The Workers' Advocate

WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE! 25¢

Volume 10, Number 6

VOICE OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF THE USA

August 25, 1980

[Front page:

To hell with the political parties of the rich! Build the independent political movement of the working class!;

Hail the Heroic Polish Workers!;

Oppose the militarization of women as part of the struggle against imperialist war preparations!]

IN THIS ISSUE

Against Mao Zedong Thought! (See Special Supplement)

No to the Draft! Demonstrations and actions against Carter's draft registration Sweep the Country (See pages 4-5)

To hell with the political parties of the rich!

Build the independent political movement of the working class!

Hail the Heroic Polish Workers!

'Reindustrialization': A fancy name for handouts to the monopolies, speedup and unemployment for the workers

Oppose the militarization of women as part of the struggle against imperialist war preparations!

'C'PUSA Revisionists Grovel Before the Democratic Party

Citizens Party-Warmed Over Carter Stew

'The Anderson Difference' -- six of one, half a dozen of the other

TO HELL WITH THE POLITICAL PARTIES OF THE RICH, PARTIES OF STARVATION, FASCISM AND WAR!

From the statement issued by the New York Branch of the MLP,USA

FROM THE SOLIDARITY STATEMENT DELIVERED BY THE CARIBBEAN PROGRESSIVE STUDY GROUP

Wage mass struggle against U.S. imperialist war preparations!

Women's freedom can be achieved through resolute struggle against the system of oppression and exploitation

The U.S. military machine tramples on the freedom of the people all over the globe

NO TO RACIST POLICE ATTACKS!

• CHICAGO:
  ON THE BRUTAL RACIST MURDER OF RICHARD RAMEY BY THE CHICAGO POLICE
• MIAMI/ORLANDO:
  The Bold Struggle of the Black People Against Police Repression Continues
• PHILADELPHIA:
  Afro-Americans Besiege Police Station to Protest Cold-Blooded Police Murder
• BOSTON:
  ON THE RACIST POLICE MURDER OF LEVI HART
• CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE:
  Afro-Americans Strike Back at Klan Terrorism and the Racist Justice of the Rich

10th Anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium Against U.S. Aggression in Indochina

Oppose the Brutal Oppression of the Mexican Nationality in the U.S.!

UNIROYAL WORKERS SUFFER A 19.4% WAGE CUT

URW Hack Bommarito Sells Out the Rubber Workers

USWA Convention Endorses the Steel Capitalists' Productivity Drive

MORE BETRAYAL OF THE STEEL WORKERS

BOLIVIA:

Fierce Struggle of the Working Class Against the U.S.-Backed Junta

The Party of Labor of Albania writes on the 45th anniversary of the 7th World Congress of the Communist International:

A glorious page in the revolutionary work of the Comintern

International Solidarity with the Iranian People

Leninism and the Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism

To hell with the political parties of the rich!

Build the independent political movement of the working class!

[Photo: Part of the Anti-Imperialist Contingent organized by the MLP participating in the mass demonstration of 3,500 people against the Democratic National Convention on August 10 in New York City.]

Today the capitalist political parties are engaging in another presidential election circus. Every four years the people are offered the chance to vote on which representative of the rich will become head of state to rule over and trample the masses. Every four years promises flow like water down a hill while inflation grows, the unemployment lines lengthen, the weapons of mass destruction roll off the production lines and the politicians shout of "peace, prosperity and full employment, just around the corner."

The Democrats and Republicans are parties of the rich. Their domestic program is "reindustrialization," that is, handouts to the monopolies, belt-tightening for the workers, police repression and racist terror. Their foreign program is world domination, the striving to be the "number one" superpower exploiter.

There is widespread hatred for Carter and Reagan. No one wants these candidates. And no one wants the decadent and misery-ridden society that they represent. But the question arises: What is the alternative to these parties and policies of the rich?

The rich are trying to answer this question by pushing their own rotten "alternatives" which are allegedly "independent" of the Democrats and Republicans. There is the so-called "independent" "Anderson difference" which has made its public aim the "breathing of new life" into the two old and discredited parties of the rich. There is the "Kennedy alternative" which campaigns for the Carter "lesser evil" and waits for 1984. There is the Citizens Party which follows Carter's policies, but without his record in office. And there is the revisionist "C"PUSA and a host of similar sham socialists who are nothing but tails of the Democrats. Not one of these parties are independent. They are all just frauds. A genuine independent party is something entirely different.

Independent politics means the class politics of the proletariat, the politics of the working class struggle against the capitalists, of class against class. It is not the politics of petty schemes to patch up the system of exploitation, but of revolutionary struggle to end exploitation once and for all. It is not the politics of "labor-management cooperation" but of organizing the working class and rallying all the oppressed and downtrodden to its cause. It does not use the political campaigns to offer up a whole array of fake promises, but to advance the class struggle. True independent politics must mean independence from the capitalists, breaking with their political parties and throwing overboard their entire program.

A real alternative to the Democrats and Republicans must be a party that fights for the independent politics of the working class. It must be:

A party that develops the class struggle, approaching every question from the angle of the battle of the working class against the rich.

A party that encourages the initiative of the broad working masses. It does not lull the people to sleep with panaceas, but arouses them to mass action.

A party that opposes the war-mongering superpower patriotism of the rich and their brutal hatred for and oppression of the people of other countries. It does not paint U.S. imperialism and its preparations for war in "human rights" colors, but leads the fight against it.

A party that fights the soldout trade union bureaucrats, the government paid functionaries and "riot stoppers" and all of the official "respectable" leaders who act as fire fighters against the flames of struggle of the workers and oppressed people.

A party that tells the truth about the subordination of the state to the monopolies. It does not hide this connection behind petty tinkering and promises of government control of the monopolies, but organizes the working people to advance in struggle against the capitalists and their repressive state machine.

The Marxist-Leninist Party is such a party. It works everywhere for the interests of the workers. It stands for revolutionary struggle and socialism.

Today the working masses are seeking out, in their own way, an alternative to the impoverishment and misery they suffer under the rule of the monopoly capitalist dictators. The recent rebellions of the black people in Miami, Chattanooga and elsewhere; the countrywide demonstrations against the draft and the imperialist nuclear energy program; the strikes in defiance of Carter's wage controls and the mass actions against unemployment are all manifestations of the revolutionary ferment that is growing from deep within the working masses. The development of Party networks in the factories and such meetings as the Chicago Conference against the U.S. imperialist nuclear program of November 1979 and the Buffalo Conference of anti-imperialist activists of June 1980 are among the signs of the growth of consciousness and organization in the masses. These are signs that the working people are feeling their way to their own path, a path independent of and against the rich and their political parties.

This independent motion must be encouraged, given conscious direction and organized. To further develop this motion:

The workers must continue the mass struggle against starvation, fascism and war. They must fight the capitalists, the trade union bureaucrats and the repressive laws against their struggle. They must fight against the wage cuts, against the wholesale layoffs, plant closings and unemployment. They should take up active resistance to the police terror and racist attacks. They must stand up to the chauvinist hysteria of the rich and take their proper place in the center of the anti-imperialist movement.

In the heat of these struggles, revolutionary groups should be forged. Everywhere, in the factories and communities, among the youth in the schools, the masses must be organized. The Marxist-Leninist Party is the highest form of class organization of the proletariat. All class-conscious workers should support it and take part in its organizations.

As well, the class consciousness of the workers must be developed. Revolutionary literature should be read and distributed widely. Marxism-Leninism needs to be studied. Discussion must be organized on all important political questions.

The Workers' Advocatecalls upon the workers to use the capitalist election circus to assist the independent political motion of the masses. By denouncing the capitalist program of starvation, fascism and war; by exposing the political parties of the rich; and by destroying any illusions about the capitalists, their smooth-talking political liars and their government apparatus the political consciousness of the workers can be advanced and their struggle put on a firmer, conscious foundation.

In this issue of The Workers' Advocatewe carry articles of use to the workers in carrying out this program.

We report on the mass protest against the Democratic Party Convention, where the MLP played an active role in exposing the fraudulent claims that the Democrats are the party of "the common man and common woman."

We report on the "reindustrialization" program which is the common platform for the Democrats and Republicans. Behind this fancy name they plan to give untold billions of dollars to the monopolies for stepped- up productivity drives, speedup and overwork, and more plant closures and large-scale unemployment.

We report on the "independent" capitalist candidates of both the Carterite "Anderson difference" and the reasonable imperialist "Citizens Party." As well, we report on the revisionist "C"PUSA and show that it is just an echo of the Democrats. All of these parties have the same Carter program. They represent just Carter policies but with "independent" and even "socialist" sauce.

Further, we carry articles dealing with the official, respectable, soldout "leaders." The trade union bureaucrats are celebrated by the news media, the government, and by the rich themselves as the "independent" "leaders" and "statesmen" of "labor." But they are completely tied to the Democratic Party or other parties of the rich. They work hand in glove with the monopoly capitalists to exploit the workers and sell out their struggle. We report in this paper on the wage cuts organized by Bommarito of the United Rubber Workers, and the sellout of the steelworkers that's being organized by Lloyd McBride of the USWA.

We also denounce the Jesse Jacksons and John Conyers who are bought and paid for flunkeys of the racist government and fire fighters against the black people's rebellions.

We expose, as well, the official "leaders of women," the bourgeois feminists. They work as public relations agents of the Pentagon to promote the drafting of women into the military. But the path for women's equality is not through militarization. It is through taking part in the revolutionary working class movement.

All of these respectable leaders are just soldout flunkeys of the rich. They do not stand for independent politics, but for stifling the independent motion of the masses and subordinating them to the profits of the billionaires.

In this paper too, there are reports on the anti-draft movement, the anti-racist struggle of the black people and other struggles of the working people. These struggles reflect the growing revolutionary sentiment that is stirring the masses. They manifest the independent path that is starting to be taken.

Fight for the independent political movement of the working class!

Get organized in struggle against starvation, fascism and war!

Long live the MLP, the party of revolutionary struggle and socialism!

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Hail the Heroic Polish Workers!

[Photo: Striking Polish workers stand guard at the gates of the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk.]

The Polish working class is carrying forward a powerful strike wave against the anti-worker measures of the capitalist-revisionist ruling clique. Over 150,000 workers are involved in this massive struggle which has shut down hundreds of enterprises all across the country. The strike wave broke out in response to the July 1 decree of the Eduard Gierek government to cut government subsidies for meat and other food items, which meant huge price increases. This was another measure through which the Gierek clique is; attempting to saddle the working masses with the burden of the grave crisis gripping revisionist Poland's capitalist economy.

The striking workers in Poland have raised just demands for wage increases and against the chronic food shortages. They are also fighting against speedup and growing unemployment and have raised demands for job security. At the same time, the workers are fighting the fascist rule of the revisionist bourgeoisie and have raised demands for various democratic rights. Theirs is a just struggle and has won the sympathy and support of the proletariat and the progressive people all over the world.

By its scope, length and character, the strike struggle has shown the widespread and deep hatred of the Polish working class for the capitalist exploitation and oppression of the bourgeois rulers of Poland. The strike movement began right after the July 1 government decree. It has persisted and extended throughout the country. Immediately after the July 1 decree, strikes first broke out in a number of areas including the 17,000 workers at the Ursus tractor factory. In the industrial city of Lublin, strikers blockaded the railroad station and shut down the transport services. By mid-July, a strike of 30,000 steel workers had successfully won wage increases from the government.

In August, the strikes were further extended, highlighted by a strike of 10,000 textile workers in the western city of Lodz. At present, the city of Gdansk has for weeks become the center of the movement. In this city, 17,000 workers of the Lenin shipyard works have shut down this enterprise, and over 200 other factories have been closed by the strikes. The latest series of strikes has also spread to port cities along the Baltic coast and along the East German border, halting much of the shipping. The strikes have also spread to the steelworkers in the south, and coal miners in Silesia have formed strike committees.

The powerful movement of the Polish workers has greatly shaken the Gierek clique. In this movement, the Polish revisionist bourgeoisie is haunted by the memory of the uprisings of the workers in 1970 and 1976. In particular, they are worried by the specter of the 1970 struggles, when the Polish workers all over the country, with the shipyard workers of Gdansk at the center, rose up in a powerful uprising. In this struggle, the Polish workers toppled the revisionist chieftain Gomulka. They sacrificed scores of lives and manifested their aspirations for genuine socialism by singing the anthem of the world communist and workers' movement, "The Internationale," and burning down the offices of the revisionist party. In 1976, the Polish workers arose once again and forced the government to rescind large price increases. In 1980, again, the workers have stood up to fight. Once again the shipyard workers of Gdansk are at the center of the struggle, and have themselves raised the banner of commemorating the 1970 uprising. And according to the latest news accounts, again the strains of "The Internationale" are coming from the Lenin shipyard.

Thus the Gierek clique is greatly alarmed. They have tried by many means to crush the strikers. In Lublin, troops were sent in to scab on the striking workers, and throughout the country periodic arrests have been made. Outside of Gdansk thousands of troops have been amassed in order to intimidate the workers. While making all manner of threats, the Gierek clique has tried to create sympathy for the government's reactionary measures by blaming the workers for the crimes of the revisionist bourgeoisie. Just like the capitalist billionaires of the American monopolies like Exxon, GM, etc., and the Carter government, the Gierek government in Poland has dredged up the old capitalist lie that the wage demands of the workers will cause higher prices. Furthermore, Gierek has declared that he "will not tolerate strikes" against the revisionist exploiters on the grounds that this is "anti-socialist"!

But the Polish government has not been able to subdue the workers. It has been forced to back down from its initial arrogant position. It has already been compelled to meet some of the strikers' demands. It has agreed to negotiate with the strikers' representatives directly, bypassing the official trade unions, and it has restored telephone lines that it had cut to destroy the communication and solidarity of the workers of the Baltic coast with the rest of the country. As well, the government is in deep crisis and has resorted to the age-old method of blaming the crisis on a few scapegoats, just like it dumped Gomulka in 1970. Seven of the top chieftains of the ruling clique have been replaced.

During this strike struggle in Poland, the U.S. bourgeoisie is claiming that the Polish strike shows how bad socialism is and is shedding crocodile tears for the Polish workers. It is strange indeed that the U.S. monopoly capitalists, who are saddling the working people of this country with 18% inflation, skyrocketing prices and severe unemployment, who suppress the strike struggles of the American workers at every turn, have suddenly become the greatest supporters of strikes and the workers!

This is a total fraud. Both Gierek and the U.S. capitalists tell the same lie. The crisis that afflicts Poland has nothing to do with socialism but is a consequence of the fact that in Poland the revisionist traitors have completely restored capitalism and sold out their country to the foreign imperialists. That includes not just the Soviet social- imperialists, who exercise all-round domination over Poland, but also the major western imperialists, including the U.S., West Germany, etc. The crisis of the Polish economy is part of the crisis affecting the entire capitalist- revisionist world.

At the end of World War II the Polish working class and people established people's rule and set out on the road to socialism. But by 1956 the revisionist renegades led by Gomulka came to the head of the working class party. They usurped power from the hands of the working class and set Poland back on the capitalist road. Today not a shred of socialism remains in Poland. The production of the Polish working class does not go towards satisfying the material and cultural needs of the people but to enrich a bourgeois and corrupt stratum of government bureaucrats, managers and technocrats. It is these elements who own the means of production in the state sector of the economy. At the same time, a large part of various sectors of the economy, like trade, are in the hands of private capitalists who employ thousands of workers. In the countryside agriculture is completely capitalist in character. The revisionist architect of the "Polish road" to "socialism," Gomulka, assured that the old landlords and rich capitalist farmers would dominate agriculture by totally abandoning the path of agricultural cooperatives and giving the capitalist elements the rights to purchase the land given to the peasantry during the land reform. Thus, in revisionist Poland, the basic contradiction of capitalism, the contradiction between the private ownership and social production, the contradiction between the rich bourgeoisie and the poor laboring masses, is fully in operation.

