First Published: Workers Viewpoint, Vol. 4, No. 19, November 12, 1979.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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GREENSBORO, N.C.–“Long Live the CWP!”, Signe Waller shouted as she crouched over the body of her husband, defying a hail of bullets. Comrade Jim Waller, Communist Workers Party (CWP) Central Committee member and national President of the Trade Union Educational League, led the charge into the line of professional assassins as they brutally attacked the Party’s November 3 anti-Klan demonstration in Greensboro and was assassinated by the hired hands of the bourgeoisie, the KKK and Nazis. At Jim’s side, with the instinct of all class-conscious proletarian fighters, comrade Cesar Cauce rushed forward armed with his courage, bare fists and a picket sign. Beating the brains out of a scum KKKer with his sign, he turned to see comrade Bill Sampson caught in a Klan crossfire. “I’m hit,” shouted Bill as he fell to the ground. With his last fighting breath he said, “take the gun and keep firing!” as he handed over the pistol to Cesar. As comrade Cesar started to shoot at the KKK and Nazi scum, he was knocked to the ground from behind, and murdered from behind in cold blood at point blank range by the cowardly killers.
Selflessly risking her life to save the children, comrade Sandy Smith ran through the crowd in the middle of automatic rifle fire, gathering the children to safety. After shoving them into a nearby house, she grabbed a gun from another comrade and came back shooting. Singled out by the bourgeoisie’s assassins, she was gunned down.
Michael Nathans, a friend of the Party and a medical doctor, was coldbloodedly murdered by shots in the head fired by professional assassins, as he was helping other wounded comrades on the ground. For his heroism the Party recruited him hours before he died in the hospital.
The professional and premeditated assassination of Jim Waller, Sandy Smith, Bill Sampson, Cesar Cauce, and Michael Nathans–all members of the Communist Workers Party–was the bloody work of a group of trained murderers using the Klan and the Nazis as a cover. “This was a SWAT-team-like assassination crew; it was not the act of a few crazy Klansmen,” said Nelson Johnson, CWP organizer in Greensboro.
The Klan and the Nazis are sick scum, degenerate psychos whom the government uses to do its dirty work for the bourgeoisie. Alone they are spineless cowards, half-crazed jokers parading around in hoods and swastikas. They don’t have the guts to attack the Party and the masses in Greensboro without the full backing of the capitalist state apparatus–the local, state and Federal police.
This was no spontaneous outburst by Klan members and Nazis–it was a carefully and deliberately planned military operation intent on assassinating CWP leadership, to intimidate the Party and the rising mass consciousness and resistance. First the pigs tried to disarm the Party and set us up for the kill. They had a special ordinance passed prohibiting us from having weapons there. The fact that the local police left the area just before the gun battle began shows that they were tipped off about the planned assassinations. After they let the assassination squad do their bloody job, then and only then did the pigs return to arrest CWP members for “inciting to riot.” About eight vehicles (as contrasted to the reported two) drove up Everitt Street, past the marchers gathering at the Morningside Community Center. The lead car fired into the air to draw the demonstrators towards the front, and at the rear of the car caravan, a car full of Klansmen assassins then fired on demonstrators from the back. In this way they further dispersed the demonstrators and scattered them for government hired sharpshooters to single out leadership there for the kill. The FBI and other government agents succeeded in their military ambush. Four of the CWP 5 were shot either right in the head or in the heart. At least three out of the five martyrs, as well as most of the seriously injured comrades were ambushed by sharp-shooters. The remaining others were killed or injured by the Klan and Nazi assassins. Only two vehicles were stopped by the local cops. Immediately after the murders a team of at least two dozen FBI agents were dispatched directly from the White House to seize the evidence and organize the cover-up.
