is why the masses of Black people and working people cheered on the active resistance against the fascist attack when it was partially replayed on TV for 3 consecutive days.

As for the COUSML, we vow to never submit, accept, nor capitulate to the fascist attacks of the monopoly capitalist class, anywhere they occur in society. We will always uphold the fighting and revolutionary traditions of the American proletariat (and slaves) who smashed slavery and who are now fighting to free themselves of the shackles of monopoly capital today.

Never once did the Marxist-Leninists and progressive fighters capitulate to the fascists, not even when they were handcuffed and beaten at the Georgetown dungeon. It is for this reason that the police did not become even wilder.

The statements of the police after the arrests revealed the true nature of the police-led fascist "anti-busing" movement. One said: "We know for a fact that this is a racist movement." Others made the most outrageous racist and anti-communist insults. Some police threatened to kill the heroic anti-fascist fighters.

The charges laid were: obstructing justice; resisting arrest; and third-degree assault. One Afro-American was charged with possession of "drugs" (pills for migraine headaches, vitamin C, and aspirin). Also, a "conspiratorial" note was found, which simply stated that the police were present at the meeting!

All the trademarks of the fascists were vividly exposed at this meeting: their racist, anti-working class, and anti-communist nature; their mystification of the truth about what occurred at the meeting; and their use of counter-revolutionary violence to achieve their aims. All these trademarks are today being upheld by government spokesmen of the rich, who were scared to death by the active resistance to their racism and fascism.

The police-led CIVIC stands exposed. Now is the time to step up the struggle to smash the government-organized fascist "anti-busing" movement. No amount of lies and demagogy can suppress the struggle against racial discrimination and fascist violent repression!

ACTIVE RESISTANCE TO STATE-ORGANIZED RACIST AND FASCIST ATTACKS IS THE ONLY WAY!

LONG LIVE THE AFRO-AMERICAN STRUGGLE AGAINST RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND VIOLENT REPRESSION!

STRENGTHEN THE REVOLUTIONARY UNITY OF THE AMERICAN WORKING CLASS!

SMASH THE GOVERNMENT-ORGANIZED FASCIST "ANTI-BUSING" MOVEMENT!

(Below is reprinted the leaflet distributed by the Seattle Branch of the COUSML before the January 26 meeting.)

SMASH THE GOVERNMENT-ORGANIZED FASCIST ANTI-BUSING MOVEMENT!

In recent weeks in Seattle the fascist anti-busing movement has been organizing in different parts of the city and is being widely promoted in the capitalist news media. Discussions among the people on the questions of school integration and busing have been raging. After nearly two years of doing massive propaganda against "forced busing" and creating a great deal of confusion on the democratic demand of school integration, the Seattle School Board (SSB) suddenly issued its own busing plan (the Seattle Plan) on December 14 and the fascist anti-busing movement (CIVIC) then immediately began organizing to carry out the real aims of the government to stir up conflicts among the people to the maximum and to attack the Afro-American people.

The monopoly capitalist class and its government (indirectly the Seattle School Board), which actually organized and instigated the anti-busing movement, is attempting to completely mystify why and how this racist movement came into being and what are the real issues in this burning question.

WHAT IS THE ANTI-BUSING MOVEMENT AND WHAT IS BUSING ?

The monopoly capitalists are attempting to reverse the gains the Afro-Americans made in their heroic and glorious struggles of the 1960's. The struggle of the Afro-American people against violent repression and racial discrimination was one of the main currents of the massive revolutionary storms of the 1960's. The Afro-American people shook the imperialist system to its very foundations and smashed a number of barbarous, semi-slave aspects of the Jim Crow System of racial discrimination. School integration was a democratic demand of the Black and white masses in these great struggles against racial discrimination and violent repression of the 1960's, one which was won to a limited extent in the South but which remained only a promise in the North. Wave upon wave the Afro-American people advanced and in many cities fought "mighty" United States imperialism to a standstill. The monopoly capitalists are still smarting from these defeats and are plotting revenge against the Afro-American people. They are developing attacks on the Black people and other oppressed nationalities as the cutting edge of growing fascism in the U.S.

Thus the U.S. government, which completely serves the monopoly capitalist dictators, organized the fascist anti-busing movement to drive the Afro- American people back into semi-slavery and to disrupt and attack the workers' movement. As the experience in Boston and Louisville clearly showed, the anti-busing movement is a fascist movement of attack on Black people and on the working class in general. Violently and in other ways it attacks the democratic right of the Black workers and other Afro-American people to have their children attend integrated public schools together with the children of white workers and other laboring white people. This is the immediate aim of the anti-busing movement, not defending some supposed "democratic right" of whites to go to a segregated school next door to their house rather than to an integrated school a few miles away.

Buses are only a necessary means of transportation between segregated communities. Buses, as a modern means of transportation, are routinely used for all sorts of purposes, including busing children for forced segregation. Thus school integration, not the riding of buses, is the heart of the question.

In the last several years the monopoly capitalists have taken this demand and promoted it in a distorted way in an attempt to turn it into an instrument for deceiving and splitting the workers and suppressing the Afro-American people. They tried to take advantage of the low level of the Afro-American, workers' and students' movements in Boston and Louisville for example, hoping to be able to present school integration in such a disruptive and mutilated way as to stir up conflicts among the people to a high pitch, organize a fascist mass movement, and not only sabotage further integration but deprive the Afro-American people of the meager rights they won in the 1960's. And in revenge drive them backwards towards the most barbaric features of the Jim Crow segregationist system. Under the hoax of "quality education", they want to restore Black people to the status of "separate but equal", that is, segregated and entirely unequal. To accomplish this, the monopoly capitalists are trying to mobilize a section of white workers and other laboring white people to go against their own real class interests, split the working class, take the side of the bloodthirsty capitalist class enemy and trample on the Afro-Americans' rights, up to and including making violent lynch mob attacks on Black people, thus performing the role of hangmen of the U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie. The capitalists would like nothing better than to split the working class on a racial basis. This would undermine the over-all struggle of the working class and oppressed people against the shifting of the burden of the capitalist economic crisis onto their backs, against the growing fascism and war preparations of the U.S. government, and for the anti-fascist proletarian socialist revolution.

The plans of the government have been upset by the rapid development of the anti-fascist mass movement. The experience of this struggle showed once again the tremendous revolutionary potential of the Afro-American people and of the movement against racial discrimination and violent repression. It was the antifascist mass movement that put the anti-busing movement on the skids in many places. Besides the resistance to the fascist mass movement itself, there was also shown to be an extremely strong sentiment of the working masses for integrated education. All the demagogy of the politicians to the contrary, it is because school integration by busing has been accepted by the masses --who are willing to fight to defend it -- that the courts keep altering, distorting and rescinding the busing plans. The capitalist state is actually increasing segregation in the schools and constantly trying to devise new methods to develop the fascist anti-busing movement.

THE ANTI-BUSING MOVEMENT IN SEATTLE REPRESENTS NEW METHODS OF THE GOVERNMENT TO DEVELOP THE FASCIST MASS MOVEMENT

The anti-busing movement did not rear its ugly head in Seattle on the basis of court-ordered busing. Rather it was the immediate by-product of a busing plan issued by the SSB on December 14. When the plan was issued, the SSB was not under "investigation" by the federal government (Office of Civil Rights) for deliberately segregating the schools.

This is a strange turnaround for the school board. Over the last 15 years, since the first Voluntary Racial Transfer program began in 1963, the board issued 14 "quality integrated education" resolutions of one kind or another. During this whole period, the schools became increasingly segregated, especially the elementary schools. When the ACLU and NAACP threatened lawsuits in 1976 against the board for deliberately segregating the schools, hysteria was created in the mass media over the possibility of court-ordered busing in Seattle. The board floated the "voluntary desegregation proposals" and ended up adopting the Magnet Programs on March 16, 1977. Even before the programs were instituted, the board passed yet another resolution on June 8 to end racial segregation in the schools by the 1979-80 school year. This was followed by the announcement in September that once again community "discussions" would be held on how to desegregate the schools and that two plans, one voluntary and one mandatory, would be chosen as the means to integrate the schools. David Moberly, superintendent of the district, then arbitrarily announced the Seattle Plan on December 14. The plan called for the integration of the elementary schools and involved 9,000 children in the first year of the plan. Never once explaining why the masses should support the democratic demand for integrated education but instead mobilizing people on the "lesser of two evils" (voluntary instead of mandatory), Moberly announced the plan. By this time, Moberly and the board had the segregationists worked up to the maximum and had prepared conditions for the open fascist organizers of the anti-busing movement to recruit on a city-wide basis. A merger of small anti-busing groups from West Seattle, Magnolia, and the North End immediately took place.

To show where Moberly really stands, he made statements to these organizers at recent PTSA meetings that if they didn't like the plan (which by the way is open to revision), they could vote out the school board, use the legislative process of the capitalist government to wipe out school integration, discourage integration in numerous ways, but they should "restrain themselves" from launching violent racist attacks against the Afro-Americans and others to be involved in the busing plan!

The racist anti-busing movement is ridiculously calling itself the Committee for Voluntary Integration Committee (CIVIC). The CIVIC leaders have adopted "anti-government" rhetoric ("against forced busing", "maintain our freedom of choice", etc.) to hide their fascist nature and to win support among some sections of the white working people. Its top leadership is a gang of racist businessmen, who have actively agitated against the democratic right of the Afro- American people to attend integrated schools since 1966, who have innumerable connections in the government, and who were previously associated with the Committee Against Mandatory Busing (CAMB).

CAMB did basically two things from 1970-73: 1. opposed the integration of the schools; and 2. provided a "legal", "respectable" movement through which organized fascists (like the American Nazi Party, the KKK, the John Birch Society, etc.) spread their filthy racism and white chauvinism and agitated for violent attacks against Black youth in north end schools (which occurred at Lincoln High and Eckstein in 1971).

At the present time CIVIC is in the process of making a futile attempt to organize in Rainier Valley. (CIVIC MEETING: Thursday, Jan. 26, 1978, 7:30 pm -- Filipino Community Center, 5740 Empire Way So.)

THE PROLETARIAT WILL NEVER ACCEPT FASCISM AND WILL SMASH THE FASCIST ANTI-BUSING MOVEMENT

Rainier Valley is a working class area, comprised of working people of different nationalities and races -- Afro-American, white, and immigrant workers. The open presence of the fascist anti-busing movement is an ugly insult to the working people of the area. The very same fascists who are organizing racist attacks under deceptive "anti-government" rhetoric, and whose aim is to split and weaken the workers' movement, think that they can fool the antifascist people. This will never happen. The Black workers and youth, whose uncompromising revolutionary struggle inspires the entire revolutionary movement, must not let this insult go unanswered. And the immigrant workers, who are inspired by the storm of anti-imperialist struggle in their homelands and know first-hand the treatment meted out to people of color by the U.S. government, must fight the fascists just as they so heroically fight the U.S. imperialists in their oppressed nations. And the white workers, who have been called upon by the racists to be the hangman of his class brothers, must boldly step forward and rally your powerful arm to completely smash the fascist anti-busing movement and thereby forge unbreakable revolutionary unity of the American working class against the common enemy.

We in the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists take as our central point to lead and encourage the mass movement for active resistance to fascism and to smash the fascist anti-busing movement. Only by militantly taking up this task can the working class be firmly united in preparation for the anti-fascist proletarian socialist revolution, which will establish real democracy for the proletariat and oppressed people.

DOWN WITH THE FASCIST ANTI-BUSING MOVEMENT! End.

[Back to Top]

The Bakke Case: A Signal for Increased Attacks on the Black People Under the Banner of Ending a Mythical "Reverse Discrimination"

The Bakke "reverse discrimination" case has been trumpeted far and wide by the bourgeoisie. A big fuss about "reverse discrimination against whites" has been created. This alleged "reverse discrimination" is a big nazi lie. The Afro-American people and other oppressed nationality people still have shorter life-spans, lower incomes, worse jobs, higher unemployment rates and worse treatment by the police and the capitalist authorities than whites. The only improvement in the condition of the Afro-American people has been as a result of their heroic revolutionary struggle, such as the two decades of glorious struggle since the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955. And today the racial discrimination is especially painful for the Afro-American masses because it comes on top of the suffering caused by the economic crisis. The "reverse discrimination" fraud is an open declaration by the capitalists that they intend to step up attacks on the Afro-American people and other oppressed nationalities as the cutting edge of their attempt to create fascist mass movements to attack the entire working class and all progressive people.

The Bakke case concerns, on the face of it, only a medical school. But under the banner of opposing "reverse discrimination", Afro-Americans and other oppressed nationalities will be thrown whole-sale out of industries and schools. Already other legal cases have been filed, some decisions taken, and other steps taken to intensify racialdiscrimination in the name of opposing "reverse discrimination". The Bakke case has been a signal for a new government-organized offensive for increased segregation.

THE FACTS OF THE BAKKE CASE

The Bakke case is a legal suit brought by Alan Bakke, a white, Californian, middle-aged (37-year old) engineer for the National Space and Aeronautics Agency (NASA). He alleges that because he is white he was discriminated against when he applied for admission to the medical school at the University of California at Davis (U.C. at Davis). To support this ridiculous claim, Bakke uses the following sick logic. He claims that because 16 students of oppressed nationalities were admitted with lower college grades than his in a "special admissions" program, therefore he was a victim of "reverse discrimination". But the fact is that 36 whites were also admitted with lower grades than Bakke. Bakke did not file suit against these 36 whites, but reserved his anger for the smaller number of "non-whites". As a matter of fact, Bakke had been rejected at 12 other medical schools, one of which did not admit any students of the oppressed nationalities at all. The real immediate reason that Bakke was rejected at all these schools was his age. He was 11 years older than the average medical student when he applied for admission.

It is quite clear that Bakke, as a well-paid NASA engineer, is far better off than the overwhelming majority of Afro-Americans and even than all but the very top stratum of the entire working masses of whatever nationality. He is not a "victim of discrimination", but simply an over-privileged professional. He is fighting not for a source of livelihood, but for a second profession. And how does he wage that fight? He was kept out of medical school because of his age. Medical schools only train a small number of doctors. The medical profession restricts the supply of doctors (while hypocritically complaining of long hours of work) in order to keep a monopoly on medical services and extort high salaries. So few doctors are trained that the U.S. relies on stealing foreign- trained doctors to keep the U.S. supplied. Bakke did not fight against these restrictions of the medical schools. He is not for extending medical training. He is not concerned with the medical problems of the masses, and the fact that the oppressed nationalities have even less doctors per capita in their ghettos and an even worse medical situation than the bad situation prevailing for the working class in general. All he is concerned with is making his own way into medical school by expelling the students from oppressed nationalities. With typical chauvinist logic, he is enraged by the presence of the oppressed nationalities. He fought in Viet Nam against the Vietnamese people, ending up with the rank of captain. U.S. aggression in Viet Nam did not offend his sense of justice. And now he is continuing the imperialist crusade against the oppressed masses at home. He pretends to be fighting the medical school. But in fact it is well known that a member of the U. C. administration encouraged Bakke to launch-this suit because the U. C. administration wishes to get rid of the token amount of oppressed nationalities that it is forced to admit to medical school. Thus the Bakke case assumes the air of collaboration between Bakke and the U. C. administration against the oppressed nationalities: the unwritten agreement is that Bakke may win admission to medical school despite his age if he wins his suit and helps the U.C. eliminate the "non-whites".

Even with the usual bourgeois legal trickery, Bakke's case should have been thrown out of court. But since he filed his suit 3 1/2 years ago, he has been upheld by the California Supreme Court and his case is now being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. On September 7, 1977 the Carter administration, that self-proclaimed "friend of the workers and minorities", leaked the news that it was planning to support Bakke at the Supreme Court hearings. The Carter administration then filed a second brief on September 12 supporting "guidelines" but opposing "quotas". In the meantime a whole series of other "reverse discrimination" suits have been filed. A new racist and fascist offensive against the oppressed nationalities has been launched.

THE RACIST LIE OF "REVERSE DISCRIMINATION"

Why should such a flimsy case based on such racist logic get such a sympathetic hearing from the highest levels of government and from the top judicial authorities ? It is because the monopoly capitalist government is totally racist. This government is trying to organize a fascist mass movement against "reverse discrimination", just as it organized the fascist anti- busing movement. According to the capitalist political spokesmen there exists a problem in the U.S. because the U.S. government allegedly gives "special privileges" to Afro-Americans and other oppressed nationalities to make up for "past" discrimination. "Past" racial discrimination is supposed to have ended in 1964 with Johnson's "Civil Rights Bill". Now it is allegedly whites who are discriminated against. This is just a big nazi lie that is being used in an attempt to split the working class. The truth is quite the contrary:

a) The masses of the Afro-American people do not receive special privileges but instead suffer racial discrimination and violent repression. In the U.S. a small minority of rich money-bags and their military- bureaucratic government apparatus exploit and oppress the vast majority of people of all nationalities. But it is a fact of daily life in the U.S. that the oppressed nationalities are singled out by the monopoly capitalists for a special and even more severe oppression and exploitation. The "special privileges" of the Afro-Americans consist of being segregated into the worst housing and ghettos, going to the worst schools, getting the worst jobs if they are lucky enough to get any job at all, being slandered as criminals daily in the newspapers and TV, being persecuted by the racist police authorities, etc. This is how the world really is.

b) Racial discrimination against Afro-Americans and other oppressed nationalities is not a thing of the past but continues to date and is in fact increasing. The capitalists want to drive the Afro-American people back to the worst Jim Crow slavery. The liberals who talk pie in the sky about how the government runs special programs "to make up" for "past" discrimination are hiding the present increasing segregation enforced by this government. They are doing this in order to delude the masses of the oppressed nationalities into thinking of their mortal enemy, the capitalist government, as their "friend" and to create favorable ideological conditions for the open racist "anti-reverse discrimination" movement. The government's own unemployment statistics reveal the steadily worsening conditions of the oppressed nationalities. According to the government's way of counting, which underestimates the actual unemployment, the following results are found. During the last year the unemployment rate for whites decreased from the 7.0% average for 1976 to 6.1% by Oct. 1977, while the rate for "Blacks and others" increased from the 13.1% average for 1976 to 14.8% in Oct. 1977. (See the Monthly Labor Review of the U.S. Dept, of Labor for Dec. 1977) Thus the workers of the oppressed nationalities received the "special privilege" of suffering an unemployment rate over twice that for white workers.

c) It is not the Afro-Americans and other oppressed nationalities that are responsible for life's evils. It is the monopoly capitalist class which is pushing the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the workers and oppressed nationalities through speed- ups, lay-offs, cut-backs in education, unemployment insurance, social services, etc. Today it often happens that a company advertises for a dozen openings, and a few hundred or thousand people show up. If the company is forced to hire a few Blacks as tokens, it then tries to convince each and every one of the disappointed, desperate job-seekers who aren't Black that they personally would have been hired -- if only the company didn't have to hire Blacks, in this way the capitalists want to push the blame for unemployment onto the Black people, although it is crystal clear that it is the capitalists, not the Black workers, who profit from unemployment, low wages and dangerous working conditions. According to racist "logic", the Blacks are blamed for being on the welfare rolls when they are unemployed, and blamed for "taking someone else's job" when they are working.

d) Even when the oppressed nationalities secure admission to schools or get a slightly better job, they still face discrimination inside the school or on the job-site. Getting the job or the school position is not the end of the fight against racial discrimination, but the beginning.

In fact the whole issue of "reverse discrimination" is being raised to scapegoat the oppressed nationalities for the crimes of the rich in the exact same way that Hitler attacked and scapegoated the Jews in Germany.

WHY IS CARTER FOR "GUIDELINES" AND AGAINST "QUOTAS"?

The Carter administration is helping organize this "reverse discrimination" fraud. But, one may ask, why does the Carter regime support "guidelines" while opposing "quotas"? The nonsensical and contradictory nature of this stand has been noted by even the bourgeois commentators.

The reason for this stand is that on the one hand the Carter regime is engaged in an all-round fascist offensive against the people while on the other hand it is trying to sugar-coat its attacks with an image of being a "friend of the workers and minorities". To do this, the Carter regime will throw a few crumbs to a few token Afro-Americans, labor bureaucrats and others on condition that they turn traitor to the oppressed nationalities and the working-class movement.

Suppose that Carter followed an open Reaganite policy. If he vowed to immediately throw out all the oppressed nationalities, then battle lines would be drawn very sharply between the government on one hand and the working class and oppressed nationalities on the other hand. All progressive people would rally to the support of the Afro-American people. The monopoly capitalist racist dictators would be extremely isolated.

So instead Carter maintains a fiction of "guidelines" while in fact increasing segregation. This is a policy of vicious but slightly concealed reaction. "Guidelines" in place of "quotas" is designed to create the maximum squabbling and confusion, while ensuring the minimum concessions to the Afro-American people. In this way Carter hopes to increase the credibility of a number of traitors to the Black people, like Andrew Young and Detroit Mayor Coleman Young, and to mesmerize the imperialist liberals. He also aims to allow the fascists to organize against the Black people under the cover of being "anti-government", although the fact is that the fascist movement is completely state-organized. Carter's concealed reaction is a more sinister way to achieve the exact aims of the open Reaganite reactionaries.

This is the same tactic as the government uses in organizing the fascist anti-busing movement. The government sets up busing plans in the most distorted, mutilated fashion. It ensures that these plans are as inconvenient to the masses as possible. At the same time, they are limited precisely to the areas where the government feels it has the best chance of organizing reaction. When despite all odds the oppressed masses, who have a great sentiment for integration, fight the fascist anti-busing movement and when necessary even organize carpools to drive their children to the integrated schools as in Louisville, then suddenly the government pulls a new court decision out of its bag of tricks and stops the plan for integration. This court decision won't completely negate busing plans for integration, because the government intends to try again in another area or with a more sinister plan. The court is only against successful busing for integration.

The same thing is going on with "affirmative action" and "quotas". The Afro-American people have managed through their protracted, heroic struggle to enter into many branches of industry and to increase their numbers in schools and colleges. The same government which jailed, gassed, beat and murdered both militants and even pacifist civil rights workers, then turns around with a few highly publicized "quotas" to present itself as the "friend" of the Afro-American people, while in fact organizing against them. For example, fascist Nixon himself used these tactics, in1968-69 he began a conspiracy with the construction capitalists to set up a master plan to attack the construction workers. One part of this plan was to divide the country into twelve geographical regions within which all construction industry labor contracts would expire at the same time, so that workers on strike could not get employment within a whole region. At the same time there was a 75% cutback in government non-highway construction. Just at that time, started in 1969, the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, allegedly just by "coincidence", sued five building trade unions in order to get more Blacks into the skilled building trades. Nixon hoped that by forcing construction workers into unemployment at the same time as adding Black workers, he could organize a new "hard- hat" movement, i.e. a fascist mass movement among the "hard-hats" or construction workers. But this scheme never came off, just as the original "hard- hat" movement in favor of U.S. aggression in Viet Nam also fizzled. The mass of construction workers, as opposed to the sold-out labor bureaucrats, felt the justice of the demands of the Afro-American people. And it turned out that the government never really intended to integrate the construction trades after all, but only wanted to get turmoil. As it became clearer that a fascist movement could not be generated, the government lost all interest in integrating the skilled construction trades.

With "guidelines" but no "quotas", there will be the maximum fuss and publicity. The government will be in court every day on the "reverse discrimination" issue. The same plan may be first accepted as a "guideline", then dropped as a "quota", then reinstated. The result will be that almost no Afro-American will get any job from these plans, but there will be the maximum propaganda against the Afro-Americans and the alleged partiality the government is' showing to them. The government even intends to set the "poverty pimps" and sell-outs from among the different nationalities to fighting each other for a bigger share of the "guidelines".

This is how the Carter regime hopes to mobilize a fascist "anti-reverse discrimination" movement.

THE RICH ARE SEEKING REVENGE AGAINST THE HEROIC AFRO-AMERICAN PEOPLE

In the 1960's the Afro-American people rose up in a great revolutionary movement and rebellion against racial discrimination and violent repression and for complete emancipation. This movement was a great call to all the working and oppressed people in the U.S. to rise up in struggle against the monopoly capitalist dictators. It shook the U.S. imperialist system to its foundation. It forced the abolition of some of the most humiliating features of Jim Crow segregation and broke down some of the barriers used to exclude the Afro-American people and other oppressed nationalities from certain spheres of life, education and employment. The Afro-American people's movement has shown itself to be a powerful motive force for the anti-fascist proletarian socialist revolution.

The monopoly capitalists have never reconciled themselves to their defeats at the hands of the Afro- Americans, but instead have sought revenge ever since. To this end the government has built up police forces as highly armed occupation armies in the Black communities and ghettos; it has launched a massive propaganda campaign to slander the Afro- American people as "criminals" and "welfare cheats"; it has murdered hundreds of Afro-American militants and revolutionary martyrs, like Malcolm X, George Jackson, Fred Hampton and even mild liberal leaders like Martin Luther King; it has launched the fascist anti-busing movement to further segregate the schools; it is sponsoring the Klan and open nazi groups; and now it has come out with the issue of "reverse discrimination" in order to launch a drive to force the Afro-American people and other oppressed nationalities out of all the spheres of life they have entered since the 1960's, right back to the most degrading conditions of Jim Crow segregation.

THE ATTACKS AGAINST THE AFRO-AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE ATTACKS ON THE ENTIRE WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT

The attacks on the oppressed nationalities are part of a big fascist offensive against the entire working people. Today the whole capitalist world is sunk deep in an all-round economic, political and social crisis. The revolutionary movement is rapidly developing. But the nearer imperialism gets to its doom, the more frenzied and barbaric are its last, desperate death-bed struggles. The U.S. monopoly capitalists are trying to get out of the crisis by shifting the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the workers, the oppressed nationalities at home (who are overwhelmingly workers) and onto the oppressed nations abroad. To avoid revolution the U.S. capitalists are consolidating fascism at home and preparing for a new world war.

In its fascist offensive against the working masses, the government singles out the Afro-Americans and other oppressed nationalities for attack and blames them for the crimes of the rich. The government does this in order to split the workers, inculcate reactionary white chauvinism and weaken their resistance to the fascist offensive of the capitalists. Attacks on the Afro-American people are the cutting edge of the growing fascism in the U.S.

Comrade workers, denounce the "reverse discrimination" fraud of the rich and their government. Defend the unity of the workers' movement by organizing revolutionary struggle against racial discrimination and the violent racist attacks of the government. Blame the rich for all the problems of the rotten capitalist system. Support the integration of the oppressed nationalities into all spheres of industry and social life as a positive good that aids the development of the workers' movement and that is only the most elementary justice. Prepare for the anti-fascist proletarian socialist revolution which alone can smash the dictatorship of the capitalists, make the working class the ruling class and fully emancipate the Afro-American people and the other oppressed nationalities. End.

[Back to Top]

Carter-Begin "Peace" Plans: Aggressive Plots Against the Palestinian and Arab Peoples

The U.S. imperialists are striving by every means to maintain and expand their grip on the Middle East. Using their outpost, Zionist Israel, they are launching military aggression against the Arab people in southern Lebanon. They are bribing Arab leaders with U.S. economic and military aid to forsake the Arab cause. With much fanfare about "peace", the U.S. imperialists are orchestrating the sell-out negotiations between the traitor Sadat of Egypt and Israel. The U.S. imperialists aim at smashing the liberation movement of the Palestinian and Arab peoples in order to further enslave the Arab people, control the region strategically and further plunder its rich oil resources.

U.S. imperialist boss Carter and Prime Minister Begin of Israel met in Washington in December to cook up Begin's anti-Arab "peace" proposal as the basis for the Egypt-Israel "peace" negotiations. This so-called "peace" proposal was hailed by Carter as a "long step forward" and Secretary of State Vance described it as "constructive and conducive to peace". In fact, it is a monstrous insult and attack on the Arab people, denying altogether the national rights of the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, the Carter administration, hypocritically acting the role of "neutral arbiter" in the Middle East negotiations, came up with its "own" anti-Arab plans for "peace" in the Middle East. In order to appear to have a "different" stand from that of Begin, a stand based on "human rights", Carter called for letting the Palestinian people "participate in the determination of their own future". Goodness! What charity from the chieftain of the U.S. war-mongers! In fact, Carter's plan, beneath its pretty dress, is just as anti-Arab as the Carter-Begin plan. It is an attempt to create the illusion that U.S. imperialism is taking the side of the Arab people against the stubbornness of the Israeli Zionists. Both plans are authored by the U.S. imperialist desperadoes, and Carter's proposals are to be held in reserve to rescue the "peace initiative" if Begin's proposal falls flat.

THE CARTER-BEGIN PLAN: A SINISTER PLOT TO PERPETUATE ZIONIST RULE OF PALESTINE

The Carter-Begin proposal allegedly would create an "autonomous" region and grant "self-rule" to the 1.1 million Palestinian Arabs living on the West Bank of the Jordan and in the Gaza Strip, in occupied Palestine. This is just a hoax, in fact this plan would perpetuate Zionist military rule over this part of Palestine and legitimize Zionist settlement on these occupied Arab territories. The Palestinian residents of the area would be permitted to elect representatives to an "administrative council", but "security and public order", i.e., actual political power based on military control, would be the "responsibility of the Israeli authorities". The Palestinian people in this area presently oversee their own schools, courts, etc., and elect their own mayors. These mayors have demonstrated their support for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and their refusal to cooperate with the Egyptian-Israeli schemes for the liquidation of the Palestinian cause. Begin's "democratic" elections are a scheme to bypass the West Bank mayors who support the Palestinian cause. Meanwhile, the Palestinian people would remain subject to the brutal Zionist military occupation forces with their program of terrorism, genocide and confiscation of Arab land. The essence of U.S.-Israeli colonial control over this part of Palestine would remain. Carter, the supposed advocate of Palestinian rights, declared hat Israel's retention of the right to station troops on the West Bank and in Gaza is a "reasonable negotiating position"!

Further, the Carter-Begin proposal would give the residents of the West Bank and Gaza the "free choice" of either Israeli or Jordanian citizenship, including the right to representation in the parliament of either country. What this comes down to for the Palestinians is the so-called "free choice" to either recognize the Hitlerite laws and culture of Israel that relegate the Arab people to second-class citizenship, or to recognize the domination of the Hashemite feudal kingdom of Jordan, a neo-colonial puppet of U.S. imperialism. This "option of citizenship" aims at incorporating the West Bank and Gaza into Israel and at completely denying the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and an independent state comprised of their entire homeland. The proposal guarantees that Israel has the perfect right to continue its colonization program. As Israel continues to confiscate Arab land in this region and expand and establish new settlements for thousands of Israelis, the Zionist settlers would become citizens of Israel, elect representatives to the parliament, and establish racist Zionist culture as law. So by this scheme the West Bank and Gaza would actually formally become a part of Israel. In fact, this was how the state of Israel was first established. Beginning in the 1920's, both by force of fascist terror and by collaboration with certain elements of the feudal exploiting classes, the Zionists built settlements to extend their territory, leading up to the establishment of Israel in 1948. The Arabs in the part of Israel established in 1948 lived under military rule until 1966; now this region's one half million Palestinians live under a more consolidated system of settler colonialism. Zionist strategy for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip today is the same. What Carter and Begin parade as a "concession" to the Palestinians is actually a proposal for the complete incorporation of these regions into the racist and fascist state of Israel! This shows that the Zionists and their U.S. masters are greedier than ever to annex Arab land to their artificial state.

Perhaps the worst affront to the Palestinian people contained in this sham "peace" proposal of Carter and Begin is that while residents of Israel would be "entitled to acquire land and settle" in this area, Israel would have the veto power to regulate immigration of Arab refugees residing outside the West Bank and Gaza areas. These refugees, expelled from this very land by the barbaric Zionist aggressors and forced to live as refugees and guests in other Arab countries and elsewhere throughout the world, would be permitted to "immigrate in reasonable numbers". In particular, this limitation is aimed at preventing the return to Palestine of members and supporters of the PLO, who would organize from inside Israel the armed struggle to smash the Zionist state and liberate Palestine.

The American bourgeois press raves that the Carter-Begin proposal for the Sinai peninsula gives back to Egypt sovereignty over this territory stolen from it by the Zionists in 1967 through aggressive war. But the sum total of this "sovereignty" would be continued military occupation and colonization of land in the Sinai by the Zionists, a guarantee of U.S. and Israeli rights to the Strait of Tiran, a curb on Egyptian troop movements on Egypt's own territory and, as Israel's big "concession", a promise for partial military withdrawal some time in the future. Thus this proposal gives Israel the opportunity to regroup and organize its forces for future aggression while disarming the Egyptian people. In no way are the Carter-Begin proposals steps towards fulfilment of the demands of the Arab people to live free and independent. Nor do they moderate in any way the fascist military occupation of Arab territory by the Zionists, not to mention military withdrawal. Instead, they leave no other fate to Palestine but, at the whim of U.S. imperialism, Israeli Zionism and Egyptian and Jordanian reaction, to continue to languish under the jackboot of the Zionist state of Israel.

CARTER'S OWN "PLAN": AN "INDEPENDENT" PALESTINE UNDER THE DICTATE OF THE REACTIONARY KINGDOM OF JORDAN AND U.S. IMPERIALISM

While Carter fully supports and actually helped concoct the Carter-Begin "peace" proposal, the Carter administration is raising its "own" proposals for "peace" in order to portray U.S. imperialism as a "friend of the Arab people" and to prepare for the time when the liberation struggle of the Arab peoples forces Israel to make concessions in order to maintain U.S. imperialism's hold on the Middle East. Carter's plan to "solve" the Palestinian issue is that the Palestinian people should not be permitted to establish what he calls a "radical new nation in the heart of the Middle East", but that they should merely have the eventual right, after an interim international administration of the West Bank and Gaza, to hold a referendum to decide whether to remain under international control or to join with Jordan. So Carter's plan is to substitute U.S. and other foreign troops (as the UN interim international control) for Israeli troops to suppress the Palestinians. Meanwhile the U.S. imperialists would be grooming Palestinian lackeys to edge out the PLO. The final phase would be the consolidation of Palestine under reactionary Jordanian rule in the interests of U.S. imperialism. When U.S. imperialism raises as one of its "principles" Israeli withdrawal from behind 1967 borders, it really means substituting actual U.S. occupation for Israeli occupation, and as a last resort removing some of the most hated symbols of imperialist military occupation and suppression of the Arab people (open Zionist occupation), replacing them with neo-colonial domination through the Jordanian regime. Thus the Carter plan also fully denies the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, to an independent state of their own over their historic homeland. It is a call to deny the Palestinians any rights whatsoever and bring them under the harsh domination of King Hussein of Jordan and/or under the direct heel of U.S. imperialism itself. This shows that Carter, contrary to his big claims of advocating "human rights" for Palestine, has no intention of permitting the liberation of even a part of Palestine.