The revisionist renegades have not only restored capitalism in Poland but they have also sold the country to the foreign imperialists. Soviet social-imperialism has militarily and economically subjugated Poland through COMECON and the Warsaw Pact. This is well known. The bourgeoisie in the U.S. makes a big fuss about this, while it hides the fact that in addition to Soviet social-imperialism, the multi-national corporations of U.S. imperialism and other western imperialist countries have also been invited into Poland to exploit the workers and rob the resources of the country. In Poland foreign corporations are permitted to set up enterprises with 100% foreign ownership. As well, over 500 joint projects of "mutual benefit" between the Polish revisionist bourgeoisie and foreign capital are already in operation or have received authorization.

The Polish revisionists have gone into massive debt to the tune of $20 billion to the foreign imperialists, especially to the western banks. Thus the foreign debt has risen seven times since 1971, a debt now equaling 20% of the Gross National Product. This year alone Poland will pay some $8 billion to the western imperialist financiers. It is to pay off these debts that the government has channeled one half of the income derived from exports. It is for this reason, to pay this tribute, to fatten the profits of both the Polish bourgeoisie and the foreign imperialists, that 100,000 tons of meat are exported while the working masses suffer meat shortages and price hikes. These are the disastrous results of the anti-socialist course of the Polish revisionists. It is against the consequences of this severe crisis that the Polish workers have risen up to fight.

The Polish workers are not only being attacked by the Gierek government. The authorities are also threatening to crush the workers' struggle with the help of troops of Soviet social- imperialism, which borders on Poland. This is what was behind the government's statement that the workers' actions are "the sort that could awaken fear in Poland's neighbors."

At the same time, U.S. imperialism has become increasingly active in attempting to subvert and smash up the interests of the workers of Poland. On the one hand, it feigns support for the workers to pressure the Polish government towards further concessions to western imperialism. To that end, it is busy making various kinds of behind-the-scenes deals with the Polish government. On the other hand, it is also activating their favorite "dissident" type bourgeois agents in Poland to sabotage the workers' movement and turn it, if possible, in the direction of support for U.S. imperialist maneuvers. But this is completely deceitful because it hides the fact that not only is the U.S. government a most vicious enemy of the workers of the entire world, but in particular, U.S. imperialism has actually been profiting from the present situation in Poland and is directly connected to the economic crisis against which the Polish workers are fighting.

But the efforts of the bourgeoisie are in vain. Neither the Gierek government nor the troops of the Soviet Union, nor the maneuvers of U.S. and western imperialism can extinguish the struggle of the Polish workers for emancipation. The Polish working class has deep revolutionary traditions. Today their struggle is a continuation of the struggle which once established people's rule in Poland. It is a continuation of the historic 1970 uprising when the workers sang "The Internationale" and showed their aspirations for true socialism. In their struggle today they are only being further tempered towards the inevitable overthrow of the revisionist renegades and the reestablishment of the rule of the toiling masses. In this struggle they have the sympathy of the proletariat of the whole world. The Workers' Advocate hails the heroic struggle of the Polish workers!

[Photo: Mass march of striking Gdansk shipyard workers.]

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'Reindustrialization': A fancy name for handouts to the monopolies, speedup and unemployment for the workers

Carter's Democrats and Reagan's Republicans are like twins. Both of these parties are parties of multi-millionaires and billionaires. Their basic platforms are identical for the simple reason that the policies of these capitalist parties are both set to serve the interests of the biggest banks, the giant oil corporations, the big war industry capitalists and the other lords of monopoly capital. This reality was spelled out in bold type in the economic policies written into the party platforms adopted at the recent Republican and Democratic conventions. At the center of these economic policies are promises to so-called "revitalize" or "rebuild" U.S. industry. These plans for "reindustrialization," which sound so very noble and grand, have but one objective: enriching the

money-grubbing monopolies and ruining the workers through merciless productivity drives, layoffs, plant closings, wage cuts and unbearable taxation.

Reagan and the Republicans are running for the White House under the hoax that they are the ones with the "solutions" to the economic crisis, the nearly 8% unemployment and the double digit inflation. However true to their image as "the party of big business," massive tax relief for the capitalist corporations and the lifting of various safety, environmental and other regulations is the Republican's guiding economic policy. As his so- called "recovery program" puts it, Reagan will seek "full employment without inflation through economic growth and would encourage that growth by easing the regulatory burden on industry and creating greater tax incentives for capital investment." This is the singular theme running through all the economic planks of the Republican platform.

To solve unemployment and "to protect American jobs" the Republicans "will pursue specific tax and regulatory changes to revitalize America's troubled basic industries." In regard to inflation: "The Republican Party believes inflation can be controlled" with "sharp reductions in the tax and regulatory disincentives for savings, investments and productivity." Supposedly, these tax cuts to the Wall Street investors will eliminate the "disincentives" to "higher economic growth" which will mean "balanced budgets" and the end of inflation. The Republicans also promise to solve the energy crisis through "improved incentives," tax breaks and handouts for the oil tycoons, along with the "revision of cumbersome and overly stringent Clean Air Act regulations." In short, according to the Republicans what is needed is for the capitalist multimillionaires to be given the proper "incentives" so that they will more eagerly go about their unpleasant business of making money. And then, as the oil tycoons, the auto and steel corporations, and the big banks grow fat and contented they will surely be able to end inflation and provide enough jobs to the ever so grateful masses. Indeed, this is a fitting program for a party whose presidential candidate happens to be a bought and paid for flunkey of General Electric and a Hollywood groomed mouthpiece of the monopolies.

Of course, the other party of monopoly capital, the Democrats, has the very same program. The Democratic platform calls for:

"Rebuilding American Industry by Increasing Economic Productivity and Competitiveness -- To revive productivity and revitalize our economy we need a national effort to strengthen the American economy. It must include new tax depreciation rules to stimulate selective capital investment; a simplified tax code to assist business planning; removal of governmental regulations which are unnecessary or stifle business initiative... and new incentives for research and development."

Just like the Republicans, the Democrats also "pledge to seek tax reforms which... encourage capital formation, innovation and new production.... Any tax reductions must...follow' certain guiding principles" including that "Productivity, investment, capital formation, as well as incentives, must be encouraged."

Hence, Carter and the Democrats, like their Republican counterparts, also show a touching concern that the monopolies are sufficiently "stimulated" and provided "new incentives" to "rebuild industry" and "revitalize our economy." The only difference is that the Democrats have included in their platform a number of promises to "assist" the "poor and the minorities" and to "provide jobs," promises which they have no intention of carrying out and some of which candidate Carter had discarded even before the convention was over. Nevertheless, it is necessary for them to repeat these same old lies every four years in order for the Democrats to pose as the party of the "workers, the elderly, women, the poor, and the minorities."

"Revitalizing Industry" Means Productivity Drives, Layoffs, Plant Closings and Wage Cuts

On top of the tax cuts and other "incentives" for the corporations, the strategies to "revitalize industry" go much further to enrich the monopolies and ruin the livelihood of the workers. The government is planning a massive program of subsidies to the giant corporations in the auto, steel, and other basic industries. The bulk of the tax cuts being delivered to the capitalists are for the purpose of accelerating capital spending by such means as increasing the amount of tax write-offs for the depreciation of machinery and equipment. The other "incentives" to be forked over to the corporations are also mainly directed towards "capital formation" as well as "research and development." In other words, the government is planning to fork over countless billions to the billionaires who own General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, U.S. Steel, Bethlehem Steel, and so forth, in order to underwrite their programs of rationalization of production; the modernization of their plants and equipment; and their productivity drives to exploit the workers to the bone.

The auto industry is the largest of the "selected basic industries" which the capitalists have set about "revitalizing." GM, Ford and Chrysler have been spending tens of billions of dollars and plan to spend tens of billions more in the next several years as they proceed to downsize their cars. Both Carter and Reagan have attached a great deal of importance to providing the auto magnates "new tax breaks to encourage retooling" and Carter and the Congress have provided Chrysler with $1.5 billion so that it can retool despite the fact that it remains on the edge of bankruptcy. As a result of these massive capital investments and government "incentives," over the last decade the auto industry has maintained a level of "productivity growth" at well above twice the average for manufacturing industries. The retooling of auto has been heralded as "the beginning of the reindustrialization of America."

But this capitalist program of "reindustrialization" has meant a real disaster for the livelihood of the auto workers. While it has already entailed the permanent loss of countless thousands of jobs, it has been projected by the UAW that within ten years' time the net effect of this retooling will be the elimination of fully one half of the workforce in auto. Retooling has meant unbearable overwork through speedup and job combination and the introduction of mechanical robots and other "innovations" to replace the workers. It has meant the closing down of older plants and their replacement with ultramodern ones; a process which has also drastically reduced the workforce. Furthermore, the auto workers, particularly at Chrysler, have made "sacrifices" in wages and benefits allegedly in order to "save jobs" by helping the auto companies retool!

A very similar process is underway in steel, where vast sums of capital are being poured into modernizing steel- making. Ferocious productivity drives are being pushed onto the steel workers. The old mills are being closed down and tens of thousands of steel workers' jobs are being permanently eliminated. In rubber, textiles, shipbuilding, communications and other "targeted industries" this same type of "revitalization" through the devastation of the livelihood of the workers is underway.

"Labor-Management Cooperation" to Suppress the Workers' Resistance

With the strategy of the monopolies for "reindustrialization" the degree of resistance put up by the working class is a major factor. To be able to speed up the workers to the desired backbreaking pace and to throw the workers into the street through automation and plant closings, the maximum suppression of the workers' resistance is necessary. With this objective, the capitalists are more and more rigging up various means of "labor- management cooperation." In the name of a "joint effort" to "revive industry" the leaders of the capitalist trade unions are being brought into closer forms of direct cooperation with the capitalist managements and the government for the purpose of imposing the productivity drives and layoffs onto the workers. New forms of labor- management cooperation are being hatched, from shop floor committees to national pacts such as the "national accord" signed by the national unions, the employers' associations and the Labor Department last year.

"Labor-management cooperation and a "new social contract between business, labor and government" have become central themes in the sermons of the Wall Street bankers and the corporate executives. The Democrats too call for "cooperative efforts with labor and management to retool the steel, auto and shipbuilding industries" as a major part of their platform to "rebuild American industry." For their part, the top labor chieftains even outdo their friends in the Democratic Party, or for that matter, even the Wall Street Journal in their enthusiasm for new forms of "labor-management cooperation." The most servile of all the flunkeys of the capitalists in this regard have been the so-called "left- wing" and so-called "socialist" labor traitors such as Douglas Fraser, president of the UAW and now also member of the Chrysler Board of Directors. Combined with the most "militant" and most demagogical appeals for a "fight back on every front" to "save jobs," Fraser is openly against the "adversary relationship" between labor and capital which he considers to be an obstacle to "restoring the vitality and competitiveness of American industry." Clearly, Fraser's call to "fight back" is nothing but an echo of the "rebuilding" and "revitalizing" plans of Carter, Reagan and the monopolies.

"Reindustrialization" Schemes Cannot Overcome the Powerful Crisis Gripping the Monopoly Capitalist System

With their schemes to "rebuild" and "revitalize" industry, the capitalist politicians claim they will overcome the powerful industrial crisis and put an end to the severe stagnation besetting the monopoly capitalist economy. "Reindustrialization" is heralded as the long sought "solution" to joblessness and inflation which supposedly will bring prosperity to all.

To back up such arguments the capitalist media points to the so-called "economic miracles" of Japan and West Germany. These monopoly capitalist countries are held up as models to prove the virtues of the productivity drives, labor-mangement cooperation schemes and other means utilized to enforce harsh capitalist exploitation onto the Japanese and German workers. At the same time, the fact that economic crisis, unemployment and inflation afflict the workers in capitalist Japan and Germany just as they afflict the workers in the U.S. is never mentioned. The only distinction that can be made is that the U.S. economy, which is the largest and most powerful capitalist economy, is also one of the most disease-ridden and parasitic. In certain basic U.S. industries such as in steel, stagnation is particularly acute. Despite the productivity drives in certain sectors, productivity growth in U.S. manufacturing as a whole dwindled from 1973 to 1979 to 1.6% a year, less than one-third of the pace of Germany or France. (Nevertheless, at present the productivity level of the workers in the U.S. remains the highest in the world.)

This severe industrial stagnation and decay is a manifestation of the operation of the law of the uneven development of capitalism. It is related to, among other things, the extreme degree of the parasitic plunder of the land and labor of the oppressed people abroad by U.S. imperialism through the massive export of finance capital. As a result, finance capital flows towards the strengthening of exploitation and robbery abroad, rather than to domestic industry. It is also related to the tremendous growth of the military- bureaucratic apparatus of oppression, including the present $160 billion military budgets. In this way tremendous quantities of wealth are siphoned off from the productive spheres towards massive arming and rearming. This is reflected, for example, in the fact that $17 billion, or some 45% of all federal outlays for research and development go directly to the Pentagon for the development of new means of mass murder and destruction. But of course, imperialism would cease to be imperialism without striving to increase foreign exploitation and without unbridled militarizing for aggressive wars.

Economic crisis, stagnation, parasitism and militarism are built into the very fabric of the monopoly capitalist system. The present-day grave proportions which these phenomena have taken on show that monopoly capitalism is rotting alive. The declarations of the monopoly capitalist parties that they are going to "reinvigorate" this rotting system means only that they are devoted to strengthening the power of monopoly capitalism against the working masses. "Reindustrialization" is no more than a code word for shifting the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the working class through capitalist rationalization, murderous speedup and mass layoffs; all for the greater glory of the profits of a handful of multimillionaires. Such a "revitalization," far from eliminating crisis and industrial stagnation, will pave the way for vet deeper crisis and decay.

The Interests of the Working Class Do Not Lie with the Plans to "Revitalize" Capitalist Industry but in the Revolutionary Mass Struggle Against the Rich Exploiters

The worsening economic crisis, mass layoffs and double-digit inflation, calls for a most determined struggle on the part of the broad masses of the workers in defense of their livelihood. Mass revolutionary struggle against the rich exploiters and their wage cuts, productivity drives, layoffs and plant closings is the only way for the working class to defend its vital interests.

The working class has no common interests with the capitalist exploiters. The road of class collaboration, of "labor-management cooperation" to "revitalize industry," is the road of ruining the workers and shoring up the tottering capitalist order and fattening the profits of the capitalist money-grubbers. The monopoly capitalist system is in crisis and decline. For this very reason the working class has no interest in extending a hand to the Carters and Reagans and the monopolies which they serve in a "national effort to strengthen the American economy."

On the contrary, the situation calls for the workers to take advantage of the crisis to strike merciless blows at the monopoly capitalist enemy. The broadest sections of the working people are being drawn into struggle against impoverishment and ruin at the hands of the capitalist bloodsuckers. The working class must take advantage of this situation to rally, the masses for a revolutionary struggle to make the rich pay for the crisis.

Monopoly capitalism, though it is rotting alive, will never collapse under its own weight. "Revitalization" of capitalist industry is a platform to perpetuate a living hell for the working masses. The platform of the working class is to utilize the crisis shaking the capitalist system in order to advance the revolutionary movement for the overthrow of this man-eating system. This is the platform for putting an end to economic crisis, unemployment, inflation and poverty, for building a new, prosperous and happy life without multimillionaires and exploiters under the socialist system.

