The Workers' Advocate

WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE! 25¢

Volume 10, Number 2

VOICE OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF THE USA

February 25, 1980

[Front page:

The "Carter Doctrine" Is Naked Imperialism;

No to the draft! No to U.S. imperialist war preparations!;

The People of El Salvador Are Rising in Revolution against the Military Junta and U.S. Imperialism;

THE ECONOMIC CRISIS SHOWS THE NECESSITY OF STRUGGLE AND REVOLUTION]

IN THIS ISSUE

The "Carter Doctrine" Is Naked Imperialism

No to the draft! No to U.S. imperialist war preparations!

The People of El Salvador Are Rising in Revolution against the Military Junta and U.S. Imperialism

THE ECONOMIC CRISIS SHOWS THE NECESSITY OF STRUGGLE AND REVOLUTION

Defy Carter's Wage Controls!

Pay Board issues savage new guidelines to cut the workers' wages

Condemn Soviet social-imperialism's fascist aggression against Afghanistan! Down with U.S. imperialism, Soviet and Chinese social-imperialism and all reaction!

"Doctrines" of the Gendarmes and Murderers of the Peoples

THE POSTAL SERVICE'S PRODUCTIVITY DRIVE MURDERED MICHAEL McDERMOTT

1st National Steel Strike Since 1926

165,000 British Steelworkers Strike

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION SYSTEM:

An anti-worker scheme to cut wages, increase workloads and eliminate jobs

TAKING A FIRM STAND THE INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER WORKERS PERSIST IN THEIR FOUR MONTH STRIKE AGAINST THE EXTENSION OF COMPULSORY OVERTIME

G.E. Workers Walk Out Against Jailhouse Conditions

Honeywell's fraudulent wage increase

On the struggle at Roswell Park Hospital:

"MASS ACTIVE RESISTANCE IS THE CORRECT TRADE UNION POLICY"

From the Statement of Richard Lipsitz Before the Trial Board of CSEA/AFSCME, Region VI

A vigorous meeting in support of the Iranian revolution

The Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA Firmly Supports the Iranian People

THE FUNDING CRISIS OF THE CHICAGO SCHOOLS IS CAUSED BY THE PLUNDER OF THE BANKS

The people of Oakland are outraged at the racist police murders of the Afro-American people!

More Nuclear Poison from Three Mile Island

Lies and slanders of the bourgeoisie will never stop the growing influence of Marxism-Leninism and the Communist Party of Trinidad and Tobago among the working class and people

The Indian ruling class needed a "stable government" to crush the people and Indira Gandhi has fit the bill

The social-democrats are the most servile flunkeys of the Democratic Party

'The Kennedy Alternative' is the same program of starvation, fascism and war

The "Carter Doctrine" Is Naked Imperialism

President Carter, the avowed apostle of "peace" and the self-styled angel of "human rights", has let down his mask. On January 23, in his State of the Union Address, Carter unveiled his so-called "Carter doctrine" which is nothing but an adventurist doctrine of imperialist slavery and war. Carter has bared his true nature as the fiendish imperialist and warmonger that he is. The "new" doctrine of the White House strategists comes in response to the catastrophic setbacks suffered by U.S. imperialism in the face of the Iranian people's revolution. As well, the "Carter doctrine" has been spelled out under the conditions of increasing warmongering activities of the two imperialist superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, the two most ferocious world exploiters and nuclear blackmailers. Over the last five months for example, the Carter administration has manufactured hysteria about a Soviet brigade in Cuba in order to beef up the U.S. military posture against the revolutionary anti-U.S. imperialist upheaval of the people of the Caribbean and Central and South America; the Pentagon has announced plans for the deployment of over 500 additional intermediate range nuclear missiles in Western Europe; and U.S. imperialism continues to intensify its blackmail and plots to strangle the Iranian revolution. Also, at the end of December, Soviet social-imperialism carried out a brutal fascist invasion of Afghanistan. And in the meantime U.S. imperialism has seized on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to step up its own warmongering even further. This is why the Carter administration is working day and night to fan up war hysteria, to foment a war psychosis in an attempt to line up the working class and people behind U.S. imperialism's plans of unbridled aggression and war.

THE "VITAL INTEREST" OF U.S. IMPERIALISM IS THE PLUNDER OF OIL AND THE SUBJUGATION OF THE PEOPLE

The new "Carter doctrine" is a straightforward doctrine of superpower hegemonism. The two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, as the two biggest world oppressors and plunderers have each carved out their own "spheres of influence" across the globe. And now the "Carter doctrine" has placed the entire region of the Persian Gulf within the U.S. imperialists' declared sphere of "vital interests". This is a doctrine of the most baldfaced great-power arrogance, unsurpassed even by the colonial empires of the past. By unilateral decree, despite the avowed opposition of even some of U.S. imperialism's most subservient puppet states in the Persian Gulf, Carter has put the nations and people of this region, which lies 10,000 miles from the U.S. shores, under the umbrella of U.S. imperialism. And this doctrine pledges war and destruction for any force which challenges the U.S. imperialists' plunder and domination of this oil-rich and strategic zone. This is the crux of the new "Carter doctrine". As Carter himself puts it: "Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States. It will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force." Carter's special envoy, Clark Clifford, was even more explicit, spelling out that any further aggression by the Soviet social-imperialists in the Middle East region "would mean war".

The "Carter doctrine" has been laid down under the pretext of protecting the freedom of the people from the encroachment of Soviet expansionism. But it is not the defense of "freedom" and "independence" that Carter has in mind. Rather it is the strangling and plundering of the people of these countries and fighting with the Soviet imperialists over who takes how much of the loot. The primary objective of the "Carter doctrine" is to guard the enormous super-profits realized from the plunder of the vast oil fields in the region by Exxon, Texaco and the other U.S. imperialist oil corporations and to safeguard the strategic global positions of U.S. imperialism. Hence this "doctrine" is aimed in the first place at guarding the robbery, exploitation and oppression of the nations and people. And the liberation struggle of the people against this oppression -- what Carter characterizes as "the press of social, religious, economic and political change in many nations of the developing world, exemplified by the revolution in Iran" -- threatens the most dangerous "assault on the vital interests" of U.S. imperialism. Thus it is quite obvious that the "Carter doctrine" not only has the purpose of putting down the revolution of the heroic Iranian people but also of suppressing the liberation struggle of the Arab and other peoples by "any means necessary, including military force".

To enforce the "Carter doctrine" the U.S. imperialists are striving to turn the entire Middle East and Indian Ocean region into a virtual war zone. Among other measures outlined in Carter's State of the Union message, the U.S. is going to build up a massive permanent naval presence in the Indian Ocean despite Carter's earlier promises of a "non-militarized" Indian Ocean. Already a flotilla of over 22 U.S. warships including three aircraft carrier groups are prowling the Arabian Sea. And four more warships carrying on board a 1,800 man Marine amphibious assault force, equipped with armored landing craft, tanks and helicopters, have been dispatched to join up with this unprecedented concentration of naval power. Carter has also dispatched a horde of Pentagon and State Department officials to the Middle East and Indian Ocean region to secure the use of naval and air facilities. The use, of military bases in Oman, Somalia and Kenya have just now been negotiated, and already U.S. war planes have started operations out of bases in Egypt and Israel. The Pentagon is also expanding the U.S. military base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia.

The securing of military facilities is a key element of the "cooperative security framework" which Carter is hatching. The former bloody regime of the Shah of Iran had been armed to the teeth by the U.S. government and acted as the principal policeman to safeguard U.S. imperialist positions throughout the Persian Gulf. And Iran itself had been converted into a vast U.S. military base. Therefore, the Iranian revolution which overthrew the American puppet Shah was a great setback for U.S. imperialism's strategic posture. Thus, to make up for this loss, Carter is trying to consolidate a new "security framework". Under this "framework" the pro-U.S. imperialist states such as the medieval fascist regime of Saudi Arabia and the other soldout reactionary governments from Egypt to Pakistan along with the most rabid guard dog of imperialism in the Mideast, Israel, will "cooperate" (of course under the U.S. command) to "secure" U.S. imperialism's "vital interests" in the region. To this end the Pentagon is arming these puppet states with several billions of dollars of the most up-to-date fighter bombers and military hardware.

But if their hired henchmen fail to do the job, Carter is organizing a 110,000 man "rapid deployment force" in preparation for direct U.S. military intervention, for the seizure of oil fields, for the suppression of the Iranian revolution and other liberation struggles, etc. Open aggression is in fact the bottom line of the "Carter doctrine". It is an open declaration of threatening the world with war and possibly an unprecedented global slaughter to safeguard the robbery of the Mideast oil by the Rockefellers, Mellons and other oil billionaires and the other "vital interests" of U.S. imperialism.

ALL-SIDED PREPARATIONS FOR AN IMPERIALIST WAR OF CONQUEST IS THE "FUNDAMENTAL POLICY" OF THE CARTER ADMINISTRATION

In preparation for such a robbers' war, in his January 23 Address Carter outlined further steps to strengthen the aggressive posture of U.S. imperialism. Besides the "collective security framework" in the Middle East, the Carter administration is working day and night to shore up and activate U.S. imperialism's other aggressive military alliances around the globe. The U.S. imperialists have taken further measures to consolidate their traditional alliances with monopoly capitalist Western Europe, Japan and Canada and to rearm the aggressive NATO forces. Washington is also striving to patch up its old alliances with such states as Turkey and Pakistan and to arm these puppet states to the teeth. But most significantly, the U.S. imperialists are playing their "China card" for all it's worth. Last month Defense Secretary Harold Brown toured China calling on the new Chinese warlords to participate in "parallel actions" with U.S. imperialism against Soviet social-imperialism, a request that the Chinese revisionist leaders are more than willing to accommodate. After Brown's successful tour, the U.S. Congress granted China "most favored nation" trade status. At the same time the Carter administration has now offered to sell China military equipment excluding weapons, from advanced computer, satellite and radar technology to trucks and other military vehicles. The activation of the warmongering U.S.-China alliance against their mutual rival, Soviet social-imperialism, is a most dangerous combination. It is a hotbed of war and aggression from which both U.S. imperialism and Chinese social-imperialism are striving to advance their own strategic global positions.

High on the list of the other priorities of the Carter administration is the further acceleration of the unrestrained nuclear arms race between the two superpowers. Carter has ordered plans for the development and deployment of a new generation of intermediate range nuclear weapons for the NATO forces in Western Europe. The Pentagon is going full steam ahead with the $30 billion MX missile system as well as stepped-up production of Trident submarines and the development of the Cruise missile. The administration is also once again discussing full-scale production of neutron bombs and possibly B-l bombers as well. Previously Carter had vetoed the full-scale production of these weapons of mass annihilation to give the absurd impression that he was a peace-loving opponent of the arms race. But in fact all along Carter had only temporarily postponed their full production levels so that their research and development could be completed. It is with the basest of cynicism that in Carter's State of the Union Address he states that: "Preventing nuclear war is the foremost responsibility of the two superpowers." As if it were not the two superpowers which are devising and producing huge' stockpiles of nuclear weapons of mass murder. And as if it were not the two superpowers who live by the imperialist laws of nuclear blackmail and who pose the real danger of such a devastating war being launched.

Stepping up the illegal and subversive activities of the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies is another high priority in Carter's aggressive plans. The infamous hand of the CIA has carried out its bloody work in all corners of the globe -- from Southeast Asia to Guatemala to Chile to Iran -- undermining the sovereignty and independence of the people and paving the way for the domination and hegemony of U.S. imperialism through murderous coup d'etats and every sort of criminal intrigue. In his January 23 Address, Carter called for the "quick passage of a new Charter" for the U.S. intelligence agencies. While paying lip service to opposing "abuses" and ensuring "accountability", Carter admits that the real purpose of this new charter is to "tighten our controls on sensitive intelligence information" and to "remove unwarranted restraints" in CIA operations.

As a further measure in preparation for war, Carter has ordered the reinstitution of registration for the military draft in order to ensure adequate quantities of cannon fodder for the Pentagon generals. This is a major step towards the conscription of millions of the sons and daughters of the American working class and people, to transform the youth into human ammunition to be expended in U.S. imperialist wars of aggression.

Nowhere is the warmongering policy of U.S. imperialism more clearly defined as in Carter's new federal budget proposal. Using the worn-out militarist and chauvinist slogan that "the United States will remain the strongest of all nations", for the third year in a row Carter has proposed record peacetime military expenditures. While Carter has cut back or frozen at present levels every other major sector of the budget, it is only military allocations which will increase drastically. Carter has allocated a record $158.2 billion for the Pentagon for 1981 which is a real 5% increase over 1980 after discounting for inflation. Furthermore, over the course of his next term, Carter has mapped out a "five year defense program" which will increase military expenditures by $90 billion between 1981 and 1985 for both conventional arms, battle tanks, warships, etc., and for more stockpiles of advanced nuclear weaponry. As Carter himself puts it: "I am committed as a matter of fundamental policy to continued real increases in defense." In other words, the unprecedented militarization of the U.S. economy is the declared "fundamental policy" of the "peacenik" and "human rights" lover Carter.

Of course, it is the working masses alone who pay for the war preparations of the rich. While the monopoly corporations grow fat on war production and military spending, it is the working class and people who are being taxed to death to pay for the MX missiles and Trident submarines. It is the masses who are being squeezed to the wall by Carter's energy program to stockpile strategic fuel supplies for war -- for the multi-billion dollar development of synthetic fuels, for the strategic oil stockpiles in Louisiana salt domes, for the frenzied production of nuclear power plants, etc., etc. -- while it is the multinational oil corporations which are rolling in record billions of profits. The militarization of the economy for war is a fantastic boondoggle for the millionaires and billionaires and a source of tremendous hardship and ruin for the vast majority of the working masses.

While the youth are press-ganged into military service, the entire working class and people are being subordinated to the U.S. imperialist war machine. The U.S. imperialists must suppress the working masses and stamp out all opposition through the development of fascism in order to provide a "stable rear" in their preparations for war. This is exactly what Carter had in mind in his January 23 Address when he declared, "But to be strong abroad we must remain strong at home." By this Carter means that the capitalist dictators must be "strong at home", which means in the first place the suppression of the working class movement. This includes the suppression of the strike movement and imposing wage cuts and productivity drives on the workers. For this purpose Carter points out that his administration "will build also on the historic national accord with organized labor to restrain pay increases", referring to the traitorous agreement between the trade union chieftains, the capitalist employers and the government to "work together" to impose "sacrifices" on the workers on the fascist model of Mussolini's "corporate state".

THE TWO SUPERPOWERS ARE THE GREATEST ENEMIES OF THE FREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCE OF THE PEOPLES AND ARE THE MAIN SOURCE OF WAR AND AGGRESSION

From all quarters the U.S. ruling class and its allies are hailing the new "Carter doctrine" as a victory for the "maintenance of the balance of power", that the Carter administration is "finally standing up to Soviet aggression" and thus "preserving peace and freedom". But the "Carter doctrine" and the stepped-up warmongering activities of U.S. imperialism and the Russian imperialist invasion of Afghanistan together demonstrate that the "strategic balance" between these two monsters is in fact a "balance of terror". It is a mutual striving for global domination. It is an inter-imperialist dog fight for the conquest of markets, for the robbery of oil and other resources, for the oppression and plunder of the world's people. No amount of demagogy can hide the fact that the two superpowers constitute the greatest enemies of the genuine independence and freedom of the peoples and are the main source of war and aggression.

With the purpose of lining up the working class and people behind the war plans of the Pentagon generals, the U.S. imperialists have deliberately created false propaganda that the United States has become in some way "less aggressive and warlike" than the Soviet Union. But the United States has been and remains a savage warmongering superpower, just as is the present-day Soviet Union, and the United States will continue to be such until the last tooth is knocked out of its head by the proletariat and the people. Contrary to the lies of the bourgeois media and the social-chauvinist "three worldist" scribblers in the pay of the State Department, U.S. imperialism has not "learned its lesson". Nor has it in any way changed its ferocious nature from the days of the barbaric war of aggression that it waged in Korea and the genocidal war that it conducted for over a decade against the people of Indochina.

As The Workers' Advocate has consistently pointed out from the beginning, Carter's mask of "human rights" and his angelic halo of "peace" have the sole purpose of lulling the masses to sleep, that in fact it is nothing but imperialist pacifism to actually hide and serve aggression and unprecedented preparations for war. All the fine words of "peace" out of the mouths of the imperialists are only so many lies. It is only the working class and people, those who stand in opposition to imperialism, that hold aloft the banner of opposition to aggressive war. This reality has once again been powerfully brought home in recent weeks as Carter's mask has been let down and all the fine chatter about "human rights" and "peace" has given way to the loud rattling of sabers and the drums of war hysteria. The only freedom that Carter is talking about today is the "free movement of Middle East oil" into the clutches of the U.S. imperialist oil corporations, a "freedom" which he will defend by the force of arms. The "Carter doctrine", like all the other U.S. imperialist doctrines before it, from the "Monroe. Doctrine" to the "Truman doctrine" to the "Nixon doctrine", is openly a doctrine of imperialist slavery and aggressive war.

The "Carter doctrine" is not some temporary deviation nor an expedient policy set only for the duration of the presidential elections. On the contrary, both when U.S. imperialism sings the tune of "peace" and "human rights" and when it is spelling out its openly warmongering and imperialist doctrines, aggression and war remain the very lifeblood of U.S. imperialism and its fundamental guiding policy. The crisis confronting moribund world imperialism is deepening with every passing day, with the intensification of the inter-imperialist rivalries and the advance of the struggles of the proletariat and the people for revolution and the victory of socialism. Through war and aggression abroad the U.S. monopoly capitalist class hopes to overcome the crisis which has it in its grip and stave off its inevitable doom.

However, the working class and people have no interest in being hurled into a war for the greater glory of the profits of Exxon and to save this dying system of oppression. Despite the tidal wave of national chauvinist propaganda being whipped up by the ruling class and all its hangers-on, the powerful instinct and sentiment of the proletariat and progressive people is that their primary enemy is their "own" monopoly capitalist exploiters. The American people waged an enormous struggle against the U.S. war of aggression in Indochina, and the mass movements are again developing against the draft and the war preparations, against Carter's war hysteria against the Iranian people, etc. It is only the revolutionary mass struggle of the working class and people against U.S. imperialism and its preparations for war that can sabotage the plans of the warmongers. The anti-imperialist struggle is a powerful force for the advance of the proletarian revolution. And it is the socialist revolution which will put an end to the doctrines of the Nixons and Carters and to all the warmongers once and for all.

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No to the draft! No to U.S. imperialist war preparations!

On January 23, President Carter ordered the reinstitution of registration for the military draft. Warmonger Carter, in saber-rattling State of the Union Address, called on Congress to allocate funds for the revitalization of the hated Selective Service System. By reinstituting draft registration Carter is preparing military conscription for millions of the sons and daughters of the American working class and people, to transform the youth into cannon fodder to be slaughtered in U.S. imperialist wars of aggression. Draft registration is one in a series of the feverish measures being taken by the U.S. imperialist warmongers in preparation to launch new wars for imperialist conquest, to put down the revolution, to redivide markets and "spheres of influence" with their Soviet social-imperialist rivals.

In a speech on February 8, Carter outlined his plans to mobilize more flesh for the aggressive U.S. military machine. This plan includes: 1) the strengthening of the present "All-Volunteer" armed forces. Carter has allocated an additional $500 million to improved recruitment of troops and their retention in the aggressive U.S. armed forces; 2) reestablishing the machinery to prepare for the military draft. Carter is allocating $20.5 million in 1980 and $24.5 million in 1981 to "revitalize the Selective Service machinery". This includes reestablishing the local draft boards through "the selection and training of local draft board members". It also includes the registration of 18, 19 and 20 year olds to prepare for military conscription of the youth. And 3) the draft registration and militarization of women under the banner of "equal rights".

The registration of millions of young men and women for the draft is not simply a further step in reactivating the Selective Service machinery. But also, by reimposing draft registration the imperialists are trying to generate war hysteria and do propaganda for militarizing the entire society.

U.S. IMPERIALISM IS FEVERISHLY PREPARING FOR WAR

The bloodstained U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie is today carrying out the most feverish militarization of American society in its preparations for aggressive wars. Now Carter is calling for astronomical increases in military expenditures which have already reached record levels. The imperialist state has amassed a huge arsenal of the most modern weapons of death and destruction and is developing new ones on a daily basis, such as the MX ICBM system. The U.S. imperialists are also beefing up the nuclear arsenal of their NATO war bloc partners, and strengthening the U.S.-China warmongering alliance. The stockpiling of oil and the development of nuclear and other energy resources is being stepped up in preparation for the event that normal oil supply routes are cut off. Carter has also called for the immediate funding for his "quick strike force" of 110,000 troops organized for the purpose of invading the oil fields of the Persian Gulf region or any other "volatile" areas where U.S. imperialist "interests" may be threatened. The reinstitution of the draft is part and parcel of the war preparations of the bourgeoisie.

The reintroduction of the draft is another warmongering step by Carter against the American people. In the 1960's and early 1970's a huge revolutionary mass movement developed against the U.S. aggression in Southeast Asia. With great determination and militancy, millions of American people rose up in one mass action after another against this most savage, aggressive war. With the defeat of the U.S. imperialist aggression by the Indochinese peoples, and shaken by the massive revolutionary movement at home, the bloodstained monopoly capitalist government temporarily ended the draft in an effort to pacify the American people and to trick them into believing that American imperialism genuinely wanted peace. And now it is "peacenik" Carter who is trying once again to impose the draft. This exposes that the years of talk about "peace" and "human rights" were just lies. When imperialist politicians sing psalms of peace they are only trying to conceal their rapid preparations for war.

COUNTRYWIDE PROTESTS AGAINST THE REINTRODUCTION OF THE DRAFT

Now again the American people are rising up to oppose the crimes of the U.S. imperialists. In cities all across the country tens of thousands of youth and students are demonstrating against the feverish war preparations. On January 24, in an immediate response against Carter's warmongering State of the Union Address, anti-draft protests began in New York City; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Berkeley, California, and other cities. Since then anti-draft demonstrations and rallies have spread to at least 30 major cities across the length and breadth of the country, from Los Angeles to New York City, from Boston to Tallahassee, Florida. In these mass actions, tens of thousands of people have shown their utter contempt for Carter and his warmongering schemes. For example, on February 8th, 5,000 demonstrators confronted Rosalynn Carter when she was speaking at a Carter fund-raising benefit in Los Angeles. And on February 9th, 4,000 anti-draft demonstrators marched from the Armed Forces Recruiting Center in New York City to Carter's reelection headquarters in midtown Manhattan. For more than two hours they blocked traffic in Times Square while they protested against Carter's militarist policies. They threw rocks through the windows of Carter's campaign headquarters. And showing their complete contempt for U.S. imperialism, the demonstrators burned an American flag. In these mass demonstrations against draft registration, the demonstrators have directed their fire against,the all-round war preparations of U.S. imperialism. In many cities the mass rallies were held against the recruiting centers of the U.S. military forces. And on a number of campuses mass actions have been launched against the activities of the military recruiters.

These countrywide demonstrations against draft registration have exposed Carter's lies that he has created a great "national unity" behind the U.S. imperialist war chariot. The American people are becoming ever more aroused against the aggressive policies of U.S. imperialism and they are rising in mass struggle against the Carter government.

IN THE FIGHT AGAINST THE DRAFT, OPPOSITION TO IMPERIALISM MUST BE PUT IN THE CENTER

The movement against war preparations comes up against the sabotage of the flunkeys of the Democratic Party. Certain of such flunkeys claim that they too oppose draft registration, at least for now. But their opposition is not against imperialism and its aggressive war policies. They wish to convert the whole issue into whether a volunteer army or a drafted army is best, whether U.S. imperialism can get enough volunteers, and so forth. They promote Ted Kennedy, Governor Jerry Brown and other diehard imperialist politicians of the Democratic Party. These politicians only oppose draft registration for the time being in order to subvert the revolutionary movement. Kennedy is against the registration because it is only a "paper curtain against Soviet troops", while he is in support of increased military spending and for more conventional forces. He is promoted as being against the MX missile, but he is against its "hasty" development at this time only because he regards it as "goldplating" which "drains the resources for other needed weapons."

The basic issue with regard to the draft is: the draft for what? The issue is that the U.S. army is an aggressor army, an army of imperialist war and of enslavement. Today the U.S. imperialists have over two million troops already fully mobilized and ready to carry out aggression in any part of the world at a moment's notice. The reintroduction of the draft is for the sole purpose of further strengthening these aggressive forces. In the fight against the reintroduction of the draft, the issue of opposition to imperialism must be put in the center. The flunkeys of the Democratic Party who "oppose" registration but support imperialism are simply lying politicians seeking to infiltrate and liquidate the mass movement. With their debates on how best to strengthen the U.S. army, they are serving militarism and the creation of a war atmosphere just as much as Carter.

STEP UP THE STRUGGLE AGAINST WAR PREPARATIONS!

The struggle against the draft has played an important role in the development of the movement against war preparations. And the current upsurge in this struggle is drawing thousands of new young people into the battle against U.S. imperialism. Over the last several years a broad mass movement has begun to unfold against the war preparations of the monopoly capitalist billionaires. Militant demonstrations have been organized against the launching of the Trident submarines and against the production of other imperialist weapons of death and destruction. All across the country militant protests were held against the visit of Deng Xiaoping with Carter and against their strengthening of the U.S.- China warmongering alliance. Carter's brutal threats and blackmail against the heroic Iranian people have also been opposed through mass meetings, rallies and demonstrations. And closely related to all of these struggles against the war preparations of U.S. imperialism has been the stirring mass protests of hundreds of thousands of people against the barbaric U.S. imperialist nuclear energy program. The vigorous development of all of these mass struggles, the fight against draft registration, against the militarization of the youth and women, and against all of the measures through which the Carter government is preparing for imperialist aggression and war, are entirely necessary and correct. Through this movement broad masses are being brought into open conflict with U.S. imperialism. They are being tempered and trained in struggle, and through their own experience they are becoming convinced of the necessity for revolution. The U.S. is a monstrous imperialist superpower, a world exploiter, blackmailer and bully, and a center of international aggression. So long as U.S. imperialism exists, the world will be subjected to its schemes of world domination and to the threat of war. It is only the mass revolutionary struggle of the working class and broad working masses which can combat the wild and frenzied war preparations by pushing forward the revolution. The anti-imperialist struggle is a powerful force for the development of the socialist revolution. It is the socialist revolution that will put an end to U.S. imperialism once and for all by overthrowing the capitalist exploiters. The path for the movement against war preparations is the path of mass revolutionary struggle.

[Photo.]

[Photos: Masses of youth rally to denounce U.S. imperialist war preparations and Carter's call to reinstate the military draft. (Top) 600 demonstrate in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and (bottom) 4,000 in Boston.]

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The People of El Salvador Are Rising in Revolution against the Military Junta and U.S. Imperialism

The great upsurge in the struggle of the people of El Salvador against the anti-popular ruling junta installed by U.S. imperialism is intensifying with every passing day. Braving the bullets of the terrorist junta, the workers, peasants, students and other patriotic sections of the people have launched a powerful revolt which is threatening to topple the hated government. At the same time, the development of this liberation struggle has sent the U.S. imperialists into frenzied activity to try to drown the people's struggle in blood. Presently the Carter administration is unfolding its plans to send teams of U.S. military advisors to El Salvador in order to suppress the revolution and prevent the U.S. puppet government from collapsing. Carter's proposed "security assistance program" includes dispatching a series of 12-man Army counterinsurgency "training teams" to direct the logistics, communications and intelligence operations of the puppet junta's army in its war against the people of El Salvador. The U.S. trained and equipped army of the military junta will also receive an additional $7 million of military equipment. This comes on top of the $50 million of economic "aid" being applied to prop up the despised and tottering regime in power. The U.S. imperialists are also attempting to mobilize the West German imperialists, the Spanish monarcho-fascists and other of its allies to participate in this criminal adventure against the freedom and independence of the people of El Salvador.