SADAT'S PLAN--AN ECHO OF U.S. IMPERIALISM'S PLAN

As for Sadat, by his own admission his plan for the West Bank and Gaza is almost identical to Carter's. He calls for an interim Jordanian rule for several years leading up to "self determination". When the PLO has been edged out and U.S. imperialism has consolidated its control through the Jordanian puppets the Palestinians would be given the "choice" to decide their status as Jordanian or "independent" citizens.

In the U.S., the social-chauvinist boosters of U.S. imperialism, self-styled "Marxist-Leninists" such as the leaders of the October League, are very enthusiastic about Sadat's plan. They have given great play to the fact that Sadat criticizes the zionists for "negation of Palestinian self-determination". Their praise of the Egyptian government's demand for "Palestinian people's right to self-determination" is very similar to the demagogy of the U.S. State Department and means, in fact, support for Sadat's plan to put Palestinians living on the West Bank and Gaza under the regime of the butcher of the Palestinians, King Hussein of Jordan.

These opportunists are sensitive about being exposed for the fact that they consider Sadat's treacherous "de facto recognition of Israel", which has been repudiated by the progressive people the world over, to be "a step against superpower hegemonism (The Call, Dec. 12, 1977). Therefore, they are trying to make themselves and the traitors look "militant", quoting the Egyptian Foreign Minister that "without full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza, and without Israeli recognition of the Palestinian's right to self-determination, no negotiations could take place". Well, dear phrase-mongers, it takes two to negotiate, and the negotiations continue despite the fact that the zionists have not "recognized" Sadat's self-determination plans tion of the Palestinian cause.

SHAM "PEACE" PROPOSALS SHOW WARMONGERING NATURE OF U.S. IMPERIALISM BEHIND THE SMILING MASK OF CARTER

The overall aims of the "peace" negotiations and the surrounding demagogy by U.S. imperialism and its lackeys are meant to conceal U.S. support and instigation of Zionist aggression and of treachery by Arab reaction against the Arab people, to convince the Arab people to give up their growing armed struggle against Zionism and its backer and to pass off as a plan for "true" and "lasting" peace U.S. imperialism's program for bolstering up Israel in preparation for further genocide of the Arab people and colonization of their land. The Carter-Begin proposal for the West Bank, Gaza and the Sinai, the various formulas for "peace" that Carter is offering up as "compromise plans" to "bridge the gap between Israel and Egypt", and the traitorous actions of Sadat at the behest of U.S. imperialism all reveal that the true face of Carter, behind his smiling mask, is the face of bloodthirsty, avaricious U.S. imperialism.

These sham "peace" proposals, as well as the other actions of Israel and declarations of Israel's Prime Minister Begin and others, show that U.S. imperialism and Israeli Zionism have never had any intention of changing their plans to control as much of the Middle East as they can take by force and trickery. All along Israel has been continuing to expand and increase the size and number of settlements in the West Bank, Gaza and the Sinai to surround and control the Arab population. Within recent weeks settlements have been opened up on the West Bank and in the Sinai. As Begin admitted, "Borders are not set, by markings on a map. Borders are determined by settlement." Brutal suppression of the Arab resistance to Israeli occupation -- imprisonment, murder and beatings of demonstrators against the occupation forces -- has never ceased. The Palestinian people, forced to live in Lebanon as refugees are under constant surveillance and attack by the Israelis and the Israeli-trained and supported reactionary Lebanese rightists, the Phalangists. Begin recently declared that since the Arab peoples have 21 sovereign states, the Palestinian people have no right to an independent state and self-determination! According to this Hitlerite logic, the Zionists have the right to exterminate the Arab people and expel them from their countries as long as the Zionists leave sovereign one Arab country! As the outpost for U.S. imperialism in the Middle East, Israel will never become reasonable and peace-loving, nor cease its attacks on the Arab people. On the contrary, in the face of world imperialist economic crisis, mounting Arab resistance, and U.S. imperialist and Soviet social-imperialist rivalry for control of the Middle East, Israel and its master, U.S. imperialism, are only becoming greedier and more desperate. The only path forward for the Arab people to protect and restore their rights is not to rely on the machinations and bargains of the imperialists and the Zionist and Arab reactionaries but to wage relentless revolutionary struggle to smash the Zionist state of Israel and rid the Middle East of all imperialism.

NEITHER AGGRESSION NOR DECEPTION CAN SMASH THE PALESTINIAN AND ARAB STRUGGLE!

The Arab people have demonstrated their spirit not to be stopped by the imperialists' military aggression and deceptive schemes and demagogy but to persist in struggle against Zionism and imperialism. On January 1st 10,000 supporters of the PLO rallied in Beirut to mark 13 years of armed struggle to crush Israeli Zionism and liberate their homeland. Sadat's betrayal was met by massive demonstrations of Arab people in the Middle East and throughout the world. Bomb blasts have rocked Israeli towns in protest of naked Zionist aggression in Lebanon, Sadat's betrayal of the Arab cause and the so-called "peace" negotiations. In Palestine, workers, students and villagers have participated in protests against Israeli expansionist policy. During these the Arab masses barricaded streets and battled the Zionist occupation forces. In September, Palestinian refugees and Lebanese patriots heroically repelled Israeli troops who invaded southern Lebanon armed with U.S. guns and tanks, proving that on the ground Palestinian forces are a match for the Israeli troops. The Arab people are determined to carry their struggle through to victory. End.

[Back to Top]

FURTHER BANKRUPTCY OF THE "THREE WORLDS" THEORY:

How the OL Social-Chauvinists Praise Scabs in the Fold of OPEC

Last December, in Caracas, Venezuela, OPEC held its 50th ministerial conference. The meeting closed with the decision to freeze crude oil prices until next June. This failure of the oil-producing countries to raise the price of their crude oil is a set-back for those countries struggling to protect their natural wealth from imperialist plunder and is a victory for imperialism led by the two superpowers. Since 1974, due to the pressure and intrigues of U.S. imperialism in particular, real OPEC crude oil prices have actually declined as a result of inflation in the capitalist world. This freezing of oil prices is mainly the fruit of the reactionary alliance between the U.S. imperialists and their lackeys, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other scabs in the fold of OPEC.

Imperialism makes every effort to break up anything which hurts its interests in the slightest, even the raising of oil prices. Therefore the decisions of the Caracas meeting were not surprising. What is notable, however, is that certain self-styled "Marxist-Leninists" are praising this victory of U.S. imperialism. The OL (now treacherously calling itself the so- called "C"P ("M-L")), in its social-chauvinist rag The Call, carried a headline "Unity prevails as OPEC ministers meet". (The Call, Jan. 9, 1978) The Call article praises as a victory for "unity and solidarity" the fact that while OPEC is split on whether or not to raise oil prices, at the meeting a joint decision was agreed on. Presumably, this is a victory as compared to last year when the OPEC countries, in their efforts to keep apace with inflation, raised their oil prices by ten percent except for Saudi Arabia which actively scabbed on the others and raised its prices by only five percent so as to expand its share of the market and hold down prices. This year, though, there was "unity and solidarity" because Saudi Arabiaand and Iran, executing their agreements with Washington, were able to impose a freeze on all the others. The excitement of these social-chauvinist swindlers over the freezing of OPEC crude oil prices exposes the falsity of a whole series of their counter-revolutionary theses and lies.

In order to clear the air of the opportunist stench and prejudices, it is necessary to make analysis of the movement for economic decolonization and its relation to OPEC in particular. To give credence to their opportunist and thoroughly bankrupt theory of "Three Worlds", the OL social-chauvinists are speculating on this movement and they are doing everything they can to sabotage it. The anti-Leninist theory of "Three Worlds" is a theory of capitulation to U.S. imperialism in particular and it is being propped up by a number of gross lies and distortions prettifying the U.S. imperialists and their lackeys. Typically, the fascist puppet governments of various so- called "third world countries", such as the barbaric medeival regime of the Shah of Iran, are being portrayed as "objectively progressive" and even as part of "the main force fighting imperialism". Why such glowing words for this blood-soaked butcher of imperialism ? The cynical answer of the OL is that "Iran is in OPEC"! The OL "theoreticians" write: "Countries like Iran have played a prominent role in third world producers associations" which have "leveled important blows at the superpowers". (Class Struggle, No.7, 1977, p.32) So let us examine what Iran's "prominent role" in OPEC has actually been.

IRAN, A SCAB IN THE FOLD OF OPEC

The U.S. puppet government of the Shah of Iran has always played "a prominent role" in sabotaging Arab peoples' struggle against U.S.-Zionist aggression. As well, it has been an active splitter and saboteur of the struggle waged by certain developing countries against the imperialist plunder of their oil resources.

The central action bringing about the big increases in the price of crude oil, was the Arab oil boycott following the October Middle East war in 1973. During the Arab oil boycott when the Arab oil-producing countries significantly reduced world crude oil supplies, international oil prices quadrupled. Oil prices received by the oil-producing countries have actually declined in relation to inflation since the period immediately following the Arab oil boycott. At that time OPEC crude oil prices were rapidly brought up from the pittance of under $3 per barrel to over $10 per barrel. Furthermore, the Arab oil boycott was an effective political weapon in the Arab people's liberation war against the U.S.-Zionist aggressors. For the first time the Arab oil-producers Arab peoples' struggle against U.S.-Zionist aggression. As well, it has been an active splitter and saboteur of the struggle waged by certain developing countries against the imperialist plunder of their oil resources.

Thus the main blow of the struggle to raise oil prices was the Arab oil boycott. The opportunists would like people to believe that the "oil struggle" has been waged by all the members of OPEC, in "unity". However, OPEC had nothing to do with the Arab boycott. Though OPEC met immediately before the boycott was launched, it took no decision to support it. The boycott was organized by the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) alone. Iran, which is not an Arab country, actively scabbed on the oil boycott. The reactionary government of Iran actually stepped up oil production to help bail out the U.S. imperialists and to re-supply the Israeli Zionist war machine. This is the "prominent role" which this "OPEC member" played and this is the sort of "telling blows" it "leveled against the superpowers"!

There were splitters within the ranks of the Arab countries also, particularly the Saudi Arabian sheiks who did not want a boycott at all but only a symbolic production cut-back, not wanting to irritate their U.S. imperialist "friends".

For many years the scabs within the fold of OPEC, Iran and Saudi Arabia in particular, had fought bitterly against the movement of nationalizations and price increases demanded by some other OPEC members. However, when high crude oil prices became a fact, the U.S. imperialist puppet governments of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, etc., did not refuse the big increases in their oil revenues. (While every year the Saudi government denounces oil price increases as damaging to the world anti-communist cause and to the economies of its imperialist masters, it has.yet to refuse its oil revenues.) But to use this fact to claim that these states are now "objectively progressive" or have even become part of the "main force combating imperialism", allegedly demonstrating the correctness of the "Three Worlds" theory, is the lowest and meanest sophistry and flies in the face of reality. To the contrary, what these "third world governments" do with their oil money, for example, demonstrates that "third world producers associations" and raw material price increases have in no way turned the arch-lackeys of imperialism into an "anti-imperialist" force.

The barbaric regimes of the comprador capitalists and feudal classes, allied with imperialism, use their billions of dollars of oil revenues only to further sell out their countries and to serve the exploitative ambitions of U.S. imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism and all reaction. The fascist butchers of the Suharto regime in Indonesia do not use their oil money to feed the starving millions of peasants, but to arm to the teeth and step up the slaughter of the communists, the revolutionary workers and peasants and other patriots and to finance their war of aggression against East Timor and the FRETILIN liberation fighters. The Saudi Arabian monarchy uses its oil revenues to enforce the cruelest medeival exploitation on its own people and to do the bidding of U.S. imperialism in the Arab world. The Saudis use their oil money to carry out their anti-communist crusade, financing new F-15 fighter-bomber fleets for their close allies, the "third world government" of the Chiang gang on Taiwan.

As for that great "fighter against the superpowers" and fascist despot, the Shah of Iran has turned Iran into a great prison, an armed camp guarded by CIA- trained SAVAK agents. Through U.S. military "aid" and oil revenues, the Shah has built up one of the biggest military machines in the world for the sole purpose of drowning in blood the growing revolt of the Iranian people and to serve as the gendarme of U.S. imperialism in the Persian Gulf region, for the suppression of heroic Oman, etc. The OL leaders protest these facts as "slander against a third world government" whose massive weaponry they consider a force against the allegedly "main danger", Soviet social-imperialism. These social-chauvinists are such avid apologists for U.S. neo-colonialism that they cannot grasp that the puppet government of Iran is part of the aggressive machinery of U.S. imperialism and at the same time has welcomed in the Soviet social-imperialists to plunder Iranian natural gas reserves and "develop" the Iranian economy.

The oil money which these reactionary regimes do not spend on arming to the teeth against the people and for the luxurious lives of the ruling cliques is deposited on the money markets of Europe and New York. The billions of dollars that these anti-national regimes collect from oil sales have nothing to do with economic independence or "anti-hegemonism" but are used to further integrate their neo-colonial economies into those of the imperialist powers.

This reality exposes the extreme cynicism of the "theoreticians" of the "Three Worlds" theory, and their thesis that the participation of these lackeys of imperialism in OPEC and other producers' associations proves the validity of their anti-Leninist concoction that "the third world countries and people constitute the main force in the struggle against imperialism and hegemonism". As the Party of Labor of Albania points out:

"The advocates of the thesis of the 'third world' call liberation movement, moreover even 'main force in the struggle against imperialism', even including in it the bargaining of the king of Saudi Arabia or the Shah of Iran with U.S. oil monopolies, and their arms transactions with the Pentagon, involving billions upon billions of dollars. According to this logic, the oil sheiks, who deposit their oil money in the banks of Wall Street and the City (the financial district in London -- ed.), are allegedly fighters against imperialism and supporters of the people's struggle which is directed against imperialist domination, while the U.S. imperialists, who sell weapons to the reactionary oppressive regimes of these sheiks, are allegedly supplying them to 'the patriotic forces' which are fighting to oust the imperialists from the 'golden sands' of Arabia and Persia. ("The Theory and Practice of the Revolution", Editorial of Zeri i Popullit, Organ of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania, July 7, 1977)

THE OL SOCIAL-CHAUVINISTS OPPOSE THE STRUGGLE OF THE PEOPLES AGAINST IMPERIALIST PLUNDER AND FOR ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE

In his Historic Report to the Seventh Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania Comrade Enver Hoxha elaborated on the question of economic decolonization as follows:

"The superpowers and world capital want to keep intact all the international forms and institutions established in the old colonial period. When their interests are affected, even in the slightest, such as in the case of raising the prices of oil and some other raw materials, they rise in wrath and do not hesitate even to threaten war against the peoples and countries that want to establish sovereignty over their own national assets, that fight for justice and equality in world exchanges and economic relations.

"But this plunder and savage exploitation cannot go on forever. Now economic decolonization has been placed on the order of the day, and there is nothing which can stop this new revolutionary process which has emerged on the world stage. The peoples have the undeniable right to establish complete sovereignty over their natural resources and to nationalize them. However protracted and fierce the resistance and counterattack of the imperialists and other exploiters may be, nothing can prevent attainment of this objective. Nothing can stop the struggle of the peoples for equality in the field of international exchanges, and to ensure that the income obtained from the sale of raw materials is used to develop their industry and culture and improve their life.

"The struggle of the peoples for economic independence is spearheaded against the superpowers, against the monopolies of the imperialist states, against the multi-national companies." (E. Hoxha, Report to the Seventh Congress of the PLA, Tirana, p. 176)

A component part of the national liberation movement is the struggle for economic decolonization. A number of countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, particularly those which have defeated the colonialists and imperialists through protracted armed struggle, are striving for economic independence and the development of their economies as part of their ongoing struggle against imperialism. This makes life harder for the two superpowers and imperialism, restricting markets and spheres of investment, thus aggravating the general crisis of world capitalism. The OL pretenders claim that they and their rotten theory of "Three Worlds" properly take this movement into account and are its only true champions. But this is only to fool the naive. In fact, the OL leaders, guided by their anti-Leninist theory of "Three Worlds", are apologists for neo-colonialism and imperialist plunder, saboteurs of the anti-imperialist national liberation struggles of the oppressed peoples and opponents of the movement for economic decolonization as well.

The struggle for economic decolonization cannot be separated from, be put above or replace the national revolutionary movements of the masses of toilers in the oppressed nations. However, the "Three Worlds" theorists have resurrected the Khrushchovite revisionist thesis of a "new stage" of the national liberation movement, in which the political tasks of national liberation have already been achieved and the tasks of economic development and "modernization" are now on center stage. The "Three Worlds" theorists are echoing the Khrushchovite revisionist dogma of the "non-capitalist path of development". They demand that the national liberation struggle be abandoned half-way, that it should not be carried through to the socialist stage, that the toiling masses give up their aspirations for complete emancipation and instead "produce" for the existing bourgeois-feudal order.

According to these opportunists, the national liberation struggle in which the proletariat leads the peasantry and other revolutionary strata against neocolonialist slavery, against the domination of imperialism by way of its running dogs, against the regime of the sold-out, pro-imperialist big capitalists and landlords, is no longer necessary. Instead, they claim that on the basis of the "political independence achieved" (i.e., formal independence, the replacement in many countries of colonial rule by neo-colonial rule) a "thorough change in the international economic relations" and a "new economic order" can be realized. Thus, without the national liberation movement, without the revolution, the "independent development of the national economies" is possible. This thesis of the "Three Worlds" theorists merges to the letter with the notorious thesis of the Khrushchovite revisionists, a component of their revisionist doctrine of "peaceful transition", denounced by Chairman Mao's Communist Party of China over fourteen years ago.

"The leaders of the CPSU have also created the theory that the national liberation movement has entered upon a 'new stage' having economic tasks as its core. Their argument is that, whereas 'formerly, the struggle was carried on mainly in the political sphere', today the economic question has become the 'central task' and 'the basic link in the further development of the revolution'.

"The national liberation movement has entered a new stage. But this is by no means the land of 'new stage' described by the leadership of the CPSU. In the new stage, the level of political consciousness of the Asian, African and Latin American peoples has risen higher than ever and the revolutionary movement is surging forward with unprecedented intensity. They urgently demand the thorough elimination of the forces of imperialism and its lackeys in their own countries and strive for complete political and economic independence. The primary and most urgent task facing these countries is still the further development of the struggle against imperialism, old and new colonialism, and their lackeys. This struggle is still being waged fiercely in the political, economic, military, cultural, ideological and other spheres. And the struggles in all these spheres still find their most concentrated expression in political struggle, which often unavoidably develops into armed struggle when the imperialists resort to direct or indirect armed suppression. It is important for the newly independent countries to develop their independent economy. But this task must never be separated from the struggle against imperialism, old and new colonialism, and their lackeys.

"Like 'the disappearance of colonialism', this theory of a 'new stage ' advocated by the leaders of the CPSU is clearly intended to whitewash the aggression against and plunder of Asia, Africa and Latin America by neo-colonialism, as represented by the United States, to cover up the sharp contradiction between imperialism and the oppressed nations and to paralyze the revolutionary struggle of the people of these continents.

"According to this theory of theirs, the fight against imperialism, old and new colonialism, and their lackeys is, of course, no longer necessary, for colonialism is disappearing and economic development has become the central task of the national liberation movement. Does it not follow that the national liberation movement can be done away with altogether ? Therefore, the kind of 'new stage' described by the leaders of the CPSU, in which economic tasks are in the center of the picture, is clearly nothing but one of no opposition to imperialism, old and new colonialism, and their lackeys, a stage in which the national liberation movement is no longer desired." ("Apologists of Neo-Colonialism", Peking, 1963)

The OL leaders have taken up this Khrushchovite theory as their own and have "developed" it to an even lower level of bankruptcy. In their so-called "party program", the OL "theorists", the self-styled champions of the "National Question", have not one word about the revolutionary tasks facing the national liberation movement of the oppressed peoples against U.S. imperialism and its lackeys. Instead, they give the following formulation: "The struggle of the third world countries in defense of their sovereignty and political and economic independence, especially their efforts to gain control of their own resources, is forging a new economic order in the world. Today the third world is the main force in the fight against imperialism, colonialism and superpower hegemonism." (1) (emphasis added -- ed.)

According to this thesis, the "political and economic independence" of the "third world countries" has already been realized and the only task left is to "defend" this so-called "independence". The only conclusion that can be drawn from this theory is that the revolutionaries should call off the revolution and leave all their problems to these "independent" states, to the Shah of Iran, to the dictator Marcos of the Philippines, to the bloodstained Desai clique in India, to the Pinochets, the Geisels and Somozas in Latin America. If only the revolutionaries would not try to overthrow these "third world governments", if left in peace the "efforts" of these lackeys of imperialism and social-imperialism "to gain control of their own resources" will be able to ''forge a new economic order in the world", abolish imperialism and bring about peace, prosperity, happiness and eternal harmony among mankind. These "three worlds" theoreticians have truly outdone Khrushchov, their teacher.

If economic decolonization is not connected to the struggle against imperialism, it becomes nothing but a fraud for deceiving the masses. The struggle for more equitable prices for raw materials is part of, but not equivalent to, the struggle for economic decolonization. When detached from the struggle for economic independence and national liberation (as is the case with the oil revenues collected by Iran and Saudi Arabia) price increases become simply financial dealings between imperialism and its quislings.

The OL social-chauvinists are making the maximum amount of confusion on these questions to whitewash U.S. imperialism's plunder of the peoples. It is not an accident that The Call praised the failure of OPEC to raise oil prices, but it confirms the fact that the OL leaders are actually opponents of the movement for economic decolonization. In their efforts to cover over the deep gap between revolution and counter-revolution, they blur the crucial question of production for whom, the people or imperialism? Economic development towards what end? As a result, the propaganda of the OL "three worlders" and that of the running dogs of imperialism merge into one neo-colonialist chorus. In order to deceive the masses, the most barbaric puppet regimes of U.S. imperialism are now portrayed as "objectively progressive", as having a "prominent role in third world producers' associations", as "third world governments" marching "along the road of economic development". Meanwhile, the only role left for the workers and peasants is to be docile slaves producing for these allegedly independent regimes, to quietly let the feudalists, big capitalists and foreign imperialists suck their blood. Things have gone to the extent that the "three worlds" theorists have actually hailed the expansion of the banana plantations controlled by the U.S. imperialist fruit corporations in Central America as a great revolutionary step!

Thus, the "three worlds" theorists use the great banner of the national liberation movement and speculate on the peoples' aspirations for independent economic development only to create confusion and avoid complete exposure. In fact, the OL social-chauvinists are out-and-out imperialists who have taken up the particular mission of defending U.S. imperialism's neocolonial empire.

ONLY THROUGH THE ARMED STRUGGLE OF THE PROLETARIAT AND PEOPLE CAN THE OPPRESSED NATIONS WIN THEIR LIBERATION

The storm of the national liberation movement raging throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America is pounding at the forces of world imperialism. The people of these regions, suffering the most savage imperialist, semi-feudal and capitalist exploitation, are not willing to remain slaves and are waging heroic struggles for freedom and national liberation and in many countries have taken up the path of people's war. The target of the national liberation struggle is not only U.S. imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism and other imperialisms, but also, the internal forces of imperialism, the social base of imperialist domination. No peoples have ever won their national liberation without also defeating the big sold-out capitalists, feudalists and their reactionary regimes which are tied with a thousand threads to foreign imperialism. This struggle for national liberation is most consistent and can be carried through to completion and the socialist revolution only when it is led by the proletariat and its Marxist-Leninist party, when the proletariat and its party leads the peasantry and other revolutionary strata in a revolutionary people's war against imperialism and its internal lackeys. No nation can win liberation without defeating imperialism on the battlefield. The "three worlds" theorists do not accept these Marxist-Leninist principles and are trying to convince the people that there is some other path besides the path of fierce class and national struggles, of the social revolution.

For example, the national liberation movement in the Middle East is now centered on the struggle of the Palestinian people to liberate their homeland from the U.S. imperialist-backed Zionist aggressors. The Palestinian and Arab struggle is aided by such things as resolutions in the United Nations which denounce and isolate the Zionists, oil embargoes and price increases, etc. These things play their role, but they are only made possible by the fact that the Palestinian fighters are in the battlefield fighting the Zionist occupiers and by the vigorous development of the other national revolutionary movements of the peoples, not the other way around. It is not in the United Nations but through their armed struggle that the Palestinian people will drive the racist and fascist settler regime of Israel into the Mediterranean Sea. For the people of the Middle East to liberate themselves from imperialism, this can only be ensured by the struggles of the peoples themselves.

However, the OL social-chauvinists do not put the anti-imperialist struggles of the people in center stage. Instead, they put the "third world countries" in the role of "the main force fighting imperialism". They speculate on speeches in the UN, the resolutions of the Arab league, etc., and put these subsidiary forms of struggle in the center of world events. The revolution and the masses are abandoned and all imperialism. This struggle for national liberation is most consistent and can be carried through to completion and the socialist revolution only when it is led by the proletariat and its Marxist-Leninist party, when the proletariat and its party leads the peasantry and other revolutionary strata in a revolutionary people's war against imperialism and its internal lackeys. No nation can win liberation without defeating imperialism on the battlefield. The "three worlds" theorists do not accept these Marxist-Leninist principles and are trying to convince the people that there is some other path besides the path of fierce class and national struggles, of the social revolution.

It is from these positions that the OL leaders are pushing class and national capitulation on every front. Egyptian president Sadat's shameful belly-crawling in front of the Israeli Zionists, his ugly betrayal of the Palestinian cause is praised as "a step against superpower hegemony". Sadat's rhetoric as he begs on his knees before the Zionist parliament is portrayed as the way to "struggle" against the Israeli Zionists. The social-chauvinists abandon the Palestinian and other peoples of the Middle East to the tender mercies of such "objectively progressive" regimes as that of the butcher of the Palestinians, King Hussein of Jordan, the Saudi Arabian sheiks and the Shah of Iran.

Either you uphold Comrade Mao Tsetung's great thesis that "The people, and the people alone, are the motive force of world history" (2); or, the opposing thesis, that "the third world is the motive force pushing world history forward" -- one or the other. These are two diametrically opposed concepts, the two world outlooks. The first is the outlook of the proletariat, the revolution and communism. The second is the bourgeois outlook of the opportunists, which has been adopted by the OL social-chauvinists to defend the status quo, to prettify the U.S. imperialists and all their running dogs.

Footnotes:

(1) "Documents from the Founding Congress of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)", p. 100

(2) Mao Tsetung, Selected Works, Vol. 3, p. 257 End.

[Back to Top]

THE STRIKE MOVEMENT IN 1977: A POWERFUL VEHICLE IN PREPARATION FOR THE REVOLUTION

I

In 1977 the capitalist economic crisis continued to deepen, both internationally and in the U.S. The capitalists are seeking to shift the burden of the crisis onto the working class through stepped-up exploitation. In response, the working class is stepping up its resistance. The strike movement is growing and intensifying. This strike movement is an extremely important part of the growing revolutionary movement of the proletariat and working people against the U.S. monopoly capitalist dictators. It is part of the preparation for the proletarian revolution.

In the first nine months of this year the workers waged 4,686 strikes involving 1.8 million workers and lasting 26.7 million man-days. And this movement continued to develop in the last three months of the year as well. Just in terms of the larger strikes beginning in each of the last three months: in October, 50,000 longshoremen along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, 44,300 Boeing and Lockheed aircraft workers, 2,400 Anaconda brass workers, 6,500 workers at five Pullman rail-car plants in Chicago, 1,100 glass workers in Los Angeles, 1,300 smelter workers in New Jersey and 1,200 machinists in Homestead, Pennsylvania, downed tools and walked off their jobs against intensified capitalist exploitation. Beginning in November, 2,000 auto workers struck the General Motors plant in Doraville, Georgia, 5,000 electrical workers struck Westinghouse in Pennsylvania, 7,000 agricultural workers in Hawaii went on strike against 12 sugar plantations, and at least 1,000 teachers began a strike against the Cleveland school system. In December, too, many workers threw themselves into struggle, most notably the 188,000 coal miners who began their tenacious national contract strike.

Compared to previous years (see chart) in terms of the number of strikes, the number of workers involved and the man-days idled, the strike movement has not yet reached the level of the 1970-1971 movement against which the monopoly capitalist government imposed the notorious wage controls. Nor has it reached the level of the 1974 struggles following the rescinding of these fascist controls, when a movement for indexation of wages burst out against the increased capitalist exploitation through the constantly rising cost of living. Yet despite the fact that in 1977 there were relatively few major national contracts up for renewal compared to 1976 and 1970, the number of strikes increased over 1976 and the number of workers involved and man-days idled continued to be quite large. Even more significant is the fact that the strikes in 1977 were more intense than in previous years, with the workers frequently breaking through the restrictions put on their struggles by the capitalist laws and the trade union bureaucracies, and increasingly the strikes involved the active participation of broad masses of the workers in mass resistance to the capitalists and their government. What 1977 marks is that the American workers are continuing their awakening to life and struggle begun in the late 1960's, that the movement has overcome the temporary setback of the period of the government's fascist wage controls, and that the workers are increasingly breaking through the limitations imposed on their struggles, thus preparing for an even more powerful upsurge in the future.

II

The relatively sizeable and protracted strike movement is a physical manifestation of the sharpening struggle of the working class against the monopoly capitalist class and its government. As such it demonstrates to the workers that their position is not hopeless, that they are not alone. The lying propaganda of the bourgeoisie and opportunism that the workers are "apathetic", that the capitalist government is "too strong" and the workers "too weak" to effect change, that the workers must wait on the so-called "friends of labor" of the Democratic Party to come to their assistance or await for the so-called ''temporary" disruption of the economy to abate -- these lies are trampled under the marching feet of the very material, very visible strike movement of the American workers.

Sections of the workers long shackled by this bourgeois demagogy and lies are being activated into struggle. Most notable in 1977 is the long and tenacious strike of the iron ore miners in Minnesota and Michigan. This strike, involving 21,000 members of the United Steel Workers from 21 of their locals, was the first national strike in the steel industry in 18 years. Manifesting the growing rebellion of the workers against the notorious class collaborationist Experimental Negotiating Agreement, this struggle has further sharpened the contradictions for an explosion against the monopoly capitalists in the steel industry as a whole. Also notable is the strike of 24,000 Boeing aircraft workers. This is the first major strike against Boeing in 12 years, and along with the strike against Lockheed, 44,300 aircraft workers plunged into struggle against these merchants of death, disrupting this important element of the bourgeoisie's war preparations.

Continuing the trends of the last several years many new elements and sections of the working population threw themselves into strike struggles against the injurious effects of the economic crisis of the monopoly capitalist system. For instance, the bakery and confectionery workers on the west coast waged the first conference-wide strike ever in the history of the baking industry. The state workers in Washington held the first strike they ever waged in that state. At the Philip Morris tobacco plant in Louisville, Kentucky, the mechanics struck for over a month, shutting down the entire plant for the first time in its history. Large numbers of government workers, hospital employees, nurses, etc., across the country embarked on the path of mass resistance to the attacks of the monopoly capitalists and their government in 1977.

As well, the issue of organizing the unorganized workers is arising again as a serious question for solution in the American workers' movement. A large number of organizing drives in many industries roving pickets to assist the Stearns miners to fight the scabs and man the picket lines. This demonstrates the fact that masses of organized workers are more and more taking an interest in and actively working for the struggles of the unorganized workers.

The growing strike movement is extending the feeling of unity and solidarity among the workers from factory to factory and across the country. In these struggles the workers are learning how to fight and are tempering themselves, preparing themselves for the coming class battles.

III

Especially significant in the 1977 strike movement is the growing tendency of the American workers to break out of the restrictions and limitations placed on their struggles by the bourgeois law and the capitalist trade union bureaucracies. This tendency is manifested in the increasing number of strikes in defiance of court injunctions, fines and jailings; in the frequent use of mass picketing and other tactics of direct confrontation with the enemy; in the intense battles waged against scabs, capitalist security forces and the police; and in use of wildcat strikes and other forms of struggle in those cases where the official trade union channels have been used to block the workers from striking.

The bourgeoisie has placed under repressive legislation every form of struggle of the American workers, deeming illegal all that which may threaten their profits and their rule. As pointed out by Comrade Enver Hoxha in his Report to the 7 th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania, "As well as this, the laws concerning the workers' activity and struggle for economic, social and other demands, have been constructed and doctored by big capital in such a manner that every action must take place within the limits allowed by the bourgeoisie, that nothing should damage its interests, and in particular must not threaten the foundations of the capitalists' state power. " That which is legal today, should it become a threat to the bourgeoisie, becomes illegal tomorrow. For example, because it was illegal for the coal miners to picket their own mine to call out a strike they developed a system of picketing each others' mines with the roving pickets. In their "Labor Reform Act of 1977" the ''friends of labor" in the Democratic Party have added a provision aimed at also outlawing this practice of the miners and in fact they intend to make it unlawful for any one to even ''induce or encourage" workers to go out on strike if a no-strike clause exists or is ''implied" in their contract.

It is especially the social-democracy and revisionism of the top trade union bureaucrats that schools the workers in subservience to the fascist bourgeois laws. Together with the bourgeoisie, these opportunists have erected an entire system of "collective bargaining" and "labor-management relations" by which the trade unions have been incorporated in the capitalist government to suppress the workers' struggles; by which every just struggle of the workers is ruled out of bounds; by which the so-called "common interests" of labor and capital can be achieved on the "peaceful road" and this in every case to the detriment of the working class.

But the constantly deteriorating working and living conditions which the monopoly capitalists are forcing the workers to bear are causing the workers to break away from opportunist influence and from subservience to the bourgeois law. The coal miners are exemplary in this regard. From January to August alone the miners waged wildcat strikes lasting 2,273,000 man-days and accounting for 10.33% of the work days available. And in December the miners launched their determined national contract strike involving 188,000 miners. Employing many diverse militant tactics defying the courts, the police and their trade union bureaucracy, the coal miners have developed their mass resistance to a high pitch, throwing the entire bourgeoisie and its government into a panic.

But the tendency to break through the bourgeois restrictions on their struggles is not confined to the coal miners' movement. In the auto industry, for example, the rebellion is growing. Even though their national contract was settled in 1976, the auto workers waged large and militant strikes in virtually every month of the past year. Beginning at least in February with the wildcat of 1,200 workers at the Ford light truck assembly plant in Louisville, these struggles became increasingly intense. In March, 23 local UAW officials were fired in a wildcat strike against a Chrysler electrical plant in Indianapolis. In April the workers began a vigorous strike at an auto parts plant in Elwood, Indiana. The workers defied a court injunction against mass picketing for over a month, and in July they trapped the management and scabs in the factory for five days without food or other supplies. When the bourgeoisie tried to airlift supplies to their lackeys, the workers drove off the helicopter with gunfire. It was only when 60 state police, 17 local police and 88 professional strike breakers were brought in to attack the 150 picketers--a struggle in which two workers were wounded by the fascists' gunfire--that the bourgeoisie was able to free their lackeys from the plant. In July, in Detroit, the workers began massive walkouts against the intense heat in the plants. These wildcats developed beyond those of the year before and continued into August, when the workers at Chrysler's Trenton engine plant went out on strike against the disciplining of workers from the earlier strike. In this wildcat, seven workers were jailed when police from 15 townships were brought to the plant in an unsuccessful attempt to break the picket. Most recently 2,000 workers walked off the job in protest against the overwork at a General Motors plant in Doraville, Georgia, with the local UAW officials walking out of negotiations simultaneously and in solidarity with the mass walkout in the plant. This incomplete listing of struggles demonstrates the growing revolt of the auto workers -- a revolt threatening the control of the Social-democratic UAW bigwigs over the workers.