[Photo: The capitalist lords of GM, Ford, Chrysler and AMC, and UAW President Fraser together with Carter and Detroit Mayor Young. They met in Detroit, July 8 to announce Carter's plan to help the auto corporations retool the auto industry, and speed up and lay off the auto workers. A product of "labor, business and government cooperation," this plan was hailed by the White House as a "model for industrial policymaking in the 80's."

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Oppose the militarization of women as part of the struggle against imperialist war preparations!

As part of U.S. imperialism's frenzied war preparations, the bourgeoisie is militarizing all of society. It is subordinating everything and everyone -- men, women and the youth -- to the imperialist war machine. Thus a major campaign has been organized in recent years to do propaganda for the militarization of women. Earlier this year Carter put forward his proposal to register women for the military draft. Let no one be deceived into thinking that the issue was put to rest by the Congress turning down Carter's proposal. The campaign in the media and the continuing debate in the ruling circles and in the Supreme Court all indicate that the bourgeoisie is deadly serious in preparing for the drafting of women into the military.

U.S. imperialism's plan to draft women is an outrage against the working women and the broad masses of people. The planned introduction of conscription of women is a new step to enlarge the U.S. imperialist aggressor army, fascize society and prepare for the suppression of all popular movements inside the U.S. as well as abroad. It is aimed at conscripting the daughters of the working masses as cannon fodder to fight aggressive and reactionary wars for the capitalist billionaires. It has already given rise to wide discontent among the masses. Young women in large numbers are joining the growing struggle against the draft and all U.S. imperialist war preparations. This is indeed the correct attitude to take towards this vicious plan. Just like every other step of the war preparations of the rich, the plan to draft the women must also be fought. This is not from any false sentimentality concerning the supposed frailness of women. Far from being weak, women have always taken part in all profound popular movements and liberation wars. The participation of women is especially decisive for the socialist movement of the proletariat. The working masses oppose the introduction of conscription of women because the women are to be drafted not into any army, but into the U.S. capitalist army, an imperialist army of slaughter and plunder for the profits of the giant multinational corporations, an army of world domination, racism and reaction. The discontent over the plan to draft women must be used to draw women into the mass struggles against U.S. imperialism. This is the serious responsibility that lies before all progressive and revolutionary people.

But in this situation, where are the bourgeois feminists, those self-styled leaders of women against the "male" establishment, to be found? Revealing their total isolation from the masses of working and progressive women and their complete dependence on the capitalists and imperialists, they have placed themselves at the very head of the militarist crusade for the drafting of women. The Bella Abzugs, Betty Friedans, National Organization for Women and company are super-enthusiastic over the plans to militarize the women! In fact, they have taken on the role of voluntary recruiters of women into U.S. imperialism's aggressive army. Indeed, with this most revealing exposure of whose concerns and interests the bourgeois feminists really represent, they should more aptly be branded as "Pentagon feminists."

The Pentagon feminists have taken up the job of the militarist generals to manufacture a variety of arguments to convince the masses to support the militarization of women. First there are those who are the most shameless and open cheerleaders for the warmongers. They sternly admonish that since women have demanded equal rights, they must bear their "equal responsibilities," i.e., they must shed their blood to prove their absolute loyalty to the capitalists. Thus Pat Reuss, Executive Director of the Women's Equity Action League, spoke on behalf of Carter's proposal: "We now look to Congress to put aside distorted versions of women's role in society and to declare appropriate legislation that women have equal responsibility to participate in our national defense efforts." (New York Times, Feb. 9, 1980) Clearly her greatest concern is to make sure that women carry out their "equal" and "patriotic" duty to the U.S. imperialists. She does not talk of the equal responsibility of women to take part in the anti-imperialist movement and to oppose U.S. aggression. Not in the slightest! No, instead she talks of the equal responsibility for the "national defense" of U.S. imperialism, that is, the equal responsibility to kill and maim those who are rising up against U.S. imperialism in El Salvador, in Palestine, in Iran and all over the globe. This is nothing but an echo of the stand of Carter and the bourgeoisie. Thus on January 27 The New York Times, a principal mouthpiece of monopoly capital, editorialized: "Of course women should be required to register for the draft -- if men are. If women are equal before the law, the law should impose equal obligations on them. And if one day there is a military call-up, women should be drafted along with men and trained for any jobs that they are physically able to fill. That, too, is the meaning of equality."

Other representatives of Pentagon feminism shy away from such naked and direct advocacy of imperialist "national defense." More treacherously, they try to evade the issue of "national defense" altogether, but they even outdo the open warmongers in attempts to dress up the militarization of women in extravagant colors as being "the greatest step towards the equality of women in decades." For instance, Holly Knox, the director of the Project on Equal Education Rights, claims that the drafting of women "would be a message that Congress is willing to say, in a way that nobody cannot understand, that women are equal." And Judy Goldsmith, vice- president of the National Organization for Women (NOW) gushes even more enthusiastically: "Omission from registration and the draft ultimately robs women of the right to first-class citizenship and paves the way to underpaying women all their lives." What distorted imperialist logic! The road to equality for women oppressed by capitalism is claimed to lie through being drafted into the army of the rich!

Let us examine this "argument." It is of course a well-known fact that women constitute a large section of the working people and suffer under the monopoly capitalist system not only as workers but are subject to savage discrimination as women. Despite the bourgeoisie's claims of the glory of American "democracy" and "freedom," in reality women face a situation of low pay, high unemployment, job discrimination, humiliating laws and decadent culture. What is the way out of this oppression for the working women? The Pentagon feminists are claiming that the road to equality and even "first-class citizenship" is through being drafted into the army. Such wild claims should be tested by the real and verifiable experience of the masses. Look at the position of the black people and other oppressed nationalities: they were drafted and killed in large numbers in U.S. imperialism's aggressive war in Indochina. But this did not pave the way to "first-class citizenship." In the first place, they were being used as cannon fodder for the rich against their class brothers abroad. And secondly, those who returned came back to a society where they continued to be subjected to the most vicious racial discrimination and violent repression. They had to struggle against racism and imperialism within the army, while still today they have to fight racial discrimination and vicious capitalist exploitation outside the army. The path of struggle against the rich was and remains the only path forward in their struggle for emancipation.

The same holds true for women. Women are oppressed by monopoly capital. The way forward for their emancipation is through their participation in the revolutionary movement; it is only the victory of the proletarian socialist revolution over capital that can bring emancipation to the working women. This requires that the working women must wage an active struggle against the capitalist exploiters. The Pentagon feminists are suggesting that the solution to the problem of low pay for women lies in being drafted into the military. This is nonsense. The only way to fight low pay is through vigorous participation in the movement of the working class, by fighting through mass struggles, strikes and developing organization. The Pentagon feminists are out-and- out liars who are covering up the fact that the militarization of women is part of the aggressive war preparations of the rich. Instead they are dressing it up as the best way to solve the basic problems of the working women. How treacherous!

But the most treacherous of the Pentagon feminists are those who hide their support for the militarization of women behind their claims that they are opposed to the draft altogether. But, they hasten to add, women must be "realistic," the draft is "inevitable," and instead the real issue is to fight to ensure that the coming draft conscripts women as well as men. Thus their mealy-mouthed "total opposition" to the draft is totally hypocritical. First of all they immediately qualify it as "opposition" to the draft "at this time" just like the warmonger Reagan and the smooth-talking liar Kennedy. Then they immediately go on to say that if there is indeed a draft, women must be drafted too. For instance, Betty Friedan declares: "But if there were to be a draft to defend this country, there would be no reason to exempt women on the basis of sex alone." And Bella Abzug, a leading bourgeois feminist and a Democratic Party hack proclaims: "If we have registration, I think clearly both men and women should be involved." The Friedans, Abzugs and company repeat all the arguments of the other Pentagon feminists, right down to the superpower chauvinist lies about the aggressive U.S. army and the draft being instruments of "peace" and "equality." Blessed with "total" opponents like the Friedans and Abzugs, the Pentagon hardly needs friends.

They justify this treachery under the slogan of "equality." These Pentagon feminists view equality from the perspective of the cannon fodder requirements of imperialist warmongers. For the Pentagon feminists, true equality does not mean fighting shoulder to shoulder with working men against imperialism and exploitation. Oh no; for the feminists "equality" consists in proving that they can bow down just as low as any man in total subservience to the capitalist slave drivers.

But faced with the burning indignation of the progressive women and the working people generally, most Pentagon feminists thought it wise to shed a hypocritical tear or two about the harsh, cruel fate that makes "violence" and the "draft" necessary and inevitable. Such empty words are just cheap politicians' phrases, as was proved by their mere token presence at the anti-draft demonstrations, by their absolute refusal to call for the masses of women to protest during the period of the introduction of registration for 19 and 20 year old males. Instead they spend their time lecturing and arguing about the benefits of militarizing women. In fact, they are nothing but public relations officers for the Pentagon, firemen who are trying to stamp down the revolt of the working women and recruiters who are trying to entice women to enlist.

Bourgeois Feminism Is the Enemy of the Revolutionary Women's Movement

The emergence of Pentagon feminism is no accident. It simply reveals the true essence of bourgeois feminism, now exposed in all its ugly and disgusting rottenness. The bourgeois feminists have never been concerned with the interests of the working women. Instead they are the champions of bourgeois women, of imperialist women, of the small handful who strive to live by exploiting the mass of working people. Thus they have fought for the right to be co-directors with the male capitalists of the exploitation and oppression of the working people at home and the oppressed nations in the vast U.S. neo-colonial empire abroad. They are concerned to share power in the board rooms of the big monopoly capitalist corporations, in the upper echelons of the capitalist state, and in the political parties of the rich, the Democrats and the Republicans. The bourgeois women want to have their chance to rule over society as big capitalists, bureaucrats and reactionary politicians themselves.

At the same time, the bourgeois feminists have always opposed the working women fighting for social and economic equality through vigorous participation in the revolutionary working class movement. They have spread their poisonous theories of "men being the source of women's oppression" in order to divide the working class movement and to whitewash capitalist exploitation and imperialist oppression. They have talked endlessly of "consciousness-raising" and of "liberating" women through the bedroom in order to oppose women taking up revolution and the scientific ideology of Marxism-Leninism. They have been not just indifferent to the ferment among the working and progressive women, but they are bitter enemies of the class organization of the proletarian women and the revolutionary organization among all progressive women. For it is impossible to support both the capitalists and the workers, both the billionaire oppressors and the downtrodden nationalities. Those whose mouths water at the sight of the privileges of the executives and the imperialists must oppose the revolutionary movement of the oppressed, for this movement strives to eliminate all oppression, not to redistribute seats on the boards of capitalist conglomerates.

Hence it is no surprise that when U.S. imperialism calls for the reintroduction of the drafting of youth, the bourgeois feminists have all become Pentagon feminists, eager to prove their worth to the generals by handing over the daughters of the working masses to the press-ganging war machine. The champions of "consciousness-raising" have ended up glorifying the "liberated" life of militarism and war!

At the bottom of this utter betrayal by bourgeois feminism is not any concern for the rights of women, as they would have everyone believe, but the concern to ensure a strong imperialist army for the aggressive wars of the rich U.S. billionaires. Just as the feminists have always sought to ignore the issue of the class struggle, of rich versus poor and of exploiter versus exploited, now they seek to evade the issue of what kind of army the U.S. imperialist army is and what kind of war the rich are preparing. Of course they are maintaining utter silence about what kind of "liberation" and "equal rights" the U.S. army will bring to the overwhelming majority of the world's women, who will not be in the U.S. army but, in fact, fighting against it. Instead the Pentagon feminists are busying themselves manufacturing all kinds of arguments to plead the case for the further recruitment of women into today's "volunteer army" and for the drafting of women tomorrow. They are eagerly popularizing Pentagon studies demanding the militarization of women.

In a lengthy position paper released on February 8, the National Organization for Women makes its own case for the militarization of women. NOW takes upon itself the task to advise the Pentagon generals about what good soldiers women can be by discussing "the demonstrated capabilities of women in an army that needs more brain than brawn." NOW even goes to the extent of advising the Pentagon how the militarization of women can save the government money. According to NOW: "A high quality female recruit costs the army $150 to recruit while a comparable male costs $3700." Perhaps this is the way that NOW wants to cut the military budget. Then again, the savings could be reinvested in the MX missile or in a new supersonic bomber. NOW's position only confirms that the bourgeois feminists have hired themselves out to the Pentagon.

The Anti-Imperialist Movement Must Fight the Flunkeys of the Democratic Party

The jumping out of the Pentagon feminists has also provided other lessons of political importance to the developing anti-imperialist movement. It once again proves that the anti-imperialist movement must fight the flunkeys of the Democratic Party. For it must not be thought that Pentagon feminism is a disease that only strikes a few aristocratic ladies of feminism.. On the contrary, Pentagon feminism is orchestrated by the Democratic Party and its top chieftains such as Carter and Kennedy. All these social-democrats and opportunists, whose "left" rhetoric is nothing but a cover for their ideological and political enslavement to this or that faction of the Democratic Party, have also proved susceptible to this disease. They are either Pentagon feminists themselves to a greater or lesser extent, or they are the close friends of the Pentagon feminists and portray these corrupt, soldout feminists as the leaders of the women's movement.

Thus the crusade of the imperialist warmongers for the militarization of women has found champions among certain self-styled "Marxists" and "radicals" who are actually in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Among the most outspoken in this respect among the "Marxist" liberals of the Democratic Party, have been the Titoite, "independent radical" Guardian. The Guardian has given itself the job of going beyond the run-of-the-mill Pentagon feminists and providing a "socialist" justification for the militarization of women. Thus, in their July 16, 1980 issue they editorialize: "The Guardian is not against the registration of women for the armed forces. We are against registration, period. Under the present circumstances, no military adventure U.S. imperialism participated in could conceivably be pronounced as 'just.'... The traditional exclusion of women from equal participation in the armed forces is just one more example of the male supremacist attitudes and institutions that pervade capitalist society.... Some people, however, argue that to fight for the inclusion of women in registration could make it appear registration itself is being supported, but not to oppose the sexist discrimination against women inherent in a male-only draft is to once again throw the woman question out the window in the name of a 'more important' issue."

This is nothing but the arguments of the imperialists and Pentagon feminists dressed up with a few "Marxist" sounding words. This is nothing but cheering on the crusade to draft women into an imperialist, aggressive army to go fight for the rich. In addition, the Guardian's opposition to the draft, too, is hypocritical. The reintroduction of the draft and the plans to militarize the women are two closely intertwined aspects of the war preparations of the rich. One cannot oppose war preparations by claiming to oppose the draft on the one hand, while at the same time applauding the efforts to com script women to become human ammunition in the U.S. military machine. No wonder the Guardian twists and turns over the fact that the logic of its position is support for draft registration itself.