However, neither the "counterinsurgency assistance" which has already been provided by the U.S. imperialists nor the massacres carried out by their puppet junta have been able to halt the advance of the people's revolution in El Salvador. In various parts of the country the patriotic forces are launching armed attacks against the junta's National Guard. Already a number of villages have fallen under the control of the liberation fighters. On January 4 the armed resistance conducted an assault on the National Guard headquarters just outside the capital, San Salvador. In the capital too, the fascist junta has been given no rest. On January 6, the masses erected barricades and battled the police forces. On January 22, the largest demonstration in the history of the country was held to denounce the government. When the National Guard opened fire on the demonstrators, the masses returned the fire, battling the troops for over an hour. Three thousand people participated in a funeral for their fallen comrades murdered by the National Guard in the demonstration, defiantly shouting "Nothing can stop the revolution!" In the first half of February, the revolutionary forces began theoccupation of several government buildings of the ruling oligarchy in San Salvador. The struggle of the toiling masses of El Salvador against the junta is deepening with every passing day, dealing powerful blows also to the junta's master, U.S. imperialism.

The working class and peasantry, the youth and the progressive and patriotic people of El Salvador are waging a titanic struggle against decades of merciless exploitation and terrible poverty under the heel of U.S. imperialism and the handful of big capitalists and landlords in its service. For over 43 years, the people have suffered under the tyranny of one military dictatorial regime after another put in power by U.S. imperialism. But the people have never resigned themselves to this situation. In 1977, the struggle of the people of El Salvador was raised to a new level against the fascist general Carlos Humberto Romero who had seized power in February 1977 through the rigging of the elections and the brutal suppression of the opposition. By the latter part of last year, the anti-junta revolt of the broad masses had brought the Romero dictatorship to the brink of collapse. On October 15, in order to rescue a desperate situation, the U.S. State Department engineered a coup d'etat in order to replace Romero with a new less discredited set of military officers. Romero was replaced by Romero's colonels. The new regime promised "reform" and the Carter administration blessed the new junta as a government of "moderation" which would bring "peace" to El Salvador.

This transparent device however failed to stop the anti-U.S. imperialist and anti-fascist liberation struggle. The people denounced the new government as "a maneuver of U.S. imperialism" and as "Romeroism without Romero". At the same time, the new government immediately began a reign of terror against the masses. During one demonstration alone, in October 1979, the police forces of the junta gunned down 24 people and wounded 100. Martial law was imposed, meetings and demonstrations were banned. Striking workers were ruthlessly suppressed and eight people were killed when the armed forces evicted the popular resistance forces from government buildings. This brutal terror however has only strengthened the resolve of the people to overthrow the junta. Funeral marches were transformed into mass protests of tens of thousands and mass demonstrations, strikes and armed actions escalated. Thus the junta which Carter and his men installed in the name of "moderation" and "preventing civil war", a government universally despised and thoroughly isolated from the people, remains in power only by waging war against the entire population of El Salvador.

The developing revolutionary situation in El Salvador is part of a great upsurge of revolutionary struggle sweeping Central and South America and the Caribbean. In particular the situation in El Salvador is closely linked to the victorious uprising of the heroic Nicaraguan working class and people which toppled the U.S.-Somoza fascist dictatorship. The triumph of the people in Nicaragua a year ago has sparked an increase in revolutionary activity throughout Central America and especially in neighboring El Salvador and Guatemala. In South America too the liberation struggle of the people is deepening as can be seen in Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and Columbia where powerful strikes have been launched often resulting in fierce battles against the reactionary armed forces.

This wave of popular struggle is directed against both the local bourgeois-feudal oligarchies and dictators as well as against the U.S. imperialists which prop them up in order to exploit and subjugate the people. The U.S. imperialists have always considered Latin America to be its private domain of unrestricted robbery and plunder. U.S. multinational corporations hold the lifelines of the Latin American economies and with the assistance of the CIA and the Pentagon it is they who set up the puppet ruling oligarchies and make the law. It is against this intolerable neo-colonial slavery that the proletariat and people of Latin America have risen up.

And in response, the Carter administration has increasingly dropped its "human rights" mask and has stepped up its measures to put down the people's liberation struggles sweeping Latin America. Last October, using hysteria about the "Soviet brigade in Cuba" as a pretext, Carter spelled out the new steps to be taken against the growing revolt of the people of Latin America and the Caribbean. Intelligence operations were expanded and a Caribbean Joint Task Force Headquarters was established to direct counterinsurgency military operations in the region. In summing up its defeat in Nicaragua, the Carter administration concluded that U.S. imperialism is faced with "insurgency and communism" throughout the region and that it had been "insufficiently forceful". And Carter and Brzezinski and his National Security Council are plotting to ensure that there will be "sufficient force" against the people of El Salvador.

Last November, after organizing the coup to replace Romero, the Pentagon sent military advisors to El Salvador along with $200,000 worth of tear gas and other "riot control" equipment for the junta's police. After the January 22 massacre of demonstrators in San Salvador, Assistant Secretary of State Bowdler and U.S. Ambassador Devine met with the junta to discuss further measures to crush the revolution. And now the Carter administration is implementing these measures with its plans to dispatch more U.S. military advisors and to beef up the junta and its army against the heroic people of El Salvador.

These measures are but a further demonstration of the fact that U.S. imperialism has been and remains, along with Soviet social-imperialism, the most ferocious and bloodsoaked enemy of the freedom and independence of the peoples and of social progress. The people are demonstrating all over the globe that the liberation struggle and the revolution are the only way to successfully cope with the U.S. imperialist beast. Just as the Nicaraguan people were victorious, and just as the heroic Iranian people successfully overthrew that allegedly impregnable stronghold of U.S. imperialism, the fascist monarchy of the Shah, the people of El Salvador will also triumph. The more military personnel U.S. imperialism dispatches to El Salvador the greater the number that will be chased out with their tails between their legs. Indochina was more than enough proof of this. The working class and oppressed people of El Salvador will bury the U.S. imperialists in their country alongside of the military junta because they have risen in revolution for their freedom. As the slogan of the fighting people of El Salvador has declared: "Nothing can stop the revolution!"

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THE ECONOMIC CRISIS SHOWS THE NECESSITY OF STRUGGLE AND REVOLUTION

The crisis gripping the U.S. monopoly capitalist economy is deepening and broadening with every passing day. According to minimized official figures, unemployment has again reached 6.2% of the workforce. Over the last five years unemployment levels have remained higher than at any time since the Depression and are once again headed upwards. At the same time the U.S. already has the second highest level of unemployment in the industrially developed capitalist world. Inflation too is at record levels. In 1979 the Consumer Price Index soared 13.3%, marking the highest inflation rate since the conclusion of World War II. And last month consumer prices rose at an 18.2% annual rate, demonstrating that skyrocketing inflation levels are not letting up. 1979 also witnessed the continued stagnation of industrial production with a near zero growth in industrial output. Moreover, as the year 1980 begins, all indications point to the fact that the monopoly capitalist economy is on the brink of renewed and deeper industrial crisis. The recent collapse of the auto market is such an indicator. 1979 auto sales were down over 10% from the year before and are continuing to fall. In mid- January a third of the auto assembly plants were closed, and 143,300 auto workers were on indefinite layoffs with many thousands more on short-term layoffs. Thus, far from recovery and economic health, the obvious reality is a thoroughly disease-ridden and crisis-stricken monopoly capitalist economy sitting on the precipice of even deeper crisis and decline.

For the working class and the masses of the people the crisis has brought unbearable hardship. The over six million unemployed have been deprived of any means of securing a livelihood for themselves and their families. Only if they are lucky do the jobless receive measly unemployment or welfare payments, which are not nearly adequate to keep body and mind together. At the same time, the workers remaining on the job face man-eating speedup and overwork, and the workplaces are becoming ever more dangerous to the workers' very life and limb. Moreover, the workers' real take-home pay is being ravaged by the high cost of living and unbearable tax increases. According to official figures, the working people suffered a devastating 5.3% real decline in their purchasing power in 1979, with an additional decline of 1.1% in January 1980 alone.

Furthermore, every degree of the further impoverishment and ruin forced on the working masses has witnessed a corresponding increase in the profits of the monopoly capitalist exploiters. The annual doubling of the profits of the oil corporations is a case in point, and the other biggest banks and corporations continue to rack up record profits as well. The economic crisis brings about the acceleration of the polarization of society -- the historical process whereby the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

BY THEIR OWN ADMISSION THE RICH HAVE NO SOLUTION TO THE CRISIS AND CAN ONLY PREDICT A FUTURE OF DOOM AND GLOOM

By their own self-confessions neither the bankers on Wall Street nor the economic "experts in Washington have any solutions to the deepening economic crisis. Short-term predictions of renewed recession and long-term predictions of 4 future of doom and gloom is all the captains of monopoly capital have to offer. This was the message Carter delivered to Congress in his Annual Economic Report on January 30. According to Carter: "There are no economic miracles to be performed", and therefore the people should reconcile themselves to their worsening situation. If the working masses go down on their knees and "with patience and self-discipline" make "sacrifices" at the altar of the profits of the millionaires and billionaires, only then is there any possibility of some improvement in the situation. And even then the brightest future Carter can offer is that: "The 1980's can be a decade of lessened inflation and healthy growth." In other words, as Carter himself admits, it will in fact be a decade of high levels of inflation and unemployment.

In 1976, Democratic Party candidate Carter ran for office pledging "full employment" as the "friend of labor and minorities". And in 1978 the Carter administration passed through Congress the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act. This bit of anti-worker legislation had the alleged goal of reducing the rate of unemployment to 4% by 1983 and the inflation rate to 3% in the same year. But two years later, Carter himself is predicting that in 1980 unemployment levels will reach 7.5% and that inflation will continue to soar at over a 10% annual rate. As for the false promises of Humphrey-Hawkins, Carter has postponed their realization until 1985 (to reduce unemployment to 4%) and 1988 (to bring inflation down to 3%). So much for the cheap lies of "full employment and balanced growth" from the "pro-labor" demagogs of the Democratic Party!

Having no solution to the crisis, the bourgeois economists have resorted to solving the crisis by simply redefining it. They have redefined a "full employment economy" as having 4 to 5% of the active working population unemployed -- that is 4 to 5 million workers out of work! Now the White House "inflation fighter", Alfred Kahn, has set to work "controlling inflation" by proposing to exclude from the CPI the prices for such things as housing mortgages, which Kahn complains are soaring so rapidly that they "distort" the rate of inflation!

Of course, swindle can only go so far in hiding reality and the scope and depth of the economic crisis. The "official optimism" in the ranks of the ruling class is giving way to official pessimism and forecasts of bleak prospects for the future. As Business Week, that slick magazine for corporate executives states: "But the golden age of the consumer is over. The U.S. standard of living is shrinking...the American credo that each generation can look forward to a more comfortable life than its predecessor has been shattered." (Business Week,"The Shrinking Standard of Living", January 28,1980)

This admission reflects the fact that the hoax of the so-called "affluent society" or the so-called "consumer society" have gone bankrupt. The enormous propaganda built up about the "constantly rising standard of living" and the great hocus-pocus about "unlimited opportunities for individual advancement" are all being smashed to smithereens against the realities of the economic crisis. The crisis is demonstrating for all to see the insanity of the capitalist system. This system of brutal exploitation and oppression has lost any reason to exist and cannot even provide the basic necessities of life for the people in a country of immense wealth and economic resources.

THE RICH ARE WAGING AN ALLSIDED OFFENSIVE TO SHIFT THE BURDEN OF THE CRISIS ONTO THE WORKING CLASS

Of course, the official pessimism a- bout the economic prospects is being used to create a definite public opinion. That is that the working class should "lower its expectations", make "sacrifices" and tone down its demands, "considering the economic climate", etc., etc. This propaganda too shows that the rich have no solution to the crisis but to squeeze the masses even harder. The capitalist monopolies are waging an intense and all-sided offensive to preserve and increase their profits by dumping the burden of the crisis onto the workers, onto the poor of city and country at home, and onto the oppressed nations and peoples abroad. The capitalist employers are intensifying the exploitation of the workers through the cutting of real wages by means of inflation and through the rationalization of industry, large-scale layoffs and plant closings, and productivity drives to impose speedup, job combinations, etc. The restoration of the high level of capitalist profits over the last three years are a direct result of these crisis measures imposed on the working class -- the unbearable overwork in the plants and the consequent permanent elimination of hundreds of thousands of jobs, combined with the drastic cuts in real take-home wages due to record inflation and tax increases.

It is this capitalist offensive against the working masses which has been at the center, of Carter's domestic policy, a savage anti-working class policy which this smiling lackey of the monopolies again reasserted in his Annual Economic Report to Congress. In recent years the crisis measures against the working class are invariably imposed under the hoax of "fighting inflation". In his report Carter stressed that "It is my strong conviction that inflation remains the number one economic problem" and that "to fight inflation that we act along four lines." Carter spelled out this four pronged assault on the livelihood of the working masses as follows:

- "Restraint by the private sector in its wage and price decisions": While prices are soaring out of sight, ravaging the real wages of the workers, Carter is continuing to strengthen his system of "wage-price guidelines". The sole purpose of these guidelines is to carry out wage cutting with a vengeance by bringing the full force of the state against the strike movement of the workers, to suppress the workers' demands for wage increases as the only relief from the soaring cost of living. This fascist wage controls offensive against the working class is the bottom line of Carter's "fight against inflation".

- "Measures to encourage productivity growth": The Carter administration has included "cost containment" programs and productivity drives, measures to enforce speedup and job combinations, within the criteria for its wage guidelines. The administration is also lobbying for the further reduction of industrial health and safety measures in the name of productivity growth. Carter is also proposing more tax breaks for the capitalists for expenditures on new plants and equipment to encourage the growth of the elimination of jobs through automation.

- "Measures relating to energy": The Carter energy program includes the full decontrol of domestic oil and natural gas prices and heavy taxes on energy. The unbridled robbery of the people by the oil billionaires, including the near doubling of energy prices over the last year -- this is what Carter means by "fighting inflation"!

- "Fiscal and monetary restraint": Carter's budget proposal for 1981 will increase outlays by at least $52 billion to a total of $616 billion. It includes a $16 billion deficit which all the "experts" predict will probably end up closer to the approximately $40 billion deficit of 1980. But in any case, the four budgets of Carter's term will rack up by far the highest total deficits of any president in history. In fact it is these gargantuan deficits, deficits that are covered by the federal treasury through the expansion of the money supply, which are one of the basic fountainheads for the current double-digit inflation. In fact, the Carter budget only "restrains" such things as unemployment compensation and other social services. While at the same time it is a budget of unrestrained tax increases ($60 billion increase in personal income tax), and unrestrained military expenditures and a budget of unrestrained inflation.

Besides fighting the working class in the name of "fighting inflation", Carter also gives lip service to reducing unemployment in order to impose further anti-working class measures. Carter continues to preach saintly lies about "pursuing the goals of full employment". Meanwhile, the capitalist employers continue to hurl record numbers of workers into the ranks of the unemployed, and millions upon millions of workers are condemned to joblessness, starvation and despair. The official unemployment figure of 6.2%, or over six million workers, actually minimizes the true depth of unemployment. It ignores those who have given up looking for work, the under-employed, many of the unemployed forced onto welfare, etc., etc. Unemployment is closer to double the official figure. Unemployment is even more devastating for the oppressed nationalities and the youth. In 1979 official unemployment levels among black workers was over 10%, for youth 16 to 19 years old it was over 15%, and the astronomical rate for black teenagers was over 35%.

For his 1981 budget Carter has proposed: "Substantial increases in spending for education training and employment programs, especially... aiding... disadvantaged youth." But Carter's measures have nothing to do with providing work for the millions of unemployed so that they can earn a living. To the contrary, they are measures to turn a section of the unemployed into a slave labor force against the employed workers. One of these measures is the welfare reform bill which Carter has allotted funds for in his proposed budget. Patterned after Nixon's notorious "welfare to workfare" schemes, this so-called reform will force welfare recipients into public sector jobs where they will receive "benefits" at or even below minimum wage. Carter is also proposing the expansion of CETA (Comprehensive Employment Training Act) and similar programs. These "work experience" and "employment training" programs provide youth with near minimum wage jobs sweeping floors and similar "training". While CETA programs have been mainly in the public sector, Carter is expanding such programs in the private sector where the government pays part of the worker's wages, subsidizing the capitalist employer for giving the youth the "experience" of being exploited to the bone. In both the welfare reform and CETA programs, the employed workers are replaced by so-called "hard core" unemployed who are worked like slaves at the lowest wages, wages that are often nothing but straightforward handouts to the capitalists. Such is the nature of Carter's anti-working class program to bring about "full employment".

THE WORKING CLASS IS RISING IN STRUGGLE AGAINST BEING SADDLED WITH THE BURDEN OF THE ECONOMIC CRISIS

Against the monopoly capitalist offensive to make the people pay for the crisis, the working class is rising in struggle. The ever deepening crisis is a source of revolutionary ferment. It is bringing the widest sections of the working masses into activity and struggle against the oppression of the big bourgeoisie. The crisis is bringing home the fact that there can be no salvation for the workers in the false promises and lies of the capitalist politicians. It is only the resistance movement of the working class itself which can block the capitalist offensive and save the workers from total ruin. It is only by resolutely defying Carter's wage controls and carrying out vigorous struggle to press their demands for higher wages that the workers can find any relief from the ravages of inflation. Relying on their own efforts the workers must put up a stiff fight against the brutal productivity drives, speedup, overtime and murderous working conditions and against the layoffs and plant closings.

The economic movement of the proletariat to resist being saddled by the economic crisis is an absolutely necessary struggle. The rich must be made to pay for the crisis. The revolutionary mass struggle against increased exploitation is essential to prepare the working class for carrying out the revolution and the overthrow of the exploiters altogether.

THE CRISIS SHOWS THAT CAPITALISM HAS HAD ITS DAY AND MUST BE REPLACED BY SOCIALISM

The U.S. monopoly capitalist system is in the clutches of an all-sided and comprehensive crisis. Economic crises are an inherent fellow-traveler of the monopoly capitalist system, and with the further decay of imperialism they are becoming even more frequent and severe. The present crisis is particularly acute and prolonged because, among other things, it is interwoven with a severe energy crisis as well as a financial and monetary crisis. The iron laws which govern the capitalist mode of production as revealed by Marx and Lenin are in effect in full, devastating force.

At the foundation of the economic crisis is an industrial crisis of overproduction. The root cause of this crisis lies in the fundamental contradiction within the monopoly capitalist system of production for maximum profit. This is the contradiction between the existence of modern, large-scale, socialized production and the outdated and backward system of private appropriation of the product of tens of millions of producers by a tiny handful of capitalist owners. With the inherent anarchy of capitalist production, with the various capitalist concerns competing for markets and profits with their capitalist rivals, the powerful productive capacities inevitably come into contradiction with and outstrip the capacities of the market, a market restricted by the inherent impoverishment of the masses under capitalism.

Hence the inevitable clash of the productive forces against the moribund capitalist relations of production and the resulting destruction of the productive forces. Hence the layoffs and plant closings for lack of a market. Hence the howling contradiction where the working masses are being squeezed to the wall and forced to go without even the basic necessities of life because too much wealth has been produced. Such is the total madness of the monopoly capitalist system. This system cannot be straightened out. It is rotting alive. The crisis is laying bare the reality that capitalism has long ago had its day and must go. The old relations of production, of private capitalist ownership, must be replaced by the new socialist relations of production. Through the proletarian revolution, capitalism will be replaced by socialism, the monopoly capitalists will be expropriated and the exploitation of man by man will be abolished. The factories and other means of production will become the public property of the working class. Production will be organized to guarantee the maximum satisfaction of the material and social needs of the vast majority of the population instead of the securing of maximum profits for a handful of capitalist parasites. It is only such a socialist revolution which can put an end to the growing impoverishment and ruin of the working class. To achieve this end the working class must organize itself as a class independent of and opposed to the exploiters and the political parties of the rich. The working masses must advance the revolutionary struggle against the class enemy, against starvation, fascism and war, and in the course of struggle get organized to overthrow the exploiters altogether. The way out of the crisis for the working class and people is the socialist revolution.

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Defy Carter's Wage Controls!

Pay Board issues savage new guidelines to cut the workers' wages

On January 22, the Carter administration's Pay Advisory Committee announced new wage guidelines to replace the old standard of 7% increase per year in combined wages and benefits. The wage guidelines are a tool used by the government of the rich to restrict workers' wage increases. As wages fall more and more behind inflation they are in effect cut, and the monopoly capitalists' profits grow even fatter. Last year, inflation jumped to over 13%, prices soared, and profits -- especially those of the oil monopolists -- skyrocketed, while the purchasing power of the workers dropped by over 5%. Figures just released show that in January prices jumped a- gain -- at an 18.2% annual rate, while workers' real wages fell another 1.1%. While some sections of the working class through their struggles have broken through the wage guidelines and a few sections have been able to almost keep up with inflation, in the main the wage controls have hit the workers very hard. Now Carter has announced in his Economic Report to Congress that to "fight" soaring inflation his solution is to step up his vicious wage- cutting drive against the workers by enforcing more stringent wage controls. Thus the new, tighter guidelines are designed to cut wages and deteriorate the workers' spendable income even further. These new guidelines represent another outrage against the working class by the Carter administration, that notorious "friend of the workers and minorities", and by the traitorous labor bureaucrats who sit on the Pay Advisory Committee.

The Pay Advisory Committee is a tripartite body composed of six capitalists, six "public" representatives appointed by the government of the rich, and six top union bureaucrats, the so-called representatives of the working man. Through the Pay Advisory Committee the labor bureaucrats have a voice and participate directly in the government's administering of wage cuts. The establishment of this tripartite board, which brings the trade union hacks right into the administration of the reactionary policy of the monopoly capitalist government, marked a step down the path of corporate state fascism similar to that rigged up by the Italian dictator Mussolini.

The Pay Advisory Committee is the ugly offspring born out of the "historic national accord" signed September 28, 1979 between the Carter administration and the top AFL-CIO officials and endorsed by the UAW and Teamsters. Draping itself in the most high-sounding phrases of "equal sacrifice" by all sectors of society -- rich and poor alike -- to fight inflation, the "national accord" calls for the "involvement and cooperation" of the workers with their arch-enemy -- the monopoly capitalist exploiters and their government. It is a declaration of class collaboration and surrender to the rich, at the very time when the rich are carrying out a big offensive of wage cutting and speedup against the workers. The "national accord" stands for utter betrayal of the interests of the working class. And it is the weapon which Carter has announced he will use to further attack the working class. On January 23, in his State of the Union speech, Carter declared, "...we will build also on the historic national accord with organized labor to restrain pay increases in a fair fight against inflation."

The Pay Advisory Committee's new guidelines demonstrate once again what the hypocrite Carter means by his "fair fight against inflation". It means making the workers pay for the capitalists' economic crisis. It means a fight against the workers, a fight to suppress strikes and impose severe wage cuts and a brutal productivity drive in order to fatten capitalist profits. "Build(ing) on the historic national accord" to carry out this fight means that since major union leaders helped design the new guidelines, they will be very willing to "counsel restraint" to the workers. The rich and their government are openly counting on their Trojan horse in the workers' movement -- the top labor bureaucrats -- to sabotage the workers' struggle against wage cuts and speedup.

The head of the Pay Advisory Committee, Mr. John T. Dunlop (a Harvard professor much loved by the labor traitors and formerly head of Nixon's pay board) has himself outlined the details of the government's strategy. The new guidelines call for limiting workers' pay increases to a "range" of 7.5- 9.5% instead of the old single figure of 7% which Dunlop said provided too specific a target that encouraged defiance by the workers. Dunlop brags that the 8.5% "mid-point" of the range is even further below the current rate of inflation than the old 7% standard was when it was announced in October 1978. That is, the 7% pay limit was set when inflation was running at 10-11%, i.e. a 3-4% wage cut. Now when inflation is well over 13% (and on necessities over 17%), the 8.5% figure is designed to cut wages by nearly 5%. For the 90% of the non-farm workers who do not receive cost-of-living increases (COLA) and thereby have fallen even farther behind inflation, the pay board has allowed an additional 1% to the guidelines as a so-called "catch-up". To suggest that 1% could even approach bringing these workers even with inflation is an utter fraud and arrogant slap in the face. As more proof of their "generosity" the pay board has exempted from the guidelines workers who earn less than $5.35 an hour. However, it is well known that these workers are usually least able to enforce wage demands; otherwise they wouldn't be making such low wages to begin with. So the pay board's "benevolence" to them is a totally empty gesture. Furthermore, the $5.35 exemption is actually harsher than under fascist Nixon. In 1971 Nixon's hated mandatory wage controls excluded workers earning less than $3.00 an hour. In today's inflated dollars, the same exemption would be $5.69.

Another feature of the new guidelines is the emphasis on various criteria to determine what figure in the 7.5-9.5% range should be the pay limit for any given section of workers. These criteria include the capitalists' "ability to pay" and their profits, worker productivity, competitive conditions, availability of labor, "comparable compensation in other establishments", and the cost of living. By emphasizing such criteria, on the one hand the Pay Advisory Committee can raise all kinds of objections to legitimize restricting wage increases and speeding up the workers. For example, the pay board could declare that the capitalists' profits just aren't high enough to afford a certain wage increase; or that the capitalist is "suffering" too much from "foreign competition" to be able to pay higher wages; or that the workers just aren't working hard and fast enough to justify a given pay increase. The criteria are completely arbitrary. They allow for any lie, any difficulty or problem of the capitalists to become a justification for wage cuts and other attacks on the workers. They contemptuously disregard the actual conditions of the workers -- the speedup and job combination, long hours of overtime, layoffs, erosion of standard of living. The capitalists and their labor lieutenants will try to use these criteria to put tremendous pressure on the workers to smash up their struggle so as to allow wages to be simply dictated by the rich.

On the other hand, when the workers through their struggle break through the guidelines and win a sizeable wage increase, the government will fall back on the murky vagueness of its "criteria", go through its rigamarole of contorted calculations and legalisms, its "guideline math" comprehensible only to the inner circle of bureaucrats, and announce triumphantly that the settlement is in fact in compliance with the guidelines. The Carter administration's consistent practice over the past year has been to use "guideline math" with its intricate loopholes and exceptions to declare various guideline-breaking wage settlements to be within the guidelines. The aim of this trickery is to present the false image that the wage controls are not being defied and broken through by some sections of the proletariat and to discourage the rest of the working class from doing so. Carter is trying to prevent the development of a powerful struggle of the entire proletariat to defy the wage controls. He is trying to save the guidelines from defeat in order to continue to impose them on the working class and keep the fascist offensive of the rich intact.

Carter and the rich are acutely aware that the vigorous struggles by sections of the working class in 1979 will be surpassed by even more intense fights in 1980. GE's vice president for labor relations recently admitted that the erosion of workers' wages will stimulate their "increased militancy and willingness to accept strife." Carter's wage control schemes are an attempt ^to suppress this developing struggle and force the burden of the economic crisis onto the workers' backs. To defend their livelihood and standard of living in the face of these stepped-up attacks, the workers must wage resolute mass struggle to oppose the wage cuts and productivity drives. They must denounce the labor traitors' despicable appeals for "restraint", and vigorously defy Carter's wage controls and resist the fascist offensive of the rich.

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Condemn Soviet social-imperialism's fascist aggression against Afghanistan! Down with U.S. imperialism, Soviet and Chinese social-imperialism and all reaction!

Revisionism and opportunism means capitulation to the side of imperialism. The stand of the revisionists and opportunists in regard to the Soviet Union's fascist aggression against Afghanistan is providing the people with another clear exposure of their thoroughly treacherous and counterrevolutionary nature. In the most criminal fashion the pro-Moscow revisionists of the "CPUSA" along with their trotskyite fellow travellers are yelling themselves hoarse in defense of the Soviet social-imperialist barbaric occupation. And equally criminal are the pro-Beijing social-chauvinists of the "CP(M-L)" who are tearing their hair out about the Soviet invasion for the sole objective of recruiting the masses behind the U.S. war machine of imperialism and slavery. By carrying out this low-life dirty work for one superpower or the other these two factions of revisionist so-called "communists" and so-called "Marxist-Leninists" are only demonstrating their true nature. They are fake "anti-imperialists" and authentic bought-and-paid- for lackeys of imperialism and social- imperialism. They are fraudulent "revolutionaries" and real defenders of the two warmongering superpowers which are the two biggest counter-revolutionaries and enemies of the people on the face of the earth.