The workers waged similar militant wildcat strikes throughout the year in the electrical industry. Fighting against the electrical capitalists' intensification of the workers' labor and the reactionary suspensions of workers, the workers struck in Louisville and Murray, Kentucky; Tampa, Florida; Buffalo, New York; Southfield, Michigan; several cities in Pennsylvania, and other places. As well, the workers organized large demonstrations in Chicago protesting the large layoffs by the capitalists of the TV workers.

Many public sector workers struck this year, defying laws in numerous states that outlaw striking by teachers and other public sector workers. In Pennsylvania thousands of public sector workers marched on the capital demanding their paychecks. Thousands also marched in Atlanta, Georgia, and in one case occupied the Mayor's office and battled the police, putting several in the hospital with broken bones.

Virtually every major contract strike has been marked with such rebellion. In the Greyhound bus drivers strike the drivers wildcatted in many areas before and after their contract settlement. 9,000 copper workers continued their strike against Kennecott copper company for almost a month after their contract was signed by the top trade union bosses. In the longshoremen's strike, the New Orleans dock- workers opposed the top ILA bureaucrats' restriction to strike only containerized ships. The workers stopped all dock work at the port for a month until they were forced to drop this tactic under the threat of fines, suspensions, expulsions and of their local being put under receivership by the international. Even in the face of this repression, when the trade union bigwigs tried to end the national strike the New Orleans dockworkers were joined by dockworkers in Baltimore in a wildcat strike against the contract settlement.

These few examples demonstrate what is taking place, to varying degrees, in every section of the proletariat and working people. Ground down by the mounting burden of the effects of the economic crisis, the masses of working people are plunging into struggle. But at every step of the way they are blocked and restricted by the bourgeois law and the capitalist trade union bureaucracies. These struggles show that to fight for their vital interests the workers must also rebel against the bourgeois opportunist systems of class collaboration which aim at binding them hand and foot to the interests of capital.

IV.

As the workers break through the restrictions placed on their struggles by the bourgeoisie and opportunism, the bourgeoisie is increasingly using repressive measures and bringing into play the reactionary violence of the capitalist state machine to smash the workers' resistance, in every industry the bourgeoisie is actively firing militant workers at every manifestation of resistance. It is the case as well that there is hardly a single strike that does not call forth immediately against it one kind of injunction or another. Violation of these injunctions of the capitalist courts are not only bringing heavy fines, but more jailings and with stiffer jail sentences. In one example in Franklin, Massachusetts, when 200 teachers defied a court order to end their strike, the government jailed 35 teachers and fined each of the striking teachers $50 to $100 for each day they remained on strike. When the teachers continued to defy the court order, more were thrown into jail until all 200 of the striking teachers were jailed. But the teachers refused to capitulate, denounced the courts, continued their strike and eventually forced the capitalist school board to concede to their demands.

Besides firings, fines and jailings the monopoly capitalists are turning more and more to the use of terroristic violence of their security forces and police against the strike movement. The shooting down of striking workers, violent attacks on their picket lines and terrorism against their homes and families are all features of the attacks by the government on the 1977 strike movement. This repression again demonstrates that the U.S. government is nothing but a dictatorship of the monopoly capitalist class, a machine of reactionary violence against the working class and their struggles.

But all of this reactionary activity by the capitalist government is only provoking the workers to even more vigorous struggle. At Stearns the miners have managed to wound numbers of the capitalists' security guards and in the fight with the Kentucky state police they injured five troopers and smashed up 12 police cars. In Austin, Indiana, the workers trapped the management of a packing company in the plant and battled 60 Indiana state police, using guns and clubs against the government's reactionary violence. The roving pickets of as many as 800 striking coal miners are another example of militant mass struggle. Struggles like these have proceeded in virtually every sector and demonstrate that taking up revolutionary violence to combat the reactionary violence of the monopoly capitalists and their government is the correct path forward for the workers' movement.

In these growing battles more and more workers are coming forward, through the work of the genuine Marxist-Leninists, to adopt the Marxist-Leninist line that the solution to the economic crisis and the problems of the workers lies in revolutionary struggle to overthrow the government and the monopoly capitalist system itself. In his famous article "On Strikes", Comrade Lenin points out that "Every strike brings thoughts of socialism very forcibly to the workers' minds, thoughts of the struggle of the entire working class for emancipation from the oppression of capital." The work of the Marxist-Leninists in the midst of the workers' movement is mobilizing increasing numbers of workers to take up the great cause of communism, to build the Marxist-Leninist Party and fight for the proletarian revolution. It is the strengthening and consolidation of this trend that is the sure guarantee that the strike movement will continue to develop in a revolutionary direction as one of the important factors in the preparation of the anti-fascist proletarian socialist revolution.

A comparison of the strike statistics of the first nine months for the last several years shows:

End.

[Back to Top]

Down With U.S. Imperialist Domination of Panama!

As Carter's new unequal Panama Canal treaty waits ratification in the Senate, the American people are being subjected to a bombardment of imperialist, jingoist propaganda in support of continued U.S. colonial control of the Panama Canal. This bombardment is two sided.

On the one hand, in opposition to Carter's new treaty, certain spokesmen for monopoly capital, Ronald Reagan, Robert Dole, Strom Thurmond and Co., have organized a big campaign and a so-called "truth squad" financed with hundreds of millions of '"dollars. These jingo politicians are denouncing Carter for allegedly "giving away" the Panama Canal which they claim to be "sovereign U.S. territory". According to the venomous lies of this "truth squad", the U.S. imperialist slave-owners have "bought and paid for" the Panama Canal, the land and people of Panama. Thus, the holy power of the U.S. dollar sanctifies U.S. colonialism in Panama. These "truth squad"-ers are pushing the most rabid chauvinism. They attempt to portray the Panamanians as an inferior people, incapable of operating the Canal, who have no right to sovereignty over their own territory. They are advocating colonialism pure and simple.

On the other hand, the Carter administration has launched an even more extravagant campaign. This campaign has the support of leading imperialist politicians such as Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger. Led by Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, an army of State Department officials are jetting back and forth Across the country calling for the Senate ratification of Carter's new unequal Panama Canal treaty to replace the old 1903 unequal treaty of enslavement.

This new treaty is being hailed as a great "victory" for the Panamanian people, a testimony to the good intentions and benevolence of the U.S. government. It is being promoted in the name of "human rights" and even "Panamanian sovereignty" and "neutrality", and as a treaty which "properly responds to Panamanian aspirations".

But what sort of treaty would such notorious warmongers as Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger be promoting? Is it possible that the very same blood- soaked elements who personally directed the most barbaric war of aggression against the Indochinese people, for the very purpose of protecting U.S. colonial interests there, are now campaigning for a Panama Canal treaty that relinquishes U.S. colonial privileges ? Never. In fact, Carter's new treaty will not fulfill in the slightest the Panamanian people's aspirations to be free from U.S. colonial slavery but will only give this slavery a new face. It is a new treaty of enslavement, designed to change the appearance but not the essence of U.S. control of the Panama Canal, replace some U.S. flags with Panamanian ones while holding onto the same colonial privileges. It is an unequal treaty designed to get rid of some of the most glaring aspects of U.S. colonialist rule in an attempt to pacify the anti-U.S. imperialist struggles of the Panamanian and Latin American peoples while keeping U.S. imperialist domination intact. Far from "righting wrongs of the past" as its supporters pretend, Carter's new treaty is nothing but another aggressive act of U.S. imperialism.

No people have ever won liberation from U.S. imperialist domination without a struggle, simply across a negotiating table. Nowhere is this truth more evident than in the Caribbean region, in Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and in Panama, where U.S. troops have countless times drowned the peoples' aspirations for freedom in blood. U.S. imperialism will never get out of Panama without being defeated in the battlefield.

U.S. colonial rule of the Panama Canal Zone is tied to the very emergence and existence of the United States as an imperialist power. At the turn of the century, for both aggressive-military and commercial reasons, the U.S. imperialists set out to build and control a canal across Panama. A canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans was important for the development of a two-ocean navy capable of dominating the high seas and carrying out aggression around the world. Also, control of such a canal would provide a base for dominating and plundering all of Panama as well as a staging ground for U.S. aggression throughout the Caribbean and Central and South America. Today, the headquarters of the U.S. "Southern Command" is in the Canal Zone, an important military outpost of U.S. imperialism in Latin America.

It was at the point of a gun that the U.S. imperialists seized the Panama Canal Zone as their colony. In 1903, the U.S. War Department dispatched its troops and warships to Panama and on orders from Washington the Province of Panama was severed from Colombia and a Panamanian government was set up. The 1903 Panama Canal treaty granting the U.S. control of the Canal Zone was not even signed by a Panamanian but was signed in Washington by a French capitalist without so much as consulting the puppet Panamanian government. The canal itself was not built by the U.S. imperialists as they try to claim, but by the blood and sweat of tens of thousands of mostly black Caribbean laborers. Toiling first for the French and then for the U.S. imperialists, 27,000 workers perished from disease and intolerable conditions before the canal was completed.

U.S. aggression and colonial slavery is what Ronald Reagan is so attached to and swears he "will never give up" and this is what Carter's new unequal treaty is designed to protect.

The new Panama Canal treaty as signed in Washington on October 9 of last year by the Carter administration and by the Panamanian government has three major provisions:

1. Panama will be given "general territorial sovereignty" over the Canal Zone when the new treaty becomes effective. What this amounts to is that a certain amount of U.S. personnel will be replaced by lower-paid Panamanians and some U.S. flags will be replaced by Panamanian ones. The over 30,000 U.S. personnel and dependents including some 10,000 occupation troops will remain in place. The U.S. will continue to operate and control the Canal while the Panamanian government will only receive about a third of the Canal's revenues. The treaty calls for the U.S. occupation of the Canal Zone and control of the Canal to end by the year 2,000. However, a look at the history of how the U.S. government has lived up to its treaty obligations from the genocidal wars against the Native Americans to the war of aggression in Indochina shows just how worthless this promise of withdrawal is.

2. Even after the year 2,000, the U.S. is granted the "right" to intervene in Panama and re-occupy the Even after the year 2,000, the U.S. is granted the "right" to intervene in Panama and re-occupy the Canal at will. U.S. imperialist chieftain, Carter, points out that the U.S. government "would not hesitate to deploy whatever armed forces are necessary to defend the Canal". As Cyrus Vance puts it, the treaties give the U.S. the right "to take any action we (the U.S. imperialists -- ed.) decide is necessary including the use of troops" to defend the "neutrality" of (i.e. the U.S. control of) the Canal.

3. The treaty calls for the further penetration of U.S. finance capital into the Panamanian economy. Under the guise of several hundred million dollars of "aids", the Panamanian economy will be further engulfed in U.S. imperialist dependence.

This treaty will not leave the Panamanian people one step closer to actual sovereignty over their own territory. Under Carter's new Canal treaty, the Panamanian people will be subject to a more refined and deceptive, but an even more ferocious political, economic and military enslavement.

Even the most rabid imperialist politicians recognize that the U.S. must resort to ever more deceptive tactics in order to hold onto its positions. The William Buckleys and the Pentagon generals admit to their fear that the Panamanian people will drive the U.S. occupiers out unless the U.S. colonial yoke is given a new, more deceptive face, and thus, have become big boosters of Carter's new treaty. Gerald Ford himself admits that to give up the illusion of decolonization "would lead without question to guerrilla war" and "would turn all of South and Latin America against the United States".

Therefore, to suppress the Panamanian struggle for true liberation, Carter is resorting to the method of imperialist pacifism: a barbaric policy of aggression and intervention in the name of "fairness" and "peace"; neo-colonial slavery under the signboard of "cooperation", "neutrality" and "sovereignty". It is not a matter of choice for the U.S. imperialists to resort to this method, nor is it a result of Carter's "religious beliefs". Imperialist pacifism, hypocritical preachings about "human rights", a new deceptive mask, is part of the frantic maneuverings of the U.S. imperialists to overcome their great crisis and divert the revolutionary storms of the proletariat and oppressed people.

Carter is being portrayed as the great "savior" of the Latin American people and his new Canal treaty is being advertised as the. beginning of "a new era of hemispheric relations". The peoples should maintain extreme vigilance against this deception. It should be recalled that the last such "savior" was the arch-imperialist J. F. Kennedy whose programs and policies had extremely drastic consequences for the people of Latin America. In the name of "goodwill" and "democracy", Kennedy set up the inter-American "Alliance for Progress" which was hailed by the imperialists as "the greatest undertaking of social reform and international cooperation in the history of the Western Hemisphere". Under this "alliance", CIA operations in Latin America were vastly expanded; reactionary coup d'etats were organized in several countries including Brazil and Argentina; the oppressive military and police forces of the reactionary oligarchies in power were beefed up to the extreme with thousands of executioners of the people sent to the U.S. to be trained in the most modern techniques of torture and suppression. The Kennedy-Johnson administrations organized the subversion and blockade against Cuba and then the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic. Kennedy set up the Agency for International Development which under the guise of "aids" and "cooperation", opened the way for a massive influx of U.S. finance capital into Latin America. The domination of the Latin American economies by U.S. multinationals and U.S. finance capital became even more oppressive under the policies of the Kennedy administration.

So, now too, the Carter administration is pursuing, behind the fraud of "human rights", an extremely savage, aggressive, imperialist policy. Recently, a State Department official arrogantly proclaimed that the U.S. "is not retreating from Latin America", rebutting the charges of the Reaganite 'truth squad" that Carter is trying to "give away the Panama Canal", in his recent address on the Panama Canal treaty, Carter declared that the new treaty is "in the highest national interests of the United States and will strengthen our positions around the world". Indeed! The U.S. imperialists are resorting to imperialist pacifism, not for the purpose of "retreat", as certain of their apologists claim, but to defend their positions and to further expand their domination over the people. Comrade Enver Hoxha pointed out in his Report to the 7th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania:

"World capitalism, which is proceeding remorselessly towards crises and decline, just as Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin predicted with such genius, has now reached the stage of imperialism in decay. In order to survive, it has devised new forms for the exploitation of the masses, not just on a national scale, but also on a world scale, has contrived its last and most sophisticated means of plunder, neo-colonialism, has created financial links and economic and military alliances through which it intends to hold in complete or partial dependence many states belonging to what is called the 'second world', the 'third world', the 'non-aligned world', or the 'developing countries'."

However, the dual tactics of the reactionaries, their troops and weaponry and their "soft" methods of deception, will never be able to suppress the revolt of the oppressed peoples. In January, 1964, the Panamanian people waged a heroic and bloody fight against the U.S. occupiers. The U.S. imperialists savagely suppressed the anti-U.S. struggle, killing 21 patriotic students. It was at that time that the U.S. started the farce of re-negotiating the Canal treaty in an attempt to blunt the fighting will of the people. But the Panamanian people have kept up the fight. Last month, in commemoration of the 1964 anti-U.S. struggle, meetings and demonstrations of thousands of people in Panama City and elsewhere were held, demanding full Panamanian sovereignty over the Canal Zone and the end of U.S. intervention. Signs were carried proclaiming that "The Struggle Is Not Finished, It Is Going On" and that "The Canal Zone Belongs to Panama". The imperialist press is already expressing anxiety that Carter's new unequal treaty will be rejected and condemned by the Panamanian people. The heroic Panamanian people will never tolerate U.S. imperialist slavery!

As for their part, the American working class and oppressed people have only the greatest contempt for the imperialist politicians and their jingoist propaganda campaign for the continued domination of Panama. The workers are well aware that the colonial privileges of U.S. imperialism are only one more shackle chaining them to capitalist slavery and oppression. The Panamanian people and the American people are exploited by the same monopoly capitalist corporations and oppressed by the same U.S. imperialist government and thus have common enemies.

U.S. IMPERIALISM, GET OUT OF PANAMA!

DOWN WITH CARTER'S NEW UNEQUAL TREATY!

DOWN WITH THE OLD 1903 UNEQUAL TREATY!

THE PANAMANIAN PEOPLE WILL WIN!

DEATH TO U.S. IMPERIALISM! End.

[Back to Top]

The Stand of the Party of Labor of Albania and Socialist Albania on the Cambodian-Vietnamese Conflict

A Conflict Which is Alien to the Lofty Interests of the Peoples of Viet Nam and Cambodia

The following is an editorial of Zeri i Popullit, published in Albanian Telegraphic Agency, January 5, 1978.

As it has been reported, recently on the border between the states of Democratic Cambodia and the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, armed fightings have taken place with the participation of numerous military units. According to reports, both sides have had many killed people and victims. The statements of the governments of the two countries express contradictory viewpoints as to the causes of the conflict.

These reports which come in from Viet Nam and Cambodia, two neighboring countries and two fraternal peoples, greatly regret us. We regretfully notice that the disagreements which can exist between the two countries, reached the point of incomprehensible and undesirable conflicts, to armed confrontations, about which the danger exists to be extended. Instead of the disagreements being solved patiently, in the spirit of friendship and common interest, now they have become more complicated.

The desire of the Party of Labor, of the government of our People's Socialist Republic and the Albanian people is to put an end to the conflict and the bloodshed as early as possible. At the same time, the armed forces, which may have violated one another' s national borders should immediately be withdrawn to their own territories. The two sides should place on the first plane the great interests of the two peoples, the freedom, independence and sovereignty, the interests of the revolution, socialism and internationalist unity. This is required by the need of the re-establishment of peace on the border between the two fraternal countries, of the preservation of peace and security on the Indochinese peninsula.

In the situation the two friendly and co-fighting peoples against imperialism are faced with in these last few days, we would not like to be one-sided. At these moments our firm conviction is that both sides by making common efforts and displaying good will, being far away from the idea of bourgeois nationalism and chauvinism and having complete confidence in the feelings of proletarian internationalism, the disagreements which have emerged between Viet Nam and Cambodia can and should, for certain, be solved through talks and in the spirit of cooperation and mutual understanding.

We hope that the sister People's China, too, which at the time of the struggle of the Indochinese peoples against U.S. imperialism has been their great supporter, will now mediate so that the armed fightings come to an end, that the conflict and disagreements be solved in a fraternal way and without interference from outside.

The Albanian people have been in solidarity with and have whole-heartedly supported the struggle of the fraternal people of Viet Nam, who have made so many sacrifices for the triumph of the freedom and the revolution in their own country, making thus a valuable contribution to the common cause of the anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist struggle of the peoples of the world. Our people have cherished the same thing, the same sympathy and love also for the fraternal people of Cambodia, they have given them the same resolute support. Cambodia has fought with heroism and selflessness, it has made innumerable sacrifices to win freedom and national independence, to build the new life.

Our Party, government and people are very much distressed at hearing that such tragic events are taking place between two friendly peoples and countries of Socialist Albania. But we are convinced that the Cambodia-Vietnamese conflict is a deed of the enemies of the Vietnamese people and the Cambodian people. Herein is the hand of the imperialist powers, is the hand of Soviet social-imperialism and U.S. imperialism, which are interested that which of them will dominate in Southeast Asia, to have there their zones of influence. In order to achieve these diabolic, hegemonic and neo-colonialist aims, they are operating according to the machiavellian principle divide and rule, by setting the peoples in struggle against one another.

As friends and brothers of the peoples of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam and Democratic Cambodia and proceeding from profound sincere and benevolent feelings, we call on the two countries, the two peoples, to interrupt any action which infringes the lofty interests of the two nations, socialism, the revolution and their freedom and solve the disagreements which led to the armed conflict through friendly talks. The Party of Labor of Albania and the government of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania have always adhered to the correct Marxist-Leninist viewpoint that all the disagreements between the socialist countries be solved through cordial and comradely talks. End.

[Back to Top]

CARTER'S PLAN TO "HELP THE STEEL INDUSTRY" AGAINST FOREIGN IMPORTS MEANS MORE EXPLOITATION FOR STEELWORKERS

Ever since late summer of 1977, the big U.S. steel capitalists have been launching one attack after another on the steelworkers, laying off and firing thousands and closing down whole plants, such as Youngstown Sheet and Tube's Campbell Works in Ohio. To divert the workers from revolting against these attacks on their livelihood, a big national chauvinist hysteria has been whipped up that "imports" are responsible for taking away American workers' jobs. But the fact is that the U.S. steel billionaires are gripped with a severe overproduction crisis and are engaged in vicious rivalry with foreign steel billionaires for world markets. They are seeking to strengthen their economic position by shifting the burden of this crisis onto the backs of the working class. Furthermore, the capitalists are using their government to assist them both in making the people pay for the crisis and in contending with foreign capitalists and governments for markets. It is the U.S. steel capitalists, not imports, who are the cause of the closure of steel mills and the lay-offs and firings of steelworkers.

In December the Carter administration announced its plan to "help the steel industry". This plan will hand over hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes extorted from the workingi masses-to the steel capitalists. It will enable the capitalists to further attack the workers through more plant closings, lay-offs, etc. Carter's plan aims to raise the steel industry's profits by $900 million a year, spur modernization of steel plants and "increase employment in steel by 25,000 jobs". As everyone knows, "modernization" in real life means reduction of jobs through automation, consolidation of facilities and other methods. So the promise of more jobs is just lying deception, sugarcoating to try to make the workers swallow the plan and divert them from resisting these attacks.

Carter's steel plan, first of all, offers big tax breaks to the capitalists to encourage modernization of their plants and to increase their profits. It also provides for government guarantees on up to $250 million in loans (an amount that would actually generate over $1 billion in loans) to the companies, so long as they have "realistic modernization plans". To help the steel companies reduce expenditures on pollution control and thereby increase profits, the capitalist government will relax environmental regulations.

A second provision of the plan is a "trigger price" system that is essentially a tariff on imported steel. Any steel coming into the U.S. at prices lower than "trigger prices" established by the government will be subjected to "dumping duties". Since this guarantees that the price of imported steel will not be able to fall below a certain limit, the U.S. steel capitalists can raise their own prices and maximize profits even more. In fact, within two weeks after the Carter plan was announced, the steel capitalists began to announce price increases. The "trigger price" system actually results in driving up prices on all goods that use steel, raising the cost of living of the masses still more.

A third feature of Carter's steel policy promotes further monopolization of the steel industry in the hands of the biggest concerns and assists the capitalists in concentrating their production at the most modern, most profitable facilities by speeding up mergers and joint ventures. The big steel capitalists are quite excited about mergers. Business Week magazine (Sept. 19, 1977) calls mergers a necessary remedy for "too many small companies, too much duplication of facilities, too much marginal plant still in operation." A merger movement, says Business Week, would allow the least efficient facilities to close without putting companies through bankruptcy. How merciful and compassionate of the bourgeois state to treat these exploiters so kindly! And the workers at these "least efficient facilities" will, of course, be ruthlessly thrown into the streets.

To dampen anger and resistance of communities hit with plant closings and lay-offs, the government plan offers these areas $20 million in "aid" -- crumbs compared to the hundreds of millions going to the steel billionaires. In addition, in the name of "finding alternative uses for abandoned steel facilities", the government will help the steel capitalists unload their "white elephant" (older, less efficient) mills so that they won't be paddled with them. For instance, the government has funded a $300,000 study of "potential uses" for Youngstown's Campbell Works, and one newly-formed enterprise is talking about purchasing the mill, especially if it can get "federal aid", which amounts to the government buying the mill with workers' tax money. This feature of the plan is also used to promote illusions that workers' jobs might actually be saved by government "action".

Finally, the Carter plan establishes a joint committee comprised of steel capitalists, top labor bureaucrats and government representatives as "a mechanism to ensure continuing cooperative approach to the problems and progress of the steel industry" (Iron Age, December 12, 1977). At a time of escalating attacks on the steelworkers, what does this mean but further collaboration of the top union officials with the capitalists and their government to suppress the workers' resistance, both through deception and force?

The steelworkers have long bitter experience with the rotten national chauvinist line that they should cooperate with the steel billionaires and the government to strengthen the U.S. steel industry against foreign steel billionaires, all supposedly in order to "save the steelworkers' jobs". In 1961 the Kennedy administration launched the propaganda that the American workers, especially steelworkers, would have to sacrifice "in the national interest" (of the capitalists, of course) and break the so-called "wage- price spiral". This was supposed to save the jobs of American workers from "foreign competition". In reality, the Kennedy administration wanted to strengthen the economic position of the U.S. imperialists and prepare chauvinist "America first" public opinion for launching their war of aggression against the Vietnamese people. The leaders of the steelworkers union, not to be outdone as servants to the capitalists and superpatriots, promptly imposed a sell-out contract on the steelworkers in 1962 which included no wage increase at all. Throughout the 1960's the leaders of the USWA continued to do propaganda against strikes, saying that strikes lead to increased imports and loss of jobs and telling the workers that they should show restraint and support the U.S. imperialists' war of aggression against the Vietnamese workers and peasants. Wage settlements in the 1960's continued to be small and there were no strikes.

Did the sell-out and national chauvinism of the labor aristocrats protect the jobs of the steelworkers ? No! By the time the 1971 contract rolled around the U.S. steel companies were pouring 20% more raw steel but employing 9%, or 37,000, fewer steelworkers.

In 1971 the steel union bureaucrats raised their collaboration with the steel capitalists to a new level by establishing joint labor-management "productivity committees" in every plant. These committees had as their official purpose to tell the workers that they should speed up their labor and support automation of their jobs, i. e., support being thrown out of work, so as to strengthen the competitive position of U.S. steel against foreign rivals. Finally in 1973, amidst a tidal wave of hysteria about imports, I.W. Able signed the notorious "no-strike" Experimental Negotiations Agreement (ENA). All these activities, according to the steel capitalists and union officials, were supposed to guarantee the jobs of the steelworkers. Yet since 1974 over 60,000 steelworkers have been thrown out of work. Every time the capitalists and their labor lieutenants, like I.W. Able, launch attacks on the steelworkers they cover it up with the national chauvinist line that the problem is foreigners.

In fact, the problem is not "foreigners" but the severe crisis of over-production which is inherent in capitalism. Today the entire capitalist and revisionist world is in the midst of the deepest economic crisis since World War II. A feature of this crisis is fierce rivalry among the imperialist powers for world markets. Steel plays an important role in the present competition for markets, as well as in the preparations of the two superpowers for a new world war. In order to strengthen their hand in this situation, the U.S. steel capitalists are consolidating and modernizing steel mills and laying off workers, thus shifting the burden of the crisis onto the working class.

The plan that the Carter administration has devised to "help the steel industry", once again, reveals the utter bankruptcy of the foul chauvinist line that the workers should line up with the U.S. capitalists and their government against capitalists of other countries and against the people of the world. While the plan greatly enriches and strengthens the biggest steel monopoly capitalists, for the workers it only means more lay-offs and further impoverishment. As long as the capitalists rule in the U.S. they will attempt to saddle the workers with the burden of every crisis. The rotten national chauvinist line of the labor bureaucrats is intended to keep the workers from defending their class interests by resisting these attacks and rising in revolt. It is intended to turn the U.S. workers against their fellow workers of other countries who are also fighting against the same capitalist imperialist enemy. It is intended to turn the workers into slaves for the capitalists' economic wars and cannon fodder for their military wars. In order for the steelworkers and all workers to defend even their most elementary interests they must repudiate this rotten national chauvinist line. They must wage mass resistance struggles against the attacks of their "own" capitalists and their "own" government and prepare for mass revolutionary struggles to make the rich bear the burden of all their crises and to overthrow the monopoly capitalist dictators altogether. End.

[Back to Top]

Primary Care - An Attempt by Monopoly Capital to Reduce Staff and Further Overwork Nurses

Following are excerpts from a leaflet issued at a large, organized hospital.

The health industry today is an area of tremendous profit. Since World War II the health industry has become a lucrative area of investment because of the huge subsidies of tax dollars the government funnels into the industry. Today the health industry has become one of the most profitable areas of investment, second only to investments in energy. As well as reaping huge profits for finance capital (banks, insurance companies, etc.) the monopoly capitalists, through the government, have also provided construction companies and high technology equipment companies with huge subsidies of tax dollars at artificially inflated prices, bolstering up their profits.

But today the monopoly capitalists are in deep economic and all-sided crisis. A crisis which they can no longer get themselves out of. Their "solution" to the crisis is to shift the burden of the crisis onto the working and other oppressed peoples, while protecting their own profits. The Hospital Productivity Center, funded by tax dollars through the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, is calling on hospitals to reduce the number of employees by 20% and to brainwash the hospital workers into accepting these attacks in the name of "efficiency" and "productivity". Recently the National Joint Practice Commission recommended converting the present system of team nursing care to primary care in hospitals throughout the U.S. By cutting back sharply on the number of Nursing Assistants through layoffs and attrition and by pushing the burden of the hospital work back onto the RNs and LPNs (as was done 40 years ago) the hospitals would be better able to protect profits. Thus, primary care is one means by which hospitals are shifting the burden of the economic crisis onto the hospital workers.

Yet at our hospital primary care is being promoted as l) a sign of progress, something "new" of which our hospital is in the forefront, 2) being in the interests of "patient care", 3) being in the interests of the nurses who will get "closer to the patient" and will be able "to use their education", etc., and 4) being in the interests of productivity, claiming that N.A.s are only a certain percentage as productive as nurses. It is such a blatant attack on N.A.s that some representatives of the hospital who are openly talking of the hospital's plans for primary care just promise that it won't mean layoffs in hopes of preventing the N.A.s from opposing the attack. Other representatives of the hospital play dumb and pretend they know nothing to spread confusion and attempt to disorganize the workers.

In practice primary care calls for the elimination of aides. Already aides are being eliminated through attrition. The hospital is either not replacing aides who quit or are fired or is hiring students or other young people with a lot of education who are certain to leave within a short period of time. A few years ago aides made up about 2/3 of the bargaining unit. Now they make up less than 1/3.

Furthermore, it was the aides who were in the forefront of and actually organized the 90-day strike a few years ago to get the union into the hospital. Thus the elimination of aides will mean the elimination of a militant section of workers at the hospital and therefore a loss for the entire workforce at our hospital.

Primary care will also mean a big increase in workload for the nurses as each aide is not replaced one for one by a nurse, but rather more aides are replaced by fewer nurses. The director of the National Joint Practice Commission admitted that "a hell of a lot more gets done with fewer people under this system". Herein lies the real reason that hospitals are moving to primary care -- it is more profitable. They pay out much less in wages and benefits by hiring less workers. Also, according to the N.J. P. C., the nurse will be on call for her patients even when she is off duty, leaving the nurse with virtually no life of her own. There are also definite plans underway at our hospital for the RNs to take over some of the duties of the doctors, such as drawing blood and starting I.V.s. Thus, the RNs would be forced to do all the work they are presently doing plus all the work the NAs are doing, plus some of the work doctors and medical students are now doing. So much for the hoax that primary care will in some way benefit the nurse.

Concerning the patients, the care given them will continue to deteriorate with the cutting of the staff. Thus primary care is an attack on the patients as well, patients who are already burdened with tremendous hospital costs.

What has been the attitude of the labor bureaucrats towards this attack on the hospital workers? Their attitude has been one of trying to ignore the attack being made and pretending it isn't even taking place, even though there has been discussion now and then over the last couple of years at union meetings on the hospital's plans to go to primary care. Then they say that, well, even if it is taking place, there are bigger problems.

Their activity has been one of refusing to organize the workers to resist the attack and in fact attempting to disorganize the workers by taking up the hospital's tactics of spreading confusion on whether the hospital is implementing primary care or not. So while the hospital capitalists are actively organizing and implementing the attack, the union officials, loyal to the interests of monopoly capital, sing sweet lullabies to the workers in hopes that they will fall asleep in the face of the attack and not be prepared to vigorously oppose it and defend their livelihoods.

Today there is a rising tide of class struggle developing in the national workers' movement and the path forward is constantly being debated. There are two roads: one is to rely on the alleged "reasonableness" of the monopoly capitalists, collaborate with them and give up the struggle; the other road is the road of active mass struggle, of relying on one's own efforts, of resisting all attacks no matter where they come from -- from the monopoly capitalists, the government, or the sold-out labor bureaucrats.

Our view is that the strength of workers at our hospital is in relying on their own efforts, consciously discussing the problems, opposing the deception of the hospital and the path of class collaboration and class capitulation being promoted by their lackey labor aristocrats, and building unity to actively resist the attacks by means which are acceptable to the workers themselves.

Workers across the country are actively taking up struggle to oppose the shifting of the burden of the economic crisis onto their backs. Clearly, it is in the interests of the entire workforce at our hospital to oppose the elimination of nursing assistants and the increased workload on the nurses. End.

[Back to Top]

Down With the Frame-Up of Comrade Hardial Bains!

The reactionary Canadian state, the state of the reactionary bourgeoisie and of U.S. imperialist domination of Canada, is stepping up its political persecution of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) and its revolutionary leadership. The Chairman of CPC(M-L), Comrade Hardial Bains, is facing trial on trumped-up charges of "aiding and abetting an illegal alien" after his arrest, along with sixteen other comrades and supporters of CPC(M-L), during a police raid last February 23. The Workers' Advocate vehemently denounces this frame-up of Comrade Hardial Bains and considers it an attack on the very interests of the U.S. proletariat and oppressed people.

Comrade Hardial Bains has made important contributions to the Marxist-Leninist movement in North America. The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), of which Comrade Bains is the Chairman, is the first party in North America to be reconstituted on the Marxist-Leninist basis since the revisionist betrayal. CPC(M-L) has always defended the purity of Marxism-Leninism with a death-defying will and has made invaluable contributions to the struggle against international opportunism and the unity of the international communist movement. From this party the U.S. Marxist-Leninists have drawn inspiration and have a great deal to learn. Comrade Hardial Bains has won the love and respect of the Marxist-Leninists in the U.S. and revolutionaries in many other countries as well.

The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) is a party of the social revolution, it is the party of the Canadian proletariat and is leading the proletariat in preparation to overthrow the reactionary bourgeoisie, the U.S. imperialist domination of Canada and the monopoly capitalist system itself. Therefore, the reactionary Canadian state, through its CIA- and FBI- trained RCMP forces, has carried out countless savage attacks against CPC(M-L) and Comrade Hardial Bains.