This stand of the Guardian is no accident. It has landed in this position at the feet of the Pentagon feminists because it has always been a tail of the bourgeois feminists and the "left wing" of the Democratic Party in general. The attempt of the "Marxist" liberals and social-democratic flunkeys of the Democratic Party to prettify the drafting of women as a step towards "equality" is not a mistake. In the same manner, they dress up every step of fascization as allegedly a step towards "socialism" or a reform. They praise wage-price controls as a step towards "socialism" when in fact it is a fascist dictate by the state to cut workers' wages and smash the strike movement. They praise the development of class collaborationist schemes of putting soldout trade union hacks like the UAW's Fraser on the board of directors of corporations like Chrysler as "workers' control." They try to tie the popular movement to Ted Kennedy's coattails although Kennedy is not only a fervent imperialist, and not only a main advocate of wage-price controls, but also is the chief backer of the fascist so-called federal "criminal code reform" act, bill S-1722. This bill, the successor to Nixon's infamous bill S-l, provides for even more severe repression of the revolutionary movement, for longer jail sentences and for the invention of new categories of crime, although U.S. jail sentences are already among the longest in the world, and the U.S. has proportionally more people in jail than all but a few of the most notorious police states. In short, the flunkeys of the Democratic Party are bitter enemies of the anti-imperialist movement, of socialism and of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism.

Down with the Reactionary Ideology that "Women Are Weak" and "Their Place Is in the Home"

Capitalizing on the treachery of the bourgeois feminists, the open fascists such as Phyllis Schlafly and company are stepping up their attempts to organize a reactionary movement among women. On the basis of the ideology that women are allegedly weak and frail and should submit with a smile to their inferior place in life, sanctioned by god, biology and Ronald Reagan, they advocate that women should not be drafted at this time. They agree with the ridiculous sophistry of the Pentagon feminists that equality of rights means being drafted into the army. But since the Schlaflyites oppose women having any rights at all, they are therefore against the draft. Schlafly and company have even put together a "Coalition Against Drafting Women."

The Schlaflyites are attempting to divert the anger of the masses of women away from the imperialists and militarists and towards the popular movements. They therefore advocate that the good old Pentagon is not responsible for the plan to militarize women. Oh no, it was forced on the allegedly unwilling generals by the bourgeois feminists. So the tail wagged the dog! They tell the women that it isn't the billionaires who want to press-gang the women to kill and burn the obstacles to the unrestricted profit-taking of the imperialists. Oh no, the savage exploiters are allegedly humane and kindly, wise old men, who are being forced against their will to allow feminists to push themselves into the army. What rubbish! But on this idiotic basis, the fascist Schlaflyites try to incite the women against the progressive and revolutionary movements.

In fact the Schlaflyite "opposition" to the drafting of women is completely hypocritical. They are notorious for being the greatest warmongers. Through the Republican Party and various fascist organizations, the Schlaflyites call for fever-pitch war preparations and bigger military budgets. Indeed, Schlafly has expressed that she would like to be the Secretary of "Defense" in a Reagan cabinet in order to better supervise the imperialist war preparations herself!

How can such warmongers oppose the drafting of women? In fact, they are not opposed to the militarization of women. They are "opposed" to the drafting of women today because it is being proposed by the "liberal" imperialists and not by their favorite imperialist politicians. If Reagan were to propose it, the Schlaflyites would enthusiastically hail it. Indeed the Schlaflyites themselves stress that if the drafting of women would be required by the "national interest," the Schlaflyites themselves would step forward to press-gang the women into the army.

In fact it is useful to look at the historical experience of Hitlerite Germany in this regard. In the 1930's when Hitler came to power, the Nazis also trumpeted the reactionary slogan that "women's place is in the home." This was used to oppose women standing up to fight generally, to drive women out of employment, and to hide layoffs in the midst of economic crisis. But when the Nazis required the full militarization of society to step up preparation for war, they carried out the militarization of women, mainly in Nazi labor service, in the most barbaric manner. The Nazi "women's leaders," the Phyllis Schlafly's and co. of Germany, without a bat of an eyelash declared: "It has always been our chief article of faith that women's place is in the home. But since the whole of Germany is our home, we must serve her wherever we can best do so."

The Schlaflyites claim to oppose the drafting of women only in order to push their reactionary ideology that "women's place is in the home," that women are allegedly weak and frail and that the oppression of women is really a sign of the great respect which the imperialists allegedly have for them. This is nothing but so much reactionary drivel. This ideology is aimed at preventing women from participating in the workers' movement, in the strike movement and in all revolutionary popular struggle. The reactionaries do not actually intend to have women return to the home, although their slogan that "women's place is in the home" does serve to prettify wide-scale layoffs and unemployment. But mainly this slogan is designed to enslave the women at the place of work and elsewhere in society. The capitalists have no intention to stop hiring women. The exploitation of female labor is far too profitable to them. But they use the ideology that "women's place is in the home" to justify paying women lower wages, smashing their participation in strikes, ridiculing their demands and harassing and humiliating them in a thousand ways. They aim at dividing the workers' movement and setting the men and women of the working class against each other.

Furthermore, with the slogan that "women's place is in the home," the Schlaflyites want to blame the savage exploitation and oppression that women face not on the rich exploiters, but allegedly on a plot by the feminists to force them to work. With these arguments the Schlaflyites show that they are utterly upper class and isolated from the masses of downtrodden women. Large numbers of proletarian women have always had to work in order to live. Furthermore, not the feminists, nor bungling "liberals," but the deepening economic crisis, the spiraling inflation and the ever increasing exploitation by the rich are forcing more and more women to work. But nevertheless it is not bad at all for women to take part in productive labor as opposed to being restricted to household drudgery. The truly emancipated woman of the future socialist state will take part in production and in all aspects of the life of this country, while today's working women are a powerful force for progress. What is bad about today's work, what converts the work place into a daily hell and what prevents the women from securing the necessary arrangements concerning the home and her children to allow her to go to work without being reduced to utter exhaustion, is the merciless capitalist exploitation. The Schlaflyites wish to perpetuate this exploitation. That is why they oppose the participation of women in the working class movement as part of their opposition to that movement altogether. That is why they oppose the women's movement for emancipation.

Hence both the Schlaflyites and the Pentagon feminists are the enemies of the women's movement and of the anti-imperialist movement generally. They differ in that the bourgeois feminists work to subvert and disorient the women's movement and tie it to the imperialists via deception, while the Schlaflyites favor the direct fascist suppression of any popular movement. They both support imperialism and differ only over how best to strengthen the army, what the pace of militarization should be at any time and perhaps under which imperialist politicians it should be carried out. The bourgeois feminists are not a bulwark against the open reactionaries such as Schlafly and company. On the contrary, the bourgeois feminists are helping the Schlaflyites to organize by presenting such a disgusting picture of enthusiasm for the most unpopular plans of the Pentagon. By fighting against the militarization of women, the revolutionary working class movement both exposes the Pentagon feminists and simultaneously takes the wind from the sails of the Schlaflyites. The struggle against militarism exposes both of these groups as enthusiasts for imperialism and enemies of the vital interests of working women.

Down with the Militarization of Women!

The struggle against the militarization of women is part and parcel of the struggle against all imperialist war preparations. It is a popular cause that lends further strength to the anti-imperialist movement. This struggle must be kept oriented firmly on the path of anti-imperialism. It can and should be utilized to discredit both the bourgeois feminists and the fascist Schlaflyites and to demonstrate the need for proletarian class politics independent of the bourgeois parties of the rich.

The Pentagon feminists say that the draft is "inevitable" and therefore one shouldn't fight militarism but only seek a better position within it. This is the old, old argument of the sellout and the renegade. Of course it is true that the anti-imperialist movement cannot and should not give promises that the draft can be defeated and imperialism converted into a peaceful humanitarianism, if only enough people protest. Capitalism is a living hell. In one form or another, savage exploitation, militarism and oppression of all types will continue. If one form of oppression is defeated or limited, another will be devised. But this does not at all mean that it is futile or useless to fight the draft or other outrages, as the Pentagon feminists maintain. On the contrary, this means that the struggle must have a revolutionary, not a reformist, perspective. Far from the struggle being futile, it is on the contrary only in the struggle against the outrages of capitalism that the working class and all the oppressed people organize themselves into a powerful revolutionary force. It is in these struggles that the force is created that will overthrow imperialism. At the same time these struggles limit, as far as possible, the oppression of the present. Without these struggles, the oppressed would be nothing but slaves, broken in spirit and zeroes in action. The Pentagon feminists oppose these struggles because they have sold out completely to the rich, been reconciled to the rich, become partners with the rich in stamping down the flames of revolt.

Opposition to the militarization of women is not based on any idea that women are "weak" or "belong at home." On the contrary, it is firmly based on the proposition that women must be organized as part of any revolutionary movement that seeks to be profound and deep-going. It is based on setting before women the prospect of emancipating themselves in the course of struggling shoulder to shoulder with men against the exploiters and imperialists. It is the fight against militarism and exploitation, it is the struggle for liberation, that requires strength of character and that demonstrates determination, while it is the bourgeois feminists and the Schlaflyites who are nothing but contemptible playthings of the rich.

The Marxist-Leninist Party firmly denounces the militarization of women. But the MLP is not afraid of it. Should women be conscripted into the armed forces, this will only result in further drawing women into the revolutionary struggle. Furthermore, it is precisely the anti-imperialist movement of today against the militarization of women that is preparing the conditions to help women take part in organizing from within the army tomorrow, should they be drafted. Through their vigorous part in the revolutionary struggle, women will find the path to genuine emancipation and equality.

[Cartoon.]

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'C'PUSA Revisionists Grovel Before the Democratic Party

The "Communist" Party of the USA ("C'PUSA), which is the official standard-bearer of Khrushchovite and Browderite revisionism in this country, is nothing but a promoter of liberal- labor politics. Despite fielding their own "independent" presidential ticket, the revisionists are nothing but a mere echo and shadow of the Democrats. This was exposed once again during the recent Democratic Convention. when Gus Hall and the revisionist rag, the Daily World, went into a fit of ecstasy over the ugly performance of the Democrats.

At the Convention, the Democrats renominated Carter and adopted a platform which is nothing but a pledge to continue to implement the hated Carterite policies of the last four years. The platform of the Democrats is the common program of the rich, a program of starvation, fascism and war. But as everyone knows, the Democrats never fail to lay on a thick coat of whitewash that they are the party of the common man," that they represent the true interests of the workers and oppressed masses. During this Convention, and in fact, throughout the primary campaign, this deception was carried out especially by the promotion of the "Kennedy alternative." This was particularly pushed by the "left"-wing Democrats, the social-democratic hacks like UAW's Fraser, IAM's Winpisinger, and DSOC's Michael Harrington.

But the "Kennedy alternative" was never an alternative at all -- it represented the exact same policies as Carter. only with a slightly thicker coat of deception. At the Convention, the Kennedy candidacy collapsed, but Kennedy did not fail to do his duty to the party. This he did by adding the whitewash that the Democrats need so much in their platform. He made a 'brilliant" speech, and a "fight" was organized over certain platform provisions. In his speech, he appealed to the Convention to pass these provisions, and told the delegates that this would "restore the faith" of the masses that the Democrats were indeed "the party of hope...progress... full employment...civil rights...and the common man and common woman," etc. And as the Convention willingly complied, the "Kennedy alternative" smoothly merged into the "united" campaign of the Democrats to reelect Carter.

Kennedy's speech was widely acclaimed by the bourgeoisie. It drew congratulations from Carter himself. And one by one, the "left"-wing Democrats, with Fraser in the van, began to obediently line up behind Carter as allegedly the "lesser evil" against the threat of the "ultra-right" Reagan.

But it was not only the Democrats who applauded Kennedy. He also found an ardent admirer in none other than the revisionist "C' PUSA and its leader Gus Hall. The Daily World could not restrain its enthusiasm over Kennedy's platform "fight." Big bold headlines screamed: PLATFORM REVOLTS MAKE JIMMY SWEAT (August 14, 1980). Imagine! The Democrats throw in some eyewash into their platform about "full employment," "peace" and "women's rights" in order to fool the masses. They do this through a deal worked out between the Carter and Kennedy forces and this was no secret. Moreover, it is common knowledge that the paper promises of the capitalist parties never mean anything anyway. But in all this, the "C'PUSA nevertheless manages to rind a "revolt"! Indeed, after such a "revolt," the Democrats must have carried out a veritable "insurrection" when they renominated Carter to run on such a platform. This must no doubt have left Carter simply quaking in his boots as he accepted the nomination. What utter nonsense!

In the same issue of their paper, the "C'PUSA released a statement from Gus Hall himself in extravagant praise of Kennedy and the Democrats. Mr. Hall hailed Kennedy's "important speech" and congratulated him and the Democratic delegates for 'signaling "the regroupment of the liberals." My, my, what an earthshaking development! Indeed the media managers of the Democrats could not have done a better job of lavishing praise on their own party. This seasoned revisionist lizard then went on to list various of the good things that the Convention supposedly accomplished. According to his fantastic imagination, it "rejected Carter's policies on the economic front," and the Kennedyite economic policies adopted are even "in contradiction with Carter's policies of military buildup."

All this is rubbish. It is nothing but the most disgusting prettification of the Democrats. The "C"PUSA is simply offering assistance to the Democrats to continue to peddle the illusion that they indeed represent the real interests of the masses, and that the imperialist "liberals" of the Democratic Party are somehow the "friends of labor."

In fact this is exactly what Gus Hall goes on to say when he offers the Democratic "liberals" some advice on how to do their job even better. He says, "The liberals within the Democratic Party can influence developments and be a political force only if they work with the growing movements of political independence outside the two-party system. If they recognize this and act accordingly, this rebirth can be an important development for our country."

What utter shamelessness! The revisionists are actually advising the Democratic "liberals" to step up their infiltration of the mass movements. They want the Democrats to work even harder to subordinate under them the masses who are beginning to break away from the capitalist political parties.

Today in the U.S. the widespread disgust with both the Republicans and the Democrats is growing. The liberal- labor deception of the Democrats is wearing thin. As the masses of workers, youth and oppressed nationalities take part in growing mass struggles against the policies of the rich, it indicates that the masses are moving in the direction of truly independent politics. the proletarian class politics of splitting from the bourgeois parties and of struggle against the rich. In such a favorable situation for the development of the proletarian revolution, the revisionist "C"PUSA comes up to try to prevent a break with the liberal-labor essence of the Democratic Party's politics. They appeal to the "liberals" to step up their subversion of the masses' strivings for independence from the rich.

Lest someone argue otherwise, it should be pointed out that the "C"P USA is not making this appeal because it is somehow confused on the nature of the Kennedyite "liberals" of the Democratic Party. They know perfectly well that the Kennedys and Browns, etc., represent the interests of the bourgeoisie. For instance, just eight months ago they wrote: "...there are no basic differences between millionaires Carter, Kennedy and Brown. None of them will attack the profit system or state monopoly capitalism. All serve monopoly capital or sections of it....a close examination of Kennedy policies discloses an unmistakable accommodation to monopoly, to the Right." ("Independence and Coalition -- the Communist View," Political Affairs, Dec. 1979)

Thus, knowing full well who the "liberal" Democrats are, the revisionists applaud them and call upon these representatives of monopoly capital to unite with the revisionists even closer in saving liberal-labor politics and subverting the mass movements. Such is the treachery of the "C"PUSA!

The "C"PUSA's "Independent Politics" Is Nothing But the Liberal-Labor Politics of the Democrats

This treacherous policy of preventing the masses from splitting with the liberal-labor politics of the Democrats is the official policy of the "C"PUSA. It is their strategic orientation of building the "anti-monopoly coalition." Through this coalition with the capitalist "liberals," the "C"PUSA even hopes to achieve "socialism." This perspective was reaffirmed in the report delivered by Gus Hall to the 22nd National Convention of the "C"PUSA in August, 1979. In this document, the revisionists bare all the sordid details of the services they pledge to deliver to the bourgeoisie.