The invasion and occupation of Afghanistan by 90,000 Soviet social-imperialist troops is a wanton act of aggression. It has no other objective than the complete enslavement and subjugation of the freedom-loving Afghan people. With their tens of thousands of troops and their tanks and heavy army, the Soviet New Tsars hope to keep their newest puppet regime in Kabul in power and to mercilessly plunder the people and resources of Afghanistan. This is a further powerful demonstration of the fact that the once genuinely socialist and Marxist-Leninist Soviet Union of the days of Lenin and Stalin has been converted into a thoroughly social-fascist and social-imperialist state under the capitalist dictatorship of the new revisionist bureaucratic bourgeoisie. The Marxist-Leninist Party and the working class and progressive people of the U.S. and the people the world over have vigorously condemned the Soviet Union's unbridled aggression against Afghanistan. They also ardently support the struggle of the patriotic Afghan people to destroy the Soviet invaders and to liberate their homeland.

For its part, the U.S. imperialists have seized on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to whip up war hysteria in order to hide the feverish intensification of its own warmongering activities. The U.S. imperialists continue to step up their blockade and counterrevolutionary plots against the Iranian revolution. And Carter has outlined his "Carter doctrine" of imperialist slavery and war which has placed the entire Persian Gulf region within the zone of "vital interests" of U.S. imperialism. This doctrine is designed to justify the complete subjugation of the oil-rich Persian Gulf to the "vital interests" of U.S. imperialism and to provide a "security framework" of U.S. aggressive activities throughout the Middle East and the world.

Thus, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan marks the further deepening of the inter-imperialist rivalry between the two superpowers for the seizure of oil resources and strategic positions. Within this rivalry the Chinese social- imperialists too are playing an ever greater role, openly siding with the United States in order to advance its own global ambitions. And as the events in Iran and Afghanistan show, this rivalry is directed first and foremost at the oppression and exploitation of the people, at liquidating their independence and freedom and putting down the revolution.

For this reason it is necessary to vigorously condemn the revisionist and social-chauvinist and opportunist agents of imperialism and social-imperialism who are taking advantage of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan for the purpose of attempting to mobilize the people behind the ambitions of one superpower or the other.

On the one hand, Gus Hall's revisionist "Communist Party of the USA" has once again obediently put its seal of approval on the barbaric crimes of the Soviet revisionist counter-revolutionaries. The revisionist "CPUSA" is cynically hailing the Soviet invasion and occupation as a "victory for socialism" and "revolution" in Afghanistan! These revisionist gangsters are worshippers of the "Brezhnev doctrine" of so-called "limited sovereignty''according to which the Soviet New Tsars have granted themselves the right to wantonly trample on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other peoples. According to the perverted social-imperialist mentality of the "CPUSA" revisionists, the struggle against U.S. imperialism and for social progress can only be defended by Soviet tanks and bayonets. However, in reality these tanks and bayonets are bearers only of social-imperialist slavery and the revisionist counter-revolution. It is the sad fate of the "CPUSA" revisionists that they are the lackeys of two masters. While these decrepit opportunists are the most notorious reformists and defenders of the U.S. big bourgeoisie, at the same time they are obedient public relations men for the aggression and imperialism of the Soviet New Tsars.

In the company of the pro-Moscow revisionists stand the various trotskyist sects and an assortment of other notorious scum. The trotskyist "Socialist Workers Party" and the jumble of other trotskyist disrupters are praising the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan with the same cynical social-imperialist arguments as their "CPUSA" cohorts. One infamous gang of trotskyist provocateurs has even raised the slogan "Hail the Red Army!". Such is the nature of the trotskyite posture of "opposition" to Soviet revisionism! Of course, it is well known that the trotskyists are professional slanderers and vilifiers of the Soviet Union of the days of Lenin and Stalin when it was genuinely socialist and revolutionary. It is the trotskyites who have written a thousand and one books to vilify Stalin and to portray the glorious Red Army of his day which destroyed Nazi fascism as an army of "Stalinist tyranny" and "aggression". However, for the Soviet modern revisionists' army of social-imperialist aggression, the trotskyists have only the most ardent words of praise. Obviously, the trotskyists are not opposed in the slightest to Soviet revisionism but are, in fact, the fellow travellers of the "CPUSA" in defending the Soviet revisionist counter-revolution.

On the other hand, the other opportunists, the social-chauvinist followers of the Chinese revisionist theory of "three worlds", are equally obedient lackeys of imperialism. Michael Klonsky's so-called "CP(M-L)" and the other "three worlders" are the most ardent defenders of U.S. imperialism and its policy of war and aggression. Their single mission in life is to line up the working class and people behind the war chariot of the U.S.-China aggressive alliance under the slogan that the U.S. proletariat should "direct its main blow at the Soviet Union". Like their mentors in Beijing, these social-chauvinists are unbridled warmongers. They outdo the imperialist bourgeoisie itself in flaunting their virulent chauvinism.

The main plank of these Pentagon-socialists is that the American people and the people of the whole world must climb aboard the U.S. war machine as the only way to postpone the allegedly imminent outbreak of World War IB. Now with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the "CP(M-L)" is outdoing the U.S. imperialist warmongers in their criminal attempts to foment war hysteria. "Has World War III begun in Afghanistan?" was the headline across the top of the January 7 issue of their social-chauvinist ragThe Call.Constructing a hystericalscenario of the "Soviet Juggernaut" "steamrolling across Asia and Africa" the social-chauvinists are openly calling on the people not only to abandon the struggle against the U.S. imperialists and the other imperialists and reactionaries but to unite with them in a "united effort" against the Soviet Union. These hired scribblers in the pay of the State Department policy makers shamelessly write: "it is folly to fight all enemies at once, or to fight alone. Better to single out the main source of hegemonism and aggression and unite all who can be united to resist it." Of course, for such brilliant "three worlds" strategists it is indeed "folly" to even pretend to "fight" U.S. imperialism because they have long ago united with it against the proletariat and people of the world. And with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan they are more explicitly than ever spelling out their strategy of uniting "all who can be united" behind the warmongering and aggressive policies of the U.S. government. As The Callputs it: "U.S. government action can be seen only as one component part of a worldwide effort against the Soviet war machine.''

In fact, in league with the most case-hardened warmongering politicians, the "three worldists" are positively ecstatic that Carter has "finally" "come around" to their "hard-line" position of stepped-up aggression and rattling of sabers. "Faced with such obvious threats to its longstanding position of dominance in the world, the U.S. government has begun to take concrete measures against Soviet expansion.... Although these moves are doubtlessly designed to further U.S. imperialism's own quest for world power, they are positive in that they present obstacles to Soviet aggression, which is the main threat to world peace." (The Call, January 28, 1980) What unabashed and total enthusiasm for imperialism! The "concrete measures" "designed to further U.S. imperialism's own quest for world power" and to consolidate its "longstanding position of dominance in the world" have become a "positive" force for "world peace"!

It should be pointed out that the "three worlds" revisionists do not support the Afghan people and genuine patriots in their liberation struggle. Rather, they support the designs of U.S. imperialism in arming its own reactionary mercenary bands. They applaud the interventionist activities of U.S. imperialism in exactly the same manner and with the identical superpower chauvinist logic with which the "CPUSA" revisionists apologize for Soviet social-imperialist aggression. The pro-Moscow revisionists have concocted the hoax that the victims of U.S. imperialism would be defenseless and done for without Soviet tanks and other forms of "solidarity with the Soviet Union". In the same fashion, the pro-Beijing revisionists merely echo the U.S. superpower ultra-chauvinism that the fate of the "freedom" of the people and "peace in the world" resides under the U.S. nuclear umbrella and behind the Pentagon's military might. As the January 21 edition of The Call so explicitly puts it: "No Asian nation or group of nations has the military might and resources to block a Soviet invasion without the aid of U.S. technology and arms support"! Thus, these social- chauvinist lackeys have taken to whimpering that "the Carter administration's actions have been only partial", that U.S. imperialism must "make a heavier commitment" to "military security" and intervention and aggression in Asia and across the globe!

But, contrary to the lies and pseudo-logic of the revisionists of all hues, for the people to fall into the trap of lining up with one superpower in order to defend themselves from the other superpower means to follow a suicidal course. It means to fall prey to the ravages of one ferocious monster in the struggle against the other. For the purpose of laying this trap, the propaganda of both superpowers has created the idea that no people can stand on their own two feet and guarantee their own freedom and independence outside of the "sphere of influence" of either Washington or Moscow, without their so-called "protection" and tutelage. But in fact, it is only through smashing the heads of both superpowers and the other imperialists and reactionaries that the people can realize their genuine liberation and freedom. The present propaganda that the Afghan people or any other people can not rise up and on the basis of their own efforts liberate their country from the foreign yoke and take the path of independent development is totally false.

Look forexample at the People's Socialist Republic of Albania. While a small country, socialist Albania consistently pursues the Marxist-Leninist line of the Party of Labor of Albania of relentless opposition to U.S. imperialism, Soviet and Chinese social-imperialism and all imperialism and reaction and vigorously supports the Marxist-Leninists and the proletariat and the people of the world in their revolutionary struggle. The brilliant Albanian example shows that genuine liberation and freedom of the people cannot be safeguarded by placing it in the hands of one superpower or the other. To the contrary, to side with one superpower against the other means to betray the working class and people and join the counter-revolutionary camp of the imperialist superpowers.

The Marxist-Leninist Party vigorously opposes the revisionist and trotskyist apologists of Soviet social-imperialism and its barbaric invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. At the same time the Marxist-Leninist Party vehemently condemns the social-chauvinist "three worldist" class traitors that advocate stepped-up "U.S. government action", aggression and preparation for war. The Marxist-Leninist Party, USA is the party of the working class and it is absolutely loyal to the class interests of the proletariat, to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. The watchword of the proletariat is that its principal enemy is at home. The working class and people are resolutely opposed to U.S. imperialist aggression and its preparations for war. The working and progressive people will never support the "Carter doctrine" for the enslavement of the people of the Middle East, nor the U.S. imperialist blackmail against the Iranian revolution, nor the U.S. imperialists' plans to sink its own claws into the flesh of the Afghan people. At the same time, the working class and its Marxist-Leninist Party resolutely oppose all the other imperialists, warmongers and reactionaries including Soviet and Chinese social-imperialism. Despite the ravings of all the revisionists and social-chauvinists, the Marxist-Leninist Party does not consider that it is "fighting alone" because it opposes both superpowers and all imperialism. On the contrary, it is the working class and its Marxist-Leninist Party which are fighting in solidarity with the proletariat and people of the entire world who are fighting for liberation and socialism and to destroy these international barbarians once and for all.

[Cartoon.]

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"Doctrines" of the Gendarmes and Murderers of the Peoples

[Zeri i Popullit masthead.]

Carter's "doctrine" and that of Brezhnev on "limited sovereignty" together with the "doctrine" of Hua Guofeng and Deng Xiaoping, on "teaching a lesson" or "preliminary answer", are "doctrines" which legalize the role of superpowers as gendarmes, plunderers and murderers of peoples, as "punishers" of the sovereign countries, trampling under foot their vital and legitimate national rights, this is how the newspaper Zerii Popullitwrites in an article entitled: "'Doctrines' of the Gendarmes and Murderers of Peoples." Follow excerpts from this article:

Today, when a very complicated and grave situation has been created in the world due to the pressure, economic and political blockades and threats for military interference by the USA in Iran, as well as due to the occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, and its pressure and threats for interference and expansion in the other Middle East countries, the Balkans and elsewhere, U.S. imperialism appeared with a new expansionist aggressive doctrine. It is about the so- called "Carter doctrine" on the right of the USA to interfere in the Middle East and elsewhere, where its neocolonialist interests are impaired. The main content of this doctrine has been formulated in the message the U.S. president addressed to the Congress recently. The appearance of U.S. imperialism with such a doctrine in such a turbulent international situation has aroused the concern of the peoples and democratic and progressive forces in the world and this is fully justifiable. It is well known from history that since the USA appeared on the world scene as an imperialist power with claims for hegemony on other countries and continents, the ideologists of U.S. imperialism have justified every expansionist action, every aggression and struggle launched by it, with a "doctrine" which has been named after the president who has ruled during the respective period. In this way there emerged the notorious "Monroe Doctrine". In this way there emerged the doctrines with the names of presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon to justify the interferences, aggressions and the struggles of U.S. imperialism in Korea, the Congo, Indochina and Middle East, Latin America and Africa, etc.

Even the appearance now of U.S. imperialism with the "Carter doctrine" is not a reflex of doctrinomania or of the ambition of the present president not to leave the political scene without naming any "doctrine". It is directly linked with the events in Iran, Afghanistan and in the whole Middle East area, where the interests of U.S. imperialism and of all the other imperialist and social-imperialist powers are suffering great blows as a result of the Iranian revolution and of the powerful wave of the anti-imperialist war of the peoples of that region. It is also linked with the fact that the hegemonic interests of the USA in that region, following the occupation of Afghanistan are at risk and with the strengthening of the hegemonic positions of the Soviet Union in the Middle East, something which has made still fiercer the rivalry and the struggle of the two superpowers for spheres of influence there.

As a doctrine linked with the preservation of the hegemonic interests of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East, the "Carter doctrine" is in fact, a re-adaptation, in compliance with the new historic conditions, of the previous doctrines of Eisenhower and Nixon-Kissinger. What is common for these three "doctrines" is that they recognize a kind of "legitimate right" to the USA to "defend" through military interference, its vital interests of oil in the Middle East. The new thing Carter added to the previous "doctrines" is the fact that the oil and all the other energy or strategic materials, are considered as "international riches".

According to this doctrine, these materials are not the riches of the countries which produce them, hence they have no right to act with them "according to their will", that is the producing countries have no right to take measures to nationalize and possess these materials on the basis of their undeniable sovereign rights and as their national interests require. This means that the producing countries of oil and of the other energy or strategic materials, have a limited sovereignty on their natural resources, even not to say that no sovereignty is recognized to them. This means that the imperialist powers alone have the unlimited right to make the law, to plunder the riches of the others, to trample underfoot their sovereign legitimate rights.

As is seen, "Carter doctrine" and the Brezhnev doctrine on "limited sovereignty" have many things in common and are thoroughly permeated by the same imperialist and hegemonic neo-colonialist spirit.

The appearance of U.S. imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism and Chinese social-imperialism with the same doctrines as for their spirit and content, with identical concepts of justification of their policy of violence, plunder and occupation towards the other countries and peoples, once again clearly and convincingly reveals that they are the biggest and the most dangerous enemies of the peoples.

The "Carter doctrine", just as the other imperialist and social-imperialist doctrines of interference and aggression, is the codification of a policy with a permanent action and global extension. It was not created only as a means against the "strategic disequilibrium" in the Middle East, due to the revolution in Iran and the occupation of Afghanistan, but it is a long-term policy, which has been and will be followed in the future too by U.S. imperialism. It is a preliminary preparation to attack the revolutionary anti-imperialist movements in that region, not to allow that such changes and overthrows take place there, such as that in Iran, which threaten the imperialist interests of the USA and their imperialist allies. But this doctrine is also a warning towards their rival, the Soviet Union not to extend its expansion beyond Afghanistan. Its act does not hit only the oil producing countries in the Middle East, but all the other countries of the world which produce oil, other energy materials or "strategic" raw materials.

The economic and military blockade, all the "policy of full suffocation" carried out today by the United States of America towards Iran, is in fact a concrete implementation of the "Carter doctrine". U.S. imperialism wants to set a threatening example to the other countries of the Middle East and the entire world, and to show them that it is able to strangle and bring to its knees through blockade and hunger, through the cutoff of the financial sources not only Iran, but any other country which will have the courage to defend its national interests. But the brave Iranian people and other peoples of the Middle East, have neither been threatened nor have they reason to be threatened. They have in their hands a powerful weapon, oil, which is the bread and blood of the industry of the "industrialized" "imperialist powers". The hunger of these powers for oil is more terrible than that for bread. If the peoples of this region will become real masters of their oil, that is to nationalize it, to put it under the national control and take up arms to defend the oil bearing fields, as it has happened in Iran, if all these countries will be in unity and solidarity among them, then the imperialist powers will remain as the fish out of water, powerless to impose their dictate. The failures they are suffering in face of the resistance and determination of the Iranian people is a lesson and an inspiring example in this direction, is an instigation for the strengthening of the anti-imperialist struggle of all the peoples of the Middle East. Today, when the vital national interests of all the peoples of this region are put at stake, their fates are linked as never before. The threat deriving from all the imperialist powers, today requires from them to rise on their feet in support of the Iranian people, the Afghan people and to elevate into a higher stage the anti-imperialist war. Thus they will make the plans of the imperialist and social-imperialist powers for aggressions, war and new invasions in this region fail and their new, imperialist, hegemonic and neo-colonial "doctrines" be thrown in the dust bin just like their previous doctrines. And they are not alone. They have with them the peoples of the world because emerging with such doctrines of hegemony, aggression and war, the U.S. imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism, the Chinese social-imperialism and all the other imperialists and reactionaries, have entered in war with all the world. Acting in this way they do nothing but bring near their failure, their inevitable death.

(Reprinted from Albanian Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin, January 28, 1980.)

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THE POSTAL SERVICE'S PRODUCTIVITY DRIVE MURDERED MICHAEL McDERMOTT

(The following article is taken from a leaflet issued by the New York Metro Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA, January 11, 1980.)

On December 15,1979, postal worker Michael McDermott, 25, was brutally murdered by the Postal Service. Michael McDermott was caught and mangled to death by the conveyor belt at which he worked. There were no shin guards to prevent him from being pulled into the machine, and the pin in the emergency mechanism that would have stopped the belt had been deliberately removed. He was alone with no one to help him after he was dragged into the machine. His death was no "accident" as the Postal Service is claiming it to be. It was coldblooded murder.

Presently the Postal Service is engaged in a vicious productivity drive against the workers. It has given the call for "increased worker productivity" which means that the Postal Service is out to cut production costs to the minimum and to exploit the workers to the maximum. In order to cut processing costs, the Postal Service maintains poorly kept, faulty equipment, machinery with either non-functioning or inadequate safety equipment, and dangerous working areas without proper safety procedures. The result is that workers face serious injury and possible death on a daily basis. In the New York Bulk and Foreign Mail Center in Jersey City there have been over 5,000 accidents in the last two years. For example:

--one worker was hit on the head by an 80 pound sack of mail because of a lack of proper netting. This resulted in a concussion that had him out of work for 40 days.

--a worker has had his foot run over by the conveyor belt three times and also had his hand caught in the belt which he managed to pull loose at the last minute.

--two weeks after Michael McDermott's death, another worker came "within inches" of the same fate after being pulled into the conveyor belt of a parcel sorting machine. He managed to turn off the machine. His clothes had to be cut to get free of the machine. He suffered "severe contusions and muscle sprain" in his neck. The Postal Service called it a "minor accident with no injuries".

Every one of these "accidents" was perfectly preventable with proper safety measures.

Further, the management refuses to adhere to or enforce the already existing safety regulations. One postal worker saw a foreman tampering with a conveyor belt to bypass the safety switch in order to keep production going at top speed. The worker filed a grievance which the foreman simply ripped up in front of the worker. Violating the contract, the company forced that worker to be transferred to another department to work in isolation. Then casuals, temporary labor not covered by the contract, were brought into the unsafe area to continue the work. In fact, the various regulations are usually only brought up by the company after an "accident" takes place in order to say that the blame lies with the maimed or killed workers for failing to follow proper safety procedures. This is a cruel joke for it is clear that if a worker demands safety regulations be followed, he is taking the risk of being disciplined for job refusal or will be written up. Also, even following an "accident" the company usually refuses to repair the dangerous conditions that caused the problem or does so only temporarily. Lying through their teeth and showing their utter contempt for the concerns of the workers, the Postal officials have stated, "There is a standing work order to have this equipment repaired when necessary. We would never allow any of our workers into an unsafe area." With the death of Michael McDermott, 12 serious violations were found on Bay 23 where he was killed. These violations and the hundreds found throughout the area were of no surprise to the Postal Service. Their concern lies not with the safety of the workers but in carrying out the productivity drive of the monopoly capitalist class. The safety devices that would have saved Michael's life were removed by the management precisely because they slowed down production. In fact, these safety devices have been dismantled throughout the plant putting the workers' lives at stake on a daily basis.

The productivity drive's push on the workers to work faster, harder and do more jobs, means a growing "accident" potential. This is coupled with forcing the workers to work longer hours and more days of the week. Workers are forced to work 9 to 11 hour days, frequently six days a week. This brutal overwork aggravates the dangers involved in the work. Further, the Postal Service never wants production to stop and forces some workers to work a split-shift during the lunch break. This means that a small number of workers are spread throughout the plant to keep the production going. It also means that these workers are alone on the job -- a further safety hazard and one of the important features of Michael McDermott's death. No one was with him to shut off the machine. The push to do more work in a shorter amount of time is evident throughout the entire Postal Service. For example, a young mail carrier in another section of the Postal Service was beset by massive heart attacks because of the great stress put upon him and the daily harassment to do more work in a shorter and shorter amount of time. When finally this 30 year old worker was unable to work anymore, he was denied any compensation by the Postal Service as his heart attacks were defined as not "work related". He had worked for the Postal Service 11 years.

The death of Michael McDermott and the criminal health and safety conditions that confront the workers daily are a direct result of the productivity drive of the Postal Service. The Postal Service, a semi-governmental institution, is essentially no different from any other capitalist enterprise, only here the bourgeois state is the workers' employer. It, too, in order to maximize the profits of its investors and the capitalist class as a whole, raises prices, lowers the wages of the workers and is stepping up its rationalization process to cut the workforce while increasing production on the remaining workers. This productivity drive is the key reason for the deterioration of the safety and health conditions at the mail facilities. The monopoly capitalist class wants to shift the burden of its economic crisis onto the backs of the working class and people. To carry this out the Carter administration, under its "anti-inflation" program has launched a productivity drive against the entire working class. The capitalists' drive to rationalize (reorganize, modernize and automate production to increase productivity) the Postal Service is particularly vicious. This can be seen by the fact that since 1970 there has been a decrease of 100,000 workers in the Postal Service while productivity has increased well over 15.8% (1977 figure).

The postal workers are outraged at the murder of Michael McDermott. They are incensed at the criminal health and safety conditions that led to his death and threaten their life and limb every day. Faced with the growing resistance of the workers, the Postal Service and the government panels call on the workers to place their faith in higher government bodies. But the government of the rich cannot solve the problems of health and safety of the workers -- the monopoly capitalist class and its government are the cause of these problems. To improve the health and safety conditions the workers must wage vigorous and determined mass active resistance to the attacks of the Postal Service. The workers' must defend their own interests and resist the productivity drive of the rich and their state.

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1st National Steel Strike Since 1926

165,000 British Steelworkers Strike

[Workers' Weekly masthead.]

Since January 2, the British steelworkers have been waging a fierce and important struggle against the state monopoly capitalist British Steel Corporation. The 150,000 BSC workers have carried out militant actions to press their demands across the country with the support of broad sections of the working class including 16,000 workers of the private steel companies who went out on strike on February 3, effectively bringing to a halt all steel production in Britain. Below we are reprinting extracts from Workers' Weekly, the Organ of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist). The RCPB(M-L) is the party of the British proletariat and the fraternal brother party of the MLP, USA.

Steel workers throughout the country, writes Workers' Weekly of January 5, this week began an all-out strike against the refusal of the British Steel Corporation to meet their demand for an increase in line with the current inflation rate of over 17%. The strike, which is being supported by transport workers, dockers, railway and other workers (who are refusing to handle or transport ore and imported or internally produced BSC steel), by workers in other countries, etc., is the workers' militant response to the attempts of the rich to make them pay for the crisis in the steel industry.

The state monopoly BSC is continuing its fierce attack on the workers. It is carrying through a program of 52,000 redundancies (permanent layoffs--ed.) by August of this year (one-third of the work force) in addition to

26,000 over the previous two years. It is planning the savage wage cut embodied in the 2% offer, which is not an increase at all even in money terms since the initial 2% is only consolidation of existing payments, while the further 4% is conditional on the workers accepting other conditions, including the elimination of the guaranteed working week agreement, meaning loss of wages when laid off. Thus the money wages of the workers are to be held constant at a time when the prices of necessities are soaring at a rate in excess of the "official" 17.4% inflation rate. This massive cut in real wages is on top of that imposed by the "Labor" government last year with an 8% "increase". At the same time the capitalists are planning speedups, elimination of job demarcation and other attacks through the imposition of local "productivity deals". The threat of even greater redundancies is being used in an attempt to force wage cuts and speedups on the workers -- and the latter will increase even further the redundancies. These attacks are a particularly severe example of the growing impoverishment which is being forced on the entire working class as the rich attempt to maintain and increase their profits through forcing the workers to bear the burden of the crisis.

With its plan to cut output of crude steel to meet market forecasts of 15 million tons demand, BSC is cutting its production by 46% from its peak of 1970. This shows that the crisis in the steel industry in Britain is as serious as that in the 1930's, when the output of steel was likewise cut by 46% in the period 1929-31. The rich present no explanation of the recurrent crises of the capitalist system, but merely try to put the blame on "lazy" British workers who "produce less" than workers in other countries.... In fact similar lies are being used by the capitalists in all the major capitalist countries to justify the savage attacks which they are launching on the working class and in particular on the steel workers in the current worldwide crisis in the steel industry and in the capitalist economy as a whole. The crisis in the steel industry has nothing to do with the "laziness" or otherwise of workers in different countries. The crisis of overproduction facing the steel industry throughout the capitalist and revisionist world is a basic and inevitable recurring feature of the capitalist system....

Through massive investment programs the rich in all the major steel- producing countries have attempted to introduce advanced plants and processes in order to cut their production costs, seize markets from their competitors and reap maximum profits. BSC, for example, launched an investment program of £2.7 billion in 1973, designed to increase BSC production capacity to 30 million tons. Similar measures by capitalist competitors in other countries have led to a massive glut of steel on the world market at a time when the crisis in other sectors, particularly in steel-using industries, has intensified, causing much-reduced demand. Hence, savage attacks on the steel workers, in an attempt to make them pay for the crisis, are occurring in all the major steel-producing countries. The steel industry has been drastically cut back in Japan; steel workers in France launched heroic battles last year against the attempts of the rich to cut a further 22,000 jobs on top of an earlier 12,000 redundancies; in the United States, the U.S. Steel Corporation is planning to cut 13,000 jobs and close a dozen plants, and so on.

BSC's major investment program has come into effect at a time when the crisis of overproduction is already severe and has thus contributed towards intensifying it further. In this severe crisis of overproduction, the rich in Britain and the entire capitalist-revisionist world are attempting to maintain and even increase their huge profits by making the workers pay through closures, redundancies, massive wage cuts, intensified exploitation at work, and so on. The devastating crisis of overproduction and the inability of the rich to solve it shows once again that to solve the crisis, as well as to meet even the basic needs and demands of the workers, the capitalist system must go....

* * * * * *

The steel workers are pursuing their strike struggle with increasing determination and militancy, reports the Workers' Weekly of January 26. In the face of the increasing attacks by the rich and their state, the steel workers are stepping up their struggle by immobilizing more sections of the rich involved in the manufacture, distribution and utilization of steel. The steel workers are militantly resisting the attempts by the rich to make the workers pay for the crisis.

In Corby, where the BSC are closing down the entire steel works, thus devastating the lives of thousands of steel workers and their families, steel workers have fought militantly on the picket lines. In one day alone 14 steel workers were arrested. Throughout the country similar attacks are being launched on the steel workers. At the same time the rich are threatening that if the strike does not end soon then there will be "no money" and still further closures will be made. The politicians and media of the rich are launching a campaign of lies and deception in their attempts to get the steel workers to give up their struggle.