The Canadian people suffer under the yoke of U.S. imperialist domination and are fighting the common enemies of the American people. It is the proletarian internationalist duty of the U.S. Marxist-Leninists and proletariat to vigorously condemn the U.S. imperialists and their Canadian lackeys for the vile state attacks on Comrade Hardial Bains and CPC(M-L). The Workers' Advocate hails the work of the Canadian People's Defense Committee (Citizens and Residents) in organizing mass revolutionary struggles against state attacks and salutes the fighting spirit of our fraternal comrades of CPC(M-L) and Comrade Hardial Bains.

DOWN WITH THE FRAME-UP OF COMRADE HARDIAL BAINS!

LONG LIVE CPC(M-L)!

LONG LIVE THE UNITY OF COUSML AND CPC(M-L)!

DEATH TO U.S. IMPERIALISM!

(Reprinted below is an article from People's Canada Daily News, organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), denouncing the frame-up of Comrade Hardial Bains, which was carried under the above headline, Jan. 16, 1978.)

The reactionary Canadian state has once again postponed the ''trial" of Comrade Hardial Bains, Chairman of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) on the trumped-up charges of "aiding and abetting an illegal alien". Comrade Bains was to have stood trial on Friday, January 13, but the prosecution ordered that the "trial" be postponed until May 12, 1978, allegedly on the grounds that they are "still looking into evidence". The fact is that the state has no evidence whatsoever because the charges are trumped-up and the "trial" is an act of political persecution aimed against CPC(M-L) and its revolutionary leadership. The "trial" was postponed once already by the reactionary state, from October 1977 to January 13.

The charge against Comrade Bains stems from the February 23, 1977 RCMP raid on the Kitchener-Waterloo Branch of the Norman Bethune Institute, a Marxist-Leninist research institute, in which Comrade Bains and sixteen other comrades and supporters of CPC(M-L) were arrested on trumped-up charges. The raid on NBI, carried out with a force of twenty RCMP and local police and organized by the RCMP Security Service, was a serious provocation against the Party and a flimsy act on the part of the reactionary bourgeoisie to disrupt the proceedings of the Party's Third Congress which was taking place at the time. In the weeks and months following the raid, the reactionary state dragged the arrested comrades into court on scores of occasions, but in the end was forced to drop the concocted charges of "aiding and abetting an illegal alien" against all the comrades except Comrade Bains. The fact that one after another of the charges were dropped as the comrades have appeared in court, and that charges remain only against Comrade Bains, shows clearly that this is a case of political persecution against the Party and its revolutionary leadership.

The fear and hatred of the reactionary bourgeoisie and U.S. imperialism of CPC(M-L) and its revolutionary leadership are what lie behind the dastardly attack of February 23 and the subsequent series of provocations against Comrade Bains and the Party by the state. The revolutionary proletariat is rising up against the shifting of the burden of the economic crisis onto its back; the two superpowers and the reactionary bourgeoisie of every capitalist country are in the grips of profound crisis. As their only way out of the crisis, they are feverishly preparing for war and carrying out the brutal suppression of the proletariat and people. In Canada, the reactionary bourgeoisie is attacking the people to make them pay for the crisis, and it has taken up the global ambitions of U.S. imperialism.

But the proletariat also has its ambitions, and under the leadership of its revolutionary Marxist-Leninist political party, CPC(M-L), the revolutionary proletariat is resisting the shifting of the burden of the crisis and preparing for the overthrow of the reactionary bourgeoisie, the U.S. imperialist domination of Canada and the monopoly capitalist system itself.

CPC(M-L) has grown in the struggle against the bourgeoisie and the U.S. imperialist domination of Canada and against revisionism and opportunism of all hues. CPC(M-L) has resolutely adhered to the revolutionary path, loyal to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, always in combat against those who have betrayed Marxism-Leninism and the path of revolution, always working to bring the Marxist-Leninist line of the Party into the heart of the mass struggles and organizing revolutionary mass struggles against the rich and their state. This is why the reactionary bourgeoisie and the U.S. imperialists fear and hate CPC(M-L) and have launched their attacks against Comrade Bains and the Party.

This most recent attack by the state is the third attempt in recent history to frame Comrade Bains and deport him for his political views. In 1973, the state imported an FBI agent, Joe Burton, to infiltrate the Party, and gather information to subvert it. Burton failed miserably, and in February 1975, the state concocted a framed-up case against Comrade Bains and the Party, allegedly that the Party was financed from abroad, and so on. The effort was so clumsy that it backfired. The FBI agent told such lies that nobody believed him. One of his lies was that Comrade Bains took money from the North Korean embassy in Paris. Not only had Comrade Bains never been to Paris, but the North Koreans do not even have an embassy in that city.

Soon after that infamous incident, in which the Solicitor-General arrogantly admitted that his department was working for the FBI and was aware of the activities of Joe Burton, the state organized four MP's from BC to launch a campaign for the deportation of Comrade Bains, in March 1975. This time Comrade Bains was accused of advocating the formation of "vigilante groups" against racist attacks. Hundreds of people of the East Indian community and democratic and progressive Canadians from all walks of life rose up in support of Comrade Bains, and this attempt by the state also ended in dismal failure.

The reactionary state has never for a moment given up its efforts to smash CPC(M-L). More than 2,000 arrests of comrades have taken place over the years and more than 25 comrades have been deported. The RCMP and other police forces have broken into Party bookshops and offices, stolen and destroyed revolutionary literature and vandalized Party property and committed arson. The headquarters of NBI in Montreal as well as the headquarters of CPC(M-L) have been repeatedly attacked.

The latest attack against Comrade Bains and the Party occurs at a time of intensified state harassment and persecution of the comrades and supporters of the Party across the country. Not only are the comrades arrested for putting up revolutionary posters and selling Marxist-Leninist literature, but the police are resorting to harassing and intimidating even the parents of young people who show an interest in progressive politics. As well, the reactionary bourgeoisie has floated every manner of revisionism, opportunism and police socialism as a block to the revolutionary movement in Canada, and has called for their agents to "smash" CPC(M-L). The February 23 raid on NBI, the arrest of Comrade Bains and the other comrades, as well as the ceaseless harassment and attacks on CPC(M-L) by the RCMP and the other police forces of the state are one more big exposure of the role of the RCMP and other police forces as repressive forces of the reactionary bourgeoisie to suppress through violence the struggles of the proletariat for emancipation and to drown in blood the struggles of all the sections of the people. The fascist activities of the police, courts, etc. in persecuting Comrade Bains and the Party strip the mask of "bourgeois democracy" from the state and expose the savage features of the dictatorship of the reactionary bourgeoisie.

Just as all the previous attacks by the state against Comrade Bains and the Party never succeeded in destroying the Party or in suppressing the revolutionary struggles of the proletariat led by the Party, this latest attack, too, is bound to fail miserably. No matter what the outcome of the case, the Canadian proletariat is aroused and organized against these attacks, their vigilance is heightened and they are determined to carry out the cause of the revolution through to the end.

The February 23 RCMP raid and the arrest of Comrade Bains and the other comrades did not succeed in disrupting the proceedings of the Third Congress, which was a congress of the victory of Marxism.

Far from cowing down and intimidating the people, the February 23 attack has given rise to ever greater resistance amongst the people to the political repression of the reactionary state. The dastardly attack and arrest of Comrade Bains was denounced by the progressive and democratic people from coast to coast in Canada and in many countries around the world. This angry denunciation by the masses of the cowardly state attack reflects the great love and respect that the people bear towards CPC(M-L) and the uncompromising stand and fighting revolutionary spirit of Comrade Bains. The Canadian People's (Citizens and Residents) Defense Committee came into existence in response to the February 23 raid and arrest of Comrade Bains, to organize mass revolutionary struggles against state attacks on the people. Meetings, mass democracies and press conferences were organized in many cities to denounce the fascist attack against Comrade Bains and the Party and the hysterical attempt by the state to frame up Comrade Bains. On March 19, Comrade Bains led a militant demonstration of over 200 people in Toronto against political persecution and state-organized racist attacks. On May 5, when Comrade Bains and other comrades appeared in court to face the trumped-up charges, CPDC organized a demonstration of over 200 people who marched through the streets of Kitchener-Waterloo shouting the slogans: Down with the Political Persecution of CPC(M-L)! Down with the Frame-Upof Comrade Hardial Bains! and other slogans. When Prime Minister Trudeau visited England to attend a conference on June 6, he was met with a demonstration denouncing the Canadian state for its political persecution of CPC(M-L).

PCDN vigorously denounces the latest attack of the reactionary state against Comrade Bains. Our Party stands absolutely firm behind the leadership of Comrade Bains and will respond with courage and determination against any attacks of the reactionary state against Comrade Bains. The latest frame-up attempt to persecute Comrade Bains is a sign of the weakness and impotency of the state. PCDN hails the fighting spirit of Comrade Bains and looks at this attempted frame-up with the utter contempt that it deserves.

DOWN WITH THE FRAME-UP OF COMRADE HARDIAL BAINS!

LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTIONARY RESISTANCE OF THE PEOPLE!

LONG LIVE THE CANADIAN PEOPLE'S (CITIZENS AND RESIDENTS) DEFENSE COMMITTEE!

LONG LIVE THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CANADA (MARXIST-LENINIST)! End.

[Back to Top]

Banks Squeeze Cleveland Schools While Teachers Go Without Pay

(The following is a leaflet issued by the Cleveland Branch of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists during the height of the school closings in Ohio last fall. Today, the "educational crisis" is becoming extremely acute as school systems are bankrupted to pay tribute to the capitalist financiers. The "educational crisis" has broken out sharpest in Ohio where in dozens of school systems pay-checks were cut off to teachers and the teachers responded to these attacks with a wave of strikes. The leaflet also shows how despite repeated set-backs the government is still trying to devise ever more devious ways to organize the fascist anti-busing movement and it is planning to scapegoat the Afro-American people and blame the lack of funds for education on integration and busing.)

Last Wednesday, Nov. 23, 1977, the Cleveland Board of Education, after setting aside funds to pay off loans from the Cleveland Trust Company and National City Bank, did not pay the teachers and other school employees their wages due. This is a vicious attack by the rich and their government on the teachers and other school employees as well as the working class youth and children in the city of Cleveland. The teachers are absolutely correct to resist this attack and they should be supported by all the workers.

The financial crisis of the Cleveland schools is part of the economic crisis gripping all of the capitalist and revisionist countries. The theft of the teachers' wages, the threatened school closings and the planned layoffs of teachers are part of the program of the U.S. capitalists to make the working class and people bear the burden of this crisis.

In the state of Ohio alone there are 40 school districts in the same situation as the Cleveland school district (going broke and threatening to close). Two weeks ago the Governor's Council for Cost Control announced plans to deal with the financial crisis of the schools in the state of Ohio. These plans call for:

1) increased sales, property and income taxes on the working masses,

2) decreased taxes on the monopoly capitalist businesses,

3) reduction of educational programs to the minimum,

4) consolidation of school districts (i. e., closing of schools), and

5) laying off of school employees (See "Cleveland Plain Dealer", Nov. 12, 1977)

Throughout the country thousands of teachers and other school employees have been laid off and education programs have been cut back. On a nationwide basis the average high school student gets 100 hours less instruction per year today than in 1967. This is how the capitalist government shifts the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the working class and people on the front of education. The attacks on the school employees and the school children in Cleveland are bound to intensify.

The government in the U.S., from the Board of Education to the White House, is not an institution to represent the will of the people but a dictatorship of the rich. This government extorts huge sums of tax money from the working masses (36 cents out of every dollar of wages for the average worker) but this in no way insures the basic needs of the people as the crisis in education proves. Instead these huge sums of tax monies are expended in such a way as to maximize the profits of the finance capitalists. Presently such things as subsidies for the oil monopolists' war preparations and other parasitic activities of the rich serve that purpose, while education of the working class youth does not. Consequently, the rich are raising a hue and cry that the government "can't afford" to educate the youth and expenditures for education at all levels are being reduced. But before the moneybags will allow even the most minimal education to take place they are also demanding increased tribute in the form of increased interest payments, lucrative contracts, etc. For instance, from 1971 to 1976 the Cleveland Board of Education's expenditures to operate the schools did not even keep up with inflation. But at the same time its principal and interest payments to the banks increased by 97%. And now the Board of Education and the banks are working out a deal whereby the schools will be allowed to stay open if the indebtedness of the school system is increased so that the banks can get more tribute from the workers' tax money!

The rich are finding themselves increasingly isolated and hated by the masses and are forced to resort to maximum political deception against the workers. The multitude of court hearings about the financial crisis of the Cleveland schools are just such political deception. The government resorts to this fancy legal "debating" in order to confuse the people, to create illusions that if everyone is patient things will get better, and to shift the blame for the financial crisis of the schools onto the Afro-American people by propagating the lie that the financial crisis of the schools is connected with the question of school desegregation.

Judge Battisti puts on a front of being a champion of school integration, a defender of the school children and teachers and an opponent of the banks, but if you look at the details of his plans you will see that this is a fake. What the Federal Court of Judge Battisti is doing is helping the School Board draw up plans to lay off thousands of teachers and other school employees, cut back educational programs and raise taxes, all the while saying that this has to be done to "afford" school integration when in fact it is being done to insure the rich their tribute. This is a Hitlerite trick to scapegoat the Afro-American people for the crimes of the rich and to split the working class.

The class-conscious workers do not accept this deception. They blame the rich both for the fact that the Afro-American people are viciously discriminated against and segregated away from the white working masses and for the collapse of the educational system. They realize that the working class must wage the struggle against the rich on both these questions in a revolutionary way.

The grave crisis of the capitalist system is revealing the real causes of things and preparing the workers to accept the necessity of waging revolutionary struggles to make the rich bear the burdens of their own crisis and to overthrow the capitalist system all together. End.

[Back to Top]

DOWN WITH CARTER'S ENERGY FRAUD!

Last year at this time, during the deep cold of the winter, the big oil companies created a phony shortage of natural gas in order to viciously blackmail the American people into paying sky-rocketing prices to heat their homes. These capitalist robbers and oil kings of the big energy monopolies reaped billions in profits from the exploitation and misery of the people.

This natural gas "crisis", in which tens of thousands of workers were laid off and hundreds of schools closed due to natural gas cut-backs, earned the bitter hatred of the American working class and people.

But did President Carter propose to penalize the oil companies and natural gas distributors for their heartless plunder of the people, involving even turning the gas off in the midst of the severe winter further hurting people bankrupted by the economic crisis and by their immense utility bills ? No! He proposed to reward the oil companies with yet higher prices and to burden the American people with yet more taxes, and to make the masses pay for the huge oil stockpile the government has created for use in a future aggressive war.

This energy fraud of the Carter government strips the Democratic Party of all its rhetoric of being the "party of the workers and minorities", a party that allegedly stands for "human rights", "anti-racism", "peace" and "the common people". Beware! The Carter administration, like the Nixon-Ford administration before it, is merely a tool of the rich capitalist moneybags against the people. As this year's cold winter sets in, the people have the experience of last year's energy fraud very much on their minds.

The Carter Energy Fraud reveals that the Carter administration is just Nixonite fascism without Nixon. One need only recall Carter's pre-election praise of Nixon as a "strong leader" (first TV debate with Ford) and look at the similarity of Carter's Energy Fraud and Nixon's Phony Oil Shortage. In 1973, the oil companies used the pretext of the just Arab oil embargo (which was waged in support of the October 1973 liberation war of the Palestinian and Arab peoples against U.S. -backed Israeli Zionism) to create a phony energy shortage in the U.S. While oil overflowed the tanks, and tankers were turned away from the East coast ports, the American people were hit with unbelievable oil and gasoline prices. Nixon shamelessly asked that the American people "turn down the thermostats" and passively freeze while the profits of the oil companies jumped fabulously. Four years later, the Carter administration is following the same program to the letter. This shows that the Democratic and Republican Parties are both equally the tools of the rich.

But where there is oppression of the people, the people are sure to resist this oppression. The whole capitalist world (including the revisionist, phoney- socialist countries run by the Soviet Union) is gripped by a profound all-round crisis, an economic, political and spiritual crisis. The people all around the world are rising up to fight against U.S. imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism, and all reaction. The U.S. monopoly capitalist class is in deep trouble. It wishes to shift the burden of its crisis onto the workers and oppressed nations. It is preparing for a new imperialist world war to escape from the crisis and to massacre the revolutionary people. But this is provoking resistance from the workers and oppressed people in the U.S. In the last 2 years a powerful strike movement has broken out. The Afro-American people are vigorously fighting the racist attacks of the state, and its fascist anti-busing movement. All sections of the American people are actively resisting the offensive of the rich and its flunkey, the Carter government.

A meeting is being organized to aid the upsurge of the American people by denouncing the Energy Fraud and by using it to puncture the political deception and lies of the "democratic" Carter administration, so that these capitalist dogs can become as much an object of public hate and scorn as the Nixon-Ford administration before them.

The struggle of the American people must lead to an anti-fascist, proletarian socialist revolution which will bury the monopoly capitalists and their state apparatus and usher in a new era in which the U.S. a will be ruled by the working class and toiling masses. Only the dictatorship of the proletariat, where the working class is the ruling class, will give the masses of the people political power with which to solve the question of the energy crisis once and for all and to totally eliminate the present evil capitalist system of the exploitation of man by man. End.

[Back to Top]

ANTI-FASCIST STUDENTS IN NEW JERSEY FIGHT STATE-ORGANIZED ATTACKS THROUGH ACTIVE RESISTANCE!

The following leaflet was issued by the New York Branch of COUSML.

On January 23rd, three anti-fascist students of Essex County College are to appear before the Superior Court of New Jersey, Essex County, to face trial for defending themselves against a fascist police attack. The trial itself is a continuation of this vicious attack initiated by the ECC administration on October 28th, 1976.

On that day, a public meeting was held by the Newark Student Movement, a revolutionary organization of students at ECC under the leadership of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists. The meeting was the culmination of a campaign denouncing the capitalist presidential elections -- a campaign which had won wide support among the students. The ECC students vigorously supported the slogans "DON'T VOTE -- THEY'RE ALL THE SAME" and "TO HELL WITH THE CAPITALIST POLITICAL PARTIES".

The fascist ECC administration stood in great fear of this revolutionary meeting and the Newark Student Movement. Rising in defense of the bourgeois presidential elections fraud, the ECC administration assembled all its reactionary forces, called upon its allies, the Newark police, and launched a vicious physical attack on the meeting. The students staunchly resisted the attack, heroically defending themselves. Then, after this criminal suppression of the revolutionaries and other anti-fascist students, truth was turned on its head and the students were charged with the crimes of the police: each of the students was charged with five counts of assault and battery on police officers! These students were then taken before the courts where the attack has been further intensified.

Right from the start, the court supported the fascist attack of the ECC administration and the police by setting bail at $20,000 bond for each student. The attack did not stop there. Once out on bail the trial has been delayed for well over a year. During this unjust delay the students have been under the constant surveillance of the police. Further, the ECC administration banned the students from the campus. This ban has hindered the students' need to contact witnesses and to gain other evidence pertinent to defending themselves and exposing the administration- led police attack. Also, this ban was designed to keep the good news of the struggle of the anti-fascist students from the rest of the student body. The ban from campus has been upheld by the courts -- a clear example of the collusion of the courts, the police and the ECC administration to suppress the revolutionaries.

Aside from these open acts of suppression, the state is also employing the counter-revolutionary tactic of political deception. For example, the court has continually tried to take the initiative out of the hands of the progressive students and force them to rely on the fascist state machine (of which the courts, police and ECC administration are a part). To this end, the court has tried to tie the students up in a web of legal bureaucracy, burdening them with a thousand and one legal technicalities, and then trying to saddle the students with its own legal "defenders" who would restrain the students from exposing the ECC administration and police lies.

In addition, the state has been using the threat of long prison terms in a futile effort to get the students to "cop a plea" -- to plead guilty to a lesser charge and escape punishment. This offer of "benevolence" is in reality a sugar-coated bullet. The essence of such an offer is two-fold: (1) if the students admitted "guilt" to a "crime" they did not commit, the ECC administration and the police would be taken totally off the hook -- their real crime of assaulting the students would be "justified" and (2) the ECC administration would then use this as a "lesson" for all ECC students "proving" that uncompromising resistance and struggle are impossible. In this way the administration would try to get all ECC students to submit to the continuing attacks on the basic interests of the students. To the horror of the state, however, the three anti-fascist students have pledged to continue their uncompromising resistance in the trial.

The attacks by the ECC administration, the police and the courts on the communist supporters of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists and other anti-fascist students are not isolated events. They are part of a whole campaign by the U.S. monopoly capitalist butchers to suppress the working class and revolutionary masses, who are seeking a revolutionary way out of the current economic crisis of the capitalist system. The resistance struggle of the ECC students is also not an isolated event but a part of the whole resistance movement of the American working class and oppressed masses to the shifting of the burden of the crisis onto their backs and to the fascization and imperialist war preparations of the rich. It is this example, this heroic spirit of resistance, which the state is going all out to crush.

The just struggle of the three anti-fascist students deserves the support of all progressive students, faculty and staff at ECC. We call on all these forces to come and support the continuing resistance of the students in the upcoming trial. End.

[Back to Top]

Opening Statements in Court

As we go to press, the trial of the three progressive students is continuing. The students are taking a staunch stand of struggle in the court, upholding active resistance to the reactionary attacks of the state. The Workers' Advocate hails the fighting spirit of the students and will carry further coverage of the trial in its next issue.

The opening statements in court by Comrades Jose Garza, Enrique Aguilar, and Rich Cruze follow:

Opening Statement by Comrade Jose Garza

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury:

I want first to establish the fact that Mr. Cruze and myself are communists and Mr. Aguilar a progressive-minded person all of whom were students at Essex County College. That we are communists and progressives has a definite relevance to this trial. In fact, it is the reason we are found here today falsely charged with assault and battery on police officers. Despite the various attempts by the prosecution to deny the facts, this is a political trial; a trial in which communists are being falsely charged to justify a police attack and political suppression at Essex County College. What took place on October 28, 1976 was a political attack lodged against us by the administration of Essex County College against our right to disseminate our political views among the students on campus. This attack of October 28, 1976 was, first of all, the culmination of a series of attacks waged against us by the Essex County College administration over a long period of time. Historically, the Essex County College administration had harassed us, threatened us with arrest, suspended people from campus for supporting our political views, fired me from my position on the staff, solely for the purpose of suppressing us from putting forth our political views among the students, faculty and staff at ECC. The form which this over-all attack against us took on October 28, 1976 was the final act which the administration could have taken against us -- the action of police violence against a public political meeting. (The judge allowed attack lodged against us by the administration of Essex County College against our right to disseminate our political views among the students on campus. (The judge allowed the next sentence to be read but had it scratched from the record.) Secondly, this attack on October 28, 1976 is a clear manifestation of the ever growing fascism in the United States.

(During entire next paragraph, the jury was forced to leave the room.)

Essex County College is a cell of U.S. bourgeois society and as such all the class contradictions between the rich and the working class and people are manifested daily and in very concrete ways. As the rich of this country find themselves in their deep economic and social crisis, they attack the people as the means out of their crisis. The people, in turn, resist these attacks. At Essex County College, the administration represents and defends the interests of the rich against the people and, in carrying out the program of the rich against the people, they attack the students in every conceivable way. The students resist and the students struggle against these attacks to make them pay for the crisis of the rich and their government.

Historically, Mr. Cruze and myself had participated in the students' struggles at ECC against these attacks by the administration. We distributed The Workers' Advocate, newspaper of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists, The Newark Patriot, newspaper of the Afro-Asian-Latin American Peoples' Solidarity Forum (Newark) and the NewarkStudent, newspaper of the Newark Student Movement, and otherwise, through meetings and discussions etc., expressed our views openly and publicly on the various issues facing the ECC students, disseminating Marxism-Leninism, the ideology and theory of the working class, to guide the students in their struggle against their enemy.

Mr. Aguilar had participated in several of our political meetings and activities.

For this participation, those who worked on campus were threatened with being fired and finally fired and, over-all, we were denied the right to put forth our views. To carry out this suppression, the ECC administration used its huge bureaucracy and its police department and finally colluded with the Newark City Police to violently suppress when their trickery and underhandedness failed.

In order to present our political views among the students, we had, first, to search for other channels to obtain such facilities as rooms for meetings as the so-called "established normal channels" had been totally blocked for us. Second, we had to overcome the threats and harassment by the administration through its police.

October 28, 1976 was no different except for the fact that we were carrying out a public meeting, in a place where we had previously carried out meetings, on the issue of the bourgeois presidential elections, denouncing the elections as a fraud to hoodwink the entire American working class and people and calling on the students to consciously oppose this fraud by not voting. We had waged a two week campaign on this issue under the slogans TO HELL WITH THE CAPITALIST POLITICAL PARTIES! and DON'T VOTE-- THEY'RE ALL THE SAME! This campaign culminated in the meeting under the same slogans on October 28, 1976 and for which public notice was given two weeks in advance. During this campaign we denounced the capitalist political parties involved -- the Democrats, the Republicans and the sham "socialist" parties. We explained how each is an instrument of the rich against the people. (The next sentence was not allowed to be read.) As a result, much discussion was taking place among the students and the views of the Newark Student Movement on this issue was well known on campus.

On that day, the Essex County College administration sought to suppress us as they had done historically. To do this, they invented a series of stories and charges to stop us from holding the meeting. When we wouldn't submit ourselves to this form of disruption, the administration had no other recourse left but to take the path of physical and violent suppression of our meeting. To do this they isolated us, the defendants, and kept one of us from leaving the room even though an arrest had not taken place. Against this attack, organized and led by the Essex County College administration, we defended ourselves tit-for-tat.

The prosecution, on its part, has already, and will continue to try to hide the fact that this was a political attack and this a political trial and to turn truth on its head by laying false charges against us. We urge you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, to seek truth from facts and to determine who are the real criminals. Seeking truth from fact will establish that the events of October 28, 1976 was a culmination of political suppression. The prosecution, by seeking to limit the trial only to the events in the room, discounting the politics involved, is in fact not looking at the cause of the problem and who are the real perpetrators. The prosecution, in fact, seeks to cover up the real world and the real role of the Essex County College administration and its crimes against the students.

Opening Statement by Enrique Aguilar

Ladies and Gentlemen, members of the jury,

I would like to show that I'm innocent of the charges of assault and battery on police officers, and that I defended myself from the attacks of the police.

Also throughout the trial I will prove that:

On the afternoon of October 28, 1976 I was a student at ECC. During that day in the morning and part of the afternoon I went to my normal classes which were part of my Fall Semester schedule of 1976. On that afternoon I went to room 4163 to attend a public meeting called by the Newark Student Movement to denounce the elections fraud. At one point I tried to leave the room in order to see what was going on in the hallway between other students in the area and the police. I was told to go back to the room by the police without being given any reasons why. I went back to the room and sat down and waited for the meeting to start. I listened to the speech being given by Mr. Cruze. Around that time", the room was all of the sudden filled with ECC and Newark police. Some police attacked me and I defended myself.

Opening Statement by Comrade Rich Cruze

Members of the jury:

We urge the jury to seek truth from facts. The prosecution will continually deny that this trail is actually a political trial, a trial in which we defendants appear before you not because we engaged in the alleged criminal activity we are charged with, but because Mr. Garza and myself are communists who express our views, and Mr. Aguilar is a progressive-minded student who came to a public meeting in order to hear the communist view of the then upcoming presidential elections.

We ask the jury to keep in mind that all claims of the prosecutor that this is not a political trial are merely claims, and that in themselves, the claims prove nothing. Our contention is that the ECC administration, the ECC police, and the Newark police participated in a series of acts to suppress our political views, culminating in a wanton, violent police attack that physically destroyed an ongoing public meeting of the NSM, an organization of communist students, of which I am a member. From this it follows that we consider this trial to be a political trial, a trial in which the defendants are forced to answer to concocted criminal charges because of their political beliefs. Two opposing views are thus placed in front of the jury: 1) the defendants are common criminals who committed assault and battery on police officers, and 2) the defendants are victims of a violent attempt to suppress their political views, and justly defended themselves.

It is our view that the only way that the jury can decide which view is correct, is if you seek truth from facts. This means first of all that the truth cannot be known before all the facts are before the jury. Only after all the facts are before the jury can the jury decide which view is correct. Only after the facts are known can the jury decide whether this is a political trial or not. That there was physical contact between the defendants and the police is undeniable. But what were the circumstances that led up to this physical contact ? What are the events surrounding the physical contact between the students and the police? Only when all these facts are known to the jury can you decide the nature of this physical contact, its basis, which we contend was political. So in seeking truth from facts, we do not mean a number of isolated facts that merely show that there was physical contact between police and students, but the entire set of facts surrounding the physical contact between police and students.

In seeking truth from facts, the jury is urged to remember that facts are based on objective reality. We hold that a political trial is a real thing in the world. A political trial either exists before your eyes here, or it doesn't. We defendants have no desire to turn this trial into something it isn't. We do not intend to conjure up a political trial where none exists. In this sense, we cannot make this trial into a political trial, (turn this trial into a circus), and so on. On the contrary, anyone who claims that this is not a political trial, but then refuses to consider all the facts, is guilty of not taking a serious attitude to the trial, of wanting to turn the trial into something it isn't.

We are confident that if we can simply make the jury conscious of all the facts surrounding the alleged crimes, you will see that essentially we are on trial because of our communist and progressive political views. This is why we urge the jury to seek truth from facts.

In conclusion, I would like to simply note the facts we wish to prove, and the truths that we feel can be concluded from these facts:

1. Mr. Garza and Mr. Cruze have been subject to continual attempts by the administration and police of ECC to stop them from expressing their political views and organizing on the basis of their political views. During the entire period they have been on campus, not a single complaint was lodged against them by any students, faculty or staff member.

2. On October 28, 1976, the Newark Student Movement, to which Mr. Cruze belongs, planned to hold a public meeting to give the communist viewpoint on the subject of the then upcoming presidential elections, a public meeting widely publicized on campus for two weeks prior to October 28th.

3. The students legally secured a classroom on the fourth floor of the ECC megastructure, as a meeting room, during a time when the room was unoccupied, during the college-wide "college period" when no classes are held. Prior meetings of a similar nature.

4. The very afternoon of the scheduled public meeting of the NSM, the ECC administration, on five separate occasions, within about an hour of the scheduled meeting, attempted to cause disruptions and provocations during the preparation work done among the other students for the meeting.

5. After the last disruption by the administration, the administrator who carried out the disruption at the meeting room itself, leaves the room area, but soon returns with some of the ECC police.

6. The ECC police make a number of false accusations, intentionally lie, and make verbal and physical threats against the students who were organizing and attending the meeting.

7. Failing to remove all the students under these various false pretenses, the ECC police call the Newark police to come up to the room.

8. Upon their arrival, at the meeting room, the Newark police call for yet more Newark police to come up to the room.

9. In the middle of the meeting, while a speech is being read by Mr. Cruze, that the Newark police will later call "propaganda", the ECC and Newark police invade the room in large numbers.

10. The police violently attack the students in the room and the students justly defend themselves.

11. After the arrest is made, the ECC administration, the ECC police, and the Newark police do a number of things to cover their tracks:

--the Newark police file an inaccurate and misleading report of the incident

--the students are suspended without a hearing and banned from the campus, preventing them from gaining access to witnesses for a defense

--at a probable cause hearing in November 1976, the police concoct a ridiculous story in order to accuse the students of their own crimes, and to deny the charge of excessive force.

From these facts, we can draw three basic truths:

1. The police and administration organized a violent attack on the students with the aim of political repression.

2. The students defended themselves from the excessive force used by the police forces of ECC and the city of Newark.

3. The defendants are innocent of the charges. End.

[Back to Top]

STUDENTS DENOUNCE "SKILLS TEST" AT CCNY

The following article is a special release of CCNY Student, newspaper of the CCNY (City College of N. Y.) Student Movement under the leadership of the COUSML. It was issued on Dec. 7, 1977.

The Campus of December 2, 1977 contains an article on the front page with the headline, "No Two Year Test College begins its program". This is but the latest in a long list of attempts by the Board of Higher Education (BHE) and CCNY administration to generate maximum confusion and deception around the Two Year Skills Test, to defuse the situation and liquidate the universal opposition of the students to it. In its last issue the CCNY Student exposed the latest schemes of the BHE which include: 1) changing the name of the test to "Freshman Skills Assessment" test but keeping the same reactionary aims of throwing students out, 2) to start giving the test to new freshmen only, hoping to prevent any organized resistance, 3) implementing a "pilot test" first, to test the waters of the students' opposition, and in particular 4) continuing their vicious fraud that "declining academic standards" and not making the students pay for the capitalist economic crisis is the issue addressed by the skills test.

Now the CCNY administration has recruited The Campus and is stepping in to take the heat off the BHE with more deception. The treacherous "No Two Year Test" article in The Campus: 1) states an outright lie that there will be no two year skills test at CCNY, 2) creates a phoney contradiction between CCNY and the BHE to let the CCNY administration off the hook, and 3) falsely claims that this is "a means of upgrading the scholastic level of the City University" and is not an attack on the students.

This article claims to be "Putting rumor to rest" by issuing the outright lie that there will be "No Two Year Test". But this lie is extremely flimsy. The article itself admits that the only issue is that the CCNY administration wants to help the BHE in attacking the basic interests of the students by implementing "its own testing standards in accordance with the Board of Higher Education rules". But the BHE's rules are crystal clear -- all students must take and pass tests in reading, math and writing: "Students who have not met the skills proficiency levels set after earning 61 credits will not be permitted to register for any senior college courses except that they may do remedial work as non-degree students. " (Freshman Skills Assessment, A Proposal, Aug. 1977, p. 10, CUNY). This proves that the administration is just lying when it says "to be decided is the fate of students who fail the tests and cannot complete remedial work", it has already been "decided" that many students will be kicked out of college into the ranks of the unemployed youth.

The article goes on to imply that CCNY Student Movement and the CCNY students were wrong last year when the test "was interpreted as a mandatory skills test for each CUNY student entering upper division work". But that is precisely what it is and what it remains. It makes no difference if CCNY administrators, the BHE or whoever implements the "testing standards" -- it is a vicious attack on the students and we will fight it.

This blatant lie about "No Two Year Test" only scratches the surface of the treacherous role of this article. The whole lie is based on the alleged "fact" that supposedly the CCNY administration is waging a big battle with the BHE against the test and in defense of the students' interests. Suddenly the CCNY administration is "against" the BHE's "tyranny of testing" and simply wants to "help" the students by providing remedial help. Clearly this opposition to the BHE's skills test is a complete sham. Under this deception, the article's advice to the students is to give up their staunch resistance to any skills test and rally behind the CCNY administration's "opposition" to the test. But the students will never fall for this attempt to liquidate their staunch resistance. Experience shows that the CUNY and CCNY administrators have complete unity in implementing the plans of the government to serve the interests of the rich by making the students pay for the economic crisis. In this they have often relied on various traitors to the students' interests such as The Campus to mislead the students.