Four of the five comrades murdered were leading members of the Party, one a member of the Central Committee. This is the strongest evidence of a premeditated government assassination plot. They were identified, singled out, and assassinated by order. According to the November 6 issue of the Winston-Salem Journal, “Joe Grady of Winston-Salem, Grand Dragon of the White Knights of Liberty ... said that one person, who is not a Klansman and whom he did not name, brought most of the weapons to Greensboro. Grady said that Raeford Milano Caudle, who was charged with conspiracy to commit murder in the incident, told him that the man was not supposed to go to the rally point but knew who was to be shot.” Only expert marksmen have the ability to kill so quickly and accurately. Dr. Hudson, the North Carolina chief medical examiner confirmed that the victims were hit in the head and upper body. Yet, in an eyewitness account by Greensboro Daily News reporter Winston Calvin, he says that the Klan/Nazis “didn’t really have time to aim for specific targets. They simply fired broadside into a group.” Clearly the Klan/Nazis couldn’t have murdered four Party leaders out of five and only the state has the resources, organization and trained agents to be able to pull off this military action. The state instigated scum like KKKers and Nazis into a trap like that. The Klan and the Nazis are used as a cover, a diversion for the largest assassination of communists since the Palmer raids in the 1920’s.
The attack on the Communist Workers Party leadership shows the desperation of the bourgeoisie in the face of a situation where the American people are waking up like never before.
The “American Dream” is being shattered. Workers see no future for themselves and dread the future of their children. Economic and political crises are slapping the masses awake, and more and more are seeing what a stinking corpse capitalism is. The U.S. today is like dry tinder; any spark of resistance from any mass strata or sector of society could ignite a blaze of revolutionary struggle. Sitting on top of a volcano, the bourgeoisie has to squash any mass resistance to preserve their rule. The recent attack on the CWP is only the beginning of a renewed and larger attack by the bourgeoisie against the inevitable resistance of workers and oppressed people, an attack that will make the Palmer raids in the 1920’s, the McCarthy era of the 50’s and the suppression of the Black Panther Party in the 60’s look pale in comparison.
The assassination of our five comrades is more than a fight between the Communist Workers Party and a few racists. It’s a fight between the Party, representing the masses’ interests, and the government, representing the interests of a handful of criminals–the monopoly capitalists. The Communist Workers Party is the only one that is leading and can lead the U.S. people to overthrow the bourgeoisie and end their oppression. This is clear in North Carolina. The Party is in the forefront of the masses’ struggles, from fighting to free the Wilmington 10 to beating back the “competency tests” to forging fighting unions in the mainly unorganized Black Belt South. The bourgeoisie shakes with fear at the sight of the Party, because they know that we can’t be bribed or bullied, or get instigated into a killing spree with other groups, like between the Black Panthers and Ron Karenga of U.S. Organization in the late 60’s, that we won’t let anything stand in the way of overthrowing their vicious rule through armed insurrection and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat.
This isn’t the first time the state/FBI has attacked the CWP. Two years ago, Jan Gusner, a member of the Workers Viewpoint Organization was kidnapped twice, cut up and raped by a sick gang of perverted low-life headed by an FBI agent. And this past April, six squad cars of police busted into a Greensboro comrade’s home pretending to be searching for a prison escapee. Holding guns to the baby’s head, the pigs ransacked the place then split. It turned out that the person they were supposedly looking for had gone to Florida with the pigs’ permission. When the comrades filed suit against this harassment, the judge let the pigs off, claiming it was an “honest mistake.” No, this isn’t the first attack on the CWP and it won’t be the last. It will be intensified and the only way to fight it is to push out broad exposures and to create public opinion against the bourgeoisie and their agents.
While we mourn the murder of our comrades in Greensboro, we aren’t afraid of the bourgeoisie’s attack because we know we can beat them back and in the process thousands of staunch proletarian warriors will rally to the CWP’s banner and the sympathy of the vast majority of U.S. people will be won. This is already happening. Revolutionary martyrs in a just cause like the CWP 5 can never die in vain. For every one of these working class fighters who sacrifice their lives in fierce battle against the bourgeoisie, tens of thousands will step forward to fill the ranks. The CWP 5 Enrollment, the Party membership drive in honor of the five heroes, will be the most successful ever.
The masses are looking for leadership, and today they are looking for the CWP to take up the leadership. We must boldly extend our hand and push forward like never before. Our work must combine the broadest revolutionary sweep with tight organization. This is the only way to turn this country upside down, bust out the masses’ deep anger and frustration, and direct it at a clear target–the monopoly capitalist class of Rockefellers and Morgans.