The revisionists are wily politicians. They know that there is a ferment in the society and a widespread disgust with the parties of the rich. But what does the "C"PUSA seek to do with this motion of the masses away from the capitalist political parties? Unmistakably theirs is the strategy of subordinating all this to the liberal-labor politics of the Democrats.

The "C"PUSA says that today "there is movement and new activities of political independence...a powerful anti-corporate current in the country." ("Report to the 22nd National Convention of the CPUSA," Labor Up Front, 1979, p. 81) But when one examines their position closely, it is discovered that the "C"PUSA is not referring to the motion of the masses away from the politics of the rich, but above all, to the present-day increased activation of social-democracy by the bourgeoisie. "The powerful anti-corporate current" is actually the new-found "fighting" demagogy and "militant" phrasemongering of well-known Democratic Party hacks, of certain labor traitors, soldout black politicians and poverty pimps, etc. It is among such elements that the "C"PUSA discovers motion towards "political independence." It finds this among the various coalitions of the social-democrats such as the Progressive Alliance of UAW hack Fraser, the Citizens/Labor Energy Coalition of IAM hack Winpisinger; in the "network of black elected officials," the Congressional Black and Hispanic Caucus, and Operation PUSH of Jesse Jackson, etc.

It is incredible that according to the fertile imagination of the "C"PUSA's theoreticians, these are forces of "political independence." For it is well known, and these esteemed gentlemen would be the first to tell you that they are all either in or very closely associated with the Democrats. For instance, Fraser just worked for the Kennedy campaign and has just endorsed Carter for reelection. The Coleman Youngs, John Conyers, etc., the "network of black elected officials" are straightforward functionaries of the Democratic Party, and indeed Coleman Young was even one of Carter's key campaign people. Furthermore, it is also well known that these social-democratic flunkeys of the Democrats have an extremely long and sordid history of sabotaging and attacking the working class movement and the Afro- American people's movement. But the revisionists, nevertheless, wax enthusiastically over them.

They write: "It is very important for us to understand that these coalitions are the coming together of the main social and class forces of the rising anti-monopoly movement. These are the key forces in the fight for political independence." (Ibid., p. 27) Just imagine! These traitors who sabotage all the struggles of the masses and who are in fact straightforward Democrats are allegedly forces for "independence"! This is truly a strange conception of "independence." Actually it is a mockery of genuine political independence which must be based on complete separation from and utter hostility to the politics and parties of the rich.

In the final analysis, the "independent political movement," the "anti- monopoly coalition" of the revisionists boils down to the same old liberal-labor politics, a coalition of "liberals, labor and minorities," the key force in this coalition being the imperialist "liberals" of the Democratic Party, who, as the "C"PUSA itself admits, "represent monopoly capital." This is nothing but a resurrection of the grand old Rooseveltian coalition of the past. And as for the "C"PUSA itself, its own "independence" is closely akin to the independence of the tail to the dog.

But someone may argue, when the revisionists speak of these social-democratic coalitions, they probably want to split the masses in these coalitions away from the influence of the social-democratic chieftains. But any such notion is contradicted by the "C"PUSA itself which openly admits that it is only talking about empty coalitions of social-democratic chieftains, with hardly any masses being involved. They write that these are "mainly coalitions of leading forces" (i.e. chieftains), that "they do not have a stable system of roots," that "some obviously fear mass participation," and that "most of these movements are not yet mass action oriented." (Ibid., p. 27) Thus the "anti-monopoly forces" of the "C"PUSA are nothing but groupings of labor bureaucrats, Democratic Party functionaries and poverty pimps, having nothing to do with the masses.

But the masses are not left out of the picture altogether. The "C"PUSA does indeed have a place for them in their grand scheme -- squarely under the domination of the social-democratic flunkeys of the Democratic Party. And in their convention report, the revisionists chart out for their local clubs the task of bringing the masses under the hegemony of the social-democrats. Recognizing that "the most serious weakness" of the social- democratic coalitions is "their lack of a grass roots base," Gus Hall points out that "for our Party clubs this is an historic opportunity. Each club should conduct a study; which organizations have grass roots formations in their area. If they do not, the obvious question is how to build such formations. For example, if there are no grass roots formations of organizations such as the Citizens/Labor Energy Coalition and the Progressive Alliance, then the task is how to...start grass roots organisations...." (Ibid. p.101)

Thus, at a time when the masses are beginning to split with the Democrats and Republicans and taking initial steps towards genuine independence from the politics of the bourgeoisie, the "C"PUSA has charted out plans to prevent a break with the liberal-labor politics of the Democrats. Their whole aim is to subordinate the masses to the "left" wing of the Democrats. This is simply a resurrection of the path charted out by their mentor, Mr. Earl Browder, who in the 1930's developed the strategy of submitting the working class movement to the liberal-labor Rooseveltian coalition.

It was the degeneration of the once-revolutionary CPUSA in the 1930's which subordinated the workers' movement to the curse of being hitched to liberal-labor politics. As a result of this, the burning task facing the workers' movement for decades has been to break through this treachery and build the independent political movement of the proletariat.

The first historic step in this direction of constituting the working class as a class for itself, distinct from and hostile to the rich, was taken on January 1, 1980 with the founding of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA. The MLP recognizes that the stirrings among the workers and toiling masses, the widespread disaffection with the parties of the rich, must be oriented onto the path of conscious proletarian politics. This is the politics of independence from the rich, the politics of revolutionary struggle against the rich.

The development of the independent political movement of the proletariat necessarily requires not only a fight against the Republicans and Democrats but also a tenacious fight against the social-democrats and revisionists who try to subordinate the masses to the Democrats. And it is for this reason that the Founding Congress of the MLP held that it is essential to step up the war against social-democracy and liberal-labor politics.

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Citizens Party-Warmed Over Carter Stew

The Citizens Party was born late last year. In April of this year it held its first convention to launch a campaign to elect Barry Commoner to the presidency. Commoner is lavishly praising the Citizens Party as allegedly being the party of "peace," the party against the "giant corporations" and the party which is the "alternative" to the Democratic and Republican Parties.

But behind all this extravagant self- praise, in reality the Citizens Party is championing the exact same policies as that of the Carter government and the Democratic Party. The Citizens Party was formed by a section of the sellout trade union bureaucracy, the bought-off professors and an assortment of petty-bourgeois flunkeys of the Democratic Party. It has not taken a single step away from the Democrats in any of its policies. No matter whether it is their support for wage-price controls and the brutal capitalist productivity drive, their tears over the supposed "energy shortage" and their whining that Carter has only paid "lip service" to his own energy policy, or their appeals for a "strong" U.S. imperialism, on every issue the Citizens Party does not represent anything "independent" at all, but just warmed over Carter stew.

The significance of the formation of the Citizens Party is that the Democratic Party is worried about the growing ferment among the masses. The capitalists are especially activating social-democracy and the "left wing" of the Democratic Party in order to infiltrate the mass movements and keep them from developing in a revolutionary direction. The Citizens Party is another one of the tricks being employed by the capitalists to try and stop the workers from taking an independent path. To overcome the "crisis of confidence" and win over the disillusioned masses, the Citizens Party is trying to paint up the policies of the capitalist offensive, the policies of "sacrifice" for the profits of the rich, in the old, tired-out rhetoric of the "liberal" wing of the Democratic Party about "economic democracy" and "structural change" for the "redistribution of income." To tone down and subvert the mass struggle, Commoner has set forth a whole plethora of absolutely ridiculous schemes for supposed "worker self-management" and "public control of the giant corporations" which he claims will cure the excesses of imperialism and provide "full employment" without harming the profits of the rich. The Citizens Party is trying to present itself as radical with tons of general, vague and meaningless phrases, while ensuring that it says nothing that is not acceptable to the general bourgeois public opinion, nothing that would be "... while perhaps commendable as an eventual goal...light years ahead of American public opinion at this time." (Draft Citizens Party Platform, p. 6) Genuine independent politics means politics independent of the capitalists. It is the politics of the class struggle of the proletariat versus the bourgeoisie. It is the politics of the mass revolutionary struggle against starvation, fascism and war. It is revolutionary politics, the politics of struggle against imperialism and capitalist exploitation. We shall see that on all these fronts the Citizens Party is just another party of the rich, albeit one dressed up with extravagant sentimental phrasemongering to deceive the unwary.

A Party to Defend the Capitalists' Profits

The Citizens Party stresses repeatedly in its leaflets and policy statements that it supports profits and the "individual enterprise" capitalist system. For example, in "the working paper of the Citizens Committee" it states:

"There is nothing wrong with profit, or with private ownership. What is [emphasis in the original -- ed.] wrong is when private interest, and not the public good, determines how we live.... Elevating the national interest above vested private interests is the heart of what the Citizens Party is about."

This is echoed in the Draft Platform, which calls "individual enterprise" a "guiding principle" of the Citizens Party (point 19, p. 4)

The Citizens Party indeed is not against profit, but in fact is full of schemes to increase the profits of the corporations. It simply wants to change some of the priorities of the corporations by government intervention. In short, the Citizens Party is in favor of what exists today. For the government is simply the executive committee of the big capitalists. It hands out billions to the monopolies, while all the capitalist parties haggle over exactly how much is to be given to this or that monopoly and this or that government program -- all in the name of the "national interest" of course.

The Citizens Party is so much in favor of profit that it refuses to admit that the pursuit of profit is behind the unemployment' and speedups at home and aggression abroad. Oh no, it is only "private interest," while legitimate profit is to be protected and enhanced.

The Citizens Party is against the class struggle. It claims to stand above that. Its economic schemes are for the interests of all "citizens," for the "national interest" or even "for the interests of national security." (Draft Platform, points 36, 51, etc.) It does not recognize that there is the national interest of the capitalists and the class interests of the workers and the exploited and that these stand opposed to each other. It pretends to be ignorant of the fact that the profits of the capitalists and the wages of the workers stand in inverse relation to each other. Instead it reassures the capitalists over and over of its complete loyalty with its hymns to "profits," the "national interest" and "individual enterprise." It strives for respectability in the eyes of the rich. This is why it calls itself the "Citizens" Party and thereby shows its attitude towards the millions upon millions of disenfranchised workers, the "illegal" immigrants and others.

The Citizens Party shouts about small business and against the "corporate giants." But we shall see that all the demagogy about small business and "decentralization" is just window dressing. The program of the Citizens Party is the program of the big monopolies. "Decentralization" is simply a plan to add some layers of government bureaucracy to provide nice cushy positions for aspiring politicians and also a plan to split up and fragment the mass movements. The hypocritical promotion of the glories of "small" business is also, of course, a plank of all capitalist parties. Nixon himself promoted the development of small business as a method to divert the Afro-American people's movement with his cry of "black capitalism."

Now let us examine the economic program of the Citizens Party in more detail.

Productivity Drive to Squeeze the Workers and Enrich the Billionaires

Today all the capitalists are justifying their layoffs and speedups with talk of "declining productivity." They are squeezing the workers under the banner of the "productivity drive." The Democratic and Republican Party support this productivity drive and are calling for it to be intensified under such slogans as "reindustrialization" or the "revitalization" of industry. This drive means profits for the rich and hell for the workers.

But this productivity drive is also the central point of the economic program of the Citizens Party.

According to the Citizens Party, inflation is ' 'the most serious immediate problem of the American people today." (Draft Platform, point 21) Commoner explained that his answer to the problem of inflation is to carry out the productivity drive. In an interview in the social-democratic paper In These Times in the issue of April 23-29, 1980 he was asked what he would do to stop inflation. He answered:

"Inflation basically means a reduction in the efficiency of the productive process. It's really a question of overall productivity."

The Draft Platform is full of concern about how to "revitalize industry" and provide the funds for "increased capital accumulation." The Citizens Party pretends that the workers will gain full employment from this productivity drive, but the everyday experience of the workers is that hundreds of thousands of workers are being thrown out on the street as more and more production is sweated out of the overworked workers in the plant.

Commoner's concern for productivity is in fact simply a repetition of Carter's program. Shortly after becoming president, Carter set up the National Productivity Board to help the monopoly capitalists speed up, overwork and lay off the workers. In the name of stepping up productivity to "fight inflation" the Carter government has handed over to the auto, steel and other monopolists untold billions to retool their old plants, build new and more automated factories and, as a result, to throw hundreds of thousands of workers into the unemployment lines.

Kneeling Before the Monopolies

To carry out the productivity drive, the Citizens Party calls for numerous schemes to help the monopolies. For example, Commoner is campaigning that rebuilding the railroads is one of the most important measures to increase productivity. He admits that he wants the government to pay for the reconstruction of the railroads because it is not profitable for the corporations to do so. He stated in the interview with In These Times:

"Social control means rebuilding the railroads. How do you do it? There's no way of rebuilding the railroads without owning them. Nobody else wants to own them. The reason why they are being ripped apart is that they are taking out the pieces that don't make a profit." Commoner admits in an interview in Newsweek that the reason he wants to rebuild the railroads in the first place is to help the steel monopolists. He brags that: "A national, social decision to rebuild the railroads, using public funds, can in turn greatly enlarge the market for steel, and so convince the steel industry managers that they can build new, more productive plants, and profit thereby."

This plan to rebuild the railroads with tax money from the workers is not new. It is already being put into effect through Conrail and Amtrak. Nixon and Carter, Democrat and Republican, are agreed on it. Commoner is only asking for this process to take place more quickly. Commoner's "social control" has of course been tried out elsewhere also. In Britain since World War II, various unprofitable industries have been "nationalized," huge compensation paid to the monopolists, rebuilt at government expense, and then sold back to the capitalists for a song. This process is immensely profitable for the capitalists, but it has not succeeded in solving Britain's economic woes. For this system reinforces capitalism, and thus does nothing to solve the capitalist economic crisis.

But here in these schemes to increase the profits of the steel monopolists and fork over immense sums to the owners of the railroads we have the essence of the Citizens Party "economic democracy" -- a "social decision" in the "national interest" to hand over public funds to make the billionaires richer still. And this from a party that has "pledged" itself to "redistribute income away from the giant corporations and the rich, in favor of the working people of the nation and in favor of social investment." (Draft Platform, point 29)

But there is still more "income redistribution" in the plans of the Citizens Party. It has gone so far as to suggest "ending the corporate income tax" and "implementing a progressive value added tax." (Draft Platform, point 28B) Even Ronald Reagan would be proud of such a suggestion to eliminate the corporate income tax and replace it with a sales tax. But only inveterate phrasemongers would dare call a national sales tax "a progressive tax," when this is universally known as a most regressive tax which weighs worst on the poor. Of course, the Citizens Party promises that via tons of government rules and regulations and red tape they will convert them into a tax "felt only by high-income families based on their consumption."

The Citizens Party's "Conservation" and "Alternative Energy" Is Nothing But Carter's Energy Program

The Citizens Party has also promised to "bring the energy industries under public control." We have seen what this "social control" means for the railroads. And it is the same for the energy monopolies. The Citizens Party's plan is just a warmed-over version of Carter's energy program of plundering the masses for the profits of the oil billionaires.

To begin with, the Citizens Party complains that the U.S. economy "is dependent on unstable and frequently autocratic regimes for oil supplies." (Draft Platform, point 48) This is another example of the Citizens Party's glaring chauvinism. Just like Carter, it describes the plunder of the world's oil resources as the U.S. being at the mercy of the Arabs. It is covering up the tremendous oppression by U.S. imperialism and ignoring who has installed these "autocratic regimes" by fire and sword.