The response of the steel workers has been to extend their action. They have rejected all the pleas for "calm" and "moderation" and militantly rejected all the attempts to limit their struggle. As well, the steel workers have the support of all sections of the working class, with particular direct support from the miners, the dockers and the railwaymen who are blocking all imports and internal movement of steel.

The savage proposals to make the steel workers pay for the crisis of the rich involve massive redundancies. In South Wales, where the unemployment rate is already higher than average, 11,337 workers are to be made redundant at Port Talbot and Llanwern. This will lead directly to the loss of 7,500 miners' jobs as well as the loss of jobs in the docks and railways which transport the steel. In all it is estimated that 50,000 more workers in this area alone will be thrown out of work with devastating consequences for the local communities. The Welsh miners have declared that they would "rather eat dirt" than accept these savage cuts. Already the miners are running down stocks in the coal fields in preparation for an all-out strike and for the past week have been refusing to move any steel products within the pits. On Monday 20,000 workers throughout Wales are to join mass protests in a one-day strike, while the demand of the Welsh miners is for an indefinite stoppage....

The rich and the capitalist class have their program which is to reap the maximum capitalist profits through pushing the burden onto the backs of the workers.

The steel workers and the entire working class must likewise have their own program, of make the rich pay for the crisis, independent from and in total antagonism to the program of the rich. The crisis in the steel industry, in the capitalist system is not caused by the working class, not caused by the steel workers, so why should the steel workers or the working class be made to pay! Why should the working class give up its livelihood for the sake of the maximum profits of the rich. The full demands of the steel workers must be met.

The Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) has been taking this program to the steel workers throughout the country. Thousands of copies of the Party's "Supplement on the Steel Workers' Struggle" (see Workers' Weekly Vol. 7, No. 3) have been distributed among the steel workers, raising the call that the full demands of the steel workers must be met!, Make the rich pay for the crisis! The program of the Party calls on steel workers to organize to ensure that their full demands are met irrespective of the "problems" and the "crises" which face the rich....

[Photo: Militant picket of British steelworkers.]

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PERFORMANCE EVALUATION SYSTEM:

An anti-worker scheme to cut wages, increase workloads and eliminate jobs

(The following article is reprinted from the December 17, 1979 issue Buffalo Workers' Voice, organ of the Buffalo Branch of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists, now the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA.)

With the implementation of the Performance Evaluation System (PES), the state workers once again are coming under sharp attack. The PES is a system to impose wage cuts, increase workloads and eliminate jobs. The PES eliminates the previous annual increment raises in the first five years and in the 10th and 20th years of employment which have been automatic for state workers. The new system makes these raises dependent upon the "e- valuation" of a worker's "job performance". It allows the state to withhold any raise at all from the workers unless they measure up to the standards of "job performance" demanded by the state. The experience of the state workers in recent years shows without doubt that what these standards of "job performance" amount to is willingness to accept an ever increasing burden of work. The PES is promoted as a system to "reward" the best workers, but the real aim of this is to create competition among the workers for money, money reserved for those who work the longest and hardest and never complain. By these means, the state hopes to increase the productivity of the state workforce overall, clearing the way for more job eliminations, which have in fact been announced to the tune of 3,000 just one week after the institution of the PES. And with the PES, the state has constructed a mechanism to "justify" this as well: for any worker who doesn't measure up, the regular "evaluations" carried out by his supervisor will serve to build up a documented case against him as a "poor worker", worthy of firing. Even the best workers, that is those who slave to the satisfaction of the state, cannot expect a "reward" for their efforts in terms of an increase in their base pay. The "best" they can hope for is a "bonus" each year. So, for all the state workers, even for the "best workers", the PES will mean a constant and yearly erosion of their real wages.

The PES represents a further development of the Carey administration's program of "retrenchment", which has already meant a decline in real wages, an increase in workloads and a reduction in the number of state workers over the past several years. It is also in line with Carter's "anti-inflation" program, which is in reality a program of wage-cutting guidelines and vicious productivity drives for the working class as a whole on a national scale. For the Roswell Park and other hospital workers, a key part of Carter's "anti-inflation" program has been his national "cost containment" program, which has resulted in massive job eliminations and extreme overwork for hospital workers and soaring profits for the health care billionaires. The PES complements and will further intensify the effects of Carter's "cost containment" program on the Roswell Park and other state hospital workers.

The PES has been negotiated and agreed to with the state by the bigwigs of the CSEA, as part of their sellout contract in 1979. CSEA is working with the state to impose the PES onto the workers and is lauding it as a "major breakthrough in labor-management relations". It represents a "breakthrough" only for the state however, and is a testimony to the treachery of the CSEA big bureaucrats. With the PES, the CSEA bureaucracy is once again proving an able assistant to the state in its efforts to impose wage cuts, increased workloads and job eliminations onto the workers. For years in the past, it was these same bureaucrats who counseled the workers to go along with Carey's "retrenchment" program, his wage freeze, his hiring freezes, low wage contract settlements, etc., with the promise that in the "future" it would be better. And in April of this year, when the new sellout contract was settled, it was these same bureaucrats who praised it to the skies as the "best ever". Now these same bureaucrats have helped to create and are promoting the vicious PES as a great "breakthrough"! What shameless traitors! While the workers have been developing resistance to the increased workloads and are ever more determined to fight for higher wages, the CSEA bigwigs are undermining and sabotaging this struggle. Mass active resistance is the way to oppose the PES: that is, relying on their own efforts the workers continuing to develop the struggle against increased workloads, continuing to organize the fight for higher wages, continuing to oppose reactionary discipline imposed by the state, continuing to find the ways and means to fight Carter's "cost containment" program and in the course of this struggle fighting against the sabotage and betrayal of the CSEA bigwigs, too.

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TAKING A FIRM STAND THE INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER WORKERS PERSIST IN THEIR FOUR MONTH STRIKE AGAINST THE EXTENSION OF COMPULSORY OVERTIME

35,000 International Harvester workers are now in the fourth month of their strike against the productivity drive of their monopoly capitalist employer. They are resisting Harvester's vicious job elimination schemes and particularly the arrogant demand for increasing the hours of compulsory overtime. Three years ago IH launched a "cost-cutting campaign'' which has already eliminated 6,500 jobs. Present company plans project cutting out 4,000 more jobs. But does this mean that with fewer workers less work is being done? On the contrary, production is booming, sales are up 40% and profits have soared to record levels in these three years.

This so-called "cost-cutting campaign" is nothing but an offensive of the rich to step up the exploitation and ruin of the working class under the banner of "increased productivity''. It is taking place in all industries in various forms. In the auto and agricultural implement industry this "cost-cutting" involves the installation of new machinery, robots, and computers to eliminate jobs and it also means terrible overwork for the workers through speedup, job combination and the lengthening of the working day and working week, and increased fascist labor discipline. In steel the productivity drive is called "modernization and improving the company's competitiveness". In the hospitals it is called "cost containment". And it is also taking place in the public sector in the form of "austerity budget", big layoffs and speedup of the remaining workers. In whatever disguise it assumes, the essence of this attack is to shift the burden of the capitalist economic crisis onto the backs of the workers and everywhere the resistance of the workers is breaking out.

The IH strike is just such a case. In their previous contracts, the IH workers could be required to work for two Saturdays in a row while on the third Saturday the workers were not supposed to be compelled to work. The IH management wants to impose compulsory overtime for three Saturdays in a row. This further extension of the work week is essential to the IH capitalists' job elimination schemes. For the workers it means workloads that are even more impossible for mind and body to bear. The workers are refusing to submit to the additional compulsory overtime and are taking a firm stand. Already the strike is the longest in IH history and has cost the IH monopolists over $230 million. This is but a taste of the power of the workers and of the upsurge in the class struggle which lies ahead.

The IH workers are organized into the Agriculture Implement division of the United Auto Workers. There are no more treacherous social-democratic hacks than the notorious Fraser and company of the UAW. Fraser has just finished jamming down the throats of the workers at GM and Ford a rotten sellout contract. And at Chrysler Fraser has even joined the Chrysler board of directors in order to saddle the workers with devastating wage cuts and other "concessions to save Chrysler". The longstanding policy of the UAW leadership has been to unreservedly support the capitalists' productivity drives as "the prerogative of management". And Fraser and company are calling on the workers to surrender to the worst exploitation in the name of "making concessions to save jobs".

From the outset of the agriculture implement contract talks the UAW leadership restated its policy of surrender on the issue of compulsory overtime. According to the UAW journal Solidarity, the workers should cave in to the companies' demands of increased compulsory overtime and instead to shorten the work week by "making overtime more expensive to the employers". But the UAW workers know full well that the capitalists are more than willing to pay a little higher overtime rates so that they can merrily impose 54-hour and longer weeks on the workers while eliminating jobs on a grand scale. The strikebreaking role of the UAW hacks in this issue was clearly shown in the recent strike of the Caterpillar Tractor workers who wildcatted in defiance of the labor traitors and who were finally forced back after 10 weeks with the compulsory overtime clause still intact.

The IH strike is a demonstration of the fact that the workers are becoming increasingly aware that their only defense against the double curse of joblessness for some workers and long hours of brutal overwork for the rest can only be resolute resistance. "Making concessions" to the productivity drives and wage cuts of the rich does not "save jobs" but means job elimination and ruin for the workers. The persistent strike which the Harvester workers are waging is absolutely necessary to defend the livelihood of the workers. Such struggles are sure to develop and advance in the coming period as the workers step up the fight against the capitalists' offensive.

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G.E. Workers Walk Out Against Jailhouse Conditions

(The following article is reprinted from The Louisville Worker, newspaper of the Louisville Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA, February 4, 1980.)

On Friday, January 25, the second shift of Building #1 at Appliance Park walked out in opposition to GE's productivity campaign. When the supervisors tried to pull the workers off their regular jobs on the transmission line and put them on the dryer line in order to get it to run, the workers showed GE what they thought of being treated like a chain gang by walking out. Then, the company tried to pull some other workers off their regular jobs on the washer line and they, too, walked out. Soon, Building #1 was emptied of its second shift workforce of 1,200 to 1,500 workers -- a militant example of the workers waging mass active resistance to GE's productivity campaign.

On Monday, January 28, workers in Building #1 were back in the plant, but the issue is far from settled. One worker pointed out that they were back, but if the company thought it could get by trying to herd the workers from one job to another, they were crazy. The worker pointed out that this issue affects all the workers at GE and this walkout won't be the last.

By striking Building #1 Friday, GE workers brought out into the open their struggle against the GE money-bags. As soon as the ink was dry on the new local supplement to the national contract, GE began a drive to further shift the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the workers. There are three measures GE is presently using to accomplish this: 1) eliminating helpers and extras on the lines so that one worker winds up doing a job that used to be done by two workers previously; 2) laying off a number of workers "made surplus" through this combining and eliminating of jobs; 3) forcing the remaining workers off their regular job onto whatever job the supervisor chooses in order to run the plant with the smaller workforce.

The workers are resisting being treated like laborers on a chain gang. Starting with slowdowns, refusing overtime, and other means, the workers have made known to the company that they will not be driven like a herd of cattle. With the strike on Friday, the resistance has begun to take on a more developed form. The workers will not bow their heads and meekly accept GE's productivity campaign to maximize profits through adding more work to the jobs while forcing workers from one job to another in order to decrease the total number of workers needed.

Enraged at the workers' resistance, the GE moneybags have ordered their lackey supervisors to suppress the workers. Every kind of threat and intimidation has been tried to sabotage the workers' struggle. The workers are threatened with written discipline, disqualification, and firings. But the company finds that threats and intimidation do not run an assembly line. The more the foremen stalk about and rant and rave, the more the workers refuse overtime, the more the assembly line stops, the more there are gaps in the line with no units, the more the repair stands fill up and the workers sit a- round and laugh at the company. Finally, on Friday, the lines stopped altogether, as the workers struck.

Faced with the increasing resistance, GE has begun to bring in its hired guards, under ex-police chief Nevin, to attack the workers' struggle. On Tuesday, January 29, a copy of a guard's surveillance report was circulated by the workers. The report is in a memo, dated January 16, which went to a manager of shop operations and a unit manager in Building #1, as well as to the bigwigs in Appliance Park. The guard reported: "On this date, January 11, 1980, at 3:00 pm, I was assigned to watch the east end of the dryer line, carton area, from the catwalk over the top of the dryer line for any misconduct of the employees." The guard then gave a typical guard's version of what "misconduct" he saw (such as reading newspapers!). From this action on the part of GE, it is clear that they think they own the workers body and soul and will stop at nothing to try to beat down the workers' movement.

The rich are currently stepping up their offensive against the working class. Through Carter's wage controls and productivity boards, the rich are trying to wring the last drop of sweat and blood from the working class. The workers at Chrysler are called upon to "sacrifice" for the profits of the auto magnates, as wages are cut and thousands of workers are laid off. The workers at International Harvester are in the fourth month of a strike to oppose the Harvester capitalists' aim of forcing the workers to slave six days a week instead of five. The workers at Philip Morris are resisting being made to work more than one job under PM's program of "utilizing the workers' time" and are denouncing the attacks on the distribution of revolutionary literature by PM's Pinkertons and off-duty police guards.

Throughout the city, the workers are stepping up their resistance. They will not submit to conditions of convict labor. The workers must continue to resist in every way. The attacks and maneuvers of the rich must be exposed and denounced at every turn. The workers must continue to discuss the situation and get organized independently of the rich and their lackeys.

MASS ACTIVE RESISTANCE IS THE WAY FORWARD!

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Honeywell's fraudulent wage increase

(The following article is reprinted from Boston Worker, newspaper of the Boston Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA, January 7,1980.)

On December 19, 1979, the Honeywell capitalists announced the 1980 "wage increase" for the Honeywell workers. This 45¢-90¢ per hour increase translates into a 10.5-11% increase. However, with the current official rate of inflation, this much touted increase amounts to an actual wage cut of 2.5%! Thus the Honeywell capitalists continue to line their pockets with still greater profits at the expense of the workers. While the Honeywell capitalists have been running around, patting each other on the back for their fraudulent "generosity", the Honeywell workers have been actively discussing this brutal wage cut, exposing the lies of the company and denouncing this vicious attack on their livelihood.

The Honeywell capitalists have been using deception in their attempt to cover over their criminal wage cutting and to block the workers from fighting. The wage announcement bulletin boasts: "The new wage structure represents a significant increase over 1979 and is the largest ever delivered in our division." What the bulletin doesn't announce is: the rate of inflation this year is also the largest ever! Prices rose at an annual rate of 13%; the workers' purchasing power in the U.S. is falling rapidly. In the first six months of 1979 alone, purchasing power declined 3.4%. In December, 1978, the "wage increase" was 7% compared to a 1978 rate of inflation of 9%. The result?--a 2% wage cut! How pitiful then is this year's 10.5% increase when compared to the past year's official inflation rate of 13%. This increase will never make up for last year's losses--it doesn't even keep up with inflation! And, of course, inflation will rise at an even more severe rate this coming year.

The experience of the Honeywell workers over the past year has been that the paychecks seem to be buying even less than what these figures would indicate. This is true and it is because the official rate of inflation (13% for last year) is based on the Consumer Price Index which does not accurately reflect the rise in the costs of basic necessities. Seventy percent of a worker's family budget goes to these basic necessities such as food, housing, medical and energy costs. These costs rose, in the first quarter of 1979, at an annual rate of 16.4%, with the increase in energy costs much worse. For example, heating oil was 57¢ per gallon this time last year. Today, we're paying 894 per gallon, a more than 50% increase. It is estimated that an average New England family will pay $500 more this year than last just for heating oil. For the Honeywell workers who will get 45¢ more per hour, or $18 more per week, this means they will work 27 weeks with this increase before they will make the $500 more they'll need just to pay the increase in their heating bill alone! This one example shows that with inflation sure to rise to even greater heights with this coming year, the workers are faced with an even more severe attack on their livelihoods.

The Honeywell capitalists are carrying out their wage cutting under the despised red, white and blue banner of Carter's wage controls. The rich shout themselves hoarse: Wage controls are needed to "fight inflation". Translation: We must impose starvation wage controls on the workers to get the biggest possible profits for ourselves! Despite Carter's demagogy, wages are not the cause of price increases. In fact, inflation is caused by the monopoly capitalist system itself. It is one result of their severe economic crisis. Due to the inflation of the currency, the monopoly capitalists are able to impose higher and higher prices on the market, while the workers' wages fall further and further behind. It is far more difficult for the workers to gain an increase in their wages than it is for the monopolies to jack up their prices, the workers having to wage determined struggles and bitter strikes to achieve higher pay. The soaring cost of living results in the workers receiving an actual wage cut, which in turn means higher profits for the capitalists. Long ago Karl Marx stated, "Since the capitalist and workman have only to divide this limited value, that is, the value measured by the total labor of the working man, the more the one gets the less will the other get, and vice versa.... If wages fall, profits will rise; and if wages rise, profits will fall." (Wages, Price and Profit)

The attacks of the Honeywell capitalists on the living standard of the workers is a clear demonstration of how Carter's government uses wage controls and inflation against the working class, and how the rich profit immensely from them. Last year, a 2% wage cut was patriotically carried through against the Honeywell workers, in compliance with Carter's wage controls. The Honeywell capitalists are again invoking the name of Carter and his wage controls for this year's real wage cut. Yet, during this same period of time, the Honeywell capitalists have increased their profits enormously. In 1978, the operating profits from Honeywell's computer business were up 34% over 1977. Their overall earnings which come directly from the toil of the workers, increased in 1978 a whopping 39% over 1977. In the first quarter of 1979, their earnings increased an incredible 68% over the first quarter of 1978. (All figures from from the newspaper Honeywell World.) This is why the Honeywell capitalists are so willing to abide by Carter's wage control guidelines, and why they were so pleased with their most recent wage-cutting announcement.

Carter's wage controls are a key part of the fascist offensive of the monopoly capitalist class to shift the entire burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the workers. The rich in the U.S. today are facing the worst economic crisis since the 1930's. In order to maintain and increase their profits in this situation, they, with their government, are attacking the working class as a whole through wage cuts (wage controls), inflation, productivity drives, increasing unemployment, etc. Their aim is simple--impoverish the workers, break their struggles and increase the profits for the rich.

The American working class is refusing to take these attacks lying down! The workers are seething with anger across the country at this fascist offensive of the rich. They are launching numerous struggles to resist this wage cutting. They are struggling for higher pay to protect themselves from the higher cost of living. They are fighting against the government's wage controls! 1979 was a year of militant strikes--the postal workers, the Teamsters, the rubber workers, the Westinghouse electrical workers all fought against Carter's wage controls. The struggles of these workers succeeded in breaking Carter's 7% wage guideline and thereby inspired the entire working class in the spirit to Defy Carter's Wage Controls. It is these struggles that have forced the government to "liberalize" the guidelines in an attempt to hold back the rising tide of the workers' movement. It is only this path of active resistance that can smash up Carter's wage controls once and for all.

Honeywell workers are taking their first steps towards struggle by actively discussing the lies of the company, by recognizing that in fact the 10.5-11% increase is an actual wage cut in the face of skyrocketing inflation. Honeywell workers are right to continue to develop this atmosphere of denunciation of the hated Honeywell capitalists and take their place as a fighting contingent of the working class.

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On the struggle at Roswell Park Hospital:

"MASS ACTIVE RESISTANCE IS THE CORRECT TRADE UNION POLICY"

At Roswell Park Memorial Institute (hospital) in Buffalo, New York, the workers of the 800-member Local 303 of the CSEA/AFSCME elected a local union president on the platform of mass active resistance. This is an important event in the struggle of the workers. It is another indication that the workers are rising to oppose the class collaborationist policies of the top trade union bureaucrats. The workers are stirring in the struggle against the capitalist offensive of wage cutting, wage controls, layoffs and speedups.

We are reporting on this election because it shows how the Marxist-Leninists help organize the workers' struggle and the Marxist-Leninist attitude to the reactionary trade union apparatus. At Roswell Park, as elsewhere, the Marxist-Leninist Party (formerly COUSML) plunged right into the thick of the workers' struggle. The comrades took as the decisive task the organization of the Marxist-Leninist Party, the organization of the class conscious vanguard. The organization and building of the Party is inseparable from the providing of guidance and direction to the practical movement of the proletariat. The Party activists make use of struggle both inside and outside the trade union apparatus controlled by the labor bureaucrats in order to mobilize and organize the workers. But the struggle is not for the purpose of "moving the bureaucracy to the left" or for providing a deceptive coat of reformist paint on the hopelessly reactionary labor bureaucracy. On the contrary, the struggle within the reactionary trade unions is subordinate to and coordinated with the organization of the workers around the Party and with the development of their independent activity. It is a further means of uniting the workers against both the capitalists and their servants, the soldout trade union bureaucrats. The struggle leads to the further strengthening of the party spirit among the workers and towards the development of the revolutionary mass organizations of the proletariat. The struggle inside the reactionary trade union apparatus must be used not to restrict the workers to the legal trade union forms acceptable to the bourgeoisie, but to help the workers to break through the stifling rules and regulations imposed on them by the capitalist government, the National Labor Relations Board and the fascist anti-labor laws. The work of the Party at Roswell Park and at other places of work, in auto plants, steel plants, shipyards, mines and elsewhere, shows that the work inside the reactionary trade union apparatus can be undertaken as a subsidiary front of work that aids the organization of struggles that break through the restrictions of the reactionary labor bureaucracy and that aids the strengthening of the Party among the masses of workers.

At Roswell Park, the Party had been helping organize the struggle of the workers for a long time. Because of the vigorous role played by Comrade Richard Lipsitz, a supporter of the political line of the MLP, in developing the trend of active resistance, that section of the workers who stood for active resistance and for fighting the sabotage of the labor bureaucrats asked him to run for president of the union local. Comrade Lipsitz thus stood for election as the candidate of the masses who favored struggle against the rich, struggle against the "cost containment" plans of Carter and the hospital administration, struggle against the policy of the union bureaucrats of cooperation with the "cost containment" plan. In the election, Comrade Lipsitz won a plurality of votes and was elected. The union bureaucrats naturally could not stand the very thought of having a local president who supports an active mass struggle against the rich. They therefore illegally cancelled the election and called a new one. Comrade Lipsitz gained even more support and won the second election with another plurality.

Upon election Comrade Lipsitz took a number of steps to advance the economic struggle, such as supporting an ongoing struggle of the dietary workers, increasing the frequency of union meetings, forming a shop stewards committee to press grievances and instituting the president's newsletter. The union bureaucrats did not reconcile themselves to Comrade Lipsitz' presence. There can be no illusions of reforming the union bureaucracy via an election victory. Instead the bureaucrats attacked a number of Comrade Lipsitz' measures in support of the economic struggle and violated their own bureaucratic union rules right and left in their frenzy to eliminate Comrade Lipsitz from the union presidency.

At present, acting against the will of the workers, the regional apparatus and the local executive board have succeeded in suspending Comrade Lipsitz from the union presidency. The CSEA/AFSCME bureaucracy, behind closed doors and away from the eyes and ears of the workers, have organized a kangaroo court to try Comrade Lipsitz and completely expel him from office. But the workers have militantly responded to this latest attack. They organized a petition campaign demanding that a union meeting be held to deal with this issue, and forced the trade union bureaucrats to hold the meeting on December 18. At this meeting the labor bureaucrats tried to gag the workers, using the flimsy excuse that "legal considerations" prevented any open discussion of their attempt to oust Comrade Lipsitz from the office of president. According to the trade union bureaucracy, it is illegal for the mass of workers, the membership of the union, to speak on vital and major issues of principle which face the union; it is illegal for the workers to oppose the reactionary attacks and activity of the labor bureaucrats. Many workers denounced the labor bureaucrats for this attempt to suppress them. Demonstrating their contempt for this anti-worker trade union "legality", all of the 70 workers who attended the bureaucrats' meeting walked out and organized their own meeting in the hallway. At this meeting, the workers denounced the trade union bureaucracy for its attack on Comrade Lipsitz and for many other crimes against the workers, and they discussed ways to oppose these attacks. Today an intense struggle is proceeding. Irrespective of the particular immediate outcome, the struggle has mobilized broader numbers of workers in favor of the line of resolute struggle against the rich, in favor of the platform of mass active resistance.

Right after the election of Comrade Lipsitz, the local organization of the Party discussed the significance of the election with the class conscious section of workers active in support of the Party at Roswell Park. The local Party organization defined the basis of their work in the election as follows: "In fact, the most important position we won in the election campaign was not some office in the union, but rather the position we won among the masses who support active resistance against class collaboration. This is the real victory: the strengthening, the consolidation and the broadening of the mass trend for active resistance against 'cost containment'." The local Party organization stressed that in mobilizing the masses against the attacks of the hospital administration, it was absolutely necessary to rely first and foremost on the Party network and Party organization. It pointed out that "While making full use of the (capitalist) trade union channels as far as is possible, never rely upon these or place them before the...Party organization, only use them to supplement this basic organization which we have built up through years of work and struggle." The local Party organization soberly but confidently said that: "Having Richard as the local union president is also an assistance, and an important one which we must learn to use correctly. But, right from the start, we must guard against the illusion that now Richard is president, we can lay hold of the trade union apparatus and easily use it to defend the workers' interests. To fall prey to such an illusion would prove disastrous for us; it would seriously damage the correct work we have carried out and harm the interests of the masses who have placed their confidence in us. Arrayed against us is the government, the hospital administration and the CSEA/AFSCME union bureaucracy. They have their state power and their big propaganda machine. They have a wealth of experience in suppressing the workers, a whole bag full of tricks and devices, all of which they will use to attack us. For example, they could de-certify the local union, place it in trusteeship or impeach Richard. While none of these things frighten us and we will not give up our politics, hide our face, water down or tone down our line, we must take them into account seriously and consider our tactics well in light of a sober appraisal of the facts. Thus, right from the start we can correctly emphasize the need to oppose any tendency to rely upon the official trade union exclusively or mainly to defend the workers' interests and mobilize them to fight the administration. If we followed such a line, and did not develop the Party network and use the Party organization as the primary leader and organizer of the workers' struggle, then we would be building on a foundation of sand...."

The aim of the struggle in the trade unions controlled by the labor bureaucracy cannot be to transform these bodies into organizations which lead the workers' struggles against the rich. The reactionary trade union apparatus in the U.S. is a capitalist institution, integrated into the state machine which suppresses the workers. Although the reactionary trade unions are composed of workers, they are not the proletarian trade unions. The reactionary trade unions are instead bourgeois organizations that restrict and liquidate the workers' struggle. They are bourgeois organizations because their politics, their ideology, their methods of organization, etc., directly serve the capitalists and suppress the working class. The social-democrats and the opportunists try to create illusions among the masses of workers about "moving the bureaucrats to the left" and they try to reduce the class conscious workers to spending all their efforts in seeking to "reform" or "revolutionize" the reactionary labor bureaucracy. This is a dead-end street. It is a dead end of grief and frustration which has spelled the end for many genuine militant and class conscious workers. Instead the militant and class conscious workers must work hard to unite the workers in defense of their basic interests and to build up revolutionary and genuinely proletarian organization. They must work to organize the class conscious core, the Marxist-Leninist Party and its supporters, and to develop revolutionary consciousness among the workers. They must use the economic struggle as a means of arousing the widest masses of the working class. To this end, they must work both inside and outside the trade union apparatus so as not to give the union bureaucrats even a single peaceful base area to use against the workers, but the class conscious workers must not cherish any illusions in the yellow, reactionary trade union apparatus.

The highest form of proletarian class organization is the Marxist-Leninist party. The party is the organization which provides the leadership to all of the workers' struggles against the rich -- be they economic, political or ideological/theoretical struggles. The Marxist-Leninist party helps the workers form mass revolutionary organizations of the most diverse types, and it guides and leads such organizations. Such broad class organizations of the proletariat may take many forms. Such organizations include proletarian trade union forms, but they can never be confused with the present-day reactionary trade unions. The orientation provided by the party is crucial in the formation of the other revolutionary class organizations. So from that point of view also it can be seen that for the class conscious worker to really organize independent of the rich and against the rich, he must take up the task of building the Marxist-Leninist Party, that is, of uniting, organizing and consolidating the class conscious core. And as the supporter of a definite party he must work to organize the workers and to build the most powerful struggle of the masses of the workers.