The present situation is that the administration is scared stiff by the students' opposition, is having a rough time implementing its attack and is wriggling like a worm. Over the past year the CCNY Student Movement and student activists have dealt heavy blows at every scheme and deception of the BHE to implement this test. With this test and in particular with their "declining standards" fraud they have lifted a rock only to drop it on their own feet, as they have been exposed for all the attacks which they are so desperately trying to hide.

The Campus article, the CCNY administration and the BHE are still trying to confuse the issue by claiming that this test is "a means of 'upgrading the scholastic level of the City University' ", and not throwing more students out of CUNY. Thus they seek to detach this attack on the students from the whole campaign of the rich and their state to shift the consequence of the crisis onto our backs.

But what is the origin of this skills test and the BHE's "declining standards" fraud? The BHE passed their original resolution of the Skills Test on April 5, 1976. At the same meeting other resolutions were passed ending Open Admissions, cutting the overall size of CUNY and its programs, closing various colleges, etc. in order to drastically cut the CUNY budget. One month later the BHE imposed tuition on the CUNY students. Today 60,000 students have been thrown out, thousands of faculty have been fired, and the CUNY budget cut by $100 million. All these measures were carried out with the full cooperation of the CCNY administration. These measures were imposed at the dictate of the finance capitalists and their political representatives, the Emergency Finance Control Board (EFCB) and the government, to shift the crisis onto the students and staff. These funds cut from the CUNY budget have gone directly into the pockets of the rich moneybags on Wall Street as skyrocketing NYC debt service payments. Thus the profits of the rich were preserved intact while the students and staff were forced to pay the consequences. The BHE, in a desperate gamble, thought that the students would believe that at the same time as they were viciously attacking the students they were passing a resolution designed to improve the academic quality of CUNY!

The BHE had even more vicious intentions when they raised their "declining standards" fraud. They took up directly the mission of the rich and their state to single out for special attack the Afro-American, national minority, immigrant and foreign students. These sections of the people are viciously oppressed by the monopoly capitalist system and are forced into the worst schools and blocked from receiving the most minimal education. Many CUNY students read and write English only as a second language, yet the skills test will be given in English "according to BHE rules". Racist and fascist attacks on the national minorities and immigrants are the cutting edge of growing fascism in the U.S. today and pave the way for further attacks on the entire people.

To justify their attacks the bourgeoisie is attempting to shift not only the burden, but also the blame for their crisis onto the people. They are whipping up the racist lie that national minorities and immigrants are to blame for the rotten crisis-ridden educational system and all the other ills of monopoly capitalism. They do this to hide the fact that all the problems facing the people are the result of the man-eating capitalist system and to get the people to fight each other instead of uniting to fight the rich.

Fellow students! We must continue to oppose all the "make the people pay" solutions of the rich to the economic crisis. The BHE and the CCNY administration serves only the class interests of the rich with this latest attack on our basic interests. We are faced with the task of thoroughly denouncing the Skills Test attack and exposing every deception and diversion the bourgeoisie throws at the students, whether it be the ravings of The Campus or the "declining standards" fraud. We must continue and deepen the movement to arm ourselves with analysis of the true nature of the test and arouse all the students to prepare for struggle against it. End.

[Back to Top]

IAN SMITH'S "MAJORITY RULE" FRAUD WILL NOT STOP THE ARMED STRUGGLE IN ZIMBABWE

Ian Smith, Prime Minister of the white racist settler colony of "Rhodesia", recently declared that he and certain black sell-out elements have come to an agreement to form an interim government that will lead to "majority rule" for the Zimbabwean people in two years. This plan is another in a long list of plans that have been drawn up by the U.S. and British imperialists in their attempts to impose a neo-colonialist settlement on Zimbabwe and prevent its genuine liberation by the Zimbabwean people. The present scheme to protect the interests of imperialism under the guise of "black majority rule" will meet with the same fate as the others. It will be ground into the dust by the forces of the brave Zimbabwean freedom fighters under the leadership of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and its military wing, the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA).

The "new" plan according to press reports is similar to the proposals of the Kissinger Plan of 1976. The main points of the Kissinger Plan were:

1. So-called "majority rule" will allegedly take place in two years.

2. An interim government will be set up in the meantime, consisting of a council of state, half of whom are black and the other half white. Their functions will include: supervising the drafting of a new constitution and general supervisory legislative responsibilities. Its decisions will require a two-thirds majority. The interim government will also have a council of ministers, with a majority of blacks. But for the whole period of the interim government, the ministers of defense and law and order (who control the army and police) will be in the hands of the white settlers (thus guaranteeing that the white minority would retain control of Zimbabwe).

3. A trust fund will be set up to allow the imperialists to further their export of capital into Zimbabwe, strengthen the new neo-colonial regime and step up the exploitation of the Zimbabwean people and their resources.

The "new" plan announced by Smith has these additions to the Kissinger Plan:

1. The existing government bureaucracy and the civil service will continue to function under the interim government.

2. The white settlers are guaranteed 28 percent of the seats in parliament for the next 10 years. (The whites actually comprise only three percent of the population.)

3. ZANU will be barred from participating in the interim government and from the "free" elections to follow.

This new settlement is a paper-thin veil, behind which the imperialists and the racist and fascist Smith regime are attempting to hide their evil designs. Unable to rule the country through outright white colonial control any longer due to the vigorous armed struggle of the Zimbabwean people, the racists have resorted to demagogy and deceit, proclaiming their "willingness" to accept "black majority rule". But the plan itself exposes the utter bankruptcy of Smith's talk of this so-called "majority rule in two years". The interim government will remain, as the colonial government before it, a white racist settler regime of chains and concentration camps for the Zimbabwean people.

The army and the police, which are the chief instruments of state power, along with the bureaucracy, which carries out the day-to-day workings of the government, will still be in the bloodstained hands of the white settler regime. This racist army and police, which are world renowned for their torture and murder of the black people, which patrol the concentration camps in which the Zimbabwean masses are incarcerated, which have pursued and slaughtered thousands of Zimbabweans, which have hunted down the heroic ZANU soldiers, which destroyed the town of Mapai, killed the people of Nyadzonya, Chimois and Tete, this same army and police are supposed to become "neutral", "maintain" law and order and "help" pave the way for "majority rule". No one but the most die-hard lover of imperialism, of slavery and reaction, can call this proposal a step towards "majority rule" without choking on his every word.

As for "majority rule" itself, after the interim government is dissolved, the plan discloses that this is just a farce. The council of state, whose duty is to draw up the new constitution and grant "majority rule" will be made up of Smith and other members of the white settler regime. One can hardly imagine these terrorists, who daily butcher and suppress the peopie, agreeing to any provision that would grant the Zimbabwean people the least bit of freedom.

But the intrigues of imperialism cannot deceive the heroic Zimbabwean national liberation fighters. Comrade Tirivafi J. Kangai, Chief ZANU Representative to the United States, reiterated ZANU's stand towards the plans of the imperialists to impose a neo-colonialist solution on Zimbabwe. He said, "We would like to warn Smith, his supporters abroad and those puppets that anybody who stands in the way of our people's revolution will be crushed. We would also like to stress that there will not be any solution in Zimbabwe until total power is surrendered to the Patriotic Fighting Forces. No deal which bypasses the revolutionary forces will last long in Zimbabwe. We are prepared to wage armed struggle until Smith and his stooges are crushed once and for all."

ZANU is keeping true to its word. This "new" agreement comes at a time when the heroic Zimbabwean masses led by ZANU are winning new victories. In the past month, eight district assistants, who are native para-military civil servants and whose mission is to oppress the population in the rural areas, have been wiped out. ZANU has also reported that its intelligence service has captured a Rhodesian soldier whose mission was to poison the wells and food in the liberated areas. Today, more than two-thirds of the country is semi-liberated. This means that on 40% of the territory ZANU virtually controls the ground, while the murderous Smith regime only has access to the air.

Smith and the sold-out elements among the Zimbabwean people claim they represent the interests of the majority of the people and have reached what they call an "internal" settlement. But this settlement is neither in the interests of the majority of the Zimbabwean people, nor is the settlement "internal". This settlement is the work of the world-wide system of imperialism and its racist and fascist lackeys, who represent a minute portion of the Zimbabwean and world's people. The U.S. and British imperialists have large investments in Zimbabwe and want to impose a neo-colonial government to keep their investments secure and to expand in the future. They fear the national liberation struggle, because they know that if it succeeds, Zimbabwe will be another area of the world free from imperialist domination. They are hoping that the Zimbabwean people will be fooled by seeing some black stooges in high government positions and will then give up their just struggle. But this is only a pipe dream of the imperialists. The interests of 95% of the Zimbabwean people lie in the national liberation struggle and socialism. The masses of people are placing their hopes and desires with ZANU and the people's war. With their rifles cocked and the barrels pointed at the Smith regime, the Zimbabwean people are marching on the road toward freedom. The imperialists and their racist and fascist running dogs can "agree" to anything they like, but the Zimbabwean people will be their own liberators.

DOWN WITH SMITH'S FAKE "MAJORITY RULE" SCHEME!

DEATH TO THE RACIST AND FASCIST SMITH REGIME!

DEATH TO U.S. IMPERIALISM!

VICTORY TO THE ZIMBABWEAN PEOPLE ! PAMBERI NE CHIMURENGA! FORWARD WITH THE REVOLUTION! End

[Back to Top]

New Year Message by Comrade Mugabe, The President of ZANU

The Workers' Advocate has received the following New Year Message issued on January 1, 1978, by the Publicity and Information Department of the Zimbabwe African National Union. The text of this message follows:

PAMBERIMBERI NE CHIMURENGA!

The year 1977 has closed and the year 1978 has set in. Revolutionary New Year greetings to you all and best wishes for even greater victories this year than in 1977.

Our revolutionary armed struggle has, but for the external constraints of 1975, continuously and progressively spun time and the Zimbabwean territorial space from 1966 to 1977. Since January 1976, we have successfully maintained the offensive and vastly expanded our operational zones. By December 1977, the whole country had been turned into one vast military operational zone. Now, we feel proud that our Zimbabwe National Liberation Forces can be encountered anywhere and everywhere in full force.

Every district in the country has become a hotbed for the enemy and a favorable operational zone for us.

The year 1977, in particular, has been one of remarkable military achievements which speak for themselves:

a) The enemy has been decimated in hundreds and put to flight in vast zones in which our fighting Forces have been consolidating our position and creating with the masses and out of the masses revolutionary base areas.

b) The enemy's strategic military air bases and several police stations have been razed to the ground with many enemy aircraft destroyed beyond repair. The latest such assault by our forces was that directed at Grand Reef, near Umtali, where we thoroughly "blessed" the enemy with heavy mortar and rocket fire. We shall soon give you a detailed account of enemy casualties.

c) We have hit and dislocated the enemy's lines of communication causing an effective disruption of the inflow and outflow of his goods, thus affecting adversely his trade. Hence his continuous unfavorable trade balance and the recent devaluation of his currency.

d) The launching urban guerrilla warfare has spread the panic hitherto confined to the rural settler community to the urban settler bourgeois and comprador class. Our double strategy of combining rural operations with urban attacks has mainly been responsible for the emigration stampede which has driven over 2,000 frightened settlers from the country every month.

e) The enemy has, according to plan, by us, been fully stretched and reduced to thin and most vulnerable military units which have daily fallen prey to our direct attacks, ambushes and land mines.

f) The enemy's losses in terms of both personnel and military equipment have risen so sharply that coupled with his other military expenditure he has been forced to devote as much as 600,000 Rhodesian dollars a day, or 1.2 million dollars every two days, or 18 million dollars a month, 200 million dollars a year, to the war alone.

g) We have destroyed several of his concentration camps, the so-called keeps or protected villages, freeing thousands of our people who are now being effectively organized into administrative units and mobilized into defending themselves and carrying on self-reliance projects in education, production and construction and in other allied fields.

h) The enemy's oppressive civil administrative machinery has been destroyed in vast rural areas and our peasant population in these areas can now live without the burden of taxes and school fees which their own meager incomes can ill afford.

i) We have captured many weapons and vehicles from the enemy which have been of great assistance in our efforts to step up the war. These are remarkable achievements. And I wish to say to all our gallant Fighting Forces, to our Party, and to all our Zimbabwean revolutionary masses who have supported the war, "Congratulations upon these victories and the telling blows which they have been upon the enemy. 1977 has been a good year, a very good year for us. You have done well. Maintain the offensive and for ever force the ever retreating enemy into a worse defensive position. Continue our tactics of harassing him, hounding and pounding him from every corner, every position until he is completely annihilated."

Having said this, may I now draw your attention to the requirements -- political and military -- of 1978. They are the following:

I. Now that we have encompassed the whole country with our operations, the basic power of our revolutionary struggle must be vigorously and systematically cultivated. The basic power of any revolutionary armed struggle is the PEOPLE. A struggle which enjoys the full support of the struggling masses can never fail no matter how protracted it may be.

II. Let us, therefore, in every sense of the phrase make 1978 the PEOPLE'S YEAR -- the year the broad oppressed masses have been totally and effectively mobilized in every village, district, province, city, town, mine or farm into supporting the war as their war. The PEOPLE are the best instrument for achieving true victory over the enemy. As we move amongst them, like fish in water, let us constantly bear in mind that this massive water maintains its smooth kindness to the fish in feeding, hiding and facilitating their sometimes sleek and gentle, but often swift tactical movements. But we must also constantly remember that this massive water can be made to rise in furious floods capable of engulfing and drowning the enemy, marooning, isolating and cutting him off. The POWER of the PEOPLE is irresistible. It is our surest weapon.

III. But the organization of the masses must conform to Party directives. The Party line is the only correct line for the mobilization and organization of the masses. The people must thus be rallied behind the Party and the armed struggle.

IV. 1978 must equally be the year in which our Party, as the vanguard of the armed struggle, has also grown firm and deep roots everywhere in the country. Again the strength and viability of any Party derives from the PEOPLE. The roots of our Party are in the people. These roots must spread deep, wide and solid in 1978. The Party and the people and the people and the Party must have one and the same meaning. Organize the Party in the name of the people and the people in the name of the Party. Make 1978, therefore, THE YEAR OF THE PARTY AND PEOPLE so that we can also fully transform our struggle in both theory and practice into the PEOPLE'S STRUGGLE.

V. Our Revolutionary Fighting Forces must always make a judicious and most economic use of our fire power so that maximum results are achieved by minimum resources. For the loss of one weapon let us seize two, better still four, of the enemy's weapons. Our principle of self-reliance must accordingly be fully invoked so that we can use the enemy's resources in destroying him. Our principle of self-reliance must accordingly be fully invoked so that we can use the enemy's resources in destroying him.

VI. Inasmuch as our war must continue to be fought on the basis of the principle of the full mobilization and unity of the people, our Party will, and indeed, must continue in its revolutionary task of winning over and aligning itself with any democratic forces committed to the total overthrow of British imperialism and colonialism, and its settlerist regime together with its physical instruments of capitalist domination and mass oppression.

VII. Unity on the basis of the armed struggle, that is, revolutionary unity, is the only form of unity that we hold dear.

VIII. The unity of national democratic forces is a phenomenon of a national character, an event within national boundaries. Our war being a just cause, and by virtue of its revolutionary nature, draws into its orbit the support of progressive and revolutionary countries, organizations and forces the world over. Accordingly, apart from the dimension of national unity which it must assume, it must also acquire consistently an international dimension, but only to the extent of deriving material, political, diplomatic and moral support of the progressive and socialist international community, and not in respect of manpower. Therefore we must cultivate and maintain our solidarity with our natural friends and allies. In this regard our alliance and solidarity within the Patriotic Front and our solidarity with the front lines states, with the OAU countries, with socialist countries, with other progressive countries and socialist and progressive organizations in non-socialist countries and with other liberation movements -- such as SWAPO, PAC, ANC, POLESARIO, FRETILIN, the PLO -- must continue.

In the context of this international solidarity and the support we are enjoying, the year 1978 must, if our own fighting and organizational efforts double, be the decisive year. Remember, as the new year has opened, a most favorable terrain has emerged, with the new season. The enemy is frightened, he is in disarray and completely resigned to defeat. This is no moment to slacken our efforts. Let us hammer him to defeat. Let us blow up his citadel. Let us give him no time to rest. Let us chase him in every corner. Let us rid our home of this settler, vermin.

Zimbabwe must be free now. The people are anxiously awaiting a new and independent state. To arms, all you brothers and sisters, to arms all you fathers and mothers. Yes, everyone of you, Comrade workers and peasants, students and everyone, join in and fight on, bash the enemy, for victory is in sight. Victory is certain! Let us say in 1978 Pamberimberi Ne Chimurenga.

A LUTA CONTINUA!

Department of Information and Publicity, Maputo End.

[Back to Top]

ZIMBABWE AFRICAN NATIONAL UNION WAR COMMUNIQUE

The Workers' Advocate has received the following War Communique issued on January 4, 1978, by the Publicity and Information Department of the Zimbabwe African National Union. The text of this communique follows:

On December 17, 1977, our forces launched a successful attack on the Grand Reef military air base west of Umtali. This base is a center for attacks against our people in the semi-liberated areas in the east of the country, and for aggression against the People's Republic of Mozambique. It is thus of great importance to the enemy.

The attack, which was carried out by a company of our comrades with artillery and light weapons, was preceded by careful reconnaissance. Our forces chose a, moment when the camp was carelessly guarded and were able to take up positions inside the perimeter fence about 100 meters from the buildings. Music could be heard coming from inside.

A ZIPA artillery unit opened fire first, and after few minutes the enemy returned fire. However, the the enemy forces, who numbered about 500, were taken completely by surprise and were unable to put up effective resistance. Our comrades were able to continue the shelling for half an hour.

An estimated 400 enemy soldiers were immobilized and will play no further part in the military oppression of our people, or in the criminal aggression against the neighboring states.

One of our comrades was killed and five others were wounded.

Heavy material damage was inflicted on the enemy, including the destruction of twenty military aircraft, two armored cars, eighteen trucks, twelve private cars and two fuel tanks. Among the enemy installations wrecked by our fire was the armory. A ZIPA super unit cut the Salisbury-Umtali electric power line, putting out the lights in parts of Umtali.

After our comrades withdrew from the scene of the attack, enemy soldiers were seen in nearby villages with blood on their clothes, asking for water. Some were so confused and desperate that they drank water that had been used for washing plates.

The following day an enemy helicopter and a reconnaissance plane flew over the scene and two other planes arrived to evacuate the wounded to Salisbury.

The success of our forces in the attack on Grand Reef is result of the growing support of the masses for ourfighters and heightened political awareness and technical ability of the fighters themselves.

Our victory at Grand Reef is another devastating blow to the enemy's morale and a further warning to the Smith regime and its puppets that the day of freedom and national independence, won on the battlefield, is drawing closer every day.

PAMBERI NE CHIMURENGA! A LUTA CONTINUA! End.

[Back to Top]

Angolan People's Struggle Surges Forward!

UNITA COMMUNIQUE

DEC. 8, 1977

UNITA's guerrilla forces continue to make progress against the combined Cuban/MPLA led ''government'' forces throughout Angola including the provinces of Cunene, Moxico, Lunda, Huila, Cuando Cubango, Huambo, Bie, Mocamades and Benguela.

During the past two weeks, UNIT A guerrillas have captured four towns, shot down a helicopter, killed 08 Cubans, 15 FAPLA (MPJaA puppet troops--ed.) and 13 militiamen; and captured 51 FAPLA soldiers. (UNITA's policy is to capture rather than kill FAPLA whenever possible.) Large quantities of both heavy and light weapons were also captured.

Following is a military communique from UNITA forces operating inside Angola:

Nov. 20

Military Region 5 -- UNITA forces entered Kalina in Benguela Province and captured, without resistance, a large quantity of uniforms and cattle.

Nov. 25

Military Region 25 -- In the southeastern part of Bie between Kachingu and Chitembo, UNITA guerrillas destroyed four enemy vehicles and captured 1-60 mm mortar and numerous rounds of ammunition for already captured 40 mm weapons.

Nov. 29

In the town of Cueli along the Benguela Railroad, UNITA forces killed 52 Cubans, including 12 who were allegedly "technicians". One depot of weapons was recovered, and the bridge between Cuanza and Cuiva was blown up.

Military Region 57 -- An ambush between the towns of Munongo and Simoge resulted in the deaths of 11 Cubans and 17 FAPLA. In addition, two bridges were destroyed and 2-RP 57's, and 13 AK 47's were recovered.

Military Region 57 -- Guerrillas captured the town of Mussama, killing five Cubans, with the remainder of the unit last seen fleeing southward toward Zambia.

Military Region 9 -- MPLA/Cuban forces in the area of Andulo and General Machado were overheard by UNITA radiomen to be requesting permission from HQ in Bie to retreat because of UNITA's relentlessness there.

Nov. 30

After several violent battles UNITA forces captured the town of Caiundo in Cuando Cubango Province, capturing 14 FAPLA. According to UNITA radiomen, one Cuban unit further south was reported progressing northward to rescue the remaining FAPLA troops by Dec. 8. However, they will fall into a UNITA ambush.

Military Region 9 -- When UNITA forces took the town of Cacarongolo, also captured were 3-60 mm mortars, 1-RPG7, 8-AK47's, 160 rounds of ammunition for 60 mm mortars and 4,000 rounds for various caliber rifles.

Dec. 1,2,3

UNITA forces destroyed the military outpost of Kukuma, killing 15 FAPLA and 13 militiamen, and capturing 10 FAPLA along with several weapons. MPLA had staged a battle here to "salute" the opening of its congress in Luanda.

Military Region 41 -- The town of Kirina in Malange was captured on Dec. 1.

* Dec. 3

Along the border lines of military regions 25, 45, and 93, MPLA batallion #628 stationed at the post of Kachingues in Bie, abandoned its post and fled to Silva Porto where troops turned in their weapons, refusing to further engage UNITA in combat.

Military Region 15 --UNITA guerrillas put two Cuban/MPLA companies out of action, in the process capturing 1-75 mm cannon, 2-81 mm mortars, 6-60 mm mortars, and 61 AK47 rifles.

There have been numerous desertions from MPLA/ Cuban forces, and Cubans are increasingly being compelled to shoulder the majority of the war effort for the Luanda regime.

Reminiscent of the days of Portuguese colonialist contract (slave) labor policies, students are being rounded up and forced to go north to labor on the coffee plantations. Additionally, in the face of severe food and other critical material shortages as well as labor and production shortages throughout MPLA areas, the Luanda regime is now forcing hundreds of Angolans on ships to Cuba as an act of "solidarity".

These policies and practices of the politically bankrupt "government", the continuing chaos and destruction caused by the MPLA-induced war itself, are rapidly exacerbating the already enormous discontentment among people throughout the country.

In Luanda acts of sabotage and strikes are continuously being carried out by clandestine elements of UNITA operating in Luanda.

*On this date UNITA guerrillas also shot down a helicopter over Jandavira with a RPG7 rocket launcher. End.

[Back to Top]

UNITA Communique - Angola's Ailing Economy

MESSAGE FROM THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE -- Prepared by the Subcommission on Economics

Dec. 31, 1977

The end of the year 1977 finds the economy of Angola suffering from a progressively devastating paralysis.

The escalating civil war, caused by the MPLA-invited foreign aggression, has brought not only death and destruction to Angolan people, but also a host of other maladies bringing vast sectors of the economy to a virtual standstill.

Unlike the 13-year anti-colonial war, the current military conflict has expanded into areas of major economic importance. UNITA guerrillas confront the Soviet-armed MPLA army and more than 25,000 Cuban troops, in the oil, diamond, and coffee areas that provided over 82 percent of the exports prior to the civil war.

We, of UNITA, are now operating in 13 of the country's 16 provinces. Familiar patterns of economic life are dislocated. A year ago, a UN High Commission for Refugees spokesman estimated that one sixth of the population of our sparsely settled country were either refugees or displaced persons. The figure now is undoubtedly higher due to the massive outflow of refugees into Namibia, Zaire, and Zambia, fleeing major MPLA-Cuban search and destroy attacks. These offensives, staged periodically to "wipe out the remnants" of UNITA have taken place in UNITA strongholds in the South.

Under Portuguese colonialism 95% of the departed 600,000 whites did the overwhelming portion of all skilled labor; and their hasty exit marked the beginning of the current economic turmoil. This factor of Angola's colonial legacy, combined with the sizable displacement of a huge portion of the Angolan labor force, has had an extremely adverse effect on food production for domestic consumption, as well as on the key export, coffee.

One of the major complaints against the MPLA/ Cuban government is the shortage of staple foodstuffs in urban areas. Augustinho Neto has blamed these shortages on sabotage engineered by the Nito Alvez faction which attempted a coup last May. This is a transparent smokescreen to shift the blame from the already highly unpopular war to Neto's chief rival within the divided MPLA.

Prior to the civil war coffee provided almost 25 cents of every export dollar. Coffee production is now endangered because the labor force most familiar with coffee cultivation fled the northern coffee areas to their homes in the South when the civil war started. For the most part these Angolans support UNITA and have refused to work under MPLA/ Cuban direction. We, of UNITA, consider the ongoing attempts to forcibly return these workers to the North as a return to contract (slave) labor, one of the most hated and inhumane aspects of colonialism. The MPLA/Cuban government attempts to find alternative stop-gap sources of labor to harvest the crops include urban youth and East German "volunteers", but the results have been highly unsatisfactory.

Over one-half of the nation's food is now being imported. In many places Angolans are literally starving to death. Meanwhile, as an act of ''solidarity" Angolan youth are being rounded up and herded off in ships to Cuba to help the aggressor with their sugar cane harvest!

As under the Portuguese, oil continues to be the most exploited of Angola's vast natural resources. This black gold is flowing from offshore rigs off the Cabinda enclave in northern Angola at a faster rate than before the civil war. The dramatic increase in world oil prices tripled the revenue from oil in the year from 1973 to 1974. In 1974 oil provided 60% of colonial government revenue and almost 50% of the value of exports. This percentage has risen sharply because the war has had virtually no affect oh oil production. The government receives over one half billion dollars per year from the American- owned Gulf Oil company, producers of 80% of the country's oil. (Note: Cuba's "socialist" army troops defend this American capitalist operation.)

Despite the immense revenue from oil, no real development is taking place. Angolan oil is lubricating and fueling the war machine of the socialist- imperialists, instead of the Angolan economy. An army of 30,000 men, backed up by an estimated 25,000 or more Cuban troops is draining the economy. In 1975 alone, the Soviet Union sent MPLA 200 million dollars in arms. UNITA's intensification of the patriotic guerrilla war since that date had spiraled the figure even higher.

This Soviet aid, of course, is not free, as the Egyptian experience with the USSR clearly illustrates. With the critical military situation in the country, the government cannot choose between guns and butter. Sophisticated weapons, spare military parts, quartering a huge Cuban army, and importing food that could be grown locally (were it not for the war), are soaking up resources for development.

Diamond production dropped from 490,000 metric tons in 1974 when they provided 10 percent of total exports, to 115,000 metric tons in 1975; and in 1976, production is still falling.

Carlos Abecassis, chairman of Diamang (the South African-controlled Angolan Diamond Company) asked the MPLA/Cuban government to nationalize the company, because of falling profits. (In February 1976, he said that production had fallen 95% in the preceding three months.)

Until recent UNITA inroads, MPLA had almost total control of the diamond region; nevertheless production has declined. Over two thirds of the 25,000 man work force and almost all of the 2,000+ skilled white workers left their jobs. Illegal diamond mining, a rare occurrence in colonial times, is now taking place on a large scale. UNITA's new front in Luanda Province, where the 50,000 square kilometer Diamang concession is located, will further strain the anemic production.

Regional trade is also being severely affected by the war. UNITA guerrillas control the nation's breadbasket in the fertile central plateau in Huambo and Bie provinces. Food formerly sold and transported to other areas is now feeding our guerrilla army.

By controlling the major roads, we are stopping the movement of goods in the entire southern part of the country.

American journalist, Leon Dash, recently in Angola, reported waiting a full week in an ambush operation with UNITA guerrillas along the Silva Porto-Serpo Pinto macadamized highway, without a single vehicle using the road. Prior to the civil war, this road was busy night and day. UNITA has prevented use by the Soviet-backed MPLA/Cuban government of the Benguela Railroad, the main artery of transportation in Angola from Zaire to Zambia. Soon after routing UNITA from the urban areas with Cuban-led armor and aerial units, the illegal government announced the imminent opening of the railroad to the copper-exporting regions of Angola's landlocked neighbors, Zambia and Zaire. At that time UNITA President Jonas Savimbi announced that the railroad would never open. Almost three years have passed and the complete length of this vital transportation link has yet to open, thereby depriving the Neto government of 100 million dollars in transportation fees that would have been gained from international traffic.

Neto is currently searching for foreign investment; but prudent businessmen are advised not to heed his beckoning, because UNITA is on the move -- making more strikes, capturing more territory every day, and in the process enveloping the most important economic zones. The shut-down of the iron deposits at Cassinga -- which garnered $80 million per year prior to the war -- clearly illustrates that economic development can only come with peace, in turn, peace will only come when the more than 25,000 Cuban soldiers leave our country, and the now antagonistic Angolan groups sit down at the negotiating table and form a government of national unity.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL PEACE AND FREEDOM-LOVING PEOPLES EVERYWHERE!

LONG LIVE AFRICA!

LONG LIVE ANGOLA!

LONG LIVE UNITA!

(Issued through the UNITA office in London.) End.

[Back to Top]

U.S. Imperialist Ambassador Andrew Young Again Praises Cuban Invasion of Angola

The U.S. imperialist ambassador to the United Nations, Andrew Young, has again expressed his approval of the invasion of Angola by Soviet-backed Cuban puppet troops. Young praised the role of the Cuban troops in an interview with the Johannesburg Rand Daily Mail, while on a trip to the capital of the South African racist regime for the coordination of plans between the U.S. imperialists and South African racists to suppress the liberation movements in southern Africa.

The reason why this arch-lackey and front-man for U.S. imperialism supports the 25,000-strong Cuban occupation force in Angola is clear. The Soviet-Cuban invasion of Angola, which props up the MPLA government of national betrayal, has kept Angola within the sphere of imperialist plunder, protecting U.S. imperialist investments and keeping open the prospects for U.S. imperialism to again expand its plunder of the land and people of Angola. As Andrew Young puts it, the Cuban troops have "played a positive role in the development of a stable and orderly society". In other words, it is Cuban mercenaries who are protecting the huge operations of the Gulf Oil Corporation in Angola and other extremely profitable investments of the U.S. imperialist corporations.

And if the Cuban mercenaries of Soviet social-imperialism represent "order", what are the forces of disorder which Mr. Young has in mind? They are the Angolan people fighting for complete independence under the leadership of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). Young pointed out in his interview with the South African racists that "it was Cuban troops that helped keep Agostinho Neto (the head of the puppet MPLA government -- ed.) in power when... black racist forces sought to overthrow him, essentially for being a non-racist intellectual." This term "black racist forces" is a standard epithet which the imperialists and racists hurl at the genuine fighters against imperialism and racism, much the same as they hurled the brand "race-riot" at the great rebellions of the Afro-American people against racial discrimination and violent fit repression in the 1960's. In this case, Young is referring to the uncompromising UNITA fighters! On the other hand, "a non-racist intellectual" is the term Young reserves for sold-out lackeys and agents of imperialism and racism such as Young himself and his friend Mr. Neto. This, once again, exposes the lying propaganda cooked up in Washington and Moscow that UNITA is an agent of U.S. imperialism. And shows that it is, in fact, the Cuban invaders and their friends who are agents of imperialism, social-imperialism and reaction.

The aggressive alliance of U.S. imperialism and to Soviet social-imperialism against the Angolan people will surely be smashed. No matter how many more of thousand Cuban mercenaries Soviet social-imperialism sends to slaughter the Angolan people, and no matter how much support they receive from Andrew Young and his U.S. imperialist masters, the Angolan people will never accept slavery and will develop their people's war until complete liberation is achieved. End.

[Back to Top]

ERITREA, 1977: A HISTORIC YEAR

The following is reprinted from Eritrea In Struggle, Newsletter of the Association of Eritrean Students in North America, Vol. II, No. 4, January 1978.

1977 witnessed a revolutionary upsurge in the struggle of the working and oppressed peoples throughout the world. On the other hand it witnessed setbacks and failures on the side of imperialism and all reactionaries. Imperialism and all reaction were dealt heavy blows by the combined force of the national liberation struggles in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the working class struggle in the capitalist countries and the socialist countries.

In Eritrea, under the leadership of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front and its army, the heroic Eritrean People's Liberation Army, the Eritrean revolution won unprecedented and earthshaking victories in 1977. Every day, every week and every month of the year, the EPLF recorded great military, political, social and economic achievements, bringing the Eritrean people's struggle closer to its goal of national independence and liberation. The year 1977 will always be remembered as a. historic year of unprecedented victories in the long and militant history of our heroic people and especially the glorious 16 years of armed struggle.

The many successes and victories of the Eritrean revolution in the last year are in turn aspects of great defeats, disappointments and failures for the Ethiopian occupationists, imperialism and internal reaction. 1977 was a year of devastating defeats for the Ethiopian fascists' war of aggression in Eritrea.

The spectacular victories in 1977 were the precedents of things that began with the setting on fire of a fuel depot in Massawa that contained 45,000,000 liters of fuel by EPLF fighters on December 31, the last day of 1976 which the EPLF called "a flaming torch of welcome for 1977".

The EPLF's political, military, social and economic achievements of 1977 are astounding. The most significant political victory in 1977 is the historic First Congress of the EPLF which was held in the liberated areas in January 1977. The EPLF Congress is the first democratic congress in the history of the Eritrean revolution. It adopted the revolutionary national democratic program and passed important resolutions. As the EPLF put it, the historic First Congress has "ushered in a new stage of great development and brilliant achievements and brought forth the finest days of our revolutionary organization.

In the ideological and political struggle between the revolutionary and reactionary forces of the Eritrean struggle, the thoroughgoing revolutionary forces led by the EPLF have won decisive victories over the reactionary elements. The reactionary elements have been further isolated and exposed. The pro-U.S. imperialist Sabbe clique has been fully exposed and isolated. On the question of national unity, through the relentless struggle by the Eritrean masses and all patriotic fighters and the EPLF's correct line positive steps forward have been registered.

The EPLF has further developed and strengthened its work of politicizing, organizing and arming the masses. Strong mass organizations of workers, peasants, women, youth and students have blossomed throughout Eritrea. Abroad, the Associations of Eritrean Workers, Students and Women in the Middle East, Europe and North America have intensified their struggle and strengthened their unity with the mass organizations at home. In the liberated villages, towns and cities the masses have set up their people's assemblies and are managing their daily affairs. The solid foundation of tomorrow's democratic Eritrea has taken definite shape.