The Citizens Party also agrees with Carter's basic fraud that the importation of foreign oil is caused by an alleged energy shortage. Under this fraud the oil magnates have jacked up prices sky-high and squeezed the working masses for the sake of gigantic profits. The Citizens Party doesn't expose this fraud, but instead argues in favor of Carter's plan of bleeding the masses under the name of "conservation." In its working paper, the Citizens Committee blames Carter for not pushing his program hard enough, It states that it wants: "A strong push, instead of the [Carter's -- ed.] Administration's lip service,/or conservation and solar energy." This is elaborated in the Draft Platform, point 50, as "The United States must devise a massive program (at least comparable in scope to the far less important space program) to integrate into our economy both new and sadly neglected old technology: solar, photovoltaic, geothermal, wind turbine, low-head hydro and other sources of renewable energy." They continue in subsequent points to demand "expanded subsidies, tax incentives and direct allocations" to carry out this massive program. This is exactly what Carter demanded with his $88 billion alternative fuels development scheme -- a scheme to rob the masses, give billions of dollars to the energy corporations and to stockpile domestic energy resources in preparation for imperialist war.

To pay for his alternative energy schemes, Carter called for a "windfall profits tax" on the oil corporations. This was of course a fraud, a tax which is actually passed on to the workers through higher prices. The Citizens Party, Carterite to the end, also suggests the possibility of a "windfall profits" tax in point 80 of its Draft Platform. But the Platform Subcommittee recommends the rejection of the point. Not because it is against it, mind you, but because it is "so specific that they divert attention from the major thrust of the broader policies of this plank." In other words, keep everything in the realm of vague generalities so that the Carterite nature of the whole program will be concealed.

Naturally the Citizens Party tries to camouflage its service to the U.S. oil kings with all sorts of cheap promises to break up the energy monopolies and bring them under "public control." The center of these empty vows has been their plan "To provide a public oil import authority to purchase and distribute all crude oil and petroleum products imported into the United States." This is based on their chauvinist claim that the problem is that the poor and defenseless U.S. oil corporations are being pushed around by "OPEC" and other "foreign oil." Furthermore, such a plan is either hot air or a more sophisticated way of establishing channels to give money to the oil billionaires. For the oil monopolies cannot and will not be broken up by such empty plans. They are the very backbone of the U.S. monopoly capitalist economy. They can only be broken up by the revolutionary struggle of the working class in the course of the socialist revolution. The Citizens Party's touching faith that a government dominated by the monopolists will break up the biggest and most powerful monopolies is just another indication of its absolute loyalty to capitalism. It marks them as the most shameless liars and deceivers of the masses.

The Citizens Party Is Opposed to the Development of the Mass Revolutionary Struggle

The Citizens Party is absolutely silent in its platform about the strikes, demonstrations, rebellions and other mass actions of the workers, oppressed nationalities, students, youth and other progressive people. It does not support or endorse these actions. It does not support the revolutionary traditions from the 1960's. It goes to the extreme of attributing "the rights and gains made by Black Americans over the last quarter century" to "court decisions, legislation, policies and procedures" (Draft Platform, point 219) and not to the heroic rebellions, demonstrations, actions and self-sacrificing struggle of the Afro-American people. It does not deign to mention the powerful movement against U.S. imperialist aggression in Viet Nam. Nor does it mention the revolutionary mass movements of today.

Yet it is precisely in these revolutionary mass actions, as well as in the building of revolutionary organization and of the class organizations of the proletariat, the highest of which being the Marxist-Leninist Party, that the genuine independent politics of the masses is being built. These actions are the manifestations of the powerful ferment among the masses. The encouragement of these actions, the active participation in them and the giving of correct orientation to them, is one of the most important duties of all class conscious workers and progressive people. In these actions the masses are achieving a revolutionary education in the class struggle. Supporting the militant actions of the masses, step by step lending these struggles a more conscious, systematic and organized character, encouraging and developing every oppositional and revolutionary current and working to combine them into a single powerful revolutionary torrent -- these are the politics of the working class organized for itself and fighting in its own interests. These are the independent class politics that create the conditions for and develop into the socialist revolution.

The Citizens Party, however, is opposed to these actions. Commoner repeatedly lectures the masses that it is supposedly better to send 200 congressmen to Washington than 200,000 demonstrators into the streets. The Citizens Party is not built to take part in the struggle of the masses, but to win votes and get elected. Like any other capitalist party of crooked politicians, it is always present on the platforms to mouth off with tons of promises and dreams of pie in the sky, but never organizes for the mass struggle. To be precise, it may be present, but not on your side of the barricades, because it seeks alliance with all the opportunist big shots who are flown hither and thither by the government as firemen to cool off the masses and suppress the people's actions.

Thus the Draft Platform of the Citizens Party does not call for mass struggle at all. Instead it contains simply dozens upon dozens of schemes for curing the "faults" of capitalism without a struggle. These are empty politicians' promises designed to tone down, divert or liquidate the popular movements.

But there is more than that. The Citizens Party is itself a coalition of opportunist chieftains. It appeals to and contains the traitors to the people's struggle whose special role is to be firemen to stop the struggle. They earn their recognition from the bourgeoisie by their effectiveness in scabbing on the mass action and keeping things calm. As well, the Citizens Party supports repressive legislation aimed at suppressing the mass movement.

The Citizens Party Supports the Labor Bureaucrats as the "Leaders" of the Workers

The workers' movement provides an excellent example of the relationship of the Citizens Party to the mass movement.

The bourgeoisie tells the worker that his leaders are the top labor hacks. These hacks are called "labor leaders." These hacks are notorious enemies of the workers' movement. They break strikes and openly collaborate with the management. They are infamous racists, reactionaries and imperialists, often being more enthusiastic in their display of chauvinism than most bourgeois politicians. They are paid as well as the capitalists and live like exploiters off the workers. Indeed the American labor bureaucrats are notorious for their corruption all over the world.

But it is just these hacks that the Citizens Party is wooing. The Citizens Party does not even mention the ferment among the workers, the defiance of Carter's wage controls, the lessons of the inspiring coal miners' strike that defied the fascist Taft-Hartley Act, or the other actions of the proletariat. It remains silent in its platform about the crimes of the bureaucrats, although any serious struggle of the workers comes up inevitably against both the capitalists and the labor bureaucrats. Instead the Citizens Party supports these bureaucrats. This however is consistent. For those like the Citizens Party who defend the profits of the capitalists can find no objection to hobnobbing with those faithful lieutenants of the capitalists, the top trade union hacks.

Furthermore, the Citizens Party is in favor of strengthening the various labor-management collaboration schemes. It demands: "We support the inclusion of significant worker and consumer representation on the boards of directors of all corporations." (Draft Platform, point 39) The so-called worker representation being referred to are the trade union hacks. Here again the Citizens Party is just trailing behind Carter and the Democratic Party. For Carter is promoting the extension of labor-management and labor-management-government bodies. These bodies are steps towards fascizing the trade unions still further and utilizing the hacks more thoroughly to smash the workers' movement.

An example of this "worker representation" is the inclusion of UAW President Doug Fraser on the Board of Directors of Chrysler. This inclusion did not help the workers in the slightest. On the contrary, this inclusion was purchased by Mr. Fraser ramming down the Chrysler workers' throats millions in pay cuts in concessions even beyond the sellout contract forced on the rest of the auto workers. This was an example of cooperation and negotiations between the Congress, the Chrysler management and the UAW bureaucrats.

The Citizens Party not only supports these fiends. It supports repressive legislation to smash the revolt of the workers against the capitalists and the labor hacks. Thus its Draft Platform states: "we urge passage of labor law reform...." (point 188)

Here again the Citizens Party is just echoing Carter. The "reform" being referred to is Carter's Labor Law Reform Act. This act was a fascist proposal to smash the workers' movement. Under the pretext of providing some insignificant reforms, reforms themselves tied up in a thousand qualifications and interpretations and sometimes worse than that which hostile capitalist courts had already granted the workers, this act put forward a number of exceptionally severe provisions against the strike movement. As stated in the debate in Congress, it was designed to suppress the coal miners' strike movement. It banned roving pickets, strengthened the laws against wildcat strikes and sympathy strikes, and so forth. (This bill is analyzed in detail, provision by provision, in the special issue of The Workers' Advocate of January 9, 1978.) The support of the Citizens Party for this bill shows that it favors the iron suppression of the workers' movement.

In place of the workers' movement, the Citizens Party promotes utopian schemes of workers buying closed up plants as the solution to plant closings and so forth. These schemes have always had the support of the capitalists. They use them to get good prices for worn-out and useless equipment, to attempt to break the solidarity of the workers and to have model factories where the workers cut their own wages and speed themselves up in a frenzied attempt to keep their factory afloat. The Citizens Party wants the workers to rely on cooperation with the capitalists, the benevolent protection of the capitalist government and the leadership of the trade union hacks and to give up any troublesome strike struggle or class struggle.

Carter's Wage Controls Dressed Up as Freeze on Prices

The Citizens Party not only supports repressive legislation like Carter's Labor Law Reform Act, it also supports Carter's policy of wage-price controls.

Wage-price controls are a fascist measure whereby the state openly throws its full power against the workers' movement and attempts to dictate an across-the-board wage cut for the entire working class. Faced with ever deepening impoverishment due to the skyrocketing inflation and Carter's wage cutting, the workers have become enraged. Many strikes have taken the path of defying Carter's wage-cutting controls. This has been the only path for the workers to gain any relief from the capitalist offensive against them.

The Citizens Party does not support these workers' strikes, nor does it call for any fight against Carter's controls. Instead it only complains that prices are not controlled equally with wages. In the "working paper of the Citizens Committee," it grumbles that "The Administration tries to limit wages, but not prices." This is not criticism of wage controls. It is simply an attempt to prettify controls and present the only problem as being some bumbling by the Carter administration.

In fact the call for controlling prices has been the thin pretext under which both Carter's wage controls, and Nixon's wage controls before him, were launched in the first place. Indeed the demand for controlling prices equally with wages has become the standard cry of the reactionary trade union bureaucrats and capitalist politicians whenever they want to impose even harsher wage controls. This year Senator Kennedy has jumped out as the standard bearer of a campaign for stricter pay-cutting controls and he is even demanding a freeze on wages. Kennedy, just like his predecessors, is dressing up this savage measure against the workers in the demagogic appeal for "mandatory controls" "not only on prices and wages, but also on profits, dividends, interest rates and rent."

The Citizens Party has fallen in line behind the Democratic Party on this issue as all others. It too supports a freeze. Commoner blurted this out in the interview in In These Times. Asked point-blank "Are you opposed to a wage-price freeze?," Commoner replied: "Well, I think this is a temporary band-aid. I think it has to be absolutely linked to the fundamental step. Kennedy says, 'We'll put in a freeze,' but then what is he going to do." In other words, Commoner is in favor of Kennedy's wage-price freeze. All of the talk of a "temporary band-aid" makes no difference whatsoever, since Kennedy too talks this way and is proposing only a "temporary" six- month freeze. The aim of such a wage- price freeze is to lock the workers into low wage three-year contracts and then to drop controls and allow prices to soar out of sight. This is what took place with Nixon's wage-price freeze.

Right now the Citizens Party is trying to make up its mind whether or not to try to hide its support for wage controls or to come out openly as champions of this savage anti-worker policy. Thus in point 23 of their draft program there are two alternative positions offered on this question. However, point 22 calls for an "immediate freeze on prices, profits, interest rates and rents...." This is the usual politician's way of calling for wage controls.

The Citizens Party Is a Chauvinist, Imperialist Party

The struggle against U.S. imperialism is a hallmark of the genuine independent political movement of the oppressed. But the Citizens Party opposes the struggle against U.S. imperialism. It does not even recognize that U.S. imperialism exists. No reference to the phrase "U.S. imperialism" can be found in the entire 325 points of their draft platform. Nor is there any reference to U.S. imperialism's vast neo-colonial empire. Nor is there reference to U.S. imperialism's domination of its imperialist allies in Western Europe, Japan and Canada. Neither U.S. imperialism nor U.S. imperialism's brutal enslaving policy and ruthless plunder of the world exists for the Citizens Party, only a necessity to ensure "a fairer distribution of economic and social resources within and between countries." (Draft Platform, point 94) They blandly comment that the U.S. is not "committed to the creation of democratic governments abroad" (point 89), as though it were the most natural thing in the world that the U.S. should make and break the governments of other countries and trample the sovereignty and independence of the peoples of the world.

Naturally, since the Citizens Party does not even admit the existence of U.S. imperialism, it does not support the struggles of the world's peoples against U.S. imperialism either. Instead it praises U.S. imperialism in the most extravagant language. Although for the entire 20th Century the U.S. has been an aggressive, expansionist imperialist state (not to speak of previous U.S. aggression such as the enslavement of the Africans, and the plunder and annexation of half of Mexico and so forth and so on), the Preamble of the Draft Platform of the Citizens Party states:

"We Americans know that for two hundred years our nation has given sustenance to mankind's ancient quest for a democratic way of life. We have taken pride in knowing that all the world's people who dared to dream of freedom from old tyrannies have looked to the United States for democratic ideas and practices." Instead the Citizens Party calls for "a truly strong United States." (point 83) Indeed the "interest of national security" (point 51) is even one of the motivating factors even for its support of the Carterite energy program. As we have pointed out earlier, the Citizens Party aims to incite chauvinism with regard to the alleged energy shortage and to blame matters on the Arabs.

The Citizens Party is in favor of continuing the entire U.S. system of aggressive, warmongering and enslaving alliances. It does this slyly, by saying that it opposes "U.S. support of dictatorial governments anywhere in the world...." (point 88) And this is all that it opposes.

We shall shortly see that this "opposition" to dictatorial regimes itself is a fraud. But, first of all, it is a sign of the Citizens Party's imperialist nature that is endorses all the rest of the system of U.S. "support." For example, it does not oppose the U.S. domination of and military alliances with the imperialist countries of Western Europe, Japan and Canada, as it regards them as "democratic." Similarly, it supports the U.S. trampling on all the countries in its neo-colonial empire except for one or two of the most discredited and most shaky states. Thus the Citizens Party supports such warmongering treaties as the NATO alliance, the NORAD treaty, ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, U.S. and U.K.), the ASEAN alliance, the Organization of American States and the Japan-China-U.S. axis. All this it regards as normal and acceptable.

Furthermore, as far as "dictatorial regimes" go, the Citizens Party is once again following along behind Carter, this time behind his "human rights" fraud. For example, the Citizens Party writes that it is "opposed to any form of U.S. military intervention, by aid or force, in the emerging civil wars of El Salvador and any of its Central American neighbors." (Point 88) Of course the Citizens Party does not support the struggle against these dictatorial regimes whom it regards as among those that do "not have the support of its own people." Instead it simply wishes to create the illusion that these regimes are not U.S. puppet regimes slaughtering the people with U.S. weapons, trained in the U.S., propped up by the U.S. corporations and backed by U.S. force despite Carter's fraud of nonintervention.