It has been shown again and again in practice that in order for the workers' movement to have correct orientation and direction, the decisive factor is the organization of the Party. At Roswell Park, for example, there would have been no victory in the recent election without the year in and year out work of party building which had gone before it: the work of the Marxist-Leninists and class conscious workers in organizing the workers, in distributing agitations for mass active resistance and against class collaboration, and in agitating for revolutionary politics and against social-democracy on all important political questions, was decisive for consolidating and organizing the militant and class conscious workers into a powerful, fighting force for mobilizing the masses against the labor bureaucrats.

In this issue of The Workers' Advocate we have also reproduced excerpts from the statement of Comrade Lipsitz at his trial before the CSEA/AFSCME bureaucracy's Region VI trial board on January 3, 1980. This statement, which was distributed among the Roswell Park workers, shows how Comrade Lipsitz has been fighting against the attacks of the labor bureaucracy. He has resolutely avoided both the opportunist line of hiding his revolutionary convictions for the sake of union position and the sectarian line of diverting the issue to ideology in the abstract. Instead, Comrade Lipsitz has persisted in the principled Marxist- Leninist position of using the fight over the union presidency to keep the issue of mass active resistance in the forefront.

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From the Statement of Richard Lipsitz Before the Trial Board of CSEA/AFSCME, Region VI

I.

A. There is abundant evidence to uphold my contention that it is specifically the politics of mass active resistance which have come under attack by the labor bureaucracy, the most recent attack being this trial itself. That is, that the charges brought against me, while they do not seek to openly clarify the real target of their attack, are in fact directed against the line of mass active resistance in defense of the basic interests of the workers. The fact is that these are the politics that I have represented among the Roswell Park workers for a number of years and throughout the course of my election campaign, my service as president of Local 303 of CSEA and indeed at the Executive Board meeting of November 20, 1979, where the decision for my suspension was taken.

1. In the actual struggles of the workers at Roswell Park in defense of their own basic interests against the anti-worker attacks of the administration and the state, I have consistently stood on the side of the workers and advocated the path of mass active resistance. In the past number of years, the Roswell Park workers have sought to develop a real fight against the brutal effects of the "cost containment" program and Carey's program of "retrenchment". These programs have resulted in wage freezes (which in the face of rampaging inflation are actually cuts in the real wages of the workers), increasing workloads to the extreme, job eliminations and an increase in the fascist rules and regulations imposed upon the workers to enforce labor discipline and block the development of any resistance. And this is just a simple list of the most notorious and vicious effects of the "cost containment" and "retrenchment" programs upon the workers. I have consistently sought to clarify to the workers who are fighting and who want to fight against these attacks what the source of the attacks are, who the target of the struggle must be and in whose hands the solution of the problems lies, in order to assist the workers in developing the struggle. It has been the politics for mass active resistance which have provided the answers to these vital questions; that have clarified that it is the "cost containment" and "retrenchment" programs of the state being implemented to the letter by the Roswell Park administration which are the source of the deteriorating living standards and working conditions of the workers, that an irreconcilable stand must be taken against the state and the administration if these attacks are to be effectively opposed and that in developing the struggle the masses of workers must rely on their own efforts, their own strength and not place their fate in the hands of the "conscience" or "good faith" of the enemy, nor in the hands of any so-called "savior". These are the essential issues in the line of mass active resistance, and anyone who has known me at Roswell Park knows that this is the stand that I have taken for a number of years there.

2. It is because I took this stand consistently and over a long period of time and because this stand was recognized by the workers as an important contribution to the defense of their basic interests that I was called upon by the workers to run for the office of president of Local 303 of the CSEA at Roswell Park. During the course of my election campaign, I continued to uphold the same politics that I had for the number of years previous and I hid this fact from no one. The basic slogan of my campaign was: MASS ACTIVE RESISTANCE IS THE WAY TO DEFEND THE WORKERS' BASIC INTERESTS!...there can be no doubt that the victory won in not just one, but two elections conducted among the workers was a victory for these politics, an endorsement of the line of mass active resistance by the workers who have deep sentiment to fight in defense of their basic interests....

3. After being elected as president of Local 303 of the CSEA by the workers at Roswell Park, I considered it my most elementary duty to uphold the line which I had run on in the campaign which preceded my election.... Through the existing trade union forms, in the board meetings, membership meetings, committees, etc., I sought to carry out this important work. As well, I fought for new measures to be taken, for new forms to be utilized, to enhance our ability to provide this vital assistance to the workers' struggles at Roswell Park. New forms which not only would provide a means to take this analysis to the workers but would serve as tools for organizing the mass active resistance struggle of the workers. Some important measures which I advocated and which were developed along these lines were the publication of the President's Newsletter and the formation of a shop stewards system as part of the grievance committee. Though my active service in the office of president was very brief, only seven weeks, it is clear that the policy I continued to represent, not only in words but in concrete deeds, was the policy of mass active resistance.

3. ...The "political beliefs" which the charges against me contend are in violation of the bureaucracy of the CSEA, are not some vague mystery: they are precisely the politics of mass active resistance. It was for standing resolutely in defense of the interests of the workers, for advocating mass active resistance to the vicious anti-worker attacks of our enemies that I was suspended from the office of president of Local 303 of the CSEA.

B. ...Why has the CSEA/AFSCME bureaucracy seen fit to attack and try by every means to eliminate these politics from the union? The answer to this question is simply this: the labor bureaucracy represents politics of its own and attempts to use the trade union apparatus to impose these politics on the workers, politics which are in irreconcilable opposition to the politics of mass active resistance to the anti-worker attacks of the administration and the state. The politics of class collaboration which the labor bureaucracy represents actually assist the administration and the state in carrying out these anti-worker attacks....It is in defense of these politics, in defense of the state and the administration, in defense of the bureaucracy itself, as specifically noted in the charges against me, that the politics of mass active resistance are being attacked and put on "trial" here tonight.

(The statement goes on to point out how for many years the CSEA/ AFSCME bureaucracy has sabotaged the struggles of the workers, supported President Carter's "cost containment" program and New York governor Carey's "retrenchment'' program, and in the 1979 contract imposed on the workers the vicious "Performance Evaluation System''. The bureaucracy actually ran a candidate in Local 303's presidential election under the slogan of "END YOUR RESISTANCE". After the election the bureaucracy consistently opposed mass active resistance, opposed the President's Newsletter and the shop stewards committee, launched an unsuccessful petition campaign to censure Comrade Lipsitz, started a vile rumor campaign in an unsuccessful attempt to create an anticommunist, racist and chauvinist hysteria, and finally, at the November 20, 1979 executive board meeting, suspended Comrade Lipsitz from the presidency.) The statement continues: The bureaucracy has suspended me from office and has now brought me to trial because I have remained loyal to these politics (of mass active resistance) and declared that under no circumstances would I betray the basic interests of the workers, and in doing so it has exposed where its own loyalty lies: with the administration and the state and in irreconcilable opposition to mass active resistance in defense of the basic interests of the workers.

II.

There is a second contention which I have made, which commanded a great deal of attention from my opponents at the November 20 board meeting where I was suspended and which is inseparable from the issues of principle involved in this trial. This is the issue of party affiliation, of party loyalty....

A. It is a fact that the politics that I have stood up for among the Roswell Park workers are the politics of a definite party. They are the politics of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA, the politics represented for years at Roswell Park by the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists and by the newspapers The Workers' Advocate and the Buffalo Workers' Voice, which are organs of this Party. Of course I support the line of the Marxist-Leninist Party and this has been no secret. Anyone with the interests of the workers at heart and who reads The Workers' Advocate or the Buffalo Workers' Voice can see that it is the Party that is the most consistent defender of the interests of the workers. (The statement goes on to point out that it was the Marxist-Leninists who provided analysis of the Carter government's "cost containment" program and the other attacks being launched against the workers; that called on the workers to actively resist these attacks; that stood shoulder to shoulder with the dietary workers in their struggle against unsafe working conditions, the maintenance workers in the struggle against harassment and spying, the housekeeping workers in the struggle against fascist rules and regulations, and the workers in laundry, nursing and other departments in the struggles against overwork and the absenteeism crackdown. At the same time the Marxist-Leninists have provided revolutionary orientation and mobilized the workers against the parties of the rich, against Carter's warmongering campaigns against Iran, in support of socialist Albania and on all of the major questions of concern to the working class.)

B. The issue of my party loyalty has been raised by the labor bureaucracy not because they are opposed to party affiliation. It has been raised because the labor bureaucracy also has loyalty to a definite political party. The "cost containment" and "retrenchment" attacks which the labor bureaucracy has assisted the state in imposing upon the workers through their class collaborationist trade union policy are the programs of the Democratic Party, the party of Carey and Carter.... The CSEA/AFSCME bureaucracy never fails at election time to advocate voting for the candidates of the parties of the rich and to bring this into the union and in fact to impose all sorts of political endorsements of this sort upon the workers. The CSEA/AFSCME bureaucracy has endorsed Carter's wage-cutting guidelines and actively participates in their enforcement through their participation in Carter's Nixonite fascist pay board. Representatives of the labor bureaucracy have actively organized at Roswell Park to whip up warmongering, chauvinist hysteria against the Iranian people. I could go on and on, citing the crimes of the Democratic Party and how the labor bureaucracy has upheld them among the workers and attempted to impose them on the workers through the official trade union bureaucracy. In the November 20 board meeting, some of my opponents even offered unsolicited confessions of their long years of service and loyalty to the Democratic Party, the ruling party of the rich. The labor bureaucracy seeks to tie the workers through the trade union apparatus to the Democratic Party in order to prevent the workers from developing their struggle for improvement of their basic conditions of life, for freedom and emancipation, independent of and against the rich. The labor bureaucracy seeks to maintain a monopoly for the politics of the rich inside the trade union. This is the reason their attacks have been spearheaded especially against the party of the working class, the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA.

III.

(The statement points out how the CSEA/AFSCME bureaucrats had taken every measure to keep these issues away from the workers, illegally overturning the elections, not holding union meetings, and even when the workers forced the bureaucrats to hold a meeting, not allowing the workers to have their say in defense of Comrade Lipsitz.) The statement concludes: Today, having declared it illegal for the workers to even speak out in the official trade union channels, the labor bureaucracy has retreated to the safety of these channels with the intention of finishing the dirty business they began long ago. Behind closed doors, away from the eyes and ears of the workers, this kangaroo court has been organized to put me on "trial". No one is going to be fooled that the labor bureaucracy's kangaroo court will provide real justice. The labor bureaucracy can declare active resistance illegal. It can declare it illegal to oppose the politics of the rich and support revolutionary working class politics. It can declare it illegal for the workers even to speak in union meetings. In fact, such declarations will not be anything new -- in effect, this has been the case for many years and decades. But trials and legal declarations cannot force the workers to abandon the struggle for their genuine interests and they cannot force the workers to give up what is correct. They have no real power over the workers. The judgement that has real power and meaning is the judgement of the masses of workers themselves. No matter what legal measures may be taken against me, against the line and trend for mass active resistance here tonight, the trend among the workers to fight their enemies will not be wiped out. It is based on the deepest sentiments of the masses of the workers to defend their basic interests, and history, life and the future are on its side.

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A vigorous meeting in support of the Iranian revolution

The war-mongering anti-Iranian campaign the U.S. imperialists suffered a sous blow on February 9 when an overflow crowd of nearly 300 people participated in a meeting in New York City to support the Iranian revolution against U.S. imperialism. This meeting was organized by the Federation of Iranian Students in the U.S. It was attended by progressive Iranian students, as well as by many workers, other students and progressive elements. The New York Metro Branch of the MLP,USA also addressed this meeting. This important event manifested the determination of the Iranian people to persevere in their just struggle the support of the American working class for the Iranian revolution, and the opposition of both the Iranian id American peoples to the war-mongering of the U.S. imperialists.

The meeting took place in a vigorous, revolutionary and optimistic atmosphere. The meeting smashed through the sinister fabrications of the U.S. imperialist spokesmen and news media that the overthrow of the Shah through the Iranian revolution has been s "step backwards into medieval darkness" and that the U.S. imperialists are the "great defenders of Iranian independence" since the brutal Soviet social-imperialist invasion of Afghanistan. All the speakers and participants hailed the great victories which have been achieved in the revolutionary struggles which led to the overthrow of the barbaric regime of the Shah, and denounced the warmongering efforts being made by the U.S. imperialists to restore their neo-colonial privileges and full domination of Iran.

The meeting also exposed the well-orchestrated fraud that the American working class and people are engulfed in a ''wave of American patriotism" and ''backlash". The successful holding of this meeting, as well as the extremely warm response in the working class, among the students and in the communities to the revolutionary agitation of the MLP in the New York area on the question of the Iranian revolution and the U.S. imperialists' war preparations, prove conclusively that the so-called ''American backlash" and ''wave of American patriotism" are to be found not in the factories, not in the communities, not on the campuses--but on Wall Street and in the State Department itself.

As further proof of the progressive stand of the American people, many of the participants came to the meeting directly from a demonstration of 4,000 people which denounced the U.S. imperialists' and ''peacenik" Carter's plans to reintroduce the registration of youth for the draft as part of their criminal war preparations. The New York Metro Branch of the MLP, USA also participated in this demonstration against the draft behind a red banner calling on the American people to FIGHT U.S. IMPERIALISM'S WAR PREPARATIONS, while also distributing thousands of leaflets against the draft plus leaflets calling on the demonstrators to participate in the meeting in support of the Iranian revolution.

The meeting thus took place under the conditions of the feverish war preparations of the U.S. imperialists against the Iranian revolution in particular, and under the conditions of the rapid development of the struggles of the American working class and people against imperialist war preparations.

At the meeting, a comrade of FISUS delivered an important speech which traced in detail the history of imperialist interventions against Iran and the betrayals of the internal reactionary forces to imperialism. The speaker also elaborated on the long history of struggles which the Iranian people-- first and foremost the Iranian working class--have waged and continue to wage today for genuine independence, freedom and democracy.

The speech of the MLP,USA voiced clear-cut support for the Iranian revolution and the just demands of the Iranian people for the return of the Shah for punishment, along with the billions of dollars he plundered from the Iranian people. The speech of the MLP also clarified the nature of the imperialist war preparations being rapidly intensified by Carter today, and the stand of the American working class in opposition to the warmongering and chauvinist hysteria being whipped up by the rich. This speech was extremely well received, as was the first public singing in the New York area of the song, ''The Marxist-Leninist Party Is Born".

Representatives of the Turkish Students Association and the Caribbean Progressive Study Group then presented solidarity messages and songs to the meeting which hailed the victories of the Iranian revolution and its lessons for the people of the world. Additional highlights of the meeting included a narrated slide show and films showing the development of the revolutionary struggles of the Iranian people for genuine freedom and independence. The meeting concluded with the singing of "The Internationale".

So invigorated were the participants at this meeting that informal discussion on its significance and on the situation in Iran and in the U.S. continued through the early hours of the morning. The deep internationalist solidarity of this meeting and the common bonds between the American working class and the Iranian revolution which face a common enemy, are certain to lead to even greater defeats to the anti-Iranian and warmongering activities of the U.S. imperialists in the future.

[Photo.]

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The Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA Firmly Supports the Iranian People

SPEECH OF THE NEW YORK METRO BRANCH OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY, USA AT THE MEETING ORGANIZED BY FISUS

February 9,1980

Comrades and friends,

It is with great pleasure that I address tonight's meeting on behalf of the New York Metro Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA.

One year ago, the Iranian working class, peasantry and youth came onto the barricades and in a powerful insurrection overthrew the tyrannical monarchy of the Shah. This revolution was a major catastrophe for world imperialism and deal a stunning blow to U.S. imperialism particular. Today, to recoup their loses, the imperialists are plotting day and night to restore their neo-colonial privileges and full domination over the Iranian people.

Tonight's meeting takes place under the conditions of the feverish warmongering of the U.S. imperialists, who are preparing to launch military aggression against the Iranian revolution and people.

It takes place under the conditions of the firm and courageous stand of the Iranian people against U.S. imperialism, Carter and the Shah, and the perseverance of the Iranian people in their struggles for genuine independence and freedom.

And it takes place under the conditions of the rapid development of the struggles of the American working class and people against imperialist war preparations.

Tonight's meeting, which has been organized by the Federation of Iranian Students in the U.S., is attended by progressive Iranian students, as well as by many workers, other students and other progressive elements. This meeting manifests the determination of the Iranian people to persevere in their just struggle, it manifests the support of the American working class for the Iranian revolution, and it manifests the common opposition of both to the warmongering of the U.S. imperialists. Therefore, this meeting has profound significance for both the Iranian revolution and the anti-imperialist movement in this country. We are very glad to be participating in it and to take his opportunity to present the stance of the American proletariat.

Comrades and friends, a minor feature of the Iranian revolution,which may be noted by history is the profound development which it has engineered in the field of fiction writing. For the writers of presidential speeches, for the authors of State Department press releases, for the editors of the capitalists newspapers, this has been the occasion for the most extravagant flights of fancy since the end of the war in Viet Nam. The defeat of U.S. imperialism at the hands of the Vietnamese people put a temporary end to the need to explain in new and original ways how 50,000 U.S. troops had been "invited" in by the Vietnamese people themselves in order to raze the land, burn the crops, kill and maim the population to ''defend against foreign invasion". This was no small trick when the only foreign invaders to be found were 500,000 American troops. Explaining away imperialist aggression and popular revolution is a highly developed skill among imperialist propagandists and on the question of Iran they have worked feverishly to demonstrate their talents.

According to the literati of U.S. imperialism, the basis of everything progressive in Iranian society, the source of all social development, the very soul of enlightenment, resided in the person of Shah Reza Pahlavi. And now the Iranian people, who, it is alleged, cling to everything backward and medieval, have ungratefully thrown him out. According to the imperialist propagandists, the workers fought for the supremacy of the Mullahs, the women fought to remain veiled in the Chadar, the youth fought because they did not want education, and the peasants supported them because they did not want land. So say the U.S. imperialists, "champions of enlightenment and social progress".

The Shah, on the other hand, is a tragic figure, a prophet without honor in his own land, a "man of enlightenment", too far-seeing to be accepted by his own people, to whom he devoted his life. Jimmy Carter, the leader of this imperialist chorus, only weeks before the Shah's overthrow praised him as a very apostle of human rights. But so ungrateful were the Iranian people that they threw the Shah out, even when he had cancer. So say the U.S. imperialists, champions of human rights.

And, if you ask the imperialists, there is a final measure of the "backwardness" of the Iranian people. This is, that to this very day, the masses of the Iranian people, in their hundreds of thousands, have been marching through the streets of Teheran. And they are shouting: Death to the Shah, Death to U.S. imperialism. And so say the Iranian working class and people, who are the very basis of everything progressive in Iranian society, of every struggle against imperialism and reaction.

Comrades and friends, the Iranian revolution has been a major catastrophe for world imperialism. It has dealt a stunning blow to U.S. imperialism in particular. We firmly and unreservedly support the Iranian revolution.

Comrades and friends, when the Shah ran for his life, it was U.S. imperialism which gathered him to its bosom like a mother her child. U.S. imperialism has shown the most touching solicitude for the well-being of the Shah. The immigration policies of the rich are such that when Haitian refugees brave the seas in small sailboats to escape the fascist regime in their country, they are arrested upon arrival in Florida and turned over to the tender mercies of Baby Doc, the little Hitler of Haiti. But when the Shah fled in a jet airplane from the wrath of the Iranian people, he was brought to New York. This the rich called "humanitarianism". Perhaps they thought it inhumane to keep him separated from his $12 billion deposit in Chase Manhattan Bank.

When it became necessary for the U.S. imperialists to maneuver, to block the demand for the extradition of the Shah, the imperialists relocated him to Panama, to a country where the U.S. has maintained a military occupation for the better part of a century. This we are supposed to believe is "neutral" ground.

It is the U.S. imperialists who are in reality harboring the Shah. It is the U.S. imperialist government which must send the Shah back to Iran to face the punishment he deserves. And with him also they must return the billions of dollars of stolen wealth that the Shah plundered from the Iranian working masses, which is to be found, not on an island off the coast of Panama, but in the vaults of the Chase Manhattan Bank.

Comrades and friends, we firmly support the just demands of the Iranian people against U.S. imperialism.

In 1953, through a CIA-organized coup d'etat, the U.S. imperialists restored the Shah to the throne after he had fled Iran in the face of the people's struggles. For 26 years U.S. imperialism financed and armed his regime, supporting it right up to the end. The policy of U.S. imperialism today, its opposition to the Iranian revolution, its warmongering, its harboring of the Shah, is a direct continuation of its policy in 1953.

What was this regime of "enlightenment and progress" which U.S. imperialism visited upon the Iranian people in 1953? For the freedom-loving Iranian people, the regime of the Shah meant decades of the most barbaric and medieval oppression. It meant dungeons, torture and mass execution for hundreds of thousands of the finest sons and daughters of the Iranian people.

To what end did the U.S. imperialist government restore the Shah to the throne, finance his fascist regime and arm it to the teeth? To facilitate the unrestrained pillage and plunder of the Iranian working class and people by the U.S. imperialist oil corporations and Wall Street financiers, by the Rockefellers and other billionaires. As well, to use this fascist regime as a savage policeman and strategic base for U.S. imperialism's interests in the entire oil-rich Persian Gulf region. To what end does the U.S. imperialist government harbor the Shah today? To blackmail and threaten the Iranian people. The significance of Iran as a strategic base and a supplier of oil is such that the U.S. imperialists will stop at nothing in their efforts to re-impose their slavery over the Iranian people. U.S. imperialism has not and cannot be reconciled to the defeats it has suffered at the hands of the Iranian revolution.

Today, to recoup their losses, the U.S. imperialists are plotting night and day to realize the restoration of their neo-colonial privileges and to restore full domination over the Iranian people. The Carter government is striving to put down the Iranian revolution, to crush it with the darkest reaction. Toward this end the U.S. imperialists are engaging in intrigues and maneuvers, speculating on the Shah and Bakhtiar in exile and on various forces within Iran, including both the former henchmen of the Shah, who remain at large and even today hold important positions in the army and bureaucracy, and the Khomeini government itself.

The Khomeini government, which came to power on the crest of the tidal wave of the revolutionary uprising of the working class and people against the Shah, has proven itself more than willing to accommodate the U.S. and other imperialists against the interests of the Iranian masses. In fact, since usurping power, the Khomeini government has increasingly come out into open conflict with the interests of the broad masses of the Iranian people.

Hence, the revolutionary overthrow of the monarchy of the Shah, which was an enormous victory and an earth- shaking historic advance in the Iranian people's liberation struggle, did not mark the end of this struggle. The working class and the other toilers and the youth, rallying their forces under the banner of the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran, are carrying forward the revolutionary struggle for genuine freedom and independence. The Iranian revolution still faces the task of destroying all the positions of foreign imperialism including U.S. imperialism and realizing genuine independence and democracy for the people. And it is against this struggle, to put down this revolution, that U.S. imperialism's warmongering activities against the Iranian revolution are being stepped up with every passing day. In preparation for "punitive military action" and the "retaliation" bombing of Iran, Carter has dispatched to the Arabian Sea one of the biggest naval flotillas assembled since World War II. With this flotilla of over 22 warships are the aircraft carriers Midway, Kitty Hawk, and the Nimitz. The Pentagon has also dispatched emissaries to a number of capitals in the Persian Gulf region -- to Oman, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Kenya and elsewhere -- to negotiate the use of military bases for the launching of possible military operations against Iran. The U.S. Air Force has already begun maneuvers from Egyptian bases for this purpose.

The aggressive saber-rattling and growing pressure which U.S. imperialism is exerting on Iran is taking place along with the sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry in the region. The two superpowers, US. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, as well as Chinese social-imperialism, have become engaged in a dangerous conflict for spheres of domination in the Middle East.

Despite the sharp antagonisms among themselves, all the big imperialist powers, and in the first place the U.S., the Soviet Union and China, remain savage counter-revolutionaries and therefore remain united in their opposition to the Iranian people's revolution.

Comrades and friends, several weeks ago Afghanistan was brutally invaded by Soviet social-imperialist troops and tanks. The Soviet social-imperialists invited themselves into Afghanistan in the same fashion that the U.S. imperialists were "invited" into Viet Nam 20 years earlier. In the time since, Carter and the State Department have been hypocritically posturing on the question of Afghanistan. On January 23, in his State of the Union Address, Carter unveiled the essence of the U.S. criticism of this brutal aggression -- that it "poses a grave threat to the free movement of Middle East oil."

Carter then went on to proclaim his doctrine on the Persian Gulf. He said: "An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America. And such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."

This is a naked declaration of the bellicosity of U.S. imperialism. And on the basis of that bellicosity -- to secure its sphere of influence, to maintain its strategic bases, to safeguard the super-profits of the oil billionaires, in a word, to defend imperialist domination and plunder -- U.S. imperialism is prepared to threaten war on a regional or even world scale. This is the stand of U.S. imperialism, this is the doctrine of the "peacenik" Carter.

Comrades and friends, when Carter proclaims the Persian Gulf region as the sphere of influence of U.S. imperialism, he is not simply or even mainly drawing lines with the Soviet Union. What is the force which has "assaulted the vital interests" of U.S. imperialism in the Persian Gulf region? In the first place it is the people of Iran, who have fought with courage and determination, and at the greatest sacrifice, and who continue to fight today, to be free of enslavement to U.S. imperialism. When Carter proclaims the Persian Gulf region as the sphere of influence of U.S. imperialism, it is a criminal provocation first and foremost against the people of Iran.

Carter makes much of the fact that there are now Soviet forces 300 miles from the Strait of Hormuz, the gateway to the oil-rich Persian Gulf. But we cannot speak of the Strait of Hormuz without noting that directly off the Strait, and not 300 miles away, lies a massive flotilla, and that there are in fact very few Russian army men aboard the Midway, the Kitty Hawk, the Nimitz or the 20 other warships assembled there, nor are there many Russians in the American jets constantly overhead, nor among the rapid deployment force which, the U.S. military General Staff has announced, can reach Iran in 12 hours and be fully assembled within a matter of days. Today U.S. imperialism is trying to posture as the protector of Iranian independence from the Russian threat. But U.S. imperialism remains a warmongering and barbaric enemy of the Iranian people which is surrounding Iran with military forces and is engaging in saber-rattling, provocations and blackmail, and is plotting to reimpose its slavery on the Iranian people. No amount of hypocritical posturing by Carter can change this fact. We firmly oppose the warmongering of the U.S. imperialists!

Comrades and friends, to serve U.S. imperialism's crusade for the re-enslavement of Iran, the Carter administration has mounted an enormous propaganda campaign to whip up national chauvinism and war hysteria against the Iranian people. While carrying this propaganda night and day, the authorities have also attempted to organize a so-called "American backlash" in support of U.S. imperialism.

Our Party has conducted extensive work in support of the Iranian people and against the U.S. imperialist government. During the past several weeks in the New York area alone about 50,000 pieces of literature have been distributed on this question. If the American people were united behind the chauvinist campaign of the government, this work would have been impossible: the workers would have chased us away from the factory gates, the people in the communities would have chased us off of the streets and the students from the campuses. In fact, this work has everywhere met with the warmest response from the masses. The so-called "wave of American patriotism" which the government has attempted to organize has fallen flat on its face.

Two months ago Rosalynn Carter and Vice Peacenik Mondale came to Harlem to speak on behalf of the Carter administration. And when they did so they were met by an audience which raised just demands, and one of these demands was for the return of the Shah to Iran. Rosalynn Carter and Fritz Mondale did not speak in Harlem; they were shouted down by their audience and had to slink away with their tails between their legs. And since that time Jimmy Carter has discovered that he is too busy to set foot out of Washington, DC. This, comrades and friends, is how firmly the campaign of national chauvinism has gripped the American people.