In the military front, with the liberation of Karora on January 6 and with the siege of Nacfa since September 1976, the EPLF opened a general offensive to liberate the towns and the cities. The things that were to come followed. The EPLA implementing the art of people's war liberated city after city in an unprecedented way. Cities and towns of major strategic and economic importance, the towns and cities of Nacfa, Afabet, Ela Bered, Debarwa, Dekemhare, Keren and Segeneiti, fell to the EPLF one after the other like ripe fruits.

Although the aggressor troops made repeated attempts to attack the liberated areas in the south and to break through EPLA lines on the Asmara-Massawa road, they failed miserably. The EPLA and our heroic masses routed the aggressor troops in raging battles inflicting severe human and material losses on them.

At the moment the EPLA is annihilating the fascist occupation troops in Massawa. Asmara, our country's capital city, is also tightly encircled with all the roads leading to it sealed off by the EPLA.

With the countryside and most of the cities liberated now the Ethiopian aggressor troops are pinholed in Asmara and Assab awaiting their final and complete defeat. It has indeed become impossible for the reactionary junta and its supporters to turn the tide in their favor. Despite the Soviet Union's massive airlift of sophisticated weapons to the Ethiopian fascists the Eritrean liberation forces have maintained their absolute superiority. The enormous military hardware bestowed to the junta by the Soviet Union and East Germany are being daily knocked down like toys. The fascist junta's "all out offensive" mustering its Cuban and Israeli trained so-called "people's militia" was a fiasco. The aggressor troops were routed in battle after battle, thousands of them killed and taken prisoners.

At the same time the EPLF has captured enormous quantities of Soviet and U.S. military hardware from the occupation troops. The several U.S. M-41 and M-60 and Soviet T-54 and T-64 tanks, the thousands of U.S. M-14 and M-16 and Soviet Kalachinkovs and other large quantities of heavy and light weapons captured in the battlefields are in the hands of the EPLA, the EPLF's People's Militia and our masses turned against the aggressors.

The military victories won in 1977 have no parallels in the history of our people's liberation struggle.

In the liberated areas the EPLF has launched extensive educational, medical and economic programs and has opened extensive bus lines to serve the masses. The number of schools has been greatly increased. The EPLF is daily engaged in eradicating illiteracy among the workers and peasants through mass education and is caring for and educating the children of our heroic martyrs and the children of our fighters and the masses.

Equally in the medical field, the EPLF has built more hospitals in the liberated areas and trained more "barefoot doctors" tending to the medical needs of the masses. It has made an extensive campaign to educate the masses in preventive medicine and to eliminate communicable and other diseases through inoculation and vaccination.

The EPLF has also achieved great success in the important task of leading the peasant masses in agrarian revolution. It is implementing the slogan "land to the tiller", and, by politicizing and organizing the landless, poor and middle peasants into peasant associations, it is leading them in the arduous class struggle for their political and economic rights. Once organized and politicized, the peasants have themselves initiated land reforms that are of historic proportions in the Eritrean countryside. The EPLF has armed the peasants by forming people's militias to defend the gains they have won.

In all its revolutionary work among the masses and in executing the tasks of the revolution the EPLF has courageously implemented the revolutionary principle of self-reliance. It has established a large number of workshops and small industries and reclaimed large tracts of land for agricultural produce to both cater to the daily needs of the masses and the revolution. In doing so the liberated areas have become self-reliant in many respects and a larger percentage of the food needs of the fighters and the people has been met from inside the country.

The policies of self-reliance and politicizing, organizing and arming the masses are also being effectively implemented in the newly liberated cities. The EPLF has taken appropriate measures to rebuild the liberated towns and cities and to meet the food, and other needs of the masses. Fundamental changes in city administration and in economic life are taking place and city services have been fully restored.

The masses of urban dwellers have rallied around the EPLF. 1977 was the year of great mass rallies and demonstrations in the liberated cities unprecedented in Eritrean history.

Internationally, the Eritrean revolution in general and the EPLF vanguard in particular have gained great prestige and admiration among the revolutionary and progressive peoples of the world. More and more progressive forces throughout the world are coming in support of the Eritrean revolution. By forcefully attacking imperialism at one of its weakest links, the Eritrean Revolution has strengthened the position of the revolutionary forces in the world and weakened the position of imperialism and all reaction.

The unprecedented victories of 1977 are first and foremost the results of the political clarity and correct leadership of the EPLF, its success in consolidating the unity of the revolutionary and patriotic forces under its leadership, its correct approach towards the democratic questions of the masses, its policy of self-reliance and of liberating the country and the people step by step. It is precisely due to this political clarity and correct leadership of the EPLF that the Eritrean revolution is emerging triumphant. All hurdles in front of the success of the revolution are being smashed with the mighty force of the fighting Eritrean masses. It is only from this perspective of a clear and principled political line and leadership of the EPLF vanguard and the unity of the masses that we can understand and appreciate the many achievements of the revolution in 1977 -- no doubt a very important year in the history of the Eritrean revolutionary struggle.

As we enter 1978 we are confident that our fighting masses led by EPLF will even score more victories, that our cities still under the occupation of the Ethiopian fascist forces will soon be liberated and the final victory of our people's struggle will be realized.

Today is the eve of our country's complete liberation, the eve of the establishment of democratic Eritrea. End.

[Box: CORRECTION In the December 20, 1977 issue of The Workers'Advocate, the report "Hail the Founding of the Association of Eritrean Students in North America and the Association of Eritrean Women in North America!" was not the complete text but only excerpts from the text of the report from Eritrea in Struggle.]

[Back to Top]

Zionist Israel Escalates Support for Fascist Ethiopian Junta

The Workers' Advocate considers the following article exposing Israeli Zionist support for the Ethiopian fascist junta to contain important lessons. The article exposes how not only Soviet-backed Cuban puppet troops, but also the U.S.-backed Israeli Zionists are participating in the slaughter of the Eritrean and Ethiopian peoples. The arch-zionist butcher, Moshe Dayan himself, recently testified to the Israeli military assistance to the Ethiopian junta. This shows concretely how the world system of imperialism is united in one camp against the forces of the revolution and the peoples. It shows the great danger of relying on one superpower and its lackeys against the other superpower and its various lackeys when both superpowers are trying to strangle the revolution. Today, international opportunism is split into two varieties, those who are allied with Soviet social-imperialism and those who seek salvation under the wing of U.S. imperialism. The events in Ethiopia, where Russians, Cubans and East Germans have become the biggest supplyers of mercenaries and weapons to the medeival, barbaric regime of the fascist Dergue, has further exposed the nature of the "anti-imperialism" which the Moscow revisionists advertise. The shelling of the Eritrean revolutionary forces by Soviet destroyers shows exactly what kind of "socialist solidarity" social-imperialism has in store for the peoples.

The events on the battlefields of Ethiopia and Eritrea are also exposing the social-chauvinist apologists of U.S. imperialism who claim that the U.S. superpower has become a timid mouse, is on the "defensive" and is "retreating before Soviet advances". To the contrary, U.S. imperialism is working hand in glove with Soviet social-imperialism to prop up the fascist Ethiopian junta. While having to share with Moscow, U.S. imperialism still has positions within the neo-colonial Ethiopian state. As well, U.S. imperialism maintains its agencies such as the Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDU) in Ethiopia and the Osman Sabbe clique in Eritrea. Far from "retreating", U.S. imperialism and its Zionist hangmen are carrying out a savage aggressive policy against the Eritrean and Ethiopian peoples. The fact that the fascist butchers of Israeli Zionism and the Cuban puppet troops have joined into reactionary alliance in Ethiopia demonstrates the correctness of the thesis that the two superpowers, taken separately or together, represent to the same extent and to the same degree the main enemies of the peoples.

The following is reprinted from Eritrea In Struggle, Newsletter of the Association of Eritrean Students in North America, Vol. II, No. 3, December, 1977.

The fascist junta in Ethiopia, despite its high sounding "anti-imperialist" verbiage is a loyal subservient of imperialism and Zionism. Its relations with Israel in particular are closer than ever before. As the support to the junta from U.S. imperialism has recently tended to be more indirect, the Zionists as agents of U.S. imperialism in the area are channeling its (U.S. imperialism) handouts to the junta. Even the bourgeois press admits that "the U.S. is actively encouraging Israel to continue its long military association with Ethiopia. " (Economist, Nov. 12-18, 1977)

Zionist Israel has been and is an arch-enemy of the Eritrean national liberation movement and the struggle of the Ethiopian masses. In the past it fully backed Haile Selassie's autocratic regime and its genocidal war in Eritrea. Its experts were training over 15,000 counter-insurgency commandos who were deployed against the heroic struggle of the Eritrean people. The Zionists still use the Eritrean islands of Haleb and Fatima as centers of spying directed against the Arab people and the liberation movements in the region in general and the Eritrean revolution in particular.

With the present junta in power, the Zionists have tremendously increased their counter-revolutionary involvement against the Eritrean revolution and the struggle of the Ethiopian masses.

Although the junta doesn't maintain full diplomatic relations with Israel, the relationship between the two reactionary states is exceptionally close. In the views of the fascist junta (as it stated to its troops): "The cutting of diplomatic relations is only superficial. With Israel in particular, we have historic relations dating back to the ancient era. Moreover, both of us are surrounded by the Arab countries which are our common enemies, and it is necessary for us to cooperate against these common enemies."

The Zionists' most obvious support for the fascist junta is in the military sphere and specifically in the training of Ethiopian troops. Israel along with Cuba are the junta's most favored for training assistance. The Israeli experts play an important advisory role in the training of Ethiopian troops.

In the past three years since the junta has ascended to power, Israeli experts have trained over 10,000 troops of the most savage anti-people commando force known as the Nebelbal (Flame Brigade) of whom hundreds have been captured by the EPLF in Naro, Nacfa, Afabet, Keren, Dekemhare and other battles. The hundreds of Israeli trained troops captured by the EPLF have testified that the Israeli experts trained them in a place called Arba. In 1975 and 1976 alone Israeli experts also trained 400 bloodthirsty fascist troops which are hangman Mengistu's personal body guards.

Recently, the Soviet Union and East Germany have been pouring sophisticated weapons into Ethiopia while Cuba provides training assistance for the fascist junta. At the same time the Zionists have also been training scores of tank crews and anti-aircraft weapons operators among others for the junta in Israel itself. In addition, the Israeli Zionists are supplying the junta with spare parts for American weapons, most notably for F-5 jet bombers as well as "Russian tanks, armored personnel carriers, rocket-launchers, small arms and ammunition captured during the 1973 Mid-East War" upon the direction of their U.S. imperialist masters. Moreover, Israel has dispatched technicians to Ethiopia to service the junta's F-5 fighter jets and M-60 tanks supplied by the U.S. imperialists.

In the most critical times Zionist military experts participate in direct combat missions and fly war planes and helicopters for the Ethiopian air force. During the EPLF's siege of Nacfa between September 1976 and March 1977 Israeli experts directed the fascist junta's repeated attempts to save its besieged troops. An Ethiopian brigade commander who defected to the EPLF has corroborated that as Ethiopian pilots failed to accurately drop parachutes for the trapped aggressor troops Israeli experts took direct charge over the flying and parachute dropping task.

Israeli counter-revolutionary involvement against both the Ethiopian and Eritrean peoples is not just confined to military matters. The economic relations between the two fascist states are also intimately close. For instance, 40% of Ethiopia's export and import shipments are handled by the Israeli shipping company, Zima.

The facts speak for themselves. The fascist junta's "anti-imperialism" is but a hoax, a tactic whose main intention is to confuse world public opinion. However, the junta's subservience to imperialism and Zionism and its fascist nature are being unmasked by the mighty national liberation struggle of the Eritrean people led by the EPLF and the Ethiopian people's struggle for people's democracy. There is no doubt that the Eritrean and Ethiopian peoples will bury the fascist junta and its imperialist and Zionist backers in the deep graves they have dug themselves. End.

[Back to Top]

RADIO LIBERATION - ERITREA

[Graphic]

The Association of Eritrean Students in North America (AESNA) and the Association of Eritrean Women in North America (AEWNA) have launched a joint fund-raising campaign to assist the establishment of a radio station in the liberated areas of Eritrea. The Workers' Advocate enthusiastically supports this campaign. The revolution in Eritrea is advancing from one important victory to the next, dealing heavy blows to U.S. imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism and all reaction. The Eritrean liberation forces led by the EPLF have driven the occupation troops of the fascist Ethiopian junta into a corner. The establishment of a radio station in the liberated areas of Eritrea will certainly hasten the inevitable victory of the Eritrean national liberation movement. Below is reprinted the call we recently received from our fraternal comrades of the AESNA.

TO ALL PROGRESSIVE AND DEMOCRATIC FORCES

The Association of Eritrean Students in North America (AESNA) and the Association of Eritrean Women in North America (AEWNA) together have launched a fund-raising campaign towards the establishment of a radio station in the liberated areas of Eritrea.

In Eritrea, the war of national liberation led by the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) is surging forward. Ninety-five percent of the country, including major towns and cities have been liberated. The EPLF is scoring victory after victory -- decimating the fascist Ethiopian occupation troops and encircling them in the few remaining cities.

These new victories are bringing forth new and greater tasks for the EPLF vanguard. In its self-reliant protracted struggle to transform and consolidate the vast liberated areas j the EPLF takes as its central task that of organizing, politicizing and arming the masses. Today, with the number of people in the liberated areas, in villages, towns and cities, in the millions, the EPLF is faced with the most urgent task of disseminating mass education on a large scale. To facilitate the acceleration of mass education, the EPLF considers it of prime importance to set up a radio station in the liberated areas.

Moreover, with the lightning advance of the EPLF, the Ethiopian occupationists, their imperialist masters, and other and other reactionary elements, are stepping up their slanderous campaign against the Eritrean people's just and revolutionary struggle and in particular against the EPLF revolutionary vanguard. Attempts to isolate the Eritrean struggle and the EPLF, through news blackout, lies, slanders and distortions by the imperialist press has to be eombatted. One of the fundamental ways is to establish a radio station in the liberated areas of Eritrea from where the EPLF can present the true voice of the Eritrean people and expose the distortions by imperialist and reactionary news media.

It is in light of these central tasks of our revolution, that we have decided to launch a fund-raising campaign to assist in the establishment of a radio station. Towards the establishment of the radio station in the liberated areas of Eritrea, we have projected to raise $50,000 within a period of 9 months (December 1977 - August 1978). Therefore we call upon all progressive, anti-imperialist and democratic organizations and individuals to support and assist us in any way they can (contributions, donations, etc.).

For more information and donations contact AESNA, P.O. Box 1247, New York, N.Y. 10027, (212) 222-5403. End.

[Back to Top]

EPLF, ELF Sign an Important Agreement on National Unity

The following is reprinted from Eritrea In Struggle. Newsletter of the Association of Eritrean Students in North America, Vol. II, No. 3, December, 1977.

On October 19, 1977, EPLF and ELF signed an important agreement on national unity. The joint statement issued by EPLF and ELF states that "the two organizations ascertain their conviction on the necessity of forming a single national democratic front in the Eritrean field." The two organizations agreed "to form a joint political leadership and joint committees in the following areas: military, information, foreign relations, economic and social affairs." The joint statement points out that "the joint political leadership will be responsible for the preparation of a unification congress in accordance with the common procedures agreed upon by leaderships of both organizations." The two organizations agreed "to convene a wider meeting on November 20, 1977 to implement the principles stated in the joint statement." In addition, the joint statement states "The two organizations call on the rank and file of the so-called 'Popular Liberation Forces' (Osman Sabbe clique -- ed.) to join either of the two fronts in the Eritrean field."

This EPLF-ELF agreement on national unity is a major step in the long path towards national unity. Both organizations have agreed on the necessity of a single national democratic front in Eritrea. Until this is realized, they agreed on forming joint political leadership and joint committees while retaining their political and organizational independence. The formation of a joint political leadership and joint committees, which will work on the basis of mutually agreed upon program, will facilitate the intensification of the armed struggle and advance the struggle of the broad masses and democratic forces for the building of genuine and principled national unity. Once the political and ideological obstacles to the formation of a single national democratic front have been eliminated through unity and struggle, a unification congress will be called and a single national democratic organization established.

One of the important victories achieved at the EPLF-ELF joint meeting is the isolation of the counter-revolutionary Osman Sabbe clique. Ever since the EPLF denounced and expelled the opportunist Sabbe clique, various reactionary forces have tried to prop it up in an effort to organize a "third force". The consistent and principled struggle of the EPLF in exposing and denouncing the counter-revolutionary Sabbe clique, gained the wholehearted support of the broad masses and all patriotic fighters. The EPLF-ELF joint meeting and statement dealt a death blow to the Sabbe clique when it demanded the dissolution of the organization that Sabbe had attempted to put together by exploiting backward religious and tribal sentiments among Eritrean refugees in the Sudan. The joint statement correctly called on the ordinary people who had been manipulated into the so-called "Third Force" to side with the revolution and join either of the two fronts -- EPLF or ELF.

The EPLF-ELF joint statement is a heavy blow against the concerted efforts of the imperialists and reactionary forces to split and weaken the Eritrean revolution. This is why the imperialist press, reactionaries and opportunists of all hues have joined hands to distort and slander the joint statement issued by EPLF and ELF. In an attempt to discredit the Eritrean revolution and in particular the EPLF, they have distorted the essence of the joint statement by circulating malicious lies that the two fronts have "announced a political and military merger."

As clearly pointed out above, the joint statement does not announce the political and military merger of EPLF and ELF but states the general principles that will lead towards the establishment of a national democratic front in Eritrea. EPLF has also consistently made its line on the path towards national unity clear.

Genuine and principled national unity cannot be achieved simply through a declaration of a political and military merger. The path towards forming a national democratic front is a protracted step by step process, the result of a protracted joint struggle in the course of which unity on fundamental political and ideological lines are achieved.

The imperialists and their agents have also been propagating that the "political and military merger" was a "result of pressures from Arab countries". This slanderous lie actually reflects their own wishful thinking. However, their attempt to defame the Eritrean revolution and the EPLF in particular is futile. The EPLF-ELF agreement was the outcome of the protracted and steadfast struggle by the Eritrean masses and all patriotic fighters and the EPLF's correct political line.

AESNA hails the important EPLF-ELF agreement. We are convinced that the struggle for principled and genuine unity of all democratic and patriotic forces which is a strategic principle of the revolution and an unshakable demand of the Eritrean masses will be crowned with victory. End.

[Back to Top]

How to Advance the Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism

[Graphic]

1978 is opening amidst a deepening all-round crisis of international capitalism and a growing revolutionary movement around the world. The capitalists and their spokesmen and lackeys are in deep gloom, while the masses are awakening to new life, to struggle, to revolution. All the objective conditions for revolution are maturing.

The deepening economic crisis is showing the utter insanity of capitalism. It has lost any reason for existence. Millions of workers are being forced into ever more intense over-work, so that the capitalists can throw millions more into the street, into the ranks of the unemployed. An energy crisis is gripping the U.S. while the U.S. and world markets are overflowing in surplus oil. Food prices at the supermarkets are going up while small farmers are being ruined en masse by the low prices of raw agricultural goods. Millions exist at the very edge of subsistence, while commodities can't be sold for lack of a buyer. And this is not an accident, an oversight, but the inevitable result of the capitalist system of production for profit, an inevitable result of the contradiction between modern, large-scale socialized production and the archaic, out-dated system of private appropriation by a handful of money-bags.

The capitalists have no solution to this crisis. All they can do is strive to maintain their profits by squeezing the masses ever harder. They live by the law of the jungle, grabbing whatever they can at the expense of the broad masses. They are striving to shift the burden of the crisis onto the workers, small farmers, oppressed nationalities at home and oppressed masses abroad. They are savagely increasing the work-loads of the employed workers through speed-ups, drives for increased "productivity", rationalization and modernization of whole industries like steel, auto, hospitals, postal system, etc. They are lowering real wages both through direct wage-cuts and also by inflation. They are throwing students out of school by high tuitions for college, by closing the schools, by not paying the teachers, by increasing the size of classes, and by use of "skill tests" and ''minimum competency" tests for elementary and high school students. At the same time, they are brutally attacking the oppressed nationalities. Attacks on the Afro-American people and the other oppressed nationalities are the cutting edge of the attempts to organize fascist mass movements.

These savage acts of monopoly capital are increasing the indignation of the masses. Where there is oppression, there is resistance. The strike movement has been developing vigorously for the last few years. Last year's strikes were noted mainly for their intensity, for their high level of intensity, for their high level of activity of the rank-and-file striker and for the staunch fight against the inevitable court injunctions and the police. The heroic coal miners are today waging a national strike for the fourth year in a row. Farmers are trying out new strike tactics against mass ruin. The Afro-American people are continuing their struggle against racial discrimination and violent repression and for complete emancipation. A great ferment is sweeping American life.

Now is no time for complacency and illusions. No matter how deep the crisis, no matter how severe the difficulties, the U.S. monopoly capitalist dictators will not perish of their own accord. The weaker the U.S. ruling class becomes, the closer it comes to its doom -- the more vicious it gets in its last frenzied deathbed struggles. The capitalists are stepping up the fascization of all aspects of American society. In order to deceive the masses and step up the pace of fascization, they have installed the Carter regime. Carter is faithfully carrying out the program of his mentor, fascist Nixon. He is mobilizing the labor bureaucrats and the opportunists to back up this program. This program includes suppression of the people at home and preparations for a new inter-imperialist world war against the Soviet social-imperialists.

BUILD THE PARTY IN THE WORKING CLASS IN ORDER TO UNITE THE WORKING CLASS INTO A GREAT LEADING FORCE FOR REVOLUTION!

The upsurge of the workers' movement marks the revolutionary movements of the '70's. It is the workers' movement which is inspiring the other mass movements and which is the center of strength for the other struggles. This is why the central point of Carter's program is to suppress the workers' movement. He has proposed a whole series of fascist legislation against the workers' movement: the welfare "reform", "aliens" bill, labor "reform" act, etc. He is seeking to tighten the integration of the trade unions into the government apparatus. In order to split the workers' movement and to specially attack the oppressed nationalities, the capitalists have continued organizing the state-organized fascist anti-busing movement, have stepped up the "anti-crime" hysteria, and have added the fraud of ending a non-existent "reverse discrimination".

The workers' movement has surged forward right in the teeth of the fascist repression of the capitalist government. Many activists are coming forward to sum up the experience of the workers' movement and to decide the way forward. The workers' strength lies in organization. The workers' movement must be united and must direct its energies onto the right path. This cannot be left to spontaneity. Only Marxism-Leninism can direct and orient the workers' movement. Only through building the Party can Marxism-Leninism be applied to the direction of the workers' movement.

Thus the fundamental question facing the workers' movement is the building of the Party. Party spirit is the concentrated expression of class consciousness. It is only the Party that can direct and merge all the revolutionary mass movements of the working class and its allies into one great storm of anti-fascist proletarian socialist revolution. The Party must be built in the working class in order to unite the proletariat into the leading and main force for the proletarian revolution.

UNITE THROUGH STRUGGLE AGAINST THE FORCES OF DISUNITY

In order to build the Party in the working class, the Marxist-Leninists must unite. It is a first principle for Marxist-Leninists to unite into one Party on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and in the course of the struggle against the main enemy. It is a first principle for Marxist-Leninists to always and all the time regard themselves as representatives of a class and to uphold the Party spirit, and not as chance individuals, wanderers, or members of groups with some interest other than that of the class to defend. It is those activists who have learned through their own experience in the surging revolutionary mass movements of the need for the Party, who will unite to build the Party. This unity must be consciously worked for. The experience of the last decade has proved that there can be no unity without a resolute struggle against the forces of disunity, against the disrupters of unity. The present disunity in the Marxist-Leninist movement is not due to a "lack of experience" or some abstract "amateurishness". The disunity is due to the disruption of the Marxist-Leninist movement by opportunism and revisionism. There are those who have continually opposed the Party concept, opposed unity and sought to use the resultant weakness of the communist movement to infiltrate opportunist and Browderite ideas into it.

For years we in the COUSML have struggled to unite the Marxist-Leninist movement and build the Party. We hold that there should be only one national Marxist-Leninist center, and that before anyone organizes the Party he should consult with and seek to unite all the Marxist-Leninists. This is the method we have consistently followed. When in 1969 the Cleveland Workers Action Committee organized the American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist), the first national center for the dissemination of Mao Tsetung Thought and a predecessor of the COUSML, it consulted with the other Marxist-Leninist groups and individuals and sought to unite all who could be united. Some enthusiastically united, but the neo-revisionists (new-style revisionists who sought to infiltrate the Marxist-Leninist movement by adapting "New Leftism" to Marxism-Leninism) were influential and they kept the movement divided. They held to a polycentrist theory of "pre-party collectives", which has proved to be only the flipside of fascist hegemony-seeking. In the campaign around the "Call for a Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists", the campaign that gave rise to the founding of the COUSML in August 1973, the same method was followed. It was sometimes difficult for many revolutionaries to see why certain forces who claimed to be Marxist-Leninists persisted in their disruption and their opportunist positions. However, what was behind this disruption has now been revealed for all to see by a political event of first-rate significance. A section of the Marxist-Leninist movement has openly deserted to the side of the monopoly capitalists and is helping the government prepare for inter-imperialist war against the foreign threat. Revisionism and opportunism have again been revealed as tools of the bourgeoisie to subvert, split and liquidate the workers' movement.

THE EMERGENCE OF OPEN SOCIAL-CHAUVINISM IS THE CENTRAL ISSUE IN THE MARXIST-LENINIST MOVEMENT TODAY

The October League (now masquerading as the "Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)") represents the concentrated expression of social-chauvinism inside the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement. The ultra-right and new Browderite leaders of the OL have become open social-chauvinists, who are "Marxist-Leninists" only in words, but diehard jingos and Reaganites in deeds. Klonsky's thesis of "directing the main blow at Soviet social-imperialism" is an open declaration of alliance with U.S. imperialism in the struggle for world domination. The OL's obscene ecstasies of patriotism, including publications and wood-cuts of the Marxist-Leninist leaders in red-white-and-blue and frenzied fear over who has the most weapons of mass destruction, once again bear out the observation that the petty-bourgeois opportunists and the labor aristocracy are often more fanatical super-patriots than even the case-heardened, cynical big bourgeoisie, whose interests they serve. The Klonskyites do not fight against U.S. imperialism, but instead "criticize" the big bourgeoisie for being allegedly too "peaceful", making too many ''concessions", not being warlike enough. The OL has come out in favor of building more B-l bombers (The Call editorial, July 11,1977). The Call summed up the social-chauvinist world-view with its lead article of January 16, 1978. Here they feature a big three-column photograph of U.S. imperialist chieftain Carter next to French reactionary D'Estaing, with Carter pointing like a farsighted prophet into the distance. This picture, rather flattering to Carter, is politely captioned ''President Carter with French President Giscard D'Estaing on Normandy beach where D-Day invasion took place. The winds of war are blowing again in Europe as the superpowers contend for world control." Thus The Call is glorifying U.S. domination of Western Europe through NATO by comparing it to the anti-fascist coalition of World War II and by swearing on the graves of the martyrs of the anti-fascist war. How disgusting! The accompanying article's only "criticism" of Carter is for not doing more to strengthen U.S. domination of Western Europe, and it shamelessly states: "While the report (by a U.S. government agency -- ed.) calls for some strengthening of the U.S. position in Europe, it in fact underestimates the massive Soviet buildup that is going on there." The OL wants more strengthening of the U.S. armed forces and associates itself with another position which it shamelessly admits to be that of "other ruling class spokesmen" representing another "grouping of the imperialists". The Call praises this imperialist position, which it calls more "realistic", explaining that "this grouping of the imperialists (which includes the OL -- ed.) is not at all satisfied with Carter's pledge of 8,000 more NATO troops, emphasizing that the USSR has added 35,000 troops to its European forces just in the last year."

The opportunists and Klonskyites have always been social-chauvinist to the core. The neo-revisionists, for example, used and still use the most shameless great-power chauvinism to prevent the U.S. revolutionaries from learning from the advanced experience of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), the first Party to be reconstituted on the Marxist-Leninist basis in North America. What is new is that now the social-chauvinism of the Klonskyites has come out into the open, that it has turned from a secret alliance into an open alliance with U.S. imperialism. This exposure is the death warrant for the opportunists. It has exposed the essence behind a number of opportunist and anti-Leninist theories, especially behind the theory of 'three worlds". A number of counter-revolutionary stands by the OL in the last year have again revealed how the theory of "three worlds" is excellently adapted to camouflaging with honeyed words the social-chauvinist practice of negating the proletarian revolution and trying to preserve the vast U.S. colonial empire from both "theft" by the Soviet New Tsars and from true liberation by the national liberation movement. What was particularly notable this past year is that the OL not only praised the neo-colonial lackeys like the Shah of Iran and Mobutu of the Congo-K, but also came out against and betrayed the struggle against old-style colonialism. In the past year the OL betrayed the Panamanian people's struggle against colonial occupation of the Canal Zone and domination over all Panama by supporting Carter's new unequal Panama Canal treaties. The OL has also betrayed the Palestinian and Arab peoples by its praise for Sadat's "de facto recognition of Israel" (The Call, Dec. 12).

In the last year and a half, since we published "Mao Tsetung Thought or Social-Chauvinism, A Comment on the October League's Call for 'Unity of Marxist-Leninists' " (Sept. 1, 1976) and gave the fighting call "U.S. Marxist-Leninists, Unite in Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism!" (March 10, 1977), a number of preliminary victories have been won against the social-chauvinists. Social-chauvinism and the anti-Leninist theory of "three worlds" have become the central issue in the Marxist-Leninist movement. The social-chauvinists have been thrown into disarray, resorting to the most outright sophistries and lies to defend their treason. The social-chauvinists, being opportunists with no Party spirit, are divided into innumerable groups which regularly denounce each other. Their schemes for organizational fusion have proved a big sham -- they are still divided into a thousand pieces and the struggle between Marxism-Leninism and social-chauvinism has not been suppressed, but is deepening all the time. Each time the masses catch and brand one group, the others hurry to disassociate themselves saying "that is not the real 'three worlds' theory", "that is OL -- we are the real 'main blowers' ", " 'three worlds' is not the whole strategy for world revolution, it is only a part", etc. At one time they denounce class analysis as "Trotskyite", at another time they hurry to claim that "three worlds" is "a kind of class analysis" -- thus proving that the theory of "three worlds" is, in fact, a kind of Trotskyism. Some say that "three worlds" dates from 1974, some say it dates from after World War H, some try to attribute it to Lenin, and some even try to attribute it to Marx and Engels, back in the period prior to the development of imperialism! OL, as a professional confusion-monger, naturally takes all the above positions on the origin of the "three worlds'' theory at the same time. The revolting social- chauvinist political blackmail of trying to turn Chairman Mao into a Titoite revisionist "three- worlder" is going bankrupt. It intimidates only those with weak nerves, while it finds allies only with the capitalist professors in the universities and with the bourgeoisie in general. The Marxist-Leninists are determined to uphold the life and teachings of Comrade Mao Tsetung, who was a great fighter against imperialism, modern revisionism and the "third road" theories of all types.

Nevertheless, there can be no complacency. The social-chauvinists are backed to the hilt by international opportunism and by the domestic U.S. bourgeoisie. The U.S. militarists will certainly not lightly let their "left"-wing boosters be isolated and politically destroyed. Social-chauvinism finds favor among a whole strata of the labor aristocracy and opportunist petty-bourgeoisie. Perhaps some individual social-chauvinists may relent, certainly whole masses of activists may and will be won away from the social-chauvinists, but the social-chauvinist trend cannot disappear. So there can be no thought of a purely "ideological" victory over the social-chauvinists in a loose, divided Marxist-Leninist movement. The only lasting victory over the social-chauvinists can be the formation and growth of the Party, the organizing of the vanguard of the proletariat. It is precisely the struggle against social-chauvinism that has ensured a lively situation among the Marxist-Leninists. The differentiation between Marxism-Leninism and social-chauvinism has only just begun. This struggle must be carried through to the end, both deepened in content and brought far more widely to the broad masses of politically-conscious workers and activists. It must lead to the reconstitution of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the proletariat, which in turn will carry further this struggle on the road to the proletarian revolution.

SOCIAL-CHAUVINISM IS THE HIGHEST EXPRESSION OF OPPORTUNISM -- THE EMERGENCE OF OPEN SOCIAL-CHAUVINISM IS THE BEGINNING OF THE COMPLETE BANKRUPTCY OF NEO-REVISIONISM

The emergence of the open social-chauvinist thesis "directing the main blow at the Soviet social-imperialists" has exposed the political content behind the disruption of unity in the Marxist-Leninist ranks. And conversely, open social-chauvinism is but the product of a long period of development.

It is the highest form and typical result of the long corrosion of neo-revisionism inside the Marxist- Leninist movement. The struggle against social-chauvinism therefore puts on the agenda the struggle against opportunism and the opportunist theses on all the questions of revolution. The resurrection of all the Browderite theses by the new Browderites of the OL brings to the fore the question of continuing and completing the repudiation of "our own" domestic Browderite revisionism, the earliest form of modem revisionism, the forerunner of Titoite, Khrushchovite and "three worlds" revisionism. The failure to carry the struggle against Browderism to the end is the cause of the degeneration of the CPUSA into Khrushchovite revisionism, the PLP into neo-Trotskyism, and the neo-revisionists -- who with their infamous thesis of the "ultra-left being the main danger in the new anti-revisionist communist movement" always opposed the repudiation of modern revisionism and Browderism -- into social- chauvinism.

Great Lenin, during the struggle against social-chauvinism in World War I, forcefully pointed out that:

"Social-chauvinism and opportunism are the same in their political essence; class collaboration, repudiation of the proletarian dictatorship, rejection of revolutionary action, obeisance to bourgeois legality, non-confidence in the proletariat, and confidence in the bourgeoisie. The political ideas are identical, and so is the political content of their tactics. Social-chauvinism is the direct continuation and consummation of Millerandism, Bernsteinism and British liberal-labor policies, their sum, their total, their highest achievement....

"Social-chauvinism is a consummated opportunism.... The alliance with the bourgeoisie used to be ideological and secret. It is now public and unseemly. Social-chauvinism draws its strength from nowhere else but this alliance with the bourgeoisie and the General Staffs." (1)

Lenin further taught that, social-chauvinism could not be tolerated in the communist movement. He stated:

"Social-chauvinism is an opportunism which has matured to such a degree that the continued existence of this bourgeois abscess within the socialist parties has become impossible."(2)

These Leninist teachings are as fresh and new today as the day they were written. The struggle against some "mistaken ideas" but against those who have gone over to the side of the class enemy. The struggle against social-chauvinism must be connected with the struggle against opportunism and Browderism. It is not sufficient to just repudiate the thesis of "directing the main blow" at the foreign threat, while resting content with the entire arsenal of neo-revisionism that has given birth to the open chauvinism. It is not sufficient or correct to think in terms of just "discrediting" some OL leaders -- the aim of our struggle is quite different, it is far grander and nobler, far more demanding, it is nothing else but to lay solid foundations for the Party. And today the Party must be built through repudiation of opportunism, Browderism and all forms of revisionism.