The Citizens Party supports this "human rights" fraud simply because it believes that U.S. support of various of the most discredited dictators and butchers does not truly "protect American interests" and results in too much struggle against U.S. imperialism. So, just as the Citizens Party seeks to dampen and extinguish the class struggle in the U.S. with its petty schemes, so it wishes to do the same internationally as well. In the Preamble to the Draft Platform it explains that this policy is necessary or else the struggle against U.S. imperialism will grow by leaps and bounds. It writes:

"In Asia, Latin America and Africa, the aspiring young see their hopes blocked as the United States props up failing dynasties and military dictatorships. Though this is done in the name of protecting 'American interests,' the result is precisely the opposite: many people of the Third World develop hatred of the U.S." (point 4)

Furthermore, the fraud of the Citizens Party's supposed "opposition" to the U.S. propping up reactionary regimes (actually they are worried about the U.S. propping up "failing" regimes) is completely exposed by their ardent support for fascist Israeli Zionism. The Israeli Zionists have functioned as a creature of imperialism and a chief gendarme for U.S. imperialist plunder of the Mideast. Under U.S. tutelage and with massive financial and military support from U.S. imperialism, they have stolen the land of the Palestinians and carried out one bloody aggression after another to seize the land and subjugate their Arab neighbors. But the Citizens Party proclaims:

"The Citizens Party believes the right of the State of Israel to exist is not only a fundamental prerequisite to lasting peace, but a matter of human justice." (point 99)

Similarly the Citizens Party does not support the Iranian people. It is silent on the momentous significance of the Iranian people's democratic revolution. But it makes sure to dutifully follow Carter and to condemn "the taking of hostages in Iran." (point 98)

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'The Anderson Difference' -- six of one, half a dozen of the other

John Anderson has launched an "independent" campaign to win the presidential election. Recognizing the deep dissatisfaction of the working masses for the Democrats and Republicans, Anderson dropped his losing bid for nomination on the Republican ticket and jumped into the presidential election race as a supposed "independent" man of principles, the man who will bring out the hard truth and basic issues facing the American people.

So what are these issues and principles that John Anderson has promised to reveal? He is campaigning that the working people should not oppose the exploitative politics of the Democrats and Republicans, but should "breathe new life into the two parties." He is lecturing the workers that they should not fight against the rich who are shifting the burden of the economic crisis onto the workers' shoulders. Instead he demands that the workers must be forced to accept "domestic, mandatory sacrifices." Anderson is calling for the "reindustrialization" of America and stepping up the capitalists' productivity drive through giving billions of dollars of handouts to the big monopolies. While to protect these billionaires, he wants more "efficient" militarization in preparation for imperialist war. Evidently the "Anderson difference" is just the difference of six of one and half a dozen of another. His principles are none other than the common program of the monopoly capitalists, a program of starvation, fascism and war.

Like Carter for the Democrats and Bush for the Republicans, Anderson is a candidate of the Trilateral Commission. This is the agency established and dominated by the Rockefeller oil and banking monopolists and which joins together the U.S. imperialists with the imperialists of Western Europe and Japan. For years the Trilateral Commission has set the policies that the U.S. government has followed to engineer the drive of the western imperialist bloc for world domination. Anderson is a member of this commission.

The chief significance of the Anderson presidential campaign is that, in the situation where the Democrats and Republicans have become discredited among the workers and oppressed people, besides Carter and the Reagan-Bush candidates the rich have their own "independent" candidate as well. Anderson is just a stooge of the monopoly capitalists who is trying to convince the working people to support imperialism and the rich exploiters.

The Politics of "Sacrifice"

Anderson is campaigning as the honest man who will tell the American people the hard truth. But Anderson's version of the truth turns out to be just the standard lies of the rich. For example, Anderson claims that the only solution to the economic and energy crises is for the American workers to "tighten their belts" and make more "sacrifices." Of course the workers could fight to make the rich pay for the crisis, but Anderson will have none of this. He is only for the solution of the billionaires who will make enormous profits from the sacrifices of the workers. Anderson has even taken to chiding Carter for not being hard enough on the working people. In an interview in Playboy magazine Anderson complains, "I believe Carter is not willing to do the politically dangerous, difficult thing, which is to call on the American people for domestic, mandatory sacrifices."

To prove that he is not so weak-kneed as Carter, Anderson has demanded that the workers pay through the nose with a 50¢ a gallon tax on gasoline. He has taken up the traditional lie of the oil magnates that there is an "energy shortage" and therefore the workers must be made to "conserve energy." With amazing capitalist logic, Anderson argues that raising prices will cut inflation. The honest Anderson is telling fairy tales to the workers in order to explain away his plan to forcibly rip billions of dollars from the pockets of the workers to hand over to the oil and other monopoly capitalists.

For Anderson, this amount of sacrifice from the workers is still not nearly sufficient. He has introduced a bill requiring a balanced federal budget by 1982. While calling for stepped-up military spending and greater tax giveaways to the rich, Anderson wants to balance the budget through a whole slew of cuts in social programs. Just this year he urged Carter to cut $1.4 billion from the money designated to help poor families pay for the skyrocketing home heating oil costs. Also, in past years Anderson has fought against every social program from black lung benefits for disabled coal miners to unemployment compensation for migrant farm workers. He has fought for cuts in everything from the cost-of-living raises of those on social security, civil service and veterans' pensions to massive cutbacks in the food stamp program and requiring food stamp recipients to take any job offered at minimum wage. Despite this record, the oh-so honest John Anderson promises that he won't "balance the budget on the backs of the poor." The "Anderson difference" turns out to be nothing more than the promise of four more years of sacrifice and starvation for the working people.

Enormous Handouts to the Rich to "Reindustrialize" America

Like the Democrats and Republicans, Anderson is campaigning for a program of "reindustrializing America" and "increasing productivity." The monopoly capitalists promise that all of America's problems will be solved if there is just a modernization of the factories and greater productive efficiency. But as the experience of the auto industry has already shown, increased productivity and reindustrialization only mean ever greater speedup and massive layoffs for the workers. This fact does not faze Anderson in the least. In his campaign he has made one of the central issues the giving away of enormous handouts to the rich to assist them in their productivity drive against the workers.

Anderson is opposed to a general tax cut on the grounds that this would undermine the balancing of the budget. But when it comes to cutting the taxes of the rich, he is only too happy to be of service. Anderson has promised to cut 2% off corporate taxes by 1986, to further cut the capital gains tax, to reduce taxes on the interest from savings accounts, to give greater tax allowances for the depreciation of factories, and to give new tax incentives including a 10% tax credit for research and development. All of this is supposed to bring about "reindustrialization" and put the unemployed workers back to work. But in reality it is a program aimed at lining the pockets of the billionaires with gold, while the workers continue to be thrown onto the unemployment lines because of more "efficient" production.

Anderson also has other such fraudulent job-saving schemes. For example, in the name of providing jobs for the youth, Anderson sponsored legislation to cut the minimum wage for teenagers. Of course this too is just another way to provide increased profits to the monopoly capitalists, through cheap youth labor, while it has not a thing to do with saving or creating jobs. Anderson is pursuing the standard method of lying capitalist politicians of portraying savage exploitation as something which will benefit the workers.

Frenzied Imperialist Militarization

As his membership on the Trilateral Commission indicates, Anderson is a diehard imperialist politician. But, while he is campaigning for frenzied preparations for imperialist aggression and war, he is at the same time trying to paint himself up to look like a dove. Thus he loudly shouts against building the MX missile system. But why? Because he considers it "goldplating" and because the Soviet social-imperialists "will have more than enough warheads to simply wipe out the MX." He favors instead the "sea-based MX missile," that is, the stepping-up of the building of Trident II submarines which he considers better defense and less expensive.

Anderson also clamors against the "peacetime draft," for the time being. But why? Because he wants to "increase our conventional capability and new air and sea-lift capacity," to improve the "state of readiness of our armed forces," and to pay more money to retain the officers in the military.

Clearly, Anderson is just an imperialist vulture suited up in the costume of a dove. His basic position is the more "prudent application" of military spending. Therefore he supports the building of neutron bombs and more anti-ballistic missiles instead of the MX system and B-l bombers.

Continued Nuclear Energy Production

As part of his program of militarization, Anderson, in his campaign literature, advocates "preserving nuclear power as an option for the decade ahead." He is quite aware of the importance of the nuclear energy program for the production of nuclear weapons. For this reason in 1978 he fought hard against legislation that would stop the construction of the plutonium breeder reactor at the Clinch River breeder reactor project in Tennessee. Anderson is also very well informed on the importance of unbridled nuclear plant production for the wild profiteering of the monopoly capitalists. For this reason in 1972 he supported a bill authorizing the licensing of nuclear power plants before the completion of environmental impact studies.

Today, after the rise of the countrywide mass movement against the U.S. imperialists' nuclear energy program, Anderson has suddenly become "concerned" about the safety of the nuclear power plants. In order to appease the mass movement and tone down the struggle against nuclear power with empty promises, Anderson declared he will halt the "further expansion" of nuclear energy plants "unless" the government and industry show they have adequate safeguards. This means, of course, that on no account will Anderson liquidate the nuclear energy program completely and that he will continue to expand the nuclear power plants as soon as the government produces another study that fraudulently claims the plants are safe. The "principles" of this "independent" man are evidently based on the complete dependence to the energy monopolists and serving U.S. imperialism.

The "Anderson Difference" Has the Same "Carter Doctrine"

In the "Iranian crisis" that broke out last year, Anderson backed Carter to the hilt. He has undying hatred against the Iranian revolution which overthrew the hated U.S. imperialist puppet, the bloodstained Shah of Iran. And he savagely declared himself in favor of U.S. aggression against the Iranian people, saying that "They have behaved as an outlaw nation and I think they ought to be treated as such."

Echoing the "Carter doctrine," Anderson asserted that "The Persian Gulf is a vital interest to the Western powers." And to defend these "vital interests" of the big U.S. oil magnates through military blackmail and preparations for savage imperialist aggression, Anderson called for increasing the U.S. naval presence in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea.

Anderson also backed Carter in his stepped-up saber-rattling against the social-imperialists of the Soviet Union. He even went to Iowa to campaign among the farmers for Carter's grain embargo. Like Carter, Anderson used the savage Russian imperialist invasion of Afghanistan as a pretext to call for stepped-up militarization in preparation to launch the U.S. imperialists' own wars of aggression. The "Anderson difference" is just the naked imperialism of the "Carter doctrine" served up by the man who calls himself "just a good old-fashioned patriot."

But this blatant savage imperialism has become discredited among the masses, and the movement against U.S. imperialist war preparations has spread all across the country. To make Anderson appear to be somewhat less of a militarist than Carter, the capitalist news media has given a great deal of play to Anderson's claim that "the worst vote I ever cast was for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave us a war that never should have been fought." This resolution opened the way for the then president Lyndon Johnson to step up U.S. aggression against the Vietnamese people. But for the "good old-fashioned patriot," Anderson, to say he regrets his ardent support for this U.S. aggression is utter hypocrisy. He not only supported the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution but all of the massive military spending for the U.S. aggression right up to the time when the Vietnamese drove the U.S. troops off of their soil. Even today Anderson still claims that the bombing and napalming of Viet Nam was not imperialist aggression, but was "defending democracy."

Apparently Anderson's only real regret is the same as Ronald Reagan's, that the aggression wasn't savage enough for the barbaric U.S. imperialists to win. It's with this regret in mind that Anderson today is calling for strangling the Iranian revolution and pushing for all-around feverish war preparations.

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TO HELL WITH THE POLITICAL PARTIES OF THE RICH, PARTIES OF STARVATION, FASCISM AND WAR!

From August 10 through 14, the Democratic Party held its national convention in New York City. The Marxist-Leninist Party opposed the Convention and organized a vigorous campaign to denounce the Democrats and expose their crimes against the working masses. The working class and oppressed people are disgusted with the misery they have suffered under the Carter government and the Democrats. They are looking for an alternative and increasingly they are turning to struggle. The campaign of the MLP encouraged this outrage of the working people and worked to make them conscious of the need to build an independent political movement, a movement of revolutionary struggle against the rich.

For a week prior to the Democratic Convention, the New York Branch of the MLP distributed leaflets at the factories and in the neighborhoods and campuses around the New York area. The Party's call of "To Hell with the Political Parties of the Rich" captured the burning anger that is welling up from the workers and oppressed nationalities. The comrades of the MLP were greeted by the workers everywhere they went. The workers studied the MLP's leaflets and seriously discussed the necessity for taking up the path of mass revolutionary struggle against the capitalist offensive of starvation, fascism and war.

On August 10, the New York Branch of the MLP organized an anti-imperialist contingent which militantly participated in a demonstration held outside the Democratic Convention site. Under the Party's leadership about 70 people marched in the anti-imperialist contingent, shouting slogans against the program of the Democrats and singing anti-imperialist songs. This clear-cut stand of revolutionary opposition to the parties and politics of the rich won support from onlookers and other demonstrators. And a number of them joined in with the contingent.

The MLP finished its two week campaign with a public meeting held on August 16. Over 100 people participated in the meeting which blasted the policies of the Democrats. The MLP spokesman showed that both the Democrats and Republicans are loyal servants of the monopoly capitalists' fascist offensive against the workers. And he exposed the Democrats' lie that the workers have no other choice than to vote for Carter because Reagan is an even greater reactionary. The MLP spokesman explained that the workers must break with all the political parties of the rich and come out onto the stage of history in their own independent political movement. The speaker outlined the development of the mass movements against Carter's policies and he pointed out the necessary work to make these movements conscious and organize the workers for revolutionary struggle. At the meeting representatives from the Caribbean Progressive Study Group and the Iranian Student Association of New York (FISUS) also presented messages. Their speeches were imbued with revolutionary outrage against the U.S. imperialists and their vicious oppression of the American workers and the people of other countries.

Throughout the campaign the MLP paid a great deal of attention to exposing the "left" wing of the Democratic Party and their pet candidate, Senator Kennedy. At the Convention, the entire Democratic Party united to back a campaign for the reelection of Jimmy Carter. And Senator Kennedy and the "left"-wing flunkeys of the Democrats, like Douglas Fraser of the UAW, pledged to campaign for Carter as the "lesser of two evils" compared to the arch-reactionary Ronald Reagan. This event proved what the MLP has pointed out all along. There is no fundamental difference between the Kennedy and Carter programs, and the "Kennedy alternative" was nothing but a fraud to fool the working people.

The Democratic Convention verified the importance of the work of the MLP to fight against the Democratic Party and to expose their "left"-wing lap dogs. It shows again that the workers must take their stand on the side of revolutionary politics, independent from and against the political parties and program of the rich. Below, The Workers' Advocate reprints excerpts from the statement of the New York Branch of the MLP that was distributed in New York during the Democratic Convention. Also reprinted are excerpts from the messages of the Caribbean Progressive Study Group and the Iranian Student Association of New York (FISUS) which were delivered to the public meeting held on August 16, 1980.

[Photo: Photo at right: Part of the militant Anti-Imperialist Contingent, under the leadership of the MLP,USA, in the demonstration outside the Democratic Convention.]

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From the statement issued by the New York Branch of the MLP,USA

This week the Democratic Party Convention convenes in New York City. For the working class and oppressed people, the Democratic Convention is an occasion for revolutionary protest against the policies of starvation, fascism and war, the policies administered by the Carter government on behalf of the capitalist billionaires and monopolists. It is an occasion to demonstrate our opposition to the Democratic Party and to all the political parties and policies of the rich. It is an occasion to stand up for the independent politics of the working class, the politics of struggle against starvation, fascism and war.

The Carter Government Is a Government of the Rich, a Government of Starvation, Fascism and War

The Carter government is a government of imperialist plunder and war. Carter has openly proclaimed the Mideast to be U.S. imperialism's domain. He has threatened Iran and attempted invasion there. He is preparing for war to throttle the Iranian revolution in order to save the monopolies' plunder of Iranian oil. Carter is also arming for war with U.S. imperialism's equally imperialist rival, Soviet social-imperialism, a war of international exploiters over division of the spoils of plunder.