In his State of the Union Address on January 23, Carter announced the program of the rich for war preparation, in particular, for registering the youth and reestablishing the Selective Service System. In the two weeks since, there have been anti-draft demonstrations and meetings on hundreds of campuses and in dozens of cities across the country. This, comrades and friends, is how firmly the war hysteria has gripped the American people.

In the New York metropolitan area there has been only one anti-Iran demonstration of any size, and that demonstration was organized at lunch hour on Wall Street. This, comrades and friends, is where the so-called "American backlash", the so-called "wave of American patriotism" is to be found. Not in the factories, not in the communities, not on the campuses, but on Wall Street.

The capitalist newspapers have themselves revealed how the Shah was brought to New York. David Rockefeller made a telephone call to Kissinger, Kissinger made a telephone call to Brzezinski, and it was done. This is how, and by whom, the affairs of state are conducted in this country. And this is in whose interests the Shah is harbored, the Iranian revolution plotted against, and war prepared. It is in the interests of the Rockefellers, the oil billionaires and Wall Street financiers, and not the working class and people. And it is the rich who flaunt their "patriotism" and their "backlash" against the Iranian revolution, while it is the working class and people who flaunt their support for the Iranian revolution and opposition to the rich and their warmongering chauvinism.

Especially during this most recent period, the rich have carried extensive public relations work to persuade the American working class and people to become supporters of U.S. imperialism. In particular, they have worked feverishly to make people forget about the war in Viet Nam and the years of struggle against that war, to forget the mass demonstrations, the national student strike, the rebellions within the armed forces, and the struggles against the large-scale repression which accompanied that war. It is this experience that the rich want to eradicate. It is for this reason that, except for pro-imperialist films like The Deerhunter and Apocalypse Now, they have maintained a ghostly silence on this history. It is for this reason that whenever any mouthpiece of the rich, be it Carter or any other, presents the question of history, there is a 10 year gap, something like Nixon's 18 minute Watergate tape gap, but on a much grander scale, and not so easy to erase.

When Carter speaks of not registration age during the Viet Nam war, it is not the case that the imperialists have suddenly developed a sense of "fair play". It is because the rich are afraid of the vast experience gained by the working class and people in that struggle and want to concentrate on younger people who, they hope, are too young to remember this struggle and draw upon the experience of it. It is this which the White House has in mind when it says of the 18 to 20 year olds, that "they are more easily trainable".

But the rich are going to find that it is not quite so easy as this. Earlier today in New York there was a demonstration against the draft in which 5,000 people participated. And the ranks of this demonstration were not composed solely of the "over-the- hill", the "untrainable" 25 and 30 year olds. There were also quite a number of 18,19 and 20 year olds, who are already getting their first training -- in the ranks of the mass movement against imperialist war preparations. And as the struggle develops the rich will get to see just how quickly the youth can learn.

Comrades and friends, the working class and people in the United States have profound sentiment against imperialist war. This sentiment is clearly manifested today in the failure of the war hysteria campaign and in the development of a movement against imperialist war preparations. If the imperialists do launch a war it will necessarily be an unjust war, a predatory war, a war in the interests of the rich and against that of the working class. It will undoubtedly be accompanied by large-scale repression, the basis for which is being laid today in the all-round fascization of the society. It will mean hardship and suffering for the working class, for the youth, for the oppressed nationalities, and others. But no matter how difficult the conditions, how severe the repression, it is certain also to be met with the furious opposition of the working class and of other progressive elements.

The Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA, the party of the proletariat, firmly supports the Iranian people in their struggles against U.S. imperialism and to carry forward the revolution to the achievement of genuine freedom and independence. We declare our militant solidarity with the revolutionary forces in Iran, at whose head stands the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party. Our Party fights against the warmongering of the imperialist government and to advance the mass movement against imperialist war preparations. We do not forget that the anti-imperialist struggle is a powerful force for the socialist revolution, which alone can put an end to the warmongering of the U.S. imperialists by overthrowing the capitalist exploiters and burying U.S. imperialism once and for all time.

SUPPORT THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION AGAINST U.S. IMPERIALISM!

DOWN WITH THE IMPERIALIST WAR PREPARATIONS!

WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!

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THE FUNDING CRISIS OF THE CHICAGO SCHOOLS IS CAUSED BY THE PLUNDER OF THE BANKS

Over the last several months the public employees in Chicago have waged major strikes against the assaults on their livelihood by the Democratic administration of Mayor Jane Byrne. Both the Chicago Transit Authority workers who went out on strike last fall and the city firemen who are presently on strike, have had to defy the most arrogant attempts to suppress them through threats of wholesale firings and court injunctions. In recent months, with the fiscal crisis plaguing the Chicago school system, the school teachers and other employees of the Board of Education have been under sharp attacks to the point of attempts to force them to work weeks on end without any pay whatsoever. In response, the teachers carried out a two week strike from January 28 to February 11. Below we reprint from a leaflet issued by the Chicago Branch of the MLP, USA on February 2 in support of the teachers' struggle which was distributed among the working people of Chicago:

Presently the 25,355 teachers of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) are waging a vigorous mass struggle against the dictate of the big banks and bond houses along with the combined forces of the government who are imposing massive budget cuts on the Chicago school system. The finance capitalists, through the school finance authority, dictated that $60 million be cut from the budget by February 1 and another $106 million by September 1.

For the masses of people these budget cuts mean wholesale firing of teachers, cafeteria workers, office workers and maintenance personnel; the closing of many facilities; the wholesale expulsion of students from both basic and special programs by cutting back and eliminating many of these programs; and the reduction of supplies and services. The Chicago schools are already grossly under-staffed, classrooms are overcrowded and facilities are in decay. Nevertheless, the rich are ordering this further devastation of the educational system for half a million children of the working class and people for the sole purpose of guaranteeing the interest payments and fat profits for a handful of rich bankers.

This vicious attack on the people was organized at the "historic summit conference" held over the first week of January. Illinois Governor Thompson, Chicago Mayor Byrne, the Chicago banks, the state and local boards of education and top union bureaucrats all came to agreement in this solution to the school crisis: massive cutbacks and maximum sacrifice by the working masses in order to ensure the uninterrupted flow of interest payments to the banks and bond houses.

In this situation, the mass protests of the Chicago teachers in demand of the back wages denied to them and their desire to strike against the budget cuts and the attempts of the Board of Education to reopen their contract are entirely just. This struggle has the full support of the masses of people who have kept their children out of school in support of the teachers.

The bourgeoisie has been developing a campaign of demagogy through their news media that everyone must "pull together" for our "common interests" to "save the schools". That is, the teachers and other school employees should accept their fate and submit quietly to this further deterioration of the schools and assault on their livelihood; that the masses should passively accept being bled white by the tax increases which are being hatched in the talkshop legislature as their "duty", their bit towards "saving the schools". They insist that to save the schools" $60 million in cuts has to be accepted. And to pay the $70 million in back-pay owed the teachers on February 1 and cover other expenses, the Board had to go deeper in debt with a $206.8 million loan. If Illinois state aid revenues don't cover the loan principal and interest, the City Council must raise taxes to make the payments. This is the capitalist solution allegedly in the "common interest".

Moreover, the rich moneybags are trying to submerge the just resistance of the teachers and working masses to the cuts in bickering and squabbling over "who will be cut?", "What programs will be thrown out?", "What facilities should be shut down?", and so on. In other words to mobilize the people behind the program of cutbacks being imposed by the rich. This is to smash up the mass struggle of the teachers and to divert the outrage of the masses away from the true culprit, the rich, and to cover over the origin and nature of the school funding crisis.

The present crisis is actually a direct result of the finance capitalists' program of funneling maximum profits into their pockets through the Chicago school system at the expense of the working class and people of Chicago. Up to 1979 the local share of the school budget was to be raised from personal property tax and the corporate property tax (a tax on equipment and furnishings of businesses). However, the government barely collected 42% of the corporate tax for the last four years. The fact that these monies from the corporations weren't even collected contributed to a continual deficit in the schools' finances. To cover this deficit the school system carried out juggling of funds and selling of bonds to the banks on the speculative market at high interest rates. In 1979 the corporate property tax was abolished outright and no replacement for it was found. So it is easy to see how year after year the Chicago public school system has become increasingly indebted to the finance capitals.

This policy of tax loop-holes and other handouts to the corporations has correspondingly led to the massive borrowing from the banks astronomical interest rates. This has amounted to manna from heaven for the banks at the expense of the fiscal rate of the school system. And it if the refusal of the financial magnates to grant more loans to the school system which has precipitated the present crisis.

This crisis comes up in the context of the deep economic and financial crisis of the U.S. monopoly capitalist system. The economic crisis has extended to the fiscal affairs of the of city governments. In their efforts to shift the entire burden of such fiscal cases onto the working masses the local governments carry out savage wage- cutting, mass firings and other attacks against the public sector workers. At the same time they cut back basic services for the people such as education, transportation, etc. And all the solutions of the local governments have the objective of stabilizing their finances in order to continue to pay out millions in interest on the debts to the big banks. The "solutions" of the rich are no solution at all.

No to the budget cuts! No to the renegotiation of the school employees' contracts! No to more taxes against the working masses! Make the rich pay to "save the schools"!

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The people of Oakland are outraged at the racist police murders of the Afro-American people!

(The following article is taken from a statement of the San Francisco Bay Area Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA, January 20, 1980.)

On January 6, 1980, yet another black man, James Bell, was viciously shot to death by the uniformed fascists of the Oakland Police Department. This latest police murder of an Afro- American is the ninth in recent months and follows closely on the heels of the well-known police murders of Charles Briscoe and Talmadge Curtis. Witnesses to the shooting of James Bell, including his wife, have vigorously denied the police lies that James "pointed a rifle" at the police and therefore brought upon himself this fascist execution. Of course, this is the same tired story which the police and their spokesmen like the Oakland Tribune always drag out to blame the victims and to cover up the cold-blooded crimes of the police. For example, when 15-year-old Melvin Black was shot thirteen times, the fascists' excuse was that Melvin "pointed a gun" at them. The same lies were heard again after Oakland police gunned down local machinist Charles Briscoe. The naked truth is that the Oakland Police Department (OPD) murdered these and the other six men in cold blood and in the "line of duty"--for it is the duty of these gun thugs of the rich to "lawfully" escalate the racist and fascist attacks on the black people.

These murders are so blatant that even Mayor Lionel Wilson, traitor to the black people and political servant of the rich who just a few months ago was openly boasting that the OPD is the "best in the nation" and a "source of civic pride", is now backtracking and maneuvering to pose as a "friend" of the people. In doing so Wilson is trying to hide his close association with the police and his own involvement in carrying out the policy of escalating fascist attacks on the black people. But neither crocodile tears nor sweet talk can blur the truth that the police, courts, jails and functionaries of the state like Mayor Wilson himself, all serve the anti-people program of the rich in this country-- the program of starvation, fascism and war.

In response to these naked murders, the outraged people of Oakland are openly denouncing the OPD in the factories, schools, communities and elsewhere, and are demanding that the police be made to pay for their vicious crimes. On September 25, over six hundred workers attended an Oakland City Council meeting to demonstrate their anger over the police murder of Charles Briscoe. More recently on January 9, over 1500 people transformed the Council meeting held in the Oakland Auditorium into a mass denunciation of the Police Department. This meeting had been organized by the City Council to "debate" the pros and cons of a so-called "Police Review Board". However, even when Mayor Wilson threatened to end the meeting early unless the people sit and quietly listen to the "debate", the masses of people continued to denounce the police. They shouted down and cursed one of the known fascists-in-uniform as well as a couple of police-organized scabs trying to glorify the crimes of the police. Neither did the mouthpiece of the rich and the police, the Oakland Tribune, escape the just wrath of the people.

This deep hatred of the people for the OPD and their desire to hold the police accountable for their cold-blooded crimes have definitely shaken the police and their bosses--the monopoly capitalist class and all its political flunkies. The Police Chief is so worried that, along with demanding more police, he keeps chanting that "there is no rift between the people and the police"--as if this might come true if he repeats it enough. But on November 25, chief political flunkey Lionel Wilson blurted out the real fears of the rich--"that the people might take matters into their own hands and retaliate against the police." With this, Mayor Wilson demonstrated where his real concerns lie--with the Oakland Police Department and against the growing resistance of the masses to the fascism of the rich.

In this situation, where the masses of the people are going beyond the restrictions of the government and politicians of the rich, all sorts of bootlickers, political flunkies, poverty pimps and scummy opportunists have been activated to bring the people "back into line", to save this rotten capitalist system and its police, and to allow the fascist attacks against the black people to escalate without opposition. To stop the people from taking things into their own hands by organizing active resistance to the growing fascism, these lackies have floated all sorts of belly-crawling schemes. Their desire is to handcuff the masses in the face of escalating fascist attacks by making them rely on the government of the rich--this very same government which is organizing these attacks in the first place. The Police Review Board is their main scheme. All the servants of the rich support this review board--Mayor Wilson and his cronies, the state-funded reformists and various opportunists who seek to give the review board a more "radical" cover by calling it a Civilian Police Disciplinary Board, etc.

To fight the terrorism of the police, the masses must rely on their own efforts and actions. Only through mass revolutionary struggle can the people put a stop to the hired assassins of the rich and punish those responsible for the racist and fascist murders. The criminal, racist attacks and murders of the police must be met by the active resistance of the working class and people.

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More Nuclear Poison from Three Mile Island

On Monday February 9 and Wednesday February 11 there were dangerous leaks of radioactive krypton gas into the atmosphere from the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. These "accidents" were due to a leak in a pump keeping the crippled reactor cool and a leak in an air-purging line. In fact, these leaks have been going on all the time. A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources estimated leaks of 70-80 curies (a measure of radioactivity) a month from the crippled plant. And there are approximately 40,000 curies of radioactive krypton gas and one million gallons of highly radioactive water in the containment building as a result of the accident last March to be disposed of. The utility company has already asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to approve venting the krypton gas into the atmosphere over a 60 day period. In other words, they want to have planned poisoning of the people instead of "accidental" poisoning of the people.

These accidents and this dangerous "cleanup" occur in the wake of the serious and near catastrophic accident at TMI last March. At that time more than 114,000 people were forced to flee from their homes in order to escape the dangerous radiation. This radiation will cause and has caused many serious problems for the masses. A professor of radiological physics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine had predicted that there will be at least 300-2500 cancer deaths because of the accident.

Nevertheless, the Report of the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island claims that the main health problem resulting from this accident is "mental stress". This report even goes so far as to make the absurd claim that no one has ever been hurt by nuclear power plants. These recent events again show that these are all lies designed to cover over the extreme dangerousness of the nuclear power program.

A study by the Atomic Energy Commission (the government regulating body which preceded the NRC) said the worst accident, a meltdown accident, at a nuclear power reactor could kill up to 45,000 persons and cause more than 17 billion dollars in property damages. An area the size of Pennsylvania could be contaminated. The NRC's own report on the accident at TMI said that the accident came within 30-60 minutes of a meltdown.

The possibilities of nuclear "accidents" are increased by the shoddy management and maintenance of the plants, based on the principle of minimal maintenance for maximum profit. For instance, the energy monopolies decide which items in a nuclear power plant are "safety-related" (subject to NRC approval). This designation is crucial since items not labeled "safety-related" need not be reviewed in the licensing process, are not required to meet NRC design criteria, need not be testable, do not require a backup and ordinarily are not subject to NRC inspection. The key items which malfunctioned in the accident at TMI were not "safety-related" items.

In addition, at TMI there was never a time since the plant began operations that fewer than 52 alarms were on on the control room instrument panel. The instrument panel had so many out of order tags on it that a key indicator light was covered by one of them during the accident. After the accident at the TMI #2 plant, the valve room in the TMI #1 plant was found to be in such a bad state of maintenance that foot long stalactites were hanging from the valves and stalagmites were growing up from the floor.

Such problems have led to a situation where nuclear "accidents" are an everyday fact of life. In the first four months of 1976 there were 56 "accidental" releases of radiation from commercial nuclear reactors in the U.S.

As well as these dangers of nuclear accidents there is the nuclear poisoning of the masses of people from the mining and production of nuclear fuel and from the nuclear wastes, etc.

Despite all these dangers there has been reckless development of the nuclear power program. Nuclear electric power skyrocketed from 1.7% of total electric power in 1970 to 13% in 1977.

Why is this?

The reasons lie in the war preparations of U.S. imperialism, its drive for domination of world energy sources and its wild profiteering.

1. The nuclear energy program is closely connected to the war preparations of U.S. imperialism. The nuclear energy program has always been closely connected to the research and development of nuclear weapons. As well, the U.S. imperialists are developing and stockpiling energy sources for use in war. They are seeking a stable source of energy at a time when coal and oil have proved vulnerable to the just, revolutionary struggles of the world's people and the American proletariat.

2. The U.S. imperialists are exporting nuclear power plants in order to monopolize world energy supplies and to further tighten the chains of U.S. imperialist domination of these countries. U.S. monopoly corporations are building or planning to build nuclear reactors in 15 countries. U.S. imperialist chieftain Carter has made statements calling for nuclear power to provide 35% to 45% of the world's electricity by the year 2000. When a country switches to nuclear power, the U.S. exercises its domination in the following ways:

a) the U.S. imperialists and Soviet social-imperialists control the "enrichment" of uranium ore and small countries must have their uranium ore enriched by one of the two super-powers.

b) the U.S. imperialists generally maintain control over the technology of the exported nuclear reactors, usually only lease the reactor core to foreign utilities, and control the servicing, repair and refueling of the reactors.

c) the extremely expensive reactors tie the host country with many financial strings just as many other imperialist "investments", "credits" or "aid" do.

3. The nuclear energy program is extremely profitable and these profits are guaranteed by the government through billions of dollars in subsidies and rate hikes.

These recent accidents at Three Mile Island highlight the fact that the energy billionaires and the government are recklessly rushing ahead with their nuclear program wantonly poisoning the people and in complete disregard for its proven dangers. This, however, can only expected from the same imperialist gentlemen who dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; who carried out a war of genocide against Viet Nam; and who practice nuclear blackmail against the people of the entire globe with their mountainous arsenals of nuclear weapons. Imperialism and aggressive war is at the center of the nuclear development in this country. The demand that the U.S. imperialists' nuclear energy program should be scrapped is totally just.

The only path the masses can take is the path of stepping up the fight against the nuclear program of U.S. imperialism, the path of the development of the mass revolutionary struggle.

(Taken from a leaflet issued by the Chicago Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA, February 1980)

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Lies and slanders of the bourgeoisie will never stop the growing influence of Marxism-Leninism and the Communist Party of Trinidad and Tobago among the working class and people

[Class Struggle masthead.]

(STATEMENT OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO)

In its lead story and in another on page nine, on Wednesday, January 9, 1980, the Trinidad Guardian, consistent with its role as a mouthpiece of the reactionary ruling class, launched a most lying and slanderous attack against our Marxist-Leninist Communist Party in order to:

1. Link our Party and its militants with the recent wave of terrorist activity which has been taking place at various industrial sites.

2. Identify our Party with being involved in training terrorists in Grenada along with the Cuban revisionist troops and the New Jewel government in Grenada.

3. Link our Party with the Khrushchovite revisionist traitors in power in the Soviet Union, Cuba and Grenada.

Reporting on an interview with some unnamed senior official of the state, the Guardian wrote: "The spokesman said the demand for entry into the Grenada school of terrorism gained impetus with the launching of a Communist Party in Trinidad and Tobago last August."

The Communist Party of Trinidad and Tobago states as follows:

1. That the terrorism which is taking place can win nothing for the working class and people. This activity of one or two terrorists is aimed at discrediting our Party. Thus the reactionary bourgeoisie is quick to jump and point its finger at our Party, accusing it of carrying out this dirty work.

The terrorist activity is also aimed at discrediting the struggle of the working class and people in general and specifically the struggle of the proletarians in the oil and chemical industry, who have been waging a determined struggle to end the domination of the oil industry by U.S. imperialist monopolies such as Texaco, Amoco, Fed-Chem, etc.

The terrorist activity is further aimed at spreading pessimism in the ranks of the working class and people about the success of their struggle against the bourgeoisie.

The reactionary bourgeoisie, Texaco, the police, and their front men the revisionists of all descriptions are all claiming not to know who is responsible for these terrorist actions.

It is quite common knowledge however that right from 1970, the number one organizer of terrorism in Trinidad and Tobago has been the ruling class through the revisionist and trotskyite groups.

The ranks of these organizations are laden with many secret police and other degenerate fanatics whose sole aim is to carry out adventurist activity which discredits the struggle of the working class and people and which discredits the organization of Marxist- Leninist revolutionaries. For carrying out this activity the secret police and the revisionists are handsomely paid by the bourgeoisie and other counterrevolutionary elements and imperialist and social-imperialist agents both here in Trinidad and Tobago and elsewhere.

The traitorous elements who are organizing terrorism are unable to deal with the organizing of the working class to lead the revolutionary struggles against the bourgeoisie. They have no concrete program to solve the deepening all-round crisis of the capitalist system which has the society in Trinidad and Tobago in deep crisis. The bourgeois and revisionist groups are advocating and organizing terrorism in the hope of introducing hopelessness and disorganization in the ranks of the working class.

This wave of terrorism which is taking place is new and professionally organized. In form it is quite different from that which took place coming out of the uprising of 1970, when the promoters of terrorism used the deep hatred of the people and especially the deep hatred of the youth for U.S. imperialism, to get them involved in terrorism.

Many of the courageous but misguided youth involved in that activity have been slaughtered by the fascist forces of the state. Many other truly honest elements saw the incorrectness of their activity and have corrected themselves and taken up the task of building the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party.

Our Party holds that indeed the reactionary state in Trinidad and Tobago will and must be overthrown through revolutionary violence by the people led by the working class and its Communist Party. We hold that only revolutionary violence will bring victory to the working class and people in the struggle against the rich and against U.S. imperialist domination of our country.

The use of revolutionary violence by the working class and people led by the Party has nothing in common with the terrorist activity advocated by the Khrushchovite revisionists, the trotskyites and the Maoists. These traitorous elements have no faith that the masses will make revolution. The traitors are interested in having one or two bandits, vagabonds and rogues under their leadership to play heroes in the hills isolated from the people and coming into a few skirmishes with the police and army and carrying out a few bombings at installations of the bourgeoisie. The bombings do no harm to the ruling class but endanger the lives of hundreds of workers.

The revisionists are quite conscious that terrorism will bring no benefit to the workers. They are well aware that such activity will bring further oppression in the hands of the repressive forces of the state who are gleeful for this opportunity to intensify the hunting down of the militants of our Party and other revolutionary and patriotic forces under the disguise of searching for "terrorists".

Our Party never advocates nor will it ever condone this kind of misguided terrorist activity.

2. The Communist Party of Trinidad and Tobago has absolutely no links with nor is it in any way involved in the training of terrorists or any other kind of training by Cuban puppet troops in Grenada.

If in fact terrorist training by the revisionists is taking place in Grenada, this is the activity of the cowardly elements who have no faith in the masses and who are shunning away from the hard work of building the Communist Party to lead the struggles of the working class and people. Those who are participating in such activity, if there is any such activity, are the followers of Fidel Castro, that puppet of the Soviet Union. Such people are misguided adventurers. They can never be found in the ranks of our Marxist-Leninist Party.

Furthermore, if there is any truth to the report that the Castroites' training of terrorists has been stepped up since the founding of our Party on August II, 1979, this simply implies that the bourgeoisie and their agents, the revisionist traitors, are intensifying their work to discredit the revolutionary work of our Party among the proletariat and people and are intensifying their work to pin the blame for the terrorist crimes of the rich and their agents on our Party. These ambitions of the bourgeoisie will come to no good end.

The proletariat and people know the militants of our Party are ardent fighters for the cause of the victory of the revolution and know that they are sincere in the hard work of mobilizing the workers for fighting against the bourgeoisie and not for terrorism.

3. Our Party further states that we are in no way linked with the revisionists in Cuba, the Soviet Union or those in Grenada. Revisionism is the mortal enemy of our Party and of the people's revolution. It is because the revisionist parties in the Soviet Union, Cuba and Grenada are traitors to Marxism-Leninism that they have to resort to carrying out and supporting counter-revolutionary activities such as the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union or of Cuban troops in Angola, and elsewhere.

Our Party stands firm on its position that these traitors to Marxism-Leninism are enemies, no less vicious than the bourgeoisie themselves. The working class and people can have no illusion about the revisionists and their agents in Trinidad and Tobago.

In conclusion the Communist Party of Trinidad and Tobago states that the attacks which are being carried out in the bourgeois and fascist press such as the Guardian, Bomb, etc., against our Party and against Marxism-Leninism, are signs of the desperation of the ruling class in the face of the exposure of the criminal system of exploitation by our Party.

In the conditions of the deepening all-round crisis of capitalism, the decaying nature of this vicious system of exploitation is being exposed further.

The working class and people are seeing that they must get themselves organized to hit at the rule of the reactionary bourgeoisie, to end the domination by U.S. imperialism.

The reactionary bourgeoisie is well aware that the Communist Party of Trinidad and Tobago is the only Party with the program of preparing the working class to take its leading role in the struggle to put an end to the rule of the reactionary bourgeoisie. For this reason the bourgeoisie is aiming its guns at the Party and at the militants of our Party, in the vain hope of crushing any semblance of genuine organization from developing in the working class. This aim of the reactionary ruling class and the U.S. imperialists will also come to no good end.

Marxism-Leninism cannot be crushed! The bourgeoisie and revisionists in several countries have tried to subvert and stamp out the science of revolution but have failed.

The proletariat, Marxism-Leninism and the forces of revolution and socialism have survived and will continue to grow and put an end to the rule of the bourgeoisie and U.S. imperialist domination of Trinidad and Tobago.

DOWN WITH THE LIES AND SLANDERS AGAINST THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO!

Signed: Central Committee of the Communist Party of Trinidad and Tobago, January 10,1980

(Reprinted from Class Struggle, organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Trinidad and Tobago, Vol. 1, No. 5, January 15, 1980. The Communist Party of Trinidad and Tobago, which is the fraternal party of the MLP, USA, was founded on August 11, 1979, hoisting aloft the bright red flag of Marxism-Leninism in their country.)

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The Indian ruling class needed a "stable government" to crush the people and Indira Gandhi has fit the bill

[People's Voice masthead.]

People's Voice is published by our fraternal comrades of the Marxist-Leninist Study Center in India. These comrades are carrying out the glorious task of forging the Marxist-Leninist party of the Indian proletariat. Such a party is essential to lead the long-suffering Indian working class and people in the revolutionary struggle to overthrow the terrible oppression of the big capitalists and big landlords and the neo-colonial slavery of the U.S. imperialists, the Soviet social-imperialists and the other imperialists who are sucking the blood of the Indian people. Below are extracts taken from the January issue of People's Voice on the recent election victory of Indira Gandhi and on the deepening of the crisis in India.

THE PLAN OF THE REACTIONARY RULING CLASSES TO "STABILIZE" THEIR RULE MUST BE DEFEATED

Indira Gandhi's Congress (I) party which contested the elections with the slogan of providing a "stable government", "a government that works", has won the majority of seats in the Lok Sabha and has constituted the government. The reactionary ruling classes who had put the Janata party in power through the March 1977 elections with the fraud of "restoration of democracy" found that this fraud was not effective in curbing the people's struggles for very long. They have been dinning the people's ears with the loud propaganda that the reason why the people were not able to get any solution to their burning problems is because the Janata party leaders were too busy fighting with each other and had little time to govern the country. A huge amount of propaganda has been done by the reactionaries' that if only a "stable government" is established, it will be able to sort out the problems of the people, "save the nation" and pull it out of the deep crisis. Faced with a very serious governmental crisis with the fall of two governments within a short space of time, and faced with the mounting struggles of all the sections of the people against exploitation and oppression, the reactionary ruling classes needed to stabilize their oppressive rule, need a "stable government", and Indira Gandhi, who is notorious for ruthlessly crushing the people's struggles, has fitted the bill....