Therefore today there must be clarification of political line for the American revolution. This clarification of political line is an indispensable part of the repudiation of opportunism and revisionism. For a long time Marxism-Leninism has been fighting opportunism and neo-revisionism over a number of burning questions of the revolutionary movement, issues such as the attitude to the state, the path forward for the working-class movement, and the defense of the Afro-American people's movement. Marxism develops in struggle with opportunism. The political line for the American revolution can only be clarified in unyielding opposition to the opportunism of the social-chauvinists, who wish to bury the American revolution.

The question of the attitude towards the state has always been a crucial issue both on the theoretical and practical fronts in the struggle between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism. The OL always hid the growing fascism of the U.S. state, they hid rather than brought to the fore the question of the huge oppressive bureaucracy and the bloodstained monstrous military machine. They sing hymns to American "democracy" and liberalism, while repeatedly crossing themselves piously with the phrase "bourgeois democracy", repeating this phrase reverently like a mystic mantra, as if by use of the adjective "bourgeois" their reactionary stand of prettifying imperialism could be converted into a "Marxist" position. They hide the fact that imperialism is reaction all along the line, throw aside the class criterion in evaluating the state, and convert the distinction, under the dictatorship of the imperialist counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie, between 'bourgeois democracy" and fascism into one of principle. They use the phrase "bourgeois democracy" in order to promote the theory of "two aspects of the state", giving the U.S. counter-revolutionary state a "pro- people" aspect. The OL believed that the downfall of Nixon was the defeat of fascism in the U.S. state, and their tactic was to "unparalyze Congress", which allegedly represented liberalism. Today the emergence of open social-chauvinism has revealed the essence of the neo-revisionist conciliation towards the state. The social-chauvinists and Klonskyites use the fairy-tale of American liberal democracy in order to contrast Soviet social-imperialist fascism with the alleged American liberal "democracy". In this way the social-chauvinists try to highly principled stand? It is that the Klonskyites give a "Marxist" coloring to opposition to the struggle against racial discrimination and violent repression and for complete emancipation by counter-posing this struggle to: (a) the right to self-determination, and (b) socialism. Neither the OL nor CL nor any other of the Knights of the National Question have even one achievement on the front of struggle for their higher principles, beyond the usual sectarian trick of putting the phrase "right to self-determination" on the bottom of leaflets dealing with other issues. The OL had a complete fiasco on the question of fighting the fascist anti-busing movement in Boston. First the OL vacillated because it couldn't decide whether busing violated the right to self-determination, then the OL fell into the arms of the imperialist liberals and implored the very government that was organizing the racist attacks on the Afro- American people to come send police and troops to allegedly "protect" the Afro-American people. The OL uses sophistry on the question of the right to self-determination in order to: (a) belittle and slander the struggle against racial discrimination and violent repression as "reformist", not involving "political power", and even vaguely tainted with revisionism; (b) have a "Marxist" cover to promote cultural nationalism and all sorts of dubious elements subverting the Afro-American people's movement in the same way as they promote neo-colonialism internationally under the banner of eulogizing "formal political independence"; (c) liquidate the actual Afro-American people's movement; (d) disrupt the Marxist-Leninist movement; and (e) negate the Marxist-Leninist teachings on self-determination and the national question. We can safely say that the only real advances on the theoretical questions concerning the Afro-American people's movement will come in the course of the most unyielding struggle against the slimy social-chauvinist saboteurs of the struggles of the oppressed nationalities. Here too the emergence of open social-chauvinism has shed light on these questions. The bankruptcy of the "three worlds" theory and its praise for "formally politically independent" neo-colonies and imperialist lackey butchers cannot be detached in principle from the Klonskyite sabotage of the struggle of the oppressed nations and nationalities inside the present state borders of the U.S. As well, the Klonskyite denial of the revolutionary character of the Afro-American people's struggle against racial discrimination and violent repression of the last two decades, struggles which have shaken U.S. imperialism to the core, is necessary in order to deny the strength of the revolutionary movement in the U.S. and patch up the social-chauvinist alliance with U.S. imperialism on the plea that the masses aren't revolutionary.

THE IMPORTANCE OF REVOLUTIONARY METHOD AND STYLE OF WORK

On these and other questions, opportunism must be fought and the revolutionary truths of Marxism- Leninism re-enunciated. But it is well to bear in mind that the struggle against opportunism does not solely consist of the question of rescuing the correct Marxist formulations from the distortions of the social-chauvinists. Lenin taught that:

"Lastly, it stands to reason that opportunism can never be defeated by mere programs; it can only be defeated by deeds. The greatest, and fatal, error of the bankrupt Second International was that its words did not correspond to its deeds, that it cultivated the habit of hypocritical and unscrupulous revolutionary phrase-mongering... " (3)

He laid bare the hypocrisy of the social-chauvinists:

"On the one hand, the most 'Left' and arch-revolutionary resolutions, and on the other, the most shameless forgetfulness or renunciation of these resolutions -- this is one of the most striking manifestations of the International's collapse, and at the same time a most convincing proof that at present only those whose rare simplicity borders on a cunning desire to perpetuate the former hypocrisy can believe that socialism can be 'rectified' and 'its line straightened out' by means of resolutions alone." (4)

These teachings apply with a vengeance to the present-day Klonskyites. They say one thing today, and another tomorrow. They are masters of saying the opposite of what they do in practice. Their way of replying to a criticism is not to consider it seriously and rectify, but to adapt the formulations of the Marxist-Leninists, turn them into sickly-sweet platitudes, and sprinkle them into a few articles without any change in their practice. Are they accused of creating war hysteria, of advocating that revolution is impossible because of the Russian Backfire bomber, tanks and missiles? Then the Klonskyites will put right into the documents of their "Founding Congress" that they are "not afraid" of war, and Klonsky will say that "Our slogan of 'turn the imperialist war into a civil war' must be transformed from a propaganda slogan into an action slogan". Wow, how leftist! They are not even waiting for the war to make this slogan into an "action" slogan. Too bad it turns out that the Klonskyites think that the threatened war is a just, anti-fascist war against Soviet social-imperialism and not an inter-imperialist war after all... Are the OL class traitors accused of being legal cretinists, who prostrate themselves before bourgeois legalism and try to gain philistine sympathy by presenting defendants as crushed by the bourgeoisie and denying their acts of resistance ? Well, then, they will write.... right in black and white in The Call, can you imagine that... that they are "not relying on the courts". Why, they organize defense committees to raise funds for the lawyers and even organize a demonstration or two. Certainly it would be most unkind after all that activity to point out that those things, in themselves, do not separate the social-chauvinists one bit from the Gus Hall-type revisionists, who must also "not rely on the courts", because they too organize defense committees and demonstrations. Are the Klonskyites convicted of betraying the struggle against Zionism and openly supporting Sadat's "defacto recognition of Israel"? Well, they will write "bold" editorials about "redoubling their support for the PLO", while still finding one way or another to put in a word of praise for Sadat and especially for Sadat's rhetoric about "self-determination" for the Palestinians, a "self-determination" that is designed to exclude the PLO and satisfy the U.S. imperialists and Zionists. Is the OL accused of calling for federal troops to suppress the revolutionary masses during the struggle in Boston against the fascist anti-busing movement? Oh no, that was just their way of promoting "armed self-defense". Sherman Miller explains this as follows: "What do you do when a fascist lynch mob is attacking the Blacks? Do you promote armed self- defense as the basic strategic line, while at the same time taking advantage of contradictions in the enemy camp (only the OL noticed any "contradictions" between the police and the state-organized lynch mob, but perhaps the other observers forgot to ask the police which side of the alleged split in the bourgeoisie they supported, the "anti-detente" side or the "pro-detente" side -- ed.) by demanding that the police break up the gangs and provide effective legal protection." (Sherman Miller's underlining) It is necessary to judge a political group by its deeds, by its revolutionary or counter-revolutionary social practice, and not by its words.

For this reason, the question of the Marxist-Leninists developing a revolutionary method and style of work, of integrating theory and practice, is of utmost importance. The Party of the proletariat must be able to evoke a revolutionary spirit from the masses, to lead the masses and guide them in varied revolutionary actions. One revolutionary who is able to find his way to the deepest sentiments of revolt of the masses is worth dozens of social-chauvinist windbags. Marxism must be used as a guide to action and not as a cover for capitulation. This is one of the sharpest fronts of struggle against opportunism. The opportunists are willing to take any Marxist formulation and drain the living spirit out of it. They are experts in dampening and sapping the revolutionary drive of the masses. The Marxist-Leninist movement must learn utter contempt for such 'Marxist' phrase-mongering that hides opportunist practice. We must learn how to weed out of the movement those whose liberal and chauvinist deeds are in contradiction to their "golden words".

This is why the resistance movement against the terrorist attacks of the state machine, against the state-organized racists and fascists and against the capitalists has always given rise to sharp struggle That is why the resistance movement is extremely valuable. The resistance movement is a manifestation of utter hatred against the monopoly capitalist system. The monopoly capitalists are attacking the people daily -- destroying their livelihood, preparing state- organized fascist movements and fascizing the state. What attitude should the masses take? Should they take the path of active resistance, of mobilizing the masses, of meeting reactionary violence with revolutionary violence ? Or should they take the path of capitulation and surrender, the path of begging the monopoly capitalist state to provide "effective legal protection". Here the two lines, revolution or revisionism, are posed especially sharply and there is no room for any "third road".

The neo-revisionists always hated the resistance movement from the very beginning. They slander it as "ultra-left", "adventurist" and "crazy". The revisionists, trotskyites, neo-revisionists and opportunists of various persuasions often join together in a holy alliance to collaborate with the state by turning truth on its head and attacking the revolutionaries for "provoking the police". They pounce on the fighters that are constantly coming forward from among the masses and seek to demoralize them, to weaken their resolve, and to turn them away from the path of struggle. Any opportunist, even the revisionist yellow journalists of the Guardian, can and will lecture about the need for insurrection in the future. Klonsky boasts about how the OL will turn the imperialist war into a civil war...but not just yet. The bold words about future battles are for deception of the revolutionary masses, while the current revolutionary movement is defiled with liberalism, cowardice and capitulation. It is so easy for the wind-bags to recount their glorious deeds... of the future. But for the present these worthies are all for peace and quiet. They organize groups which are incapable of fighting, which will be terrified at the very thought of going to the barricades, which will betray the proletariat at the crucial moment whenever the struggle sharpens.

But it is not in the power of the opportunists to smother the revolutionary mass movement for resistance. We see this resistance in the heroic fights of the mass strike movement. We see it in the comrades leading the masses to smash the state-organized fascist movement and racist attacks. We see it in the staunch courage with which our comrades face the bourgeois kangaroo courts without flinching in Newark, Louisville, Boston and Seattle. It is these struggles that build up an organization linked with the masses and possessed of the unyielding revolutionary spirit of struggle and sacrifice. With this spirit, any form of struggle needed for the proletarian revolution can be mastered. As Comrade Lenin teaches: "Contempt for death must become widespread among them (the masses -- ed.) and will ensure victory." (5)

ON THE NEO-REVEIOMIST WAR AGAINST THE PARTY CONCEPT

A crucial question of revolutionary style and method is the question of constantly strengthening the Party concept and the Party spirit. Right from the start this question has been at the center of the struggle between Marxism-Leninism and neo-revisionism.

At the end of the '60's many activists from the surging youth and student movement and other mass movements sought to sum up their experience. The glorious heritage of these mass movements was the realization on the part of many activists of the need to take up Marxism-Leninism and build the Party in order to lead the American revolution. The burning questions at that time were: was there to be a Party or not? was the Party to be based on Marxism-Leninism or not ? was the revolutionary authority of the international communist movement led by Chairman Mao and great Mao Tsetung Thought to be upheld or not? Progress on these questions only took place in the course of intense struggle against opposing neo-revisionist views.

The neo-revisionists swore by Marxism-Leninism but followed revisionist ideas in practice. They were a bunch of "New Leftists" (the negative line in the youth and student movement) adapting themselves to Marxism-Leninism. They opposed Party spirit and the unity of the Marxist-Leninists under a number of pseudo-theories. It was held that the Marxist-Leninists should not unite as a first principle on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and the struggle against the main enemy, but should instead build numerous "pre-Party collectives". It was alleged that the Party arises spontaneously from the mass movement, that the single national center comes about through organizational fusion of pre-Party collectives, and that the struggle against opportunism was a disruption to some vague "unity of the left". In effect, it was held that the principles of Marxism-Leninism do not apply in the "pre-Party" stage, and there were even debates over whether democratic centralism applies to "pre-Party collectives" or not. In this way the neo-revisionists opposed Party spirit and counterposed the Party to the mass movement. This revisionist polycentrism (theory of "many centers") did tremendous damage to the movement, leaving it weak, divided and prey to opportunist deviations. Under the cover of this disruption, a number of opportunist trends carried out intrigues and sought to consolidate.

Opposed to this opportunism was the idea of unifying right from the start into one national center to disseminate Mao Tsetung Thought and carry out the revolutionary struggle. The American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist), a predecessor of the COUSML, sought to unite all the Marxist-Leninists who could be united into one national center. It served as the motive force for the struggle against revisionism. Its dissemination of Marxism- Leninism and of the Party concept led to the campaign around the "Call for the Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists". This campaign dominated Marxist-Leninist politics and widely exposed the "pre-party collective" line. It strengthened the new, the living, the Party spirit, as opposed to the old and decaying forms, the twins of sideline intellectualist pontificating and mindless activism.

At this time the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists strove for a great unity of the anti-revisionist ranks. As part of this they tried to get the neo-revisionists, who had not yet fully revealed their features and who were basically a set of leaders from the youth and student movement who had made serious mistakes, to stop their disruption and become real Marxist-Leninists. The idea was that unity in one Party could itself be a form of struggle against the neo-revisionist errors, and the revolutionaries did not a priori consign the neo-revisionists to hell. However, this was not to be. The disrupters of unity did not admit their mistakes and strive to take up genuine Marxism-Leninism. Instead they deepened and consolidated their errors. The struggle between Marxism-Leninism and neo-revisionism became sharper still. The neo-revisionists began to give lip-service to the Party, to adapt their formulations to the victories of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism, but they sought ways to undermine the Party concept more treacherously and to end the struggle between Marxism-Leninism, but they sought ways to undermine the Party concept more treacherously and to end the struggle between Marxism-Leninism and opportunism so that opportunism could become systematized. They began to build "many Parties" under the banner of each building his own "Party". They began to solidify their theory of "many Marxisms" through the pseudo-theory of the Party springing from a perfect "Party program". The larger opportunist trends stopped openly advocating "polycentrism" and "pre-Party collectives" and advocated instead Khrushchovite "monocentrism", with which they tried to build the Party away from the Marxist-Leninist political line by the use of political blackmail, hegemony-seeking and bourgeois power politics. They still downplayed the Party spirit, holding that Party-building was only an organizational fusion of a wild mish-mash of elements for a brief time prior to the declaration of the Party or prior to the declaration of some new fusion. They have distorted the Marxist-Leninist teachings on iron, conscious discipline into a fascist, mechanical discipline with which they sought to put their members and sympathizers under "democratic centralism" to not discuss politics with other groups and to regard themselves as sects with interests separate from those of the proletarian movement as a whole. To stop the struggle between Marxism-Leninism and opportunism, the old bankrupt "unity of the left" has now been replaced by a frenzied factionalization of the Marxist-Leninist movement. This new "monocentrism" is simply the flipside of "polycentrism". This "monocentrism" is truly "disruption of unity under cover of shouts for unity".

Both "polycentrism" and "monocentrism" are revisionist lines which fight against the genuine steel-like unity of the proletariat in one Party. This unity comes from the unity of the class interests of the proletariat, from the proletariat's conscious and voluntary recognition of the need to form a highly centralized fighting force for revolution. The U.S. being a country which is completely bureaucratized and riddled by police-officials, naturally the opportunists, who reflect the dominant bourgeois ideas of society, cannot conceive of unity other than as fascism and of democracy other than as liberalism and anarchism. Comrade Enver Hoxha denounced both "polycentrism" and "monocentrism" as "two anti-Marxist tendencies in the ranks of modern revisionism". In the quotation we cite, he was speaking about relations inside the international communist movement, but the general principle applies to inner-Party relations too. He said:

"The other important question which Togliatti (leader of one of the main currents of modern revisionism and founder of "Eurocommunism"-- ed.) raises in his 'testament' is the so-called theory of polycentrism which is counterposed to the monocentrist line of N. Khrushchev and his group.

"The line of the Khrushchev group is the line of banging the fist on the table, not only towards the Marxist- Leninist parties, but also towards other revisionists, the line of stern dictate to force all to obey the Khrushchev group unconditionally and humbly approve its policy of great-state chauvinism and the 'mother party'. Whereas the polycentrist line of Togliatti is a typical expression of a liberal, opportunist, social-democratic policy, which wants to get rid of any imposition from the Khrushchev group, and not only for the Italian Communist Party, but also for all the other revisionists, both in the capitalist world and in the socialist countries."

Comrade Hoxha identifies the aim of these tactics as follows:

"It is more than clear that, regardless of what tactics are used by the revisionists of all shades, from N. Khrushchev to Togliatti, Tito and the rest of them, they all have one aim in common -- to intensify the struggle against Marxism-Leninism, against the revolution and socialism, to consolidate the positions of revisionism and extend its life. They are trying to put out the flames of the struggle of the Marxist-Leninists against them." (6)

The OL has consistently, right from its formation, taken an active role in the neo-revisionist war on the Party concept. The OL sprang into existence shouting platitudes about the Party without explaining where the OL came from and why it was separate from the already existing Marxist-Leninist organizations. On the pretext that the movement was weak and divided, the OL took the line of weakening it further and dividing it further. The OL vigorously promoted the "polycentrist" pre-Party collective line. It opposed unity in a single national center as "ultra-left" and proposed the development of separate collectives which were later to merge based on cooperation in day-to-day tasks. Faced with the victories of Marxism-Leninism among the revolutionary activists, the OL changed its make-up, altered a few phrases, and intensified its factionalization through its "unity calls" for an "organizational building of the party" by merging a mish-mash of groups. In fact they are building a loose Browderite education group by organizational fusion while factionalizing the movement on the pretext of "no united action with revisionists". On Dec. 26, 1977 TheCallcarried an editorial "The Road to Communist Unity". The editorial talks against "the primitiveness of the period of small local circles" in order to (a) cover up the fact that OL advocated precisely "small local circles" for years, and (b) oppose the struggle against opportunism and pave the way for unity with even more ultra-rightist elements by putting forward the struggle against "primitiveness" as primary. The OL pats itself on the back that its unity call is "a break from the narrowness and self-serving sectarianism of the opportunists" such as the RCP and WVO on the grounds that it recognizes that even after the Party is formed other groups can join. Now there's typical OL rhetoric! How noble- minded! What a break with sectarianism! But wait a minute. What does it mean in practice? Does the OL really expect people to believe that the RCP and WVO forbid anyone to join them after they declared (or will declare) their "Parties"? Is that really the criterion of sectarianism? Under the pressure of criticism from the Marxist-Leninists, OL has dropped the talk about the "organizational building of the party" from last year, and instead made a pious statement that "party-building remains the central task of our movement". Unfortunately, in practice OL still means organizational fusion. It is very significant that the OL doesn't give a basis for unity for their new "Unity Committee", but instead describes a process of bartering over formulations and making Marxism into a matter of "debates". According to the OL, the new basis of unity will consist of "the essential points necessary to demarcate our efforts from the revisionists and opportunists" but "would not be a fully comprehensive program". Can you make heads or tails of this ? Perhaps the new basis of unity will drop the points in OL's program that "demarcate" it from Marxism-Leninism? "Demarcation" from revisionism should mean acting on a consistently revolutionary basis. For the OL, to "demarcate" from revisionism is to have a program that is full of revisionism but contains a sugar-coating of platitudes that "demarcate" it -- although this is in fact a typical trick of multitudes of revisionist and centrist parties. This is the way to negotiate with other opportunists, the best means of throwing dust in the eyes of the masses, but it is not the way to build a strong Party, truly consolidated organizationally, theoretically, politically.

The COUSML holds that there is only one proletariat, one Marxism, and one Party. We are opposed to the yellow banner of "many Marxisms, many Parties", the banner of factionalization, whether it has the "polycentrist" or "monocentrist" disguise. This does not mean that we are opposed to the various trends crystallizing into a more organized form. On the contrary, that is a good thing. Marxist-Leninists should take seriously the question of taking part in the historical movement and consciously deciding what position to support. In a very real sense, there can be no Marxist-Leninist "individual" standing outside a Marxist-Leninist organization, and no Marxist-Leninist organization that is not either taking part in or disrupting the task of forming the Party. The opportunists have formed their groups to split the proletariat and halt the struggle between Marxism-Leninism and opportunism, but in fact the formation of these groups, independently of the desire of their founders, is sharpening the differentiation between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism. We do not fight the opportunist "Parties" because they are "Parties", but because they are opportunists, opponents of the Party concept, splitters of the prolesectarianism! But wait a minute, What does it mean in practice? Does the OL really expect people to believe that the RCP and WVO forbid anyone to join them after they declared (or will declare) their "Parties"? Is that really the criterion of sectarianism? Under the pressure of criticism from the Marxist-Leninists.

All Marxist-Leninists must uphold the Party concept. Without the Party and the Party spirit, the mass movement will be led to the slaughter. The result of the neo-revisionist negation of the Party can be seen in the present situation. Factionalization has now been taken so far that a frenzied factionalization of the mass movements and mass organizations is taking place. The opportunists are seeking to set the revolutionary masses fighting each other. There is no mass movement too small or insignificant, for the factionalizers not to set to work tearing it apart. The Marxist-Leninist teachings on leading the mass movement are converted into their opposite, into teachings on liquidating the mass movement, through the narrow-minded ultra-opportunist interpretations. What a group can't exercise hegemony over, is either split or paralleled by another dual organization. There can no longer be one defense committee, one mass organization, one mass movement -- that would be "unprincipled", according to the opportunist splitters. Better to liquidate the mass movement -- this is how some disrupters think. This is done allegedly as part of the struggle for principles, but in fact it is done to stop the struggle between Marxism-Leninism and opportunism and make it more difficult for the masses to gain political experience. A few years ago, the struggle against opportunism was alleged to break the "unity of the left", now it is usually attacked by trying to divide the mass movement into parts where the masses are kept in sterile, germ-free containers free from contamination by Marxism-Leninism. This splitting of the revolutionary masses is a terrible crime against the revolution by the opportunists. As a result, all sorts of bad elements can sneak back into the mass movement. For example, the opportunists have been actively dismembering the solidarity movement in support of African liberation for some time. The result of this has been to let even some of the worst of the cultural nationalists regain influence, and at the last African Liberation Day demonstration in Washington, D. C., one of the three demonstrations was organized by the Stokely Carmichaelites.

OBSTACLES IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST SOCIAL-CHAUVINISM

Today, as the struggle against social-chauvinism develops and broadens, a number of roadblocks are coming up to bar the advance of a number of Marxist-Leninists and revolutionaries to disrupt unity. Basically, all these, roadblocks boil down to conciliation with opportunism and social-chauvinism. This conciliation may be, but is not necessarily, expressed in direct terms of friendship for the Klonskyites. It comes up in terms of carrying over the opportunist theses and the method and style of work of the social-chauvinists and Klonskyites. The social- chauvinists are repudiated only on certain individual questions. For example, it is not at all difficult for any honest person who has even a passing acquaintance with the facts of the international situation to see how the social-chauvinists apologize for neocolonialism and U.S. puppet regimes. Certain of the more blatant social-chauvinist deeds, such as supporting the construction of a fleet of B-l bombers or advocating arms for the Shah of Iran, simply turn the stomach of any honest person, of anyone who has retained an ounce of revolutionary spirit and honor. From this sentiment, revolutionaries should pass to a thorough repudiation of opportunism and revisionism. But the roadblock is the practice of denouncing one or two of the most blatant counter-revolutionary formulations while retaining the opportunist arsenal, in whole or in part.

One form of this conciliation with social-chauvinism is the practice of "Klonskyism without the 'three worlds' theory". This way of thinking drops the "three worlds" theory on international questions on more or less correct grounds and in a more or less vacillating fashion. But it preserves the program and attitude towards proletarian revolution in the U.S. of the social-chauvinists and their entire basis of thinking and style of work. It advocates that the Klonskyites and other diehard social-chauvinists used to, at one time, oppose revisionism consistently and stand for revolution. However, apparently just by unfortunate accident, these "consistent anti-revisionists" later took up the theory of "three worlds" and were ruined. This fairy-tale is used to deny the connection between opportunism and social-chauvinism and to carry over all the opportunist and class-collaborationist garbage of the OL into the ranks of those fighting social-chauvinism. Often this view has high regards for the alleged contributions of the OL in its theoretical work against the Afro-American people's movement. This fairy-tale is a bankrupt theory that goes against Marxism-Leninism, against summing up experience, and against even simplest logic. It is also ultimately a theory for reconciliation with social-chauvinism, for it regards the social-chauvinists not as class traitors, but as genuine revolutionaries making a few mistakes in formulation, albeit serious ones. In fact, this theory of social-chauvinism's allegedly revolutionary past is a theory to justify the fight that the neo-revisionists carried on in the past against the Marxist-Leninists and to continue that fight into the present.

Other wrong theories that conciliate opportunism also come up. One prominent one is opposing the "main blow" theory on some basis or other, but upholding the theory of "three worlds" that gives rise to "directing the main blow at Soviet social-imperialism". In fact, as we have already pointed out above, the social-chauvinists themselves are busy disagreeing with each other on trivialities in order to uphold the anti-Leninist theory of "three worlds" all the better. Solely for the sake of political deception, certain groups of "three worlds" fanatics have even gone to the absurd extent of launching their own struggle against a "social-chauvinist trend" in the movement. They might better consider purchasing a mirror.

ON IDEALIST ANTI-REVISIONISM

One of the roadblocks carried over from opportunism is the method of idealist anti-revisionism. This is the method of making the "repudiation" of revisionism hang on abstract phrases and formulations, dragged out of context from the classics or the history of the international communist movement, and emptied of all revolutionary content and mobilizing force. This method is the same as the method of the Klonskyite OL and that of the "Communist League" (now calling itself the "Communist Labor" Party of the USNA).

We call this method idealist anti-revisionism. On one hand, the idealist anti-revisionists like to present themselves as the staunchest fighters against revisionism, as the truest upholders of Marxism- Leninism, as the faithful keepers of the archives. Some of them get quite arrogant and puffed up about this. But their method is totally idealist. They invent thousands of dividing lines, all having nothing to do with revolutionary practice, to separate the groups in the Marxist-Leninist movement, to throw some out and cover up the hideous features of others. In this way they divorce themselves from the Party concept and instead fall prey to a wild factionalism. They believe that theory comes out of debates between groups and have no idea of that materialist conception of the relation between theory and practice.

In actual fact, these idealist anti-revisionists are upholding the methods of thinking and of work of the Mensheviks and the opportunists. Comrade Stalin vividly characterized the difference between the opportunist and the Marxist method of work as follows:

"There are two groups of Marxists. Both work under the flag of Marxism and consider themselves 'genuinely' Marxist. Nevertheless, they are by no means identical. More, a veritable gulf divides them, for their methods of work are diametrically opposed to each other.

"The first group usually confines itself to an outward acceptance, to a ceremonial avowal of Marxism. Being unable or unwilling to grasp the essence of Marxism, being unable or unwilling to put it into practice, it converts the living, revo1utionary principles of Marxism into lifeless, meaningless formulas. It does not base its activities on experience, on what practical work teaches, but on quotations from Marx. It does not derive its instructions and directions from an analysis of living reality, but from analogies and historical parallels. Discrepancy between word and deed is the chief malady of this group. Hence their disillusionment and perpetual grudge against fate, which time and again lets it down and makes a "dupe" of it. The name for this group is Menshevism (in Russia), opportunism (in Europe). Comrade Tyszka (Jogiches) described this group very aptly at the London Congress when he said that it does not stand by, but lies down on the point of view of Marxism.

"The second group, on the contrary, attaches prime importance not to the outward acceptance of Marxism, but to its realization, its application in practice. What this group chiefly concentrates its attention on is determining the ways and means of realizing Marxism that best answer the situation, and changing these ways and means as the situation changes. It does not derive its directions and instructions from historical analogies and parallels, but from a study of surrounding conditions. It does not base its activities on quotations and maxims, but on practical experience, testing every step by experience, learning from its mistakes and teaching others how to build a new life. That, in fact, explains why there is no discrepancy between word and deed in the activities of this group, and why the teachings of Marx completely retain their living, revolutionary force. To this group may be fully applied Marx's saying that Marxists cannot rest content with interpreting the world, but must go further and change it. The name for this group is Bolshevism, communism.

"The organizer and leader of this group is V.I. Lenin." (7)

Idealist anti-revisionism not only adopts the method of the opportunists, but many of its followers keep slipping back into reconciliation with the social-chauvinists. For example, at one time during the discussion over OL's social-chauvinist theory of directing the "main blow" at the foreign threat, certain idealist anti-revisionists argued that the "dividing line" between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism was recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Of course it is not hard to find quotations to support this. But what does it mean to recognize the dictatorship of the proletariat? On the grounds that everyone is inexperienced and has made errors, the idealists argued that the only criterion could be whether a group verbally upheld the dictatorship of the proletariat, whether it recognized it in words. On these grounds, the Klonskyites could be, and were upheld to be, part of the Marxist-Leninists and not of the opportunists. In the same way, the Klonskyites have built up a big reputation among the idealists for their hard work in distorting the principle of the "right to self-determination". It is too bad that history has shown that the group highly regarded by all idealists for its stand on the oppressed nationalities just happens to be the biggest apologists around for neo-colonialism and the imperialist butchery of oppressed nations.

In fact, on the theoretical front, OL's method itself is idealist anti-revisionism. It consciously covers up its reactionary practice with its "revolutionary" abstractions. It bandies around certain phrases, like "bourgeois democracy" and "self-determination", phrases which it holds up like a superstitious man holds up a cross to ward off vampires, to prove its "Marxist" orthodoxy. Thus idealist anti-revisionism is in principle no different from the method of the neo-revisionists.

It is historically important that the idealist anti-revisionist method was developed into a full system by the CL. The CL was "neo-revisionism from the 'left' ". When the neo-revisionists counterposed the Party to the mass movement, the CL "fought'' neo- revisionism by agreeing with this counterposition and advocating a Party separated from the revolutionary movement, a mere reactionary propaganda sect, and a theory detached from practice. A superficial understanding of the basic nature of CL's errors, an understanding which was often limited to repudiating certain of CL's Trotskyite positions on international affairs, has contributed to the present confusion about the idealist anti-revisionist method. Naturally, the neo-revisionists, who used CL to caricature the anti-neo-revisionist movement, could not basically oppose CL's idealist method, since they shared this method with CL. Part Two of our pamphlet ''The Dialectics of the Development of Nelson Peery's Head" was entitled "Against the Reactionary Idealism and Metaphysics of the 'Communist' League" and was devoted to some questions of the CL's idealist method.

The idealist anti-revisionists have their own method of Party-building. They regard the communist movement as a history of ideas and not as a vanguard movement of the proletariat. They regard the Party not as the result and the expression of a historical process, but as a series of theses and resolutions. With this conception Party spirit goes out the window. Thus the idealists claim that Marxism-Leninism is not a sufficient basis of unity for the Party, but that there must be perfect agreement on a whole set of principles, on all the big questions with a capital Q. In this way they turn Marxism into a matter of definition, interpretation and discussion. They may agree with the formulation of "unity on political line", but they have a most scholastic idea of what "political line" is. For them, an organization's political line is not the decisive tasks it sets itself in order to advance the revolution, but instead is a whole set of formulations on every subject imaginable. The idealist method of unity has been tried over and over again, but has never worked as a basis of unity for a revolutionary organization. It has served as a cover for disunity and for bad elements, who can always concoct a new issue to disagree on. Even when such unity on such a basis takes place, it falls apart in the face of practice.

Thus the method of the idealist anti-revisionists and in general the carrying over of the opportunist and social-chauvinist theses have done an especially great deal of damage on the crucial question of Party concept and Party spirit. All the erroneous ideas from the neo-revisionist war against the Party concept are carried over to the ranks of those alleging themselves to be against social-chauvinism. Willy-nilly, the concept of "organizational fusion" and revisionist "monocentrism" is regarded as the real model of Party-building -- and the key concepts of the Party spirit as the highest expression of class spirit and the Party as both the outcome of and the intensification of a great historical movement for revolution and against revisionism is dropped. At the same time, in reaction to revisionist "mono-centrism", the equally revisionist idea of "polycentrism" and demagogy against big groups is advocated. The question is alleged to be one of finding the ideal scheme, the perfect set of formulations for Party-building. None of these ideas lead anywhere, because they all go against the Marxist-Leninist teachings on the Party.

MARXIST-LENINISTS, UNITE!

In the course of the great movement against social-chauvinism, many different types of groups are coming forward. This is true in any movement that grips the masses. There are the masses of honest activists who are coming forward to angrily denounce social-chauvinism and to struggle to emancipate their minds from the oppressive weight of the opportunist garbage. There are also some disruptive groups and elements whose final role is not yet settled. And there are commando squads of social- chauvinism trying to hide in the ranks of the people with such quibbles as "we support the 'three worlds' but not OL's 'three worlds', we support the theory of directing the 'main blow' at the foreign threat, but not OL's 'main blow' ". These contradictions must be handled on a very objective basis. Every group and every individual will write his own destiny in the struggle against social-chauvinism. And this destiny is not determined by whether someone or other happens to have a wrong formulation or an opportunist position on some issue at this moment. There are a number of revolutionaries who are striving to struggle against social-chauvinism as the content of their activities, but who in the form of their activities are still enslaved by, say, idealist anti-revisionism. Sooner or later either they will give up the idealist form in order to consolidate the revolutionary content, or else the backward and reactionary form will strangle the revolutionary content. We should have deep class feeling for all honest elements struggling to move forward and find ways and means of working with them in the common struggle. Through this great struggle the masses of activists are learning through their own experience of the revolutionary truth of Marxism-Leninism and the counter-revolutionary nature of the social-chauvinists and bourgeois-scholastic "Marxists". It is the struggle against social-chauvinism that has created this lively situation, and the intensification of this historic struggle is the key to helping the honest elements move forward. When the Klonskyites came out in the open with their social-chauvinism, they arrogantly hoped to wipe out Marxism, to bludgeon all opposition with political blackmail, to drown the aspirations of the proletariat in a sea of class collaboration, to put the crowning touch to their history of neo-revisionist betrayal. But the struggle against social-chauvinism has turned a bad thing, the emergence of new Browderite social-chauvinism, into a good thing. It is clearing away the opportunist rot that has disrupted the unity of the Marxist-Leninists or so long and it is leading irresistibly towards the reconstitution of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the American proletariat. The Marxist-Leninists have great tasks ahead of them. These tasks require the united effort of all Marxist-Leninists. Let the coming year be a glorious festival of unity and militance!

