First Published: People’s Tribune, Vol. 3, No. 10, May 1, 1976.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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25,000 signatures qualifies the Communist Labor Party a place on the Michigan state ballot. This campaign to get on the ballot in order to provide a forum for the working class in their struggle for safe working conditions, for busing, for peace and for socialism has been a success!
Two months of hard work and sacrifice by comrades and friends – door-to-door canvassing, shop gate rallies, long hours in shopping centers, tens of thousands of People’s Tribunes and Tribuno Populars and countless numbers of leaflets and other literature–have proven that the working class wants to hear about socialism. It is in this sense that the Communist Labor Party sees the gaining of 25,000 signatures as a victory for the working class.
As could be expected, the bourgeoisie has moved to try and clamp a lid on this struggle. Petitions of many progressive and smaller parties are being reviewed–and usually disqualified–from the standpoint of roughly 30 minor technicalities. The Communist Party USA collected around 21,500 signatures, but have been told they do not qualify on the basis of one of these 30 points. Their petitions are also being challenged by the US Labor Party – a tool of the ClA – which, while claiming to be communist, is openly financed by the US government and their Rockefeller masters. These challenges to the other partys’ petition campaigns are part of the bourgeoisie’s attempt to silence any cries of opposition to the capitalist system. As noted in the last issue of the People’s Tribune, the state legislature has also put up roadblocks for the other parties by limiting their ballot campaign to the August primary alone.
The capitalists will not find it easy to silence the Communist Labor Party. Every step of the way, we and the workers who have supported us, will meet the bourgeoisie and turn their attacks into victories for our class. Both the proposed and the existing election laws give us a chance to expose just how “free” this country is. People are “free” to vote for the bourgeois parties – the Democratic and Republican parties or the American Independence Party – but not for the proletarian party.
The KKK is legally chartered in the state of Mississippi and is allowed to murder and threaten at will. The American Nazi Party may demonstrate on the steps of the White House, but the CLP is blocked by the bourgeoisie. The reason is clear – the CLP speaks for the masses of workers and progressives of all nationalities – the KKK speaks for the capitalists.
The 25,000 signatures representing people of all ages, all nationalities, of all walks of life, clearly shows that neither the Democrats or Republicans, neither the Klan nor the Nazis speak or represent the feelings, aspirations and interests of any worker. The growing tendency within the working class is for unity and onward to socialism. From the factories, fields and mines; from the neighborhoods and the schools – onward in the election campaign, onward in the revolutionary struggle, onward to socialism.