Indira Gandhi is a notorious representative of the reactionary ruling classes, who ferociously suppressed the Railway Workers' strike in May 1974, clamped the "National Emergency" to crush the mounting struggles of the people, including the total banning of strikes, in order to defend the profits of the exploiters. After her party's victory at the polls this time, Indira Gandhi has explicitly stated that her government's top priority is "law and order" and providing "stability". Many big capitalists have already come out expressing their happiness at the prospects of "stability" under Indira Gandhi's regime and putting forward their demand that strikes should be completely banned, etc.

The question confronting the working class, peasantry and all sections of the people who are fighting against exploitation and oppression is how to defend themselves in the face of the mounting fascist onslaught of the reactionary ruling classes.

The Khrushchovite revisionist chieftains of the "Communist" Party of India and the "Communist Party (Marxist)" are completely impotent to fight the fascist repression that the Indira Gandhi government is preparing. This was clearly seen by their activities during the "National Emergency" when the people were faced with open fascist repression, total ban on strikes, etc. The revisionist chieftains of "C"PI joined hands with the fascist Indira Gandhi while the chieftains of "CPM" curled their tails between their legs and submitted to the dictates of Indira Gandhi's regime like tame dogs, while the working class and people were brutally crushed under this openly fascist regime.

This shows that the only "opposition" that these revisionists can put up against the fascism of the reactionary ruling classes is the "opposition" that the ruling classes themselves allow, the kind of "opposition" that does not threaten their rule in any way. When the ruling classes allow the talk-shop parliament to function, the revisionist chieftains sit in the parliament to conduct their "class struggle". When they allow trade union and other activities to be carried on "legally", the revisionists operate there with their politics of class conciliation, drilling the people's heads with the idea that they must at all times work within the framework of the "laws" of the reactionaries, and expect salvation within this framework. But when the ruling classes decide to do away with the talk-shop parliament, put a ban on the struggles of the people and resort to open fascist repression, as they did during the "National Emergency", the "opposition" of the revisionists dies out completely or they openly collaborate with the reactionaries. What this shows is that these revisionists have no real program whatsoever to offer the working class and people to fight against exploitation and oppression. What this shows is that they are agents of the Indian ruling classes and the foreign imperialist and social-imperialist powers in the ranks of thepeople, and that their real program is to divert the people from the path of revolutionary struggles....

The working class, peasantry and all the exploited and oppressed people must rely on their own strength to defend themselves against the open fascist repression that the reactionary ruling classes are preparing to launch through the "stability" program of Indira Gandhi. They cannot rely on the parliamentary "opposition", on any "democratic" section of the reactionary ruling classes to fight the fascism of Indira Gandhi. In this situation, the Marxist-Leninists must expose the "stability" program of Indira Gandhi, explain to the masses of the exploited and oppressed people that their problems cannot be solved within the framework of the rule of the big capitalists and big landlords and that the only solution to their problems is the violent overthrow of the reactionary state, the rule of the big capitalists and the big landlords, and the yoke of foreign imperialist and social-imperialist powers. The Marxist-Leninists have to intensify the work of inspiring and guiding the people in their day-to-day struggles in defiance of any fascist laws that the Indira Gandhi government may impose on them, and mobilize and prepare the people for the final overthrow of the reactionary Indian state. In order to carry out this task, the Marxist-Leninists must at the same time expose the "anti-authoritarian" fraud of the parliamentary "opposition" and fight tooth and nail against the class conciliationist politics of the reformist and revisionist chieftains who wield control over the people's struggles....

1979 -- A YEAR OF DEEPENING OF THE CRISIS OF IMPERIALISTS AND ALL REACTIONARIES AND FURTHER CONSOLIDATION OF MARXIST-LENINIST AND REVOLUTIONARY FORCES AROUND THE WORLD

...In India, the rule of the big capitalists and big landlords entered deeper into crisis, with production stagnation, uncontrollable inflation, price rise, unemployment and all other problems and was faced with powerful struggles of all sections of the people, including the widespread revolt of the policemen and other armed personnel of the state machinery. The reactionary ruling classes further shifted the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the people, with the profits of the 700 largest industrial units increasing by 35% despite production stagnation. In response to the intensified exploitation the number of man-days lost due to strikes in 1979 registered a pronounced increase compared to the previous year. The reactionary ruling classes, who had tried to salvage their crisis-ridden system with the fraud of "restoration of democracy" in 1977, were faced with an acute governmental crisis in 1979 marked by the fall of two governments within a short space of time. Confronted by the militant struggles of the proletariat and people and unable to satisfy any of their basic demands, the ruling class politicians were engaged in bitter infighting, blaming each other for the problems of the people, while the reactionary state continued to employ increasingly repressive measures to crush the fighting people, such as the slaughter of common people in the name of "communal riots" engineered by the reactionaries with the support of the state machinery, and the slaughter of 60-70 workers in Faridabad. The year came to a close with the calling of the midterm poll to settle the contradictions within the ruling circles and divert the people from the path of revolution with the promise of a "stable" and "better" government.

In this situation of crisis, with the objective conditions becoming even more ripe for the revolution, the true colors of the revisionists and opportunists as firefighters of the bourgeoisie became further exposed. The revisionist chieftains of the "Communist" Party of India and the "Communist Party (Marxist)" came out more openly to help their masters in crisis, throwing cold water on the flames of people's struggles and giving maximum credibility to the bourgeoisie's promise that the people's problems will get solved through the election of a "better" government, going down to the level of desperately promoting Charan Singh and other reactionaries as the saviors of the people right in the midst of the severe crisis affecting the rule of reaction in India. The year also witnessed the "CPM"-led government in West Bengal using the reactionary state machine to drown in blood the struggles of the people in Marichjhapi, of the Calcutta dock workers, etc., just like any other reactionary government.

Many of the followers of the "three worlds theory" of Mao Zedong openly collaborated with the reactionaries in the name of participating in the elections and through "united actions" with the Khrushchovite revisionists and other reactionaries. The utter bankruptcy and paralysis which has gripped all the followers of "Mao Zedong thought" was vividly demonstrated by their total incapability to use the crisis of the reactionaries and give revolutionary direction to the masses of people who are spontaneously engaging in various forms of struggles and protests.

1979 witnessed the initiation and development of the open struggle of the Marxist-Leninists in India against "Mao Zedong thought" in the publication of People's Voice by the Marxist-Leninist Study Center. The year also witnessed escalation of various activities of the Marxist-Leninists to intensify the struggle against revisionism and opportunism of all hues, towards building a genuine Marxist-Leninist party in India. The Indian People's Defense Committee took revolutionary politics to different sections of the people on a wide scale. As part of its program of doing widespread propaganda for Marxism-Leninism and opposing all varieties of revisionism, during the course of the year, the Marxist-Leninist Study Center circulated many important documents of the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement all over India in English and in Indian languages. As a result of these activities during 1979, the Marxist-Leninist trend has become an established trend in India, throwing the revisionists and opportunists of all hues, especially the agents of Chinese revisionism in India, into chaos....

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The social-democrats are the most servile flunkeys of the Democratic Party

The Founding Congress of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA declared that: "Today there mass disillusionment with the parties of the rich. Once again, the monopoly capitalists are turning more and more to social-democracy to keep the masses under bourgeois, influence, to wipe out any spirit of revolt and any revolutionary sentiment to solve the 'crisis of confidence' by keeping the masses attached to the Democratic Party and to convert any independence from the capitalist parties into a mere formality or a sham....The Founding Congress held that it is essential to step up the war on social-democracy. (Communique of the Founding Congress of the MLP, USA)

Below we reproduce a report sent in by a comrade that gives a general picture of the main social-democratic groups that are being lined up by the capitalists to smash the workers' movement and stifle the growing revolutionary ferment. It is a preliminary report and only provides the roughest of outlines. Nevertheless, it should provide some help in sorting out who's who among the myriads of groups in the splintered and factionalized social-democratic movement. It deals only with the avowed social-democrats, "democratic socialists" and so forth and does not include the revisionist, "three worlder" and trotskyite groups who are merging or have already merged into a common front with social-democracy. It has been edited for publication in The Workers' Advocate.

I. ON THE PROGRAM OF THE SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS

The Communique of the Founding Congress points out: "All the opportunist and revisionist parties and sects are in a yellow front with the Democratic Party and are prettifiers of and a vehicle for its fascist program. The Democratic Party in essence plays the role of a liberal-labor party, and the various revisionists and avowed social-democrats form its 'left' wing.''

The social-democrats are among the most servile flunkeys of the Democratic Party. Why are self-proclaimed "socialists" allowed in an imperialist and fascist party such as the Democratic Party? They are tolerated in the Democratic Party because they perform a vital service for the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party, like any other capitalist party that wishes to have influence among the working masses, finds it to its advantage to allow an impotent "left" wing. "Radical", "socialist" and "anti-big business" words are needed to fool the masses, while the Democratic Party continues the real business of barbarous capitalist exploitation and savage political reaction in full swing. Thus the social-democrats are tolerated in the Democratic Party because they are the "left" spokesmen for capitalism and reaction.

Hence the real program of the social-democrats is to be found in the program of the big bourgeoisie, which program is the common platform for the Democratic and Republican Parties. To find out what is real and what is just fluff and empty phrases in the rhetoric of the social-democrats, one must make a study of the actual program of the bourgeoisie. Invariably one finds that the social-democrats are simply presenting a glorified picture of the program of the big bourgeoisie and of the policies of the Democratic Party. As the Communique of the Founding Congress said: "For decades, the reactionary program of big capital, the fascization of the state and society, and the savage attacks on the workers ' movement and the oppressed nationalities have been carried out repeatedly on the basis of liberal-labor politics and under a signboard of 'pro-labor' and 'pro-minorities' demagogy."

Now we shall go through some of the particular stands of the social-democratic groups.

1. On inflation

All the social-democrats favor wage- price controls. This is a blatant exposure of how the social-democrats put a "socialist" tinge onto the measures of fascist repression against the working class movement. The social-democrats are social-fascists--socialists in words, but fascists in deed. The social-democrats distinguish themselves from Carter on wage controls only by demanding a harsher, more powerful and more comprehensive system of controls, while Carter is proceeding in the same direction with his so-called "voluntary" wage-price controls. The social-democrats from the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) to............. the solution to inflation is wage-price-profit controls combined with public control of investment policy. In fact, Carter's controls already make a show of dealing with prices and profits, while interest rates and investment policy are already guided by the federal government via the Federal Reserve System. Of course, the federal government of the rich uses these controls in the interest of the rich. But the social-democrats glorify the bourgeois state, present it not even just as above classes but as an ally for the working class against "big business" and "big oil", and advocate not the development of the workers' struggle against the capitalists and the capitalist state power but the strengthening of the state apparatus used to suppress the workers' movement. They are true sophists who argue that mandatory wage-price controls are a step towards "socialism" because such controls would make wages, prices and investments a matter of public debate.

2. On energy

All the social-democrats agree with the basic premises and policies underlying Carter's energy program of skyrocketing prices, stockpiling for war and higher taxes. The social-democrats agree with the alleged existence of an "energy shortage", they blame high prices on the Arabs and support U.S. imperialist plunder under the pretext of denouncing U.S. imperialism's "dependence on foreign oil", and they take up Carter's "alternative energy" schemes. Barry Commoner is one of the authoritative social-democrats on this question.

The social-democrats cover over their support for Carter's energy program with endless demagogy against "big oil", against "price gouging" and for an unspecified "price rollback" and for the re-imposition of unspecified "controls". The controls have been historically used for and are still being used to raise the price of energy to the maximum, but the social-democrats propagate the idea that "controls" will necessarily be used in the interests of the working masses. The social-democrats also put forth a variety of variants and suggested improvements to Carter's program. These range from: calling for the passage of a "windfall profits" tax (which is exactly Carter's proposal); to the passing of a comprehensive energy program (which is still Carter's program); to squabbling with Carter over exactly how the "alternative energy" program should be developed; and on to what the social-democrats call "nationalization", which is the creation of a public energy corporation to compete with the oil monopolies. As well, some demand that the government take over all importing of oil in order to strengthen U.S. imperialist plunder of world oil resources. Carter himself took the true measure of these demands. When Fraser of the UAW organized a five minute work stoppage to send in postcards to Carter allegedly demanding "the stop to the oil rip-off", Carter replied by praising "UAW members all across the country" for "stopping work...to write me and Congress to pass the legislation we have proposed." (UAW Solidarity, Vol. 22, No. 10, September 3,1979)

3. On the anti-nuclear movement

The social-democrats work very hard to keep this movement as far a- way as possible from raising the issue of imperialism and imperialist war preparations. They strive at all costs to divert the movement from fighting U.S. imperialism and rousing the masses against the crimes of imperialism, to working to improve U.S. imperialism. They want to turn the movement into a super-patriotic crusade to help U.S. imperialism stockpile energy resources and develop sources of "alternative energy". They are now promoting nationwide the California legislative program. This program raised no anti-nuclear demands whatsoever but simply called for development of "alternative energy", and with this strategy the social-democrats temporarily liquidated demonstrations and mass actions in California. The social-democrats are flunkeys of the Democratic Party who are seeking to promote Senator Kennedy and Governor Brown in the anti- nuclear movement.

4. On war preparations

The social-democrats are rabid great-power chauvinists. They defend U.S. imperialism and maintain that U.S. imperialism needs an "adequate defense". But they object to too much weapons spending as "overkill" which takes away from social welfare spending. On this basis they defend the hypocritical SALT treaties, which the superpowers are using as a cover for the most frenzied arming. (New American Movement, Campaign for Economic Democracy, DSOC, all of them.)

The social-democrats complain that the present plans on the reintroduction of the draft are unfair to black and working class youth. But (this is the view of the DSOC youth chairman) if a fair system with humanitarian National Youth Service could be worked out, then they would support the draft. Thus the social-democrats basically support the U.S. imperialist war preparations on this front also. The social-democrats take part in the movement against registration in order to divert it away from opposition to U.S. imperialism. They promote debates about whether the volunteer army works or not and so forth.

On the current campaign of anti- Iranian war hysteria, the stand of the social-democrats ranges from open support, to complaining about how powerful the hysteria is and "waiting for better times". All of them have great pity for the hostages, probably because they aspire to soft State Department jobs also.

5. On racist and fascist attacks

The social-democrats promote calling the police and pressuring the state for protection as the solution to the attacks by racist and fascist gangs. The social-democrats especially promote the federal government, as the alleged great protector of blacks against the Klan in the South. The social-democrats negate the state-organized character of racist attacks and glorify the state and work for the strengthening of the police. Here as elsewhere the social-democrats are opposed to the development of the revolutionary mass movement and instead seek to strengthen the reactionary state apparatus.

With respect to the racist and fascist attacks of the police, the social-democrats advocate that this is an issue to be taken up either in federal court or at the voting booth where one can elect officials who will keep better control of the police.

6. Economism

The social-democrats, when it is convenient to them, hold that the laboring masses can only be united on economic issues and that democratic or political questions, such as the fight against racial discrimination or against the fascist anti-busing movement, are basically divisive. This is a form of economism. It is most clearly put forward as a theory by Dennis Kucinich, who used it to justify his work in favor of the fascist anti-busing movement. It was also used by Barry Weisberg to cover his capitulation to the anti-Iranian war hysteria of U.S. imperialism. "People are taken in by Carter now but economic issues will come to the fore later and he will be in trouble again."

7. On the mass disgust with the Democratic Party

The social-democrats are quite aware that the fascist offensive of the bourgeoisie is radicalizing the masses. And they are aware that the Democratic Party, which is presently the ruling, government party that is openly carrying out this offensive, is losing the trust of the masses. They take it as their mission to fight tooth and nail against the independent political activity of the working masses, against political activity that is independent of the capitalists and of the capitalist parties. They officially explain their opposition to the revolutionary ferment among the masses as follows: they claim that they must develop a strong social-democratic trend inside or outside the Democratic Party to capture those who are now leaving the Democratic Party. Otherwise, they claim, only the "right wing" will vote and therefore fascism will be consolidated. Hence they constantly threaten the masses at election time with the "ultra-right" in order to keep them in bondage to the ultra-rightists with the liberal signboard in the Democratic Party. However, occasionally one of them blurts out the truth, as Ron Dellums, Democratic congressman from California, did on one occasion: "If we don't emerge as advocates from the left, then tremendous conflict will occur in this country between the haves and the have-nots."

Hence the role of the social-democrats is to prevent clashes with the bourgeoisie. First and foremost, they are enemies of the development of the revolution. Instead their role is to be firefighters for the bourgeoisie. Whenever the ferment among the masses threatens a clash, the social-democrats jump in to moderate the clash between the masses and the bourgeoisie, to smooth over the "excesses" of barbarous exploitation and savage reaction, to ensure that any struggles are kept within the bounds that are harmless to the bourgeoisie.

On the issue of actually forming a social-democratic "third party", the social-democrats are very skittish. But as the revolutionary ferment in the country develops further, they may feel compelled to form a social-democratic "third party" that is independent only in name, for the sake of subverting the motion of the masses away from the capitalist parties.

II. WHO'S WHO IN SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY

1. The Institute for Policy Studies(IPS)

The IPS is a social-democratic "think tank" centered in Washington, D.C. and run by social-democrats who float in and out of appointed government positions. It was founded by officials of the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. It is financed by the bourgeoisie. Its purpose is to infiltrate and influence the mass movements and divert them into channels harmless to the bourgeoisie. Its goal especially is to fight to the last breath against communism and the revolution. It has served as an organizing center of the big bourgeoisie, firstly, to gather, finance, nurture and train "left" anticommunist ideologues and publicists, and secondly, to directly intervene in the mass movements.

For the past several years, IPS has been advancing a program of social- democratic reform. It founded the weekly tabloid In These Times as a sort of central organ to give overall guidance to the social-democratic movement. It is extremely active in spreading its tentacles everywhere into the various social-democratic groups.

A description of the history and role of the IPS can be found in the reference material in the pamphlet Against Social-Democratic Infiltration of the Marxist-Leninist Movement.

2. The Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC)

The DSOC proclaims its mission to be to introduce "socialism" into the "left wing of the Democratic Party". Consequently it calls its newsletter the "Democratic Left". It works hard to give a socialist tinge to the fascist program of the Democratic Party. The DSOC belongs to the yellow Second International of counter-revolutionary social-democratic parties.

The DSOC was founded by Michael Harrington in 1972 as a split from the Socialist Party. The basis of the split was whether or not to support McGovern as nominee for president on the Democratic Party ticket. This split was not a question of whether or not to support a candidate of the Democratic Party, as the SP had worked mainly inside the Democratic Party for years. The issue was: for Humphrey or Me-- Govern. From 1972-1976 the main thing the DSOC did was to put out a newsletter for its members and push through its organization called the "Democratic Agenda" for certain "planks" in the Democratic Party platform for 1976. The warmongering and fascist Democratic Party hacks found it to their advantage in deceiving the masses with hollow sounds and empty promises to allow the "Democratic Agenda" to get its planks into the Democratic Party program.

Since 1977 DSOC has begun establishing local chapters which organize local activities and cooperate with "community organizations". Their activities include: running social-democratic candidates in the Democratic Party primaries for state and local office, campaigning for the Dellums version of National Health Insurance, taking part in the organizing of the "National Day of Protest" against "Big Oil" of October 17 which actually promoted Carter's energy program, working for "Big Business Day" on April 17 of this year, and so forth. Most everything the DSOC does is done in conjunction with other social-democratic groups or coalitions and inside the Democratic Party. The social base of the DSOC is the Democratic Party intelligentsia and the labor bureaucracy, especially the International Association of Machinists (IAM) but also the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). In the last two years the DSOC has also begun to try to recruit from campuses.

The leading lights of the DSOC are William Winpisinger, president of the IAM and vice-president of DSOC; Ron Dellums, Democratic congressman from California; and the DSOC's founder and theoretician, Michael Harrington.

In the opinion of certain social-democrats, the DSOC will have to be in the center of any social-democratic "third party". If so, it would be further proof that such a "third party" was simply a rotten, counter-revolutionary tail of the Democratic Party, independent and a "third" party only in name. The DSOC's stand on the question of a "third party" is that while they mumble on about the need for a "socialist alternative" in the situation where the Democratic Party is being exposed in the eyes of the masses as the party of a fascist offensive against the people, nevertheless they are in reality scared to death to make any break with the Democratic Party. Their announced strategy has always been to build an organized social-democratic wing in the Democratic Party and prepare for a split if necessary, but even on this they are very cowardly. In November 1978 the DSOC announced it was considering running a "socialist" candidate against Carter for the Democratic Party nomination for the presidency. But this very quickly turned into campaigning for Ted Kennedy, with William Winpisinger forming one of the first Draft Kennedy Committees. But the closer Kennedy came to announcing his candidacy the more Kennedy dropped any pretense at "left" rhetoric. When the DSOC held its "Democratic Agenda" meeting in November 1979 to work on the 1980 Democratic Party platform, Kennedy kicked them in the teeth by refusing to attend. At this convention the youth wing discussed supporting Barry Commoner. Nevertheless, DSOC is still strongly supporting the candidacy of Ted Kennedy.

3. The New American Movement (NAM)

NAM was founded in 1971 as one of social-democracy's last ditch efforts to block the development of the Marxist- Leninist movement. Its purpose was to block the revolutionary activists who were summing up the experience of the upsurge of the 1960's from coming over to the stand of Marxism-Leninism. However, NAM suffered a rapid fiasco as the prestige of Marxism-Leninism increased by leaps and bounds and the consciousness of the necessity to build the genuine communist party increased.

NAM's founders included New Leftists and "International Socialist" (IS) trotskyites. NAM was a loose coalition of chapters and allowed tremendous ideological divergency, something for everyone. Why, you could even say you were for "Marxism-Leninism". NAM's central organ carried everything from Gramsci to Harry Boyte, Harry Magdoff and Staughton Lynd. But in practical politics what was promoted was Alinskyism and IS workerism. The promotion of these politics was organized nationally through the IS and through the Midwest Academy (an Alinskyite training school) and its connections. (Saul Alinsky became known for heading a trend of ultra-reformist "community organizing" -- Alinskyism -- which had the expressed purpose of opposing the revolution and communism.)

In 1974 NAM chapters began running candidates in local elections, using their "community organizing" as a base. From that time, NAM also is alleged to have become more active in the trade unions. NAM members tend to be young professors, lawyers and low level union hacks as well as social workers.

NAM makes more of an effort than DSOC to maintain a "Marxist" (but not Leninist) cover and frequently organizes "Marxist" study groups. According to one member of NAM -- "NAM walks on two legs: practical reform politics and Marxist theory revitalized by feminist insights. NAM learns both from the Midwest Academy School of Neighborhood Organizing and from Gramsci." This may well be a good characterization of NAM: Alinskyism plus "Marxist" phraseology or, more precisely, Alinskyism and intellectual foggery. This statement also reflects the decisive role the social- democratic hacks and institutes play in directing NAM.

For some time, NAM as an organization has been in crisis. It no longer has a national organ, but relies on the IPS journal In These Times and its discussion bulletin for anything national. Today discussions about joint work between DSOC and NAM are developing. NAM is weak organizationally. IPS through In These Times is pushing for the merger of DSOC and NAM, and it may come about in a year or two.

4. The Progressive Alliance

The Progressive Alliance was organized in October 1978 by the UAW bureaucrats. The Progressive Alliance is a paper coalition of social-democratic forces from DSOC to NAM to Massachusetts Fair Share and includes the UAW, the IAM, the Laborers Union, AFSCME and many other AFL-CIO unions. But the UAW hacks play the main role.

For some time the UAW has been saying that the problem with the Democratic Party is that the Democratic congressmen won't vote for the Democratic Party's positions. In July 1978, Doug Fraser, president of the UAW, began grumbling a little about a labor party. In mid-September 1978, Fraser called for a conference in October to "consider formation of a new alliance aimed at transforming the American political system by making it more accountable, responsive and democratic." At the founding conference about all the social-democrats and trade union bureaucrats could agree to was that they should adopt "anti-corporate" demagogy and should set up some organizing committees. The Progressive Alliance set up a steering committee in January 1979 (to which, incidentally, Marcus Raskin of the IPS was appointed). In March it set up various policy committees. Inside the Progressive Alliance, the IAM hacks pushed to take a stand against Carter, at least in words, and to support Kennedy, but Fraser very much opposed this. He insisted that the Progressive Alliance should be a pressure group inside the Democratic Party to push for definite policies and not support candidates. He wanted to use the Progressive Alliance for "input" into the 1980 Democratic platform. Fraser didn't come out for Kennedy until after the federal aid bill for Chrysler corporation was passed by Congress. The ordinary everyday political corruption among the social-democrats is staggering.

In practice, the Progressive Alliance remains an instrument of the UAW hacks. For the "National Day of Protest" against "Big Oil", the UAW and the Progressive Alliance organized the umbrella organization CLEP -- the Campaign for Lower Energy Prices, the IAM and DSOC organized CLEC -- the Citizens/Labor Energy Coalition, and then they all got together, leaving out only the masses, whom they did not care to organize in this alleged "day of protest". (For an exposure of the Carterite line of this day of protest, see the article "Resist the Outrageous Robbery of the Masses by the U.S. Oil Monopolies!" in the October 15,1979 issue of The Workers' Advocate.)

5. The Campaign for Economic Democracy (CED)

The CED was founded by Tom Hayden after his campaign for the Democratic Party nomination for the U.S. Senate in 1976. The core of its membership came from Tom Hayden's and Jane Fonda's Indochina Peace Campaign. The formation of CED was greatly influenced by the IPS's Conference on Alternative State and Local Public Policies. In fact, conference member Derek Sheaver along with professors William Dumhoff and Richard Flacks wrote Hayden's 1976 campaign platform "Let's make the future ours" that introduced the concept "economic democracy" and laid out such programs as state banks, municipally owned utilities, national health service, and worker control of plant health and safety. It is sort of a municipal socialist-Titoite combination, tailored for the Democratic Party.

The CED is mainly based in California. It is financed mainly by subsidy from Jane Fonda, but also many of its members have lucrative jobs with California's Governor Jerry Brown or with other officials the CED has backed. Hayden and Fonda have made some joint forays into the Midwest and East to promote the CED. CED membership includes such people as Cesar Chavez, ex-Black Panther David Hilliard, and Greg Akili and Ken Msemaji, former leaders of Karenga's cultural nationalist organization "US".

CED carries out some liquidating activities inside the anti-nuclear movement. One of CED's big "victories" was the passage of "SolarCal" and gaining control of Federal Alternative Energy programs in California. Via "SolarCal", the demonstrations against the nuclear energy program were temporarily stopped in California and replaced by concentration on Carter's "alternative energy" politics in the shape of a legislation platform that didn't even include any anti-nuclear demands.

CED organizes some demonstrations and rallies but at the center of everything is its electoral and parliamentary cretinist politics. CED is very much an electoral machine to win offices for ambitious ex-New Leftists -- first and foremost, Tom Hayden. In most of their electoral campaigns for office, CED members do not even come forward with their CED affiliation. Getting into office is of course primary. This utterly corrupt "practical politics" accounts for Hayden's unseemly alliance with Brown, an alliance which has seen Hayden working hard to justify Brown's reactionary stands on "tax revolt" and a constitutional amendment on budget balancing with such gems as "I believe Jerry Brown is right to have broken with liberal orthodoxy and taken up the traditional Republican issues of inflation and government spending."

6. The Citizens Party

The Citizens Party is headed by the environmentalist Barry Commoner who states that his plan is to build a third party. Commoner's party lacks any significant support from the labor aristocracy. One feature of Commoner's demagogy is the lack of talk about the working class or its struggle. The Citizens Party's main base is among environmentalists. It is active in sabotaging the anti-nuclear movement.

While the Citizens Party lacks a social base of any size, it is well heeled financially. Some of the organizers of the Citizens Party include Archibald Gilles, president of the John Jay Whitney Foundation, businessman Stanley Weiss, and David Hunter, executive director of the Stearn Fund. Also organizing for the Citizens Party is Don Rose, the campaign manager for Jane Byrne, Democratic mayor of Chicago and an ardent strikebreaker.