Footnotes:

(1) V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, "Opportunism and the Collapse of the Second International", vol. 21, pp. 442-3, underlining added

(2) V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, "The Collapse of the Second International", vol. 21, p. 244, emphasis as in the original

(3) V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, "The Military Program of the Proletarian Revolution", vol. 23,

p. 86

(4) V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, "The Collapse of the Second International", vol. 21, p. 209

(5) V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, "Lessons of the Moscow Uprising", vol. 11, p. 177

(6) Enver Hoxha, "The Crisis of Italian modern Revisionism", The '8 Nentori' Publishing House, Tirana, 1977, pp. 30-31, 41-42, emphasis as in the original

(7) J. V. Stalin, Works, "Lenin as the Organizer and Leader of the Russian Communist Party", vol. 4, pp. 317-318 End.

[Back to Top]

Resolutions of the East Indian Defense Committee Convention

On December 31, 1977, the Third Annual Convention of the East Indian Defense Committee was successfully held in Vancouver, B. C. The Workers' Advocate hails the important work of the EIDC which sets a great example in how to fight state organized racist attacks. Below are reprinted two of the resolutions adopted by the EIDC convention.

1. MAIN RESOLUTION

The Third Annual Convention of the East Indian Defense Committee is being held at an important historical juncture for the struggle against state-organized racist attacks against our community and the historic struggle of the proletariat and people of Canada against the shifting of the burden of the economic crisis onto their shoulders. This convention is holding its proceedings at the time when the struggle of the people of India against foreign exploiters and oppressors and internal reactionaries is making a big leap forward. Finally, our convention is being held under the general climate of imperialist and social-imperialist deception and their lying propaganda about "human rights", etc. While they are shedding crocodile tears about "human rights", immigrants of varying status and progressive people in all imperialist and social-imperialist countries and in all the countries under their domination face vicious economic exploitation, social and cultural discrimination and political persecution including fascist and reactionary violence to their life and property.

The Third Annual Convention of the East Indian Defense Committee takes up the question of racial and social discrimination, political persecution and the question of fascist and reactionary violence against the life and property of the people of Asian, African and Latin American origin and the workers of many eastern and southern European countries including workers from other countries. The most oppressed sections of the people, the people who face the main brunt of the reactionary attacks, are people who are native to Canada, the Inuit and Native Indian people and the people with origins in Asia, Africa and Latin America. This question is taken up as a whole, in its entirety and within the context of the fundamental conflicts and contradictions of our era and with the aim of providing a long-term solution to the problem with a clear-cut immediate program of action.

The modern day migrations of the people globally take place under the direct baton and reactionary order of international finance capital. Whereas the migrations during the period of colonization and plunder took place from Europe to the colonized areas, the migration under imperialism takes the opposite course. Under imperialism, finance capital has unlimited appetite for sources of raw materials and it considers the entire capitalist world as its labor market just as it is a market for finance capital and other commodities. Finance capital imports the cheapest possible labor in order to extract maximum profits for itself. Modern-day immigration from Asia, Africa and Latin America and from other areas is part of the neo-colonial exploitation and plunder and is in its service. The two superpowers, the bulwark of world reaction, and their allies and servants talk nonsense without a moment of interval about the "benevolent" nature of imperialism and social-imperialism. Brutal exploitation and plunder is presented as "aid" and the establishment and preservation of tyranny is presented as defending "human rights" and fighting for "peace" and "order", etc.

Our problems in Canada stem from the fact that our era is the era of imperialism and our salvation lies in the fact that our era is also the era of proletarian revolution. Racial discrimination, reactionary violence and propagation of racist ideology is all in the service of imperialism and social-imperialism and world reaction. Since the defeat of Hitler and Mussolini and Tojo, it is "democratic" imperialism which has picked up all the racist and fascist theories and it is imperialism which has become their main spokesman, defender and progenitor. Racist ideology is a form of bourgeois ideology, its most reactionary form. Racist ideology forms the core of ideological and political propaganda against proletarian revolution and the national liberation movement. It is the ideology of counter-revolution and of splitting of the international proletariat and the oppressed people. Imperialism and social-imperialism foster this ideology and it is preached through official propaganda and through the propaganda of the revisionists and opportunists of all hues. Laws are drafted which are based on racist ideology and are imposed through reactionary violence and terror.

India, today, is a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. It is dominated by imperialism and social-imperialism and the comprador-bureaucrat capitalist class and the big landlords form the social base of foreign exploitation and plunder of India and the maintenance of barbaric rule and backwardness. The Indian people are suffering terribly at the hands of the foreign imperialists and internal reactionaries. The immigration of Indians to other countries is part of the neo-colonial plunder and exploitation. Not only do the imperialists need the Indians and their land and labor in India but they also need them in foreign lands where they are forced to serve them. Racial and social discrimination make up a component part of the system of neo-colonialism which the imperialists and social-imperialists have rigged up and it is used to justify the exploitation and plunder of these countries.

With the bankruptcy of the neo-colonial system and the revolt of the neo-colonial masses, there is also revolt against racial discrimination and political persecution. The immigrants in the capitalist countries have not only the experience of the suffering and misery of their people at the hands of the imperialists and internal reactionaries, but they are also recruited into the modern proletariat which provides them with proletarian consciousness and breaks them loose from the whole backward and narrow outlook of small production. The immigrant finds in the modern proletariat his staunch ally and the reliable future.

The struggle against neo-colonialism in India is the same struggle as the struggle against racial discrimination, political persecution and against reactionary violence on life and property in Canada and other countries. Our struggle against state-organized racist attacks can in no way be detached from the struggle against the two superpowers and against reaction.

The brave and hardworking people of Indian origin with the full support of the Canadian proletariat and people created the East Indian Defense Committee on November 24, 1973 to defend the East Indian community from state-organized racist attacks and to unite with all the fitting forces in Canada and build the unity of the people in the course of struggle against the main enemy. EIDC relied on the main social force, the proletariat, for leadership as well as the main force against the state-organized racist attacks. It is the proletariat which makes up the bulk of the population of our community and it is the proletariat which is most courageous and self-sacrificing and capable of leading the struggle against the state-organized racist attacks. It is the proletariat which is capable of mobilizing other fighting forces in the course of the struggle against the main enemy.

The proletariat is the most patriotic and revolutionary class. The history of EIDC of more than four years and the history of struggle against the state- organized racist attacks for over seventy-five years has clearly shown that the proletariat is the only consistently patriotic and revolutionary class. All other strata and classes are vacillating and the bourgeoisie is counter-revolutionary. Over eighty percent of the members of EIDC are ordinary workers. The rest arc patriotic intellectuals and some small businessmen and professionals. It is the ordinary workers and people in the community who are the leading and main force against state-organized racist attacks and in support of the People's Democratic Revolution in India.

The international proletariat is split into two irreconcilable camps: the progressive and patriotic proletariat and the yellow and sold-out proletariat. This division is fostered by imperialism and serves imperialism. In our community, we have also a cabal of opportunists who are allies of the traitors to our community (members and supporters of CPI, CPM, SNS and others). They make up the main force against the community in service of the capitalist state. Our struggle against racist attacks advances when we consistently oppose the racist attacks as well as those who are splitting the unity of the community against the racist attacks.

EIDC put forward the slogan: SELF-DEFENSE IS THE ONLY WAY! This slogan clearly pointed out the method of struggle against the enemy. EIDC clearly analyzed that it is the state which is organizing the racist attacks. It is the state which is the instrument of class struggle against the proletariat and it is also the state which is the instrument of division in the proletariat and it is also the state which is the instrument of racist attacks against our people. This clearly identified the source and the instrument of the racist attacks. Furthermore, EIDC clearly pointed out that it is the rich who are racist and it is the rich who are shifting the blame for the racist attacks onto the ordinary people in order to make the Canadian people fight one another while the real culprit goes scot free. Thus EIDC inspired the progressive and patriotic people to fight against racist attacks and clearly pointed out who is the main enemy, the form of struggle, the main social force which is capable of fighting the main enemy and the main allies of this social force. The reactionary state and the rich are the main enemy. The main form of struggle is self- defense on the basis of our own strength. The main social force capable of fighting the main enemy is the proletariat and the main allies of the proletariat are the patriotic people who are opposed to the racist attacks and are themselves the target of the racist attacks. This correct line of EIDC energized the community, gave it vitality and strength and faith and optimism in the outcome of the struggle.

EIDC has faced the most vile attacks of the rich and their state as well as the counter-revolutionary splittist and confusion-mongering activities of the revisionists and opportunists of all hues. The rich and the state and the revisionists and opportunists are on one side and the proletariat and oppressed people are on the other side. This is the way matters stand in our community as well as in Canada. The defense of the community necessarily means opposition to this reactionary alliance of the rich, their state and the revisionists and opportunists of all hues. This struggle belongs to the entire community and it is the duty and responsibility of all genuinely patriotic elements to oppose the reactionary alliance of the rich and their state with the revisionists and opportunists.

Over the past four years, EIDC faced the ideological and political propaganda of the rich, their state and the revisionists and opportunists of all hues with courage and determination and without vacillating for a second. This reactionary alliance first carried out reactionary propaganda that there are no racist attacks, there are only acts of vandalism, and that these problems come about because the ordinary workers come from the hinterland of India and they are "ignorant". They advocated that "education" and "neighborhood intercourse" would solve the problem. They said: If every neighbor is friendly to every neighbor then these problems won't exist. In a nutshell, they exonerated the reactionary state from organizing the racist attacks. They did not blame the rich and the revisionists and opportunists of all hues for their unbridled racism and national and social - chauvinism. On the contrary, they attacked the workers and found fault with those who were the victims of these attacks. They slandered their way of life and ridiculed their method of dressing and eating habits. In other words, they carried a campaign which was part of the state-organized racist attacks.

But this alliance failed to liquidate the struggle because of the resolute and unwavering leadership of EIDC. Once they knew that their tactics were not going to work and that more and more people were agreeing with the line of EIDC, then the same alliance came forward to "oppose" racist attacks and racism. Arch-reactionaries now donned the mask of giving slogans of "opposing" racism for the purpose of smashing the resistance of the oppressed and to cause maximum confusion in their ranks. They advocated the line of "opposing" racism in words but practicing it in deeds and once again blamed the ordinary workers and EIDC for the racist attacks. Vile slanders were issued against EIDC to the extent that they blamed EIDC for racist attacks. Phoney leaders were floated to hoodwink the people. They called for more "police" protection and more attacks from the state. The struggle against racist attacks has brought into action various strata and classes. Everyone can now see them in action. The rich and the revisionists and opportunists of all hues have educated the masses through their perfidious activity against the progressive people that it is they who are the base of reaction in the community and it is on their shoulders the state of the rich has placed the task of splitting, dividing and liquidating the resistance of the community against the racist attacks. The state of the rich gives rewards to those who assist them in this nefarious anti-people activity while it persecutes those who stand against racist attacks. Sikh temples have been converted into police stations and the police and courts directly interfere in the affairs of the community in order to keep the traitors in control of certain of the community's institutions. Phoney Sikhs are promoted everywhere while the Sikhs who are genuinely religious are provided with no support and threats of persecution are issued against them.

There is a lot of activity in the community. The reactionary alliance is trying to liquidate the resistance of the community while the genuinely progressive and patriotic people firmly oppose their liquidation. Various reformists and social reformers are floated with their wild schemes and financed to divert the masses of people from firmly opposing the racist attacks.

The striving of our people is for liberation and emancipation. This striving is not new and it is not just the wish of the few in the community. It is the main wish and hope of the people of India whether resident in India or abroad. This striving cannot be eliminated. The more the reactionary alliance carries out perfidious activities against the resistance of the community, the more the people are becoming clear and deepening their determination to fulfill their historic tasks of genuine liberation and emancipation.

The EIDC takes a clear-cut stand on the burning issues in the community. The EIDC declares that it is only by relying on our strength and by fighting against the very racist and chauvinist ideology of the superpowers and reactionaries of the world and by forging unity in the course of the struggle that we can win victory.

The EIDC declares that the struggle against racism is a component part of the struggle against the world reaction headed by the two superpowers. It is not a struggle for social "integration" or a matter of opposing some corrupt officials. On the contrary, it is a matter of opposing the very foundations of imperialism and reaction which globally exploit, plunder and barbarically slaughter the people.

The EIDC declares that there can be no "united" front with those who are either supporting one superpower or the other. For example, supporters of CPI-CPM support Soviet social-imperialism while the supporters of SNS and others support U.S. imperialism. Within India, it is CPM-SNS and others who are brought forth by the reactionary ruling classes to prettify their tottering reactionary rule under the hoax of "democracy" just as the ruling classes brought forth CPI to prettify the reactionary "democracy" of the two superpowers and of the reactionary ruling classes of India. EIDC asks: What kind of "united" front will it be if we unite with our own enemies? The Janata Party, the Indian National Congress, CPI, CPM, SNS and other revisionists and opportunists are the enemies of the Indian people. They are the traitors and the hangmen of the Indian people. They are the servants of the reactionary ruling classes who are fighting for positions in the state and government in order to serve the two superpowers and the Indian reactionary ruling classes. There can be no unity with such elements and they must be firmly opposed.

The EIDC declares that the struggle against racism is a component part of the struggle against the world reaction headed by the two superpowers. It is not a struggle for social "integration" or a matter of opposing some corrupt officials. On the contrary, it is a matter of opposing the very foundations of imperialism and reaction which globally exploit, plunder and barbarically slaughter the people.

The EIDC declares that there can be no "united" front with those who are either supporting one superpower or the other. For example, supporters of CPI-CPM support Soviet social-imperialism while the supporters of SNS and others support U.S. imperialism. Within India, it is CPM-SNS and others who are brought forth by the reactionary ruling classes to prettify their tottering reactionary rule under the hoax of "democracy" just as the ruling classes brought forth CPI to prettify the reactionary "democracy" of the two superpowers and of the reactionary ruling classes of India. EIDC asks: What kind of "united" front will it be if we unite with our own enemies? The Janata Party, the Indian National Congress, CPI, CPM, SNS and other revisionists and opportunists are the enemies of the Indian people. They are the traitors and the hangmen of the Indian people. They are the servants of the reactionary ruling classes who are fighting for positions in the state and government in order to serve the two superpowers and the Indian reactionary ruling classes. There can be no unity with such elements and they must be firmly opposed.

The EIDC declares that it will be betrayal and treachery of the people if the EIDC itself, for the purposes of some short-range "advantages", advances the slogan of such phoney "united" fronts as those being floated by the revisionists and opportunists with the blessings of the rich and their state. Our united front is the united front of those who are fighting the same enemy. It is the united front of people in struggle against the same enemy. And we build this united front with all those who are actually fighting the enemy irrespective of their religion, social bias or political views. The EIDC uses extremely flexible tactics in terms of building the unity of the people. At the same time, the EIDC never barters on questions of principle.

The EIDC calls upon all the genuinely progressive and patriotic people to rally behind the banner of struggle against the state-organized racist attacks and defend the integrity and honor of the community. The EIDC calls upon all the oppressed people and their organizations to forge close unity in struggle against the main enemy.

The EIDC declares that all those who face the world reaction led by the two superpowers will find a willing ally in the EIDC. The EIDC resolutely supports all struggles against old and new colonialism, racism and fascism. The EIDC firmly supports the struggle against wage slavery and the exploitation of man by man.

SELF-DEFENSE IS THE ONLY WAY!

BLAME THE RICH AND NOT THE PEOPLE FOR RACIST ATTACKS!

VIGOROUSLY FIGHT STATE-ORGANIZED RACIST ATTACKS!

5. OPPOSE THE POLITICAL PERSECUTION AND FRAME-UP OF COMRADE HARDIAL BAINS

Comrade Hardial Bains is well-known to everyone in the community and outside. Comrade Bains is the symbol of struggle and determination of the community to defend itself against the state-organized racist attacks. As everyone knows, it was Comrade Bains who first issued the slogan SELF-DEFENSE IS THE ONLY WAY! at a press conference in December of 1973. And it was Comrade Bains who defied every threat and calumny by the reactionary state in March, 1975 and clearly called upon the community to defend itself against racist attacks.

The reactionary state has persecuted Comrade Bains for his defense of the community and for his progressive politics. He has been denied citizenship and threats of deportation are issued against him all the time. He has been viciously slandered and maligned by the reactionary alliance of the rich, the state of the rich and the revisionists and opportunists of all hues.

The Third Annual Convention of the EIDC declares: In persecuting Comrade Hardial Bains, the reactionary state is trying to intimidate our community. The attack on Comrade Bains is an attack on the entire community and on the progressive and patriotic people. For a long time, the reactionary state has let it be known that whosoever participates in progressive politics will be persecuted by the state. Repeated attacks on Comrade Bains are a vivid example of how the reactionary state is trying to intimidate the community and the progressive people.

The EIDC believes that the "trial" on January 13, 1978 of Comrade Bains is a frame-up and another act of persecution. The EIDC denounces this dastardly attack on our Comrade Bains who is also a member of the National Council of the EIDC and the courageous symbol of resistance of our community. The EIDC is very proud to have Comrade Bains in our midst, a worthy son of our people. The EIDC calls upon all genuinely progressive and patriotic people to denounce the frame-up trial of Comrade Bains and provide full support to the work of Comrade Bains.

LONG LIVE THE HEROIC AND COURAGEOUS COMRADE HARDIAL BAINS!

DOWN WITH THE ATTACKS OF THE REACTIONARY ALLIANCE AGAINST COMRADE BAINS!

DOWN WITH THE FRAME-UP TRIAL OF COMRADE HARDIAL BAINS!

FIRMLY SUPPORT THE WORK OF COMRADE HARDIAL BAINS! End.

[Back to Top]

"We will form a center for the entire India"

Kerala State Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Greets Comrade Enver Hoxha and the Party of Labor of Albania

The following message is reprinted from the Albanian Telegraphic Agency, December 27, 1977.

Comrade Enver Hoxha, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania, and the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania have received the following message from the Kerala State Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist):

Dear comrades,

On occasion of the 33rd anniversary of the liberation of Albania, on behalf of the Kerala State Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist- Leninist) and the revolutionary people of Kerala, we express our ardent greetings to the Party of Labor of Albania, to the government of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania and the heroic Albanian people.

Under the wise leadership of Comrade Enver Hoxha, great outstanding and tested Marxist-Leninist leader, the heroic Albanian people have achieved brilliant results on various fronts of the socialist revolution and the socialist construction and have made an important contribution to the struggle against the two superpowers, the support of the revolution of the peoples of various countries. We sincerely wish the Albanian people new, ever greater successes.

We fully agree with the Report of Comrade Enver Hoxha at the 7th Congress. We think that, at the present situation, it is the duty of the Marxist-Leninist parties to unite and support one another in order to oppose the opportunist line which is emerging in the international Marxist-Leninist movement.

In India, we are now fighting against the opportunist line of various groups. Within a few months, we will form a center for the entire India. The history of the international communist movement has finally proved that the success in the revolution requires a sole center of the revolutionary leadership. We will always support the proletarian revolutionary line of Comrade Charu Mazumdar.

LONG LIVE COMRADE ENVER HOXHA!

LONG LIVE THE PARTY OF LABOR OF ALBANIA!

LONG LIVE THE FRIENDSHIP AND UNITY BETWEEN THE PARTY OF LABOR OF ALBANIA AND THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MARXIST-LENINIST)!

LONG LIVE MARXISM-LENINISM AND PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM! End.

[Back to Top]

Powerful Outburst of the Chilean People's Resistance

[Graphic: THE RESISTANCE WILL WIN!]

A powerful outburst of the Chilean people's Resistance against the fascist military junta has erupted in Chile during the past week. Thousands of working people have defied the fascist terror of Pinochet's police and army assassins to demonstrate in the streets of the major cities against the junta. In Santiago, Valparaiso, Antofagasta, Concepcion and other cities thousands of workers from different industries, other working people, youth, students and pupils have thrown themselves into this powerful Resistance struggle.

In this struggle, the working people have clashed powerfully with the forces of repression in Chile, meeting with violence the fascist violence unleashed against the demonstrators by the junta. In Santiago, hundreds of armed soldiers had to be rushed in against the demonstrators to disperse them. Despite the savage terror used against the demonstrators in Santiago, the demonstrations continued in other cities. In Valparaiso, Antofagasta and Concepcion fierce fighting occurred between the demonstrators and the police. Latest reports do not indicate that there has been any letup in the resolute struggles being waged as a result of all the repressive measures used by the junta to quell this militant outburst.

The incident which precipitated this powerful wave of demonstrations and clashes with the fascist police and army was the announcement by Pinochet that a "referendum" farce would be organized on January 4, 1978. This "referendum" of Pinochet's is a desperate effort to win a stitch of respectability for his reign of naked fascist terror. The masses of Chilean people have responded to this farce of a "referendum" by manifesting their deep hatred for this fascist regime and their determination to smash the fascism in power.

This wave of demonstrations and the clashes with the police and army being carried out by the fighting Chilean people show that the four years of fascist terror in Chile has not crushed the people into submission. Despite the brutal assassination of 30,000 people by the fascist junta since 1973 when it was installed in power with the assistance of U.S. imperialism through a bloody coup, the Chilean people have marched fearlessly into the streets to denounce the schemes of the fascist rulers for maintaining their power.

Right from the time of the coup, the Chilean people have never stopped resisting intensified capitalist exploitation, resisting political repression and savage terror. Already in 1974, various strikes were organized, for example the strike of the construction workers and others. 1975 brought up a new advance of the workers' struggles. In this year there have been important struggles like the one in the tanneries of the Etchepare shoe factory, and the years 1976 and 1977 have seen an upsurge in these struggles. The women, the youth, the office workers, the intellectuals, the small and medium owners, etc. are all new and vigorous contingents which have joined the struggle against the fascist dictatorship with determination. Prior to the most recent struggles which have been reported such as the recent strikes at the El Teniente copper mine, the strikes of the dockers and railway workers at Valparaiso, appliance factory workers in Santiago, etc., there were other struggles organized like the heroic strike of the workers of Promar, in Vina Del Mar. In addition to this, the strikes carried out inside the factories for part of their shift, and the struggles of students of the University of Chile and other institutions.

All of these struggles expressed the determination of the people never to submit to intensified capitalist slavery at the hands of the fascist rulers in Chile and their imperialist masters in New York and Washington. They also prepared the conditions for creation of the People's Front of Chile, an instrument to bring about the unity and organization of the working people and the anti-fascist patriots with the aim of 'overthrowing the fascist dictatorship as a first step towards the seizure of power and the establishment of a progressive and democratic people's government. Through the People's Front, the largest unity of the popular masses and anti-fascist and democratic sectors is encouraged and developed to vigorously fight against the dictatorship and smash it.

This latest struggle in the four-year long struggle of the Chilean people against the fascist dictatorship and in the struggle the Chilean people have been waging for many years against the rule of the reactionary bourgeoisie and imperialist domination is another powerful blow against the Pinochet regime. It is also a strong blow against the revisionists and all those in Chile who collaborate with the fascism in power. These decrepit political forces all advocate capitulation to the fascist terror and promote pacifism and defeatism in the ranks of the Chilean people. They say that the fascist regime is too strong, no action can be taken. They say the working people are not prepared to wage anti-fascist struggle. Many of these reformist cretins, like the revisionist chieftain Corvallan, have fled the country and view the struggle in Chile from their suites in Havana and other places. These revisionists, who prepared the ground for the fascist coup of Pinochet by preaching the "parliamentary road to socialism", and by refusing to arm the people against fascist reaction, are once again being exposed as totally bankrupt and isolated from the masses of the heroic, fighting Chilean people and their Resistance movement.

The revisionists and other opportunists and traitors are having discussions with the replacement U.S. imperialism has picked out for Pinochet -- the Christian Democrat Frei -- so that they will have a share of the fascist state power when U.S. imperialism flushes the discredited Pinochet into the sewer and installs Frei. But the Chilean people are developing their popular unity through the People's Front and by launching one action after another against the fascist dictatorship are advancing their struggle to smash it. End.

[Back to Top]

PINOCHET'S FARCE

A special issue of ANCHA has been produced, dated January 1978, on Pinochet's "Referendum" farce held in Chile on January 4, 1978. Pinochet called the "Referendum", in spite of opposition by other leading members of the government junta, as a result of the recent condemnation by the United Nations of the violation of "human rights" in Chile and at a time when the popular Resistance struggles of all sections of the Chilean people, especially the workers, the miners and the students have been escalating tremendously. The response of the Chilean people to the "referendum" was one of massive opposition. It gave rise to an escalation of the Resistance struggles of the people on all fronts. As the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Chile pointed out -- to even acknowledge the referendum in any way, shape or form is to participate in recognizing the illegitimate regime and sanction Pinochet's desperate attempt to endorse his fascist regime. In fact the Chilean people categorically opposed the entire referendum farce and in large numbers refused to participate in it. However, as was to be expected, Pinochet cooked up the results even before the referendum took place and announced overwhelming ''support" for his regime. In his "victory" speech following the announcement of these results, Pinochet cynically announced that now elections would not take place in Chile for at least ten years, going against his own previous statements regarding the "institutionalization" of the country. This only further goes to show the farcical nature of the referendum.

The articles in this special issue of ANCHA comment on the referendum and the deep contradictions within the ruling military junta itself, as well as provide the news of the Resistance struggles being waged by the Chilean people. The Workers' Advocate hails the upsurge taking place in the Resistance struggles of the Chilean people and is confident that it is only a matter of time before the people themselves decide how long Pinochet will remain in power, not any bogus referendum held by a fascist regime.

The Workers' Advocate is printing below two of these articles.

This special issue of ANCHA is now available, from the Canadian Committee in Support of the Chilean Resistance. To get this issue, or a subscription to ANCHA, write: Canadian Committee in Support of the Chilean Resistance, P.O. Box 185, Outremont Station, Montreal, Quebec, or National Publications Centre, P.O. Box 727, Adelaide Station, Toronto, Ontario.

PINOCHET'S FARCE

Exactly four years and four months after the coup d'etat which imposed the fascist dictatorship in Chile, the Chilean people and international public opinion are witnesses of the most base masquerade with which Pinochet is attempting to assert his rule. Desperate as a result of the continuous defiance of the working masses who have not ceased opposing the regime and fighting for freedom and for better living conditions, against the repression and for the overthrow of the dictatorship; daily more isolated internally as a result of being abandoned by sectors which at the beginning supported the coup; corroded by the dissensions of his most loyal collaborators and the sharpening of the contradictions between the different factions of the Armed Forces and the members of the government junta itself; and, finally, condemned once again by the United Nations with the sponsorship of U.S. imperialism itself, Pinochet took the most desperate and adventurist measure of his government: the so-called "National Referendum", widely repudiated by the Chilean people. Not even the fraudulent results which were published have been able to cover up this serious situation facing the dictatorship just as they won't save it from certain extinction.

Neither the Chilean people nor international public opinion have been fooled by this ridiculous "Referendum". Many are the events which illustrate this at this time, from the minute that Pinochet announced his decision, at his own risk and behind the backs of the remaining members of the military junta. Different political, social, trade union, neighborhood and religious organizations published calls disqualifying this deed, and expressing their decision to abstain from participating in it.

This is also how various organizations of the People's Front of Chile called for non-participation in this show and to, in this manner, not legitimize in any way whatever the fascist dictatorship. Thousands of leaflets were disseminated in the country by the Resistance Committees, by the Anti-Fascist Committees in Education, by the Committees of Anti-Fascist Artists, the People's Front Centers of University Resistance, various trade union organizations and various anti-fascist political parties. Also, in many areas of the main cities of Chile, slogans appeared painted on the walls and streets calling on the people to abstain and boycott the demagogical act of fascism.

On the last days before the masquerade, the people's struggle for the overthrow of the dictatorship, far from abating, escalated enormously. This shows that Pinochet's intentions of diverting the masses with this measure and to seek a means of legitimizing his rule, have been smashed by the anti-fascist consciousness of the people and by their resolve to fight until the overthrow and complete destruction of fascism. At numerous points of the city of Santiago and of other cities across the country, anti-fascist groups clashed every day with the fascist bands which support Pinochet and which organize under the banner of the so-called "National Youth Secretariat". On these occasions, the anti-fascists did not flinch for a moment from confronting the police forces and from the detentions of which a few people were the object. At other points, bombs were exploded announcing that the active Resistance of our people will not be held back even if, after this fascist farce, they decide in collaboration with U.S. imperialism to make certain changes with the aim of bettering the present image of the dictatorship.

The breakdown of the dictatorship, its internal and external isolation and its decomposition, are so obvious that the so-called "Referendum", instead of improving the image and diverting public opinion, produced the opposite effect and developed the anti-fascist struggle to new levels. On these days, together with the many public demonstrations, the immense anti-fascist propaganda campaign, the new trade union conflicts, a hunger strike was declared in San Francisco church -- in Santiago -- by nearly one hundred relatives of "missing" persons.

Faced with this situation, the forces of reaction and imperialism, more intelligent than Pinochet, called on him publicly to desist from his proposal to hold this "Referendum". Thus the Council for Hemispheric Affairs in New York denounced the "Referendum" as "the worst error" of Pinochet that would only serve to aggravate "the divisions which have existed within the military junta for over a year and a half".

On their part, the other two main members of the junta, Leigh and Merino, sent respective letters to Pinochet communicating to him that the Air Force and the Army rejected the measure of calling a "Referendum". Leigh's letter expresses "the rejection of the Air Force of the referendum", pointing out that "the prestige and the honor of the Armed Forces and of the police have been compromised by the holding of a plebiscite which will be executed and validated by themselves". Finally, in his letter, Leigh denounced the fact that Pinochet called this event "in spite of knowing the opposition to it by two members of the junta. Thus, your Excellency has violated the statute of the government junta and has placed himself on the margin of it and, as such, the consequences which are derived from it are your exclusive responsibility."

In a similar vein, Merino in his letter to Pinochet said that "with your manner of action you have damaged and insulted the attributes of the government junta and have excluded it from the most important of the political decisions of the past years."

As is logical, this occasion could not pass by Mr. Frei, who was punished by the fascists with the greatest disdain by not letting him share the fruits of government during these four years of dictatorship. Now Frei has found his tongue to oppose the "Referendum" of Pinochet, knowing that by opposing it he exacerbates the contradictions within the military junta and hoping in this manner to create the conditions for an exchange which will bring about a return of the parliamentary game. Frei is avidly seeking power to use it to serve the interests of his yankee masters and those of the pro-imperialist bourgeoisie of whom he is also the representative. In a statement, referring to the "Referendum" he said that it is illegal and contrary to the laws of the military junta itself and that conditions are missing "for the pronouncement to be clear, legitimate and for it to reflect the will of the people".

Before that, even the Chief Returning Officer of the Republic, Hector Humeres, who remained in the post since the Frei government, has rejected the decree for which this "Referendum" was called, as "not being in accord with the law". Humeres has been replaced by the ex-Minister of Labor, one of the most sycophant fascists and the instigator of the new Labor Code which has been repudiated by the broadest sectors of our people.

The People's Front abroad, in accord with the interests of the Anti-Fascist Chilean Resistance, has also called on the people not to be fooled by Pinochet's farce and to support and provide greater impetus to the struggle of the Chilean people for the overthrow of the dictatorship and the complete annihilation of fascism. Also abroad numerous voices were raised to denounce this new maneuver of fascism and, in many countries of the world, Committees in Support of the Anti-Fascist Struggle, Solidarity Committees with the Resistance, Committees in Defense of Human Rights, as well as numerous trade union and political organizations called for the sabotage of this base masquerade.

The People's Front will not stop in its efforts to consolidate the unity and the struggle of all the sections that honestly aspire for the overthrow of the dictatorship and its replacement with a legitimate government which genuinely and effectively represents the interests of the working class and the working masses of our people, as has been put forward in the Democratic Program of Anti-Fascist Unity.

THE RESISTANCE WILL WIN!

A Fraud No Matter How You Look at it

If we analyze the form itself of the event and the conditions which presently exist in Chile, we can have a much better idea of why it has not been anything but a base and cynical farce on the part of Pinochet.

In the first place, as far as the conditions are concerned, everyone knows that in Chile there is a state of siege, with personal liberties limited, without freedom of speech, of assembly or of expression for those who oppose the regime. On the other hand, the minority section which supports the dictatorship counts with official support, with the entire propaganda machinery to serve it and with quantities of pressure tactics against the citizenship.

As of the first moment, the agents of fascism started terrorizing the population with the repression to which they would be subjected if they refused to vote, especially if the results were to go against Pinochet. Fascism relied on the obscurantist propaganda of the television, radio and the press, as well as the use of the public services to pressure their employees with the threat of layoffs. It also counted on the freedom of street propaganda which is denied to the anti-fascists.

As far as the methods of the vote itself, from the manner in which the ballot was printed to the sanctions foreseen for those who abstained, show that the people were confronted with only one alternative, whether they voted "yes" or "no"; the very fact of voting constituted a "reaffirmation of the legitimacy of the government", attempting to legitimize in law a regime which was imposed in practice.

The printing of the ballot was conceived to identify the concept of "patriot" with the fact of supporting and legitimizing ''the process of institutionalizing the country" put forward by the fascists. In this manner on the ballot, on top of the "yes" was placed the Chilean flag and on top of the "no" a black flag.

Together with the psychological pressure through the exaltation of chauvinist patriotism, the fascists threatened the people harshly in case they should abstain from voting.

The dictatorship proceeded to mark all the identification papers with a special seal when the votes were cast. In this manner, those citizens without stamped identification papers will no longer hold valid identification papers. Those who did not vote must, within eight days, present themselves to give an explanation to the local authority, a body in the position of handing the citizen over to the hands of the regime's justice.

Finally, apart from the conditions in the country and the form of the vote, for nobody is there any doubt that the ballot count was also completely rigged and that from way before the event, fascism already knew the results which it would present to the news agencies. Who could possibly believe in the impartiality and the morality of these fascists who have on their backs the assassinations of more than 30,000 people, the disappearances of nearly 3,000 "missing" persons and about one million Chileans in exile?

In spite of all the threats and pressure exerted, more than half of the Chileans in the country with the right to vote, abstained from doing so. Of course the military junta tried to hide this fact through its fraudulent statistics which nobody believes.

This has been an election of the fascists, carried out by the fascists and for the fascists alone. End.

[Back to Top]