The Citizens Party plans to run a candidate in the 1980 presidential elections. It seems that since the Citizens Party lacks a base in the labor aristocracy, it is a trial balloon of the big bourgeoisie to see how much need there is for a social-democratic "third party".

7. Consumers Opposed to Inflation in the Necessities (COIN) and Nader's Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG)

COIN was founded by Nader's Public Citizen group. It includes the IAM, the Operating Engineers, the Consumer Federation of America, the National Council of Senior Citizens, the National Consumers League, the Community Nutrition Institute, and the Exploratory Project for Economic Alternatives headed by Gar Alperovitz, an IPS fellow.

The main spokesmen for COIN are Ralph Nader and Gar Alperovitz. While COIN is basically a paper and press conference coalition, its significance is that Nader is becoming a more important figure in the social-democratic circles. Nader and his public interest groups do not content themselves with the exposure of consumer fraud. The Naderites are very active in the anti-nuclear movement. Nader gives a Titoite social-democratic line: worker control of the factories and consumer control of retail in a decentralized economy. Gar Alperovitz was one of the main figures behind the scheme for the workers to buy Youngstown Sheet and Tube steel mill from Lykes Corporation. The Naderites of the Ohio Public Interest Campaign were also active in this scheme. As well, the Naderites in Ohio are pushing legislation on plant closings "limiting corporate investment prerogatives".

Thus Nader and his whole network of state-financed "public interest" research groups and consumer groups are becoming a major force in the social-democratic circles.

8. Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU)

The TDU is being promoted in the social-democratic press. IS trotskyites are active in its leadership. TDU channels the rank-and-file Teamsters revolt into parliamentary legalist channels. The TDU leadership is hoping to become the next generation of Teamster hacks as the revolt against the corrupt Fitzsimmons group develops. In the unions where the fascist labor leaders are most discredited, the social-democrats and the bourgeoisie work to build up "rank-and-file" social-democratic opposition groups. Examples include the TDU, the Sadlowski campaign in the Steelworkers and the Miners for Democracy. All these groups have been heavily promoted by the bourgeois press and protected by the state. The TDU is appealing to the courts on the question of the national Teamster elections. Sadlowski was financed by nine "public interest foundations" including the Association for Union Democracy which specializes in funding "union democracy movements and cases". He came into office in District 31 of the USWA under a U.S. Department of Labor supervised election. Arnold Miller of Miners for Democracy relied on the U.S. Department of Labor to supervise his election to the presidency of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA).

At present, the trade union bureaucracy is being given a deeper tinge of social-democracy. The social-democratic trade union hacks are just as big strikebreakers and scabs as the other trade union hacks. Thus Fraser of the UAW and the Progressive Alliance was the class traitor who sold out the 1979 auto contract struggle, campaigned to "save Chrysler", and opened a new vista for class collaborationism by getting himself a seat on the Chrysler board of directors. While Arnold Miller of the UMWA went all out to smash the wildcat strike movement, supported Carter's Labor Law Reform Act which contained provisions especially designed to crush the miners' movement, and worked hand in hand with the government to suppress the glorious national coal strike of 1977-78.

9. The "grass roots" neighborhood and community organizations

The social-democrats have been well funded to develop numerous so-called "grass roots" organizations which in fact are centrally organized and state- funded. The social-democrats have several national organizations to run the local community groups. Some of these national organizations are the Midwest Academy (formerly the Saul Alinsky School for Community Organizers) headed by Heather Booth (who also heads CLEC), the Federation of Southern Cooperations (to organize black small farmers in the South), the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs, etc.

VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) is a federal volunteer service which the government calls the domestic equivalent to the Peace Corps. Each of these groups receives funds to train VISTA volunteers who are then sent out to build the local community organizations. The VISTA volunteers are in turn supervised by the personnel from the national organization. For example, the Cheery Hill coalition in Seattle gets its VISTA volunteers from the Midwest Academy. ACORN with its many chapters also works through a network of VISTA volunteers which it provides with a three month training course. Massachusetts Fair Share also uses the VISTA program and gets 20 volunteers a year.

A major role in organizing the social-democratic community organization movements is played by the National Association of Neighborhoods headed by Milton Kotler of IPS notoriety. NAN is "an association of neighborhood groups focusing on national neighborhood policy". NAN puts out pamphlets on how to build neighborhood organizations and has a speakers bureau to travel the country. NAN's current activities include a campaign for community crime prevention. As well, NAN is pushing to develop a National Neighborhood Policy to influence the 1980 elections.

The neighborhood organizations are active on utility issues, local problems like garbage pickup, crime, etc. But their line comes from the larger national organizations.

In connection with the development of the neighborhood organizations, Carter has greatly increased the VISTA program which Ford had been phasing out. In addition, Carter appointed the social-democrat Sam Brown, who was groomed by IPS' Conference on Alternative State and Local Policies, to head ACTION, of which VISTA is a major part. ACTION is a federal agency formed in 1971 by merging all the federal volunteer services, of which the most prominent are the Peace Corps and VISTA.

10. The Municipal Socialists

A. Detroit Alliance for a Rational Economy (DARE)

DARE is composed of various New Leftists and opportunists of the 1960's from Detroit, including: the so-called "Marxist-Leninist" city councilman, Ken Cockrel, at one time of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers; Sheila Murphy from the Motor City Labor League; Jim Jacobs from the Detroit Organizing Committee; and Justin Ravitz, the "Marxist" judge.

Presently DARE's principal issue is fighting tax abatements given to the corporations. Using Cockrel's city council position as leverage, DARE hopes to establish a presence among the block clubs. DARE uses more socialist demagogy than the average social-democrats. DARE advocates producer and consumer cooperatives.

However, on the question of the shutting down of auto plants in Detroit, DARE admits the bankruptcy of their municipal socialism and says "you can't create an oasis of socialism in a sea of capitalism." On this pretext, DARE doesn't even fight the auto plant closings.

DARE sees the development of the social-democratic party out of an eventual union of the municipal socialists.

B. Dennis Kucinich, the former Mayor of Cleveland

Kucinich is a real darling of the social-democrats from In These Times to the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee to the UAW. Kucinich is the classical fascist demagogue, who postures against "big business" for the benefit of the "little people". Kucinich's claim to fame was his fight over tax abatement and the Cleveland Municipal Light Plant (set up by Cleveland's last municipal socialist mayor, Tom Johnson, in 1911). Kucinich's main political support was from the UAW's political arm, the CAP council. This council supported him financially and by providing campaigners, and in return Kucinich appointed Bob Weissman of UAW CAP as his personnel director and closest adviser. Kucinich's other main supporters were the Democratic Party hacks and the organizations of the fascist anti-busing movement.

Kucinich is not so important for the organization he built but for the fact that he exposes the true features of municipal socialism. The support of social-democracy for Kucinich shows the closeness of social-democracy to fascism. Kucinich played a major role in organizing the fascist anti-busing movement in Cleveland. As well he worked to shift the burden of the city financial crisis onto the backs of the masses in the form of higher taxes and under the guise of "saving Muny Light".

III. SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY IS BEING ACTIVATED BY THE BIG BOURGEOISIE

The development of social-democracy is not a spontaneous event. On the contrary, social-democracy has been activated by the bourgeoisie, and the social-democratic groups receive a great deal of aid and guidance from the big bourgeoisie and the capitalist state power.

The big bourgeois foundations play an important role in financing the social-democratic organizations. Such foundations as the Stearn Fund and so forth are active in promoting one or another social-democratic group. Commoner's Citizens Party is floated via the foundations.

VISTA, the "domestic Peace Corps", has also been a vehicle for the funding of social-democracy by the state. The Carter administration has greatly increased funding for VISTA. There are now over 5,000 VISTA's in the U.S. plus about 500 supervisors of the VISTA's. The social-democrats active in "community organizing" have received subsidies through VISTA, for example groups such as the Midwest Academy, ACORN, etc. As well, Nader's PIRG's get VISTA's.

A particularly important role in all this is played by the IPS. Through its various branch institutes and its conferences, the IPS organizes in and places its people in almost all of the social-democratic trends. For example, Marcus Raskin, co-chairman and co-director of the IPS, is also the co-chairman of the policies committee of the Progressive Alliance along with Jacob Clayton of the UAW. Gar Alperovitz of the IPS is one of the top leaders of Nader's COIN. The formation of CED was assisted and influenced by IPS' Conference on Alternative State and Local Policies. This same IPS conference also groomed Sam Brown in Colorado politics and he is now head of ACTION of which VISTA is a part. The IPS has links with Julian Bond, who is one of the sponsors of In These Times, and with Skip Robinson of the United League, who received a Letelier fellowship award from the IPS. As well, the IPS groomed and trained Barry Weisberg, who is presently head of a social-democratic sect trying to infiltrate the Marxist-Leninist movement.

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'The Kennedy Alternative' is the same program of starvation, fascism and war

Senator Ted Kennedy is running for the Democratic nomination for president. He is running as the alleged "liberal" alternative to Carter. Carter's program is the common program of the whole monopoly capitalist class. It is the program of starvation, fascism and war, the program of unbridled militarism, savage wage cuts, soaring profits for the oil monopolies, and stepped-up fascization, a program of the offensive of the capitalists against the working class and all the downtrodden masses. Kennedy is putting forward the exact same policies as Carter, with only the most minor and insignificant differences. According to Kennedy's own statements, his only disagreement with Carter is that in his opinion Carter has not been firm enough in implementing the reactionary program of the Democratic Party, that he has been "absent without leave" and has "lost control". On issue after issue, Kennedy makes a practice of feebly moaning that Carter is ineffective, only to then put forth Carter's precise policies as Kennedy's own. This is the cynical double-dealing and political deception used by the Democratic Party in order to save Carter's policies and the Democratic platform in the face of the growing indignation of the masses at the towering crimes of the Carter administration and its master, the monopoly capitalist class.

Kennedy is being promoted under a "pro-labor" and "pro-minorities" signboard. This facade is the stock in trad6 of the Democratic Party, which is the big bourgeoisie's main party for deceiving the workers. Today the masses are increasingly disgusted with the two main parties of capitalist reaction, the Democrats and the Republicans. The mass movement is stirring. There are vigorous movements against the imperialist nuclear power program and against the reintroduction of the draft. The prospects for the explosive development of the workers' movement is terrifying the capitalists. In this situation, the Democratic Party wants to both have its cake and eat it too. It wants to be both the ruling party of capitalist reaction and also to be leaders of the mass ferment against the ruling party. The capitalists are turning to the social-democrats and to the "left wing" of the Democratic Party in order to infiltrate the mass movement and to tone it down, to liquidate it if possible, and to subordinate it to the reactionary program of the Democratic Party. For this reason, Senator Ted Kennedy is the darling of the "left wing" of the Democratic Party and of the social-democrats, just as Jimmy Carter himself was one of their heroes in 1976. Hence, whether or not Kennedy wins the presidential nomination and whether or not he is knocked out of the race, the exposure of the real content of the program of Ted Kennedy has its own importance. The exposure of the imperialist, fascist, warmongering and Carterite nature of Ted Kennedy exposes the fraud being perpetrated by the "left wing" of the Democratic Party in its forays into the mass movement. It shows that it is necessary to fight against the flunkeys of the Democratic Party in order to ensure a vigorous development of the revolutionary mass movement.

SABER-RATTLING IMPERIALISM

Today Ted Kennedy is trying to pretend that there is a difference between his policies and Carter's on foreign affairs. In fact, prior to entering the presidential race, Kennedy was known as one of the strongest supporters of Carter's rabid imperialist policies. Kennedy was (and still is) a great supporter of Carter's "human rights" fraud, whereby U.S. imperialism asserts its right to dominate the world and intervene in one country after another under the signboard of protecting "human rights". Kennedy supported (and still supports) Carter's policies of arming under the thin cover of hypocritical phrases about "detente" and "SALT II". Kennedy was (and remains) a staunch advocate of the warmongering U.S.-China alliance. And so forth. There is less difference between Kennedy and Carter than there is between Carter's actual positions in 1980 and Carter's campaign promises of 1976. And indeed, Kennedy's main complaint against Carter is simply that he calls Carter an ineffective leader and a bungler. In short, Kennedy believes he can administer Carter's policies better than Carter.

Thus Kennedy is waging his campaign on the basis that he would prove to be a stronger, more effective leader for U.S. imperialism, a man with a bigger fist, than Carter. To do this, he has resorted to trying to out-saber-rattle Carter, at a time when the "Carter doctrine" has been denounced everywhere as a doctrine of aggression and unbridled war preparations. Nevertheless, Kennedy denounces Carter as being weak on the Russians. Far from being a candidate of "peace", Kennedy is just another tired-out cold warrior. In his much touted Georgetown speech of January 28,1980, in which Kennedy is supposed to have taken off his kid gloves and come out as a flaming liberal, Kennedy in fact spoke the crude language of Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater, the language of Carter himself. Kennedy raved:

"It is less than a year since the Vienna summit, when President Carter kissed President Brezhnev on the cheek. We cannot afford a foreign policy based on the pangs of unrequited love." (New York Times, January 29,1980. All further quotes from Kennedy are from this reference unless otherwise indicated.) In the same way, Kennedy has charged Carter with being weak on the Russians in Cuba. Carter manufactured the crisis over the Soviet troops in Cuba in order to stir up war hysteria and to find a pretext for expanding the U.S. military forces designated for aggression in the Caribbean. (See the article "A Smokescreen for Measures Against the Revolution in Latin America and the Caribbean" in the October 15, 1979 issue of The Workers' Advocate.) Kennedy takes part in this farce and in true Reaganite style adds, "This false draw (Carter's alleged backing down on the Soviet troops in Cuba --ed.) may have invited the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan."

And it is the same in the Middle East. Kennedy spews out his hatred against the Arab and especially the Palestinian people, calling the PLO a "Soviet surrogate". He accuses Carter of not being firm enough in defense of Israeli fascist zionism. But Kennedy himself bases his policy on the axis of Israeli zionism and the traitor Sadat, which is precisely the policy forged by the Carter administration.

Thus the last few weeks have seen Kennedy and Carter mutually accusing each other of being soft on the Russians and squabbling over who is the tougher imperialist. At the same time, they are in basic agreement on all major policies.

Thus Kennedy is trying to out-saber-rattle Carter at a time when Carter has stepped up his war cries to the maximum with the "Carter doctrine". But in so doing, Ted Kennedy is only following in the family tradition. His brother John Kennedy won election as president in 1960 by achieving the awesome feat of out-saber-rattling none other than the arch-fascist Richard Nixon with the then-famous issues of the "missile gap" and the defense of the Chiang Kai-shek clique. From Truman through the Kennedys, the Democrats have always been the most rabid militarists and cold warriors, the most savage imperialists of the worst sort, equally with their bloodstained brothers of the open fascist variety in the Republican Party.

THE CARTER DOCTRINE AND THE KENNEDY DOCTRINE

The Carter doctrine has received the condemnation of the whole world. In order to preserve the influence of the Democratic Party in the masses, Ted Kennedy came out with some tame criticism. Kennedy dropped the phrase "the military-industrial complex" and even said, "The Carter doctrine offers defense contractors a bright future of expansion and profit." True, true, but entirely hypocritical. For Kennedy too offers the defense contractors a similar bright future. Just days before Carter elaborated his new "doctrine", Kennedy stated in an interview with the Washington Post:

"The United States should not tolerate the interruption of oil supply in the Middle East by the Soviet Union. That would be completely unacceptable, and the United States would have to take whatever steps are necessary, including military steps to ensure continuation of oil supply from that region of the world." (Washington Post, January 20,1980, p. A8)

Here we have what could be called the "Kennedy doctrine". And as one can see, it is almost word for word identical to the "Carter doctrine". Such touching unity! Carter and Kennedy are completely agreed on the use of "whatever steps are necessary, including military steps", to preserve U.S. domination in the Middle East for the greater profits of Exxon and the other giant American oil monopolies.

Indeed, Kennedy completely agrees with the Carter doctrine on stepping up the war preparations of U.S. imperialism. In his Georgetown speech allegedly denouncing the Carter doctrine, Kennedy claims that "Afghanistan highlights the necessity for improving our conventional forces and increasing our military readiness,..." Kennedy is an imperialist and he draws the conclusion that U.S. imperialism must arm and arm again. He puts forward a whole program in his speech of collaboration with U.S. imperialism's traditional allies, of helping oppressive regimes oppose "internal subversion", of stepping up the "human rights" campaign, of strengthening "American naval and air forces" in the Persian Gulf and around Afghanistan, etc. Earlier, on January 7, Kennedy had spelled out the need to expand the warmongering U.S.-China alliance, to increase U.S. military presence in southwest Asia, to improve U.S. "intelligence capabilities and our ability to act quickly and effectively on the intelligence we do obtain", and so forth. This is the precise program of Carter. All the rest is, as Kennedy himself puts it, "symbols", symbols that are "no substitute for strength", i.e. for real war preparations. Kennedy may oppose this or that detail in Carter's plan, such as undue "haste" on the MX missile, but only on the basis that "Needless weapons drain the resources to pay for needed ones."

BITTER HOSTILITY AGAINST THE IRANIAN PEOPLE

Kennedy is also a bitter enemy of the Iranian people. His criticism of Carter's policies on Iran is just as hollow as his criticism of the "Carter doctrine". Kennedy does not expose the crimes of U.S. imperialism, but only deplores the fact that the hostages were seized and blames this on bungling by Carter. Kennedy viciously denounces the Iranian people and whips out super-patriotic frenzy by declaring: "Let no one doubt that America will never yield to blackmail and that harm to even a single hostage will bring swift retaliation." Kennedy's whole difference with Carter is simply who first proposed the idea of a commission to look into Iranian grievances as a method of trying to make a deal with pro-U.S. imperialist elements in Iran.

KENNEDY ON THE DRAFT

Kennedy's alleged opposition to registration for the draft is a model of utter hypocrisy. The "left wing" of the Democratic Party is trying to liquidate the movement against imperialist war preparations. When Carter announced his plan for registration for the draft, at once a great movement broke out all across the country against the reintroduction of the draft. The Democratic Party and its "left wing" are trying their hardest to infiltrate this movement, to liquidate its militant character, to prevent the issue of imperialist war preparations from being raised, and to turn it into a debate over the best policies to strengthen the U.S. armed forces. This is why Kennedy made his timid sallies against Carter's registration plan.

But the issue with regard to registration and the draft is not registration in itself -- but registration and conscription for what purpose? To be drafted into the U.S. armed forces is to be drafted into an aggressor army, an army that napalmed the Indochinese people, an army that periodically invades Latin America and installs fascist dictators, an army that defends the profits of U.S. oil barons in the Middle East, and so forth. The movement against the reintroduction of the draft must center on the issue of fighting imperialism and imperialist war preparations. But Kennedy and the Democratic Party can be no part of such a movement, because they are diehard imperialists. Kennedy has his own "Kennedy doctrine" and he wishes to strengthen the U.S. armed forces. His only opposition to the registration is the following: "But I oppose registration when it only means reams of computer printouts that would be a paper curtain against Soviet troops." Kennedy glorifies the aggressive U.S. armed forces and opposes registration because it is only a "paper curtain", not a real curtain, just as he opposes expenditures for this or that weapon only because it "drain(s) the resources to pay for needed ones." Kennedy and the "left wing" of the Democratic Party want the issue to be whether the volunteer army or the draft is better for invading foreign countries and ensuring the blessing of imperialist "human rights" upon the vast U.S. empire. They want the issue to be -- how to secure more firepower for the army at a lower cost, a higher kill per dollar ratio. But the issue for the working masses and progressive people is how to fight imperialism, how to defeat its plans for world domination, how to overthrow the whole system of imperialism and aggression, and not how to strengthen it.

Thus it is not surprising that Kennedy's alleged opposition to registration turns out to be a complete sham, the typical campaign promise of the lying capitalist politician. Already in his Georgetown speech, Kennedy admitted that his opposition to registration would be for a short time only, and proclaimed that: "If registration and the draft were essential in a real emergency, there would be no dissent from me...." He has also come out in favor of including women in any future draft or registration. (Washington Post, January 29, 1980, A8) Thus he is helping Carter with the militarization of women.

KENNEDY'S FEDERAL CRIMINAL CODE REFORM ("S-l"): FASCIST REPRESSION AGAINST THE MASS MOVEMENTS

Ted Kennedy is not only for strengthening the U.S. armed forces for aggressive war abroad, but he is also for strengthening the police state in the U.S. Therefore he is pushing through the Senate the reactionary criminal code "reform", Senate Bill 1722, that is the successor to the infamous bill called Senate Bill S-l which failed to pass Congress. In Carter's speech setting forth the Carter doctrine he proclaimed that "But to be strong abroad we must remain strong at home." Senator Kennedy has been following the same policy for a long time. For this reason he has been one of the leading figures in the Senate to revive "S-l", in close collaboration with such openly reactionary senators as Strom Thurmond and Orrin Hatch.

The criminal code reform is a fascist bit of legislation. Its pretext is that it combines into one code federal laws that are presently scattered over many different bills. Under this pretext, it radically revises and toughens the existing laws. As well, it creates a series of new crimes concerning so-called obstruction to government functions and law enforcement. And it provides for federal extortion charges against militant strikes, contains provisions against militant demonstrations at nuclear power plants or sites, gives a broad definition of conspiracy, and so forth. "S-l" and its successors are hated and opposed by the progressive masses. The support of the social-democrats and labor bureaucrats for Kennedy at a time when he is a leading figure behind this criminal code "reform" is another illustration that they are nothing but social-fascists, "socialists" only in words but fascists in deeds.

KENNEDY'S CARTERITE ENERGY POLICY

Kennedy's proposal for "a system of gasoline rationing without delay" is simply the program of the oil monopolies. The oil billionaires have been carrying out unprecedented robbery of the masses, raising prices sky-high and reaping record profits by engineering one phony shortage after another. And now the self-proclaimed fighter against the energy price hikes, Kennedy, has volunteered to vouch for the integrity of the U.S. oil kings and to administer these phony "shortages". Of course one must not think that Kennedy is as heartless as Carter in serving the oil barons. Oh no. He is for "not rationing by price, as the Administration has decreed -- but rationing by supply in a way that demands fair sacrifice from all Americans." The masses will sacrifice by receiving piddling gas allotments at exorbitant prices and the oil capitalists will "sacrifice" by raking in billions of dollars.

As a matter of fact, gas rationing is Carter's proposal. But Kennedy pledges to have a firmer hand in carrying out Carter's energy program than Carter himself. Carter is only for standby rationing for the moment, while Kennedy is for rationing "without delay".

Like Carter, Kennedy resorts to the most shameless chauvinist demagogy to apologize for the oil companies. Kennedy promotes the lie that the U.S., which is swimming in energy resources, is forced by an energy shortage to be dependent on "oil from the Persian Gulf", and that therefore the oil producing countries are responsible for the shortages and high prices. He is completely silent about the fact that the U.S. oil monopolies are plundering the world oil resources and that they are importing oil in a frenzy in order to control the world oil market. Kennedy wants to solve the energy crisis and stockpile oil for war while preserving the huge profits of the oil monopolies and their plunder of the world. Therefore he demands sacrifice from the masses. He attributes the aggressive Carter doctrine not to U.S. imperialism and its defense of the profits of the U.S. oil monopolies but to the masses who wish to drive a car. He shamelessly writes: "I am sure that every American would prefer to sacrifice a little gasoline rather than shed American blood to defend OPEC pipelines in the Middle East."

Kennedy accepts all the basic premises of Carter's energy program. He accepts the fraud of the phony shortages. He is for developing synfuels and advocates the Carterite position on alternative energy. He is for extracting tribute ("sacrifice") from the masses for the greater profits of the oil monopolies. He denounces Congress for "petroleum paralysis", which is not passing the Carter energy program, and he opposes the Carter administration only for having "accepted our petroleum paralysis".

Kennedy hides his support for Carter's basic policies under cheap phrases about some unspecified price rollbacks and about reimposing controls. Price controls on oil were originally instituted to keep up the price of domestic oil above the world market price. More recently, they have proved invaluable to the U.S. oil kings in allowing a rapid rise of price in conjunction with the fake shortages. Kennedy promotes "controls" in and of themselves, as if these controls and the state apparatus that administers them were on the side of the masses against the oil barons and not tools in the hands of the monopoly capitalist class. Kennedy's talk about unspecified price rollbacks and controls, at a time when Kennedy agrees with all the basic policies of the Carter energy program, is an empty phrase.

KENNEDY STANDS FOR MANDATORY WAGE-PRICE CONTROLS AND SAVAGE REPRESSION OF THE WORKERS' MOVEMENT

Senator Kennedy is a bitter enemy of the workers' movement, while he is the friend of the most notorious scabs and class traitors among the labor bureaucracy -- such as Fraser, Kirkland and company. Hence it is no surprise that he is against the workers' struggle for higher wages to protect themselves from soaring prices. Instead Kennedy stands for mandatory wage controls and fascist laws to suppress the mass movement.

Wage-price controls are a fascist measure whereby the state openly throws its full power against the workers' movement. Under a thin fraud of allegedly "controlling prices", the state attempts to dictate savage wage cuts for the workers. Kennedy's support for wage-price controls shows that he has the exact same position in support of wage controls as Carter. In his January 20 interview in the Washington Post, Kennedy said: "What I'm calling for is an active, effective voluntary wage-price guidelines policy." This is exactly Carter's Phase II wage-price guidelines, only Kennedy is saying that he can administer it more effectively. The Workers' Advocate has pointed out right from the start that Carter's "voluntary" wage controls were only the predecessor to "compulsory" wage controls. Kennedy follows Carter on this too, and in his Georgetown address he said: "The President should impose an immediate six-month freeze on inflation -- followed by mandatory controls, as long as necessary, across the board -- not only on prices and wages, but also on profits, dividends, interest rates and rent." Thus Kennedy is not only for mandatory wage controls, but he is also for a six-month freeze on wages. In short, Kennedy wants the iron suppression of the workers' movement. As to Kennedy's phrasemongering a- bout controls on prices, profits, dividends, interest rates and rent, this is nothing but the usual demagogy of Carter, the late George Meany and others. The same government that can't even order supplies for itself without massive kickback and bribery scandals, the same government whose "controls" on oil prices have resulted in record-breaking profits for the U.S. oil barons for years in a row, the same government whose present controls on interest rates via the Federal Reserve System have given billions upon billions to the big banks, the same government which is nothing but an executive committee for managing the common affairs of the monopoly capitalists, this government is alleged to be capable of evenhanded fairness between capital and labor. Why, according to Kennedy's dream world, he will even be the man who "tames monopoly".

KENNEDY'S ANTI-INFLATION PROGRAM MEANS SQUEEZING THE WORKERS TO PROVIDE "INCENTIVES" TO THE RICH

Besides savage wage controls and fascist suppression of the workers' movement, Kennedy is also for a productivity drive. Here too he is following in Carter's footsteps. Carter established the National Productivity Board to direct the capitalist drive to speed up, overwork and lay off the workers. Kennedy endorses this barbaric super-exploitation of the workers and says: "We have to increase productivity in our society...but I favor increasing the incentives in productivity." (Washington Post, January 20, 1980) Kennedy stands for sweating the workers while giving "incentives" to the big corporations.

Kennedy also makes the same tired old promises that Carter makes about ending the deficit. This feat is to be accomplished while Kennedy simultaneously increases defense spending, provides incentives to big business, develops synfuels and so on. Clearly, just as with Carter, Kennedy's talk about ending the deficit is just a pretext for cutting back on the meager social programs.

Kennedy duplicates Carter's policies down to the details. Just as Carter in introducing Phase II of wage controls said, "We will eliminate needless regulations (on business -- ed.)", so too Kennedy promises a "reduction of regulation" to the corporations. In everything, Kennedy's anti-inflation program is a carbon copy of Carter's, consisting of wage cuts and speedup for the working class, and incentives and a free hand to the corporations. This program has nothing to do with fighting inflation and everything to do with squeezing the workers to the bone for the maximum profits of the big bourgeoisie.

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