For these reasons Carter has instituted draft registration and is preparing to reintroduce the draft. He has established a 110,000-troop quick strike force for use all over the world, as well as special "task forces" for deployment in the Caribbean and other regions. The Carter government has brought forward record military budgets to produce the MX and other weapons of mass slaughter. Under official proclamations about "human rights" and "peace" lies the grim reality of imperialist plunder and war preparations.

The Carter government is a government of starvation of the people. Carter is imposing savage wage controls to cut the real wages of the workers and to smash their strike struggles. He is assisting the capitalists in a brutal productivity drive of speedup, overwork and layoffs. With eight million workers already unemployed, he is advocating more unemployment on the pretext of "fighting" inflation. Meanwhile even the pitifully small funds for welfare, unemployment and food stamps are rapidly dwindling and face cutbacks. The crushing burden of taxation on working people, however, is increasing in order to finance the rapid preparations for war. In the course of this, monopoly corporations are reaping huge sums through lucrative "defense" contracts. The Carter energy and "anti-inflation" programs have amounted to skyrocketing profits for the oil tycoons, war profiteers and the big banks, realized through stepped-up exploitation and impoverishment of the working masses.

The Carter government is a government of savage racial discrimination and growing fascism. The monopoly capitalists have not put an end to their savage discrimination against blacks and other oppressed nationalities; on the contrary, they are on the warpath, seeking revenge against the people for the mass struggles of the past decades. The increase of wanton murder by the police marks intensification of the reign of terror against blacks and other oppressed people. Side by side with this goes the activation of fascist gangs such as the KKK, who are nurtured by the government and given a free field for terror against the people.

The federal criminal code is being rewritten to help step up repression. This legislation, the grandson of Nixon's notorious bill S-l, provides for federal extortion charges against militant strikes and contains provisions against militant demonstrations at nuclear power sites. It allows for preventive detention and other unlimited police powers and creates a series of broad catchall charges such as "conspiracy" for the persecution of militant individuals and organizations. Carter fully backs this bill, whose principal author is none other than his fellow "democrat," Ted Kennedy.

This is Carter's consistent policy: plunder abroad for the profits of the American multinational corporations, increased exploitation at home for the profits of these same U.S. monopolies, and growing reaction all down the line.

These reactionary policies are not an accident nor are they the whims of one individual. No, these are the policies of the capitalist exploiters and billionaires. Their unquenchable thirst for profits demands militarization and wars of conquest, demands bleeding working people through speedup and layoffs, soaring prices and taxation, demands intensifying reaction to crush with an iron heel every struggle waged by the American people.

This is why not only Carter, but every capitalist politician has this same basic program. Carter and Reagan, Kennedy and Anderson, Democrat and Republican -- all represent the same class interests, the interests of the monopoly capitalists; all have the same basic program of starvation, fascism and war.

Mass Revolutionary Struggle Is the Path Forward Against Starvation, Fascism and War

Today there is mass indignation against the Carter government. Mass struggles are beginning to break out against the Carter policies. Like in the New York City transit strike this spring, workers are standing up to Carter's wage controls and fighting to defend their livelihood and resist the capitalist productivity drive. In Miami and other cities, black people have risen up against savage racial discrimination, against the reign of police terror in the communities, and against the KKK and other fascist gangs. Mass protests against the reintroduction of the draft have swept the country.

These strikes, protests and other actions are a great beginning. They must be developed into a powerful torrent of mass struggle against the rich and their government. This is the only way to strike forceful blows against starvation, fascism and war and defend the vital interests of working people.

The target of the mass struggles is the rich. It is for the sake of the profits of the rich that working people are being put to the wall. Every penny bled from the workers, every black youth murdered by the police, every step toward imperialist war is taken on behalf of the rich and serves their interests.

There is no middle ground between the vital interests of working people and the interests of the rich. For example, Carter piously calls for "equality of sacrifice" between the workers and the rich in the face of inflation. And what does this mean? It means wage controls against the workers, so the billionaires can maintain and increase their fabulous profits. No, to defend their vital interests working people must fight against the rich on every question.

Only militant and determined struggle by masses of working people can answer the vicious productivity drive of the capitalists, can hit against racial discrimination and growing reaction, can stay the hand of the warmakers. Mass revolutionary struggle is the answer to starvation, fascism and war.

The Kennedy "Alternative" Is the Alternative of the Rich to the Revolt of the Masses

Kennedy is accusing Carter of having broken his promises and having betrayed the Democratic Party policies. According to Kennedy, working people should not fight against the policies of the Democratic Party, but instead demand their implementation. This is a cruel hoax. Carter has not betrayed these policies; he is implementing them. Of course, the Democrats, being capitalist politicians, cover their policies with a thin veil of lies. They say "inflation fighting" when they mean wage cutting and mass unemployment; they say "peace" when they mean preparing for war. But this is not Kennedy's complaint. Kennedy understands this as well as Carter does and loses no sleep over it.

Kennedy himself stands for the same basic policies as Carter. He only temporarily opposes draft registration because he, like Reagan, regards the current registration plans as an ineffective "paper curtain," while he supports other means of militarization as more effective. He is also for harsher wage-price controls, criticizing Carter's on the sole grounds that they are too weak. He advocates the identical energy program, save for changing standby gas rationing to mandatory rationing. And he is the main author of the fascist criminal code revision, the notorious "grandson of S-1."

Why then these complaints about "broken promises" and "betrayal"? This squabble concerns the ability of the Democratic Party to deceive people. The basic trick of the Democrats is to present even the most savage attacks against the people as "reforms" supposedly for their benefit. This hoax has been represented for the past four years by Carter's "saintly" smile and phoney words of compassion, human rights and peace. Lately this mask has been slipping. Policies of starvation, fascism and war hidden behind the Smilin' Jimmy mask have given way to the same policies conducted more brutally and openly. Kennedy is afraid that this will unleash a storm of struggle by working people against these policies. This is his grievance.

Kennedy's complaints about "broken promises" mean crying because the Smilin' Jimmy mask has fallen off, while supporting the basic program of the Democratic Party and covering up the fact that it is a program against the people. A bandit has a gun to the head of working people and is robbing them, and Kennedy complains the bandit's mask is slipping! This shows Kennedy is no "friend" of working people, but a member of the bandit gang who fears the people's wrath.

The working class cannot agree to such a position. Working people have no interest in rooting for the policies of the exploiters, the very policies which are today putting us to the wall. On the contrary, we must fight tooth and nail against these policies.

To Hell with the Political Parties of the Rich! Take Up the Independent Politics of the Working Class

Nor can these same policies be accepted under any other name. Capitalist politicians may call vinegar wine but this does not make it any sweeter. For example, the same basic policies of the Democratic Party, the policies which Kennedy presents as a supposed "alternative" to Carter, are also being presented by the Citizens Party as a supposed "alternative" to the Democratic Party.

The Citizens Party is vehemently opposed to the development of mass struggle. A favorite theme of its presidential candidate Commoner is: better to send 200 congressmen to Washington than 200,000 demonstrators. In hopes of preventing such mass demonstrations the Citizens Party cooks up dozens of schemes for supposedly curing the excesses of the rich without harming their profits. In fact, their schemes are nothing but the present- day policies of Carter with a smear of rouge and a dash of perfume to make them more attractive.

Thus the Citizens Party peddles Carter's wage-price controls gussied up as "price controls." It openly supports the capitalist productivity drive against the workers. Its energy program is a mere echo of Carter's, with the addition of a government agency to manage the importation of oil. In place of struggle against imperialism it substitutes the advocacy of purely cosmetic cuts in military spending, coupled with calls for a "truly strong America"; in other words, a lean but strong U.S. imperialism. This last point is nothing but a stale repetition of Carter's 1976 campaign promise.

The draft program of the Citizens Party proposes to "rebuild our economy and provide employment" -- by abolishing the income tax on corporations! This same plank also calls for a national sales tax so that in the future the workers would bear, not the present half, but closer to 100% of the burden of Social Security payments. The logic of the Citizens Party should bring a tear of sentiment to the eye of a Carter or a Reagan: not to fight the rich, but to help them grow richer -- allegedly to benefit the working class.

The Citizens Party is a good example of what the working class does not need. Whether they are represented by bared fangs or by a toothsome smile, whether they are presented in the name of the Democratic Party or in the name of an "alternative" to the Democratic Party, the policies of the exploiters against the people remain poison to the working class.

The working class cannot support the policies of the rich against the people, nor put its faith in any of the capitalist political parties. The hatred against the Carter government must be directed toward a break with the politics of the rich, toward a break with the Democratic and other capitalist political parties. It must be directed along the path of genuine independent politics of the working class. This is the path of class struggle, of militant action by masses of working people against the rich and their government. This is the path charted out by the working class party, the party of revolutionary struggle and socialism, the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA. To hell with the political parties of the rich! Forward along the path of mass revolutionary struggle against starvation, fascism and war!

[Photo: Enthusiastic meeting organized by the New York Branch of the MLP,USA vigorously condemns the Democratic and Republican Parties -- August 16, 1980]

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FROM THE SOLIDARITY STATEMENT DELIVERED BY THE CARIBBEAN PROGRESSIVE STUDY GROUP

Comrades and Friends,

Warm comradely greetings from the Caribbean Progressive Study Group. We enthusiastically support this meeting held to denounce the capitalist political parties and their hangers-on, to expose the policies of the capitalist parties which are being carried out in the interest of the millionaires and billionaire exploiters and which are hypocritically paraded about the place as being in the interest of the working and oppressed masses. We share the spirit of this meeting which upholds the independent politics of the working class, the politics of resolute opposition to the rich and of mass struggle against the politics of the rich....

The comrades of the CPSG and supporters have been vigorously conducting work in the communities and in various mass activities held over the past several weeks in response to the staging of this convention in New York and this work everywhere received the warm response and generated wide discussion among the masses who embraced the call, To hell with the political parties of the rich, parties of starvation, war and fascism!

This work is a powerful asset to the CPSG. In the New York area as across the country the mass movements are emerging on several fronts, against the wage-cutting offensive of the rich, against the feverish war preparations, against the draft and like in Miami and Chattanooga the mass upsurge of the black people against the savage racist attacks of the troops of the rich in uniform and without uniform, is seething among the black people in this area. CPSG is a vigorous participant in these mass movements. …

It is well known in the West Indian community that the Democratic Party is the party of the vicious plunder of the countries of the West Indies. The party that has set up the military task force in the Caribbean and the party of gestapo-type attacks, raids on our community and other immigrant communities, and the party which is now preparing to introduce identification cards in order to hound and imprison the masses.

The CPSG vigorously backs the call, to hell with the political parties the rich and the path of mass struggle against the policies of the rich, the path set forward by the MLP,USA.

The CPSG vows that neither the Democrats, the Republicans nor any soldout traitors that have found their purpose in life in the policies of the rich will ever rest easy in our community.

[Photo: Supporters of the Caribbean Progressive Study Group performing revolutionary calypso songs.]

FROM THE MESSAGE DELIVERED BY THE IRANIAN STUDENT ASSOCIATION OF NEW YORK (FISUS)

On behalf of the Iranian Student Association in New York, member of the Federation of Iranian Students in the U.S., I would like to present the following message:

Dear comrades:

While the workers are thrown out in the streets by the thousands in this country, and while soaring inflation eats up their miniscule incomes, the oil monopolies and other multinationals pocket huge profits.

The ruling class with its unending thirst for profits has demanded and imposed wage controls, more productivity and speedup.

Abroad, the U.S. government with its force of millions, installs dictators, puppets and with the help of other imperialists continues plundering the working masses.

Everywhere, the workers and the oppressed masses have risen up against their unbearable conditions which have been created and maintained by the ruling classes.

In the United States the transit workers, for instance, stood up to the ruling class's wage controls; in Miami and other cities, black people rose up against the ruthless racial discrimination and oppression. The people in the U.S. are rising up against the murdering of people by the police and its fascist ally the Ku Klux Klan; they have also defied draft registration and are increasing their fights against the imperialist war preparations.

The working class and the oppressed masses in South America, Europe, Africa and Asia have intensified their courageous struggle against the imperialists and their lackeys. In Turkey, Afghanistan, Iran, El Salvador, Bolivia and other countries, people are shaking the foundations of the imperialists.

Abroad and at home the U.S. imperialists are facing increasing resistance from the working masses. At home the U.S. ruling class has imposed more reactionary policies upon the workers and the minorities. The Democratic Party, the guise of the exploiting class, has been exposed. At the Democratic Convention, they tried to make Ted Kennedy appear to be a revolutionary who preaches "Justice," "Liberty," and "Equality" for all; neglecting the fact that all these phony phrases, like Carter's "Human Rights," for the working class is nothing but a sham. The working class concept of equality is the abolition of all classes. Liberty and justice will come when the working class has overthrown the bourgeois dictatorship and has established the dictatorship of its own.

The military build-up in the United States, the Soviet Union and in other imperialist countries is taking place on a larger and more destructive scale.

In the epoch of imperialism, when a good part of the world has come under the economic and ideological domination of the imperialists, the democratic and revolutionary forces in dependent countries vary according to their historical and socio-economic conditions.

In Iran, almost two years after the February mass uprising against the lackey of U.S. imperialism, the regime has proven to be reactionary and antidemocratic. …

The working class along with the peasants and poor petty bourgeoisie are the only democratic force in Iran and can pave the way for a people's democratic revolution under the leadership of the proletariat. And this is the path that the people of Iran have chosen!

To hell with the political parties of the rich!

Down with U.S. imperialism!

Down with zionism!

Down with Soviet social-imperialism!

Down with Chinese reaction!

Down with reaction in Iran!

Long live the struggle of the American working class!

Long live the just struggle the Iranian people!

Workers of the world, unite!

[Photo: Representative of the Iranian Student Association of New York (FISUS) delivers solidarity message to the meeting.]

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Wage mass struggle against U.S. imperialist war preparations!

Demonstrations and actions against Carter's draft registration sweep the country

On July 21 through August 2, the Carter government began to reintroduce the hated military draft by forcing 19 and 20 year old youth to register at the post offices. Nobody was fooled that this draft registration meant anything other than stepped-up preparations for U.S. imperialist aggression and war. All across the country tens of thousands of workers and young people marched defiantly into the streets to demonstrate their outrage against the war plans of the imperialist bankers and oil magnates.

The Marxist-Leninist Party plunged into the thick of this mass movement. Contingents of the MLP took part in the various actions of the masses and spread the call for struggle to every corner of the cities. The MLP encouraged the fighting masses to put opposition to imperialism in the center of the battle against the reintroduction of the draft. And it directly organized numerous pickets and demonstrations at the post offices and through working class neighborhoods to bring the broadest numbers of working people into action against the U.S. imperialists.

The tremendous support for the work of the MLP and the broad mass actions which swept across the length and breadth of the country testify to the growing revolutionary ferment among the working people. It shows that the anti-draft movement is an important weapon for the struggle against imperialism and a vehicle to train and organize the working masses for revolution.

Wage Mass Struggle Against U.S. Imperialist War Preparations

In the weeks before registration began, the MLP started mobilizing the youth and working people to take up a vigorous fight. In a number of demonstrations and other events, like the actions against the Republican Convention in Detroit and the mass marches in protest against Carter in the San Francisco area, the MLP raised the banner of struggle against the draft and all imperialist war preparations. In a number of cities as well, the MLP comrades distributed thousands of leaflets calling out the working people to pickets, demonstrations and meetings.

With the beginning of the draft sign up on July 21, the MLP put out a special issue of The Workers' Advocate. This paper exposed draft registration as part of the buildup of the U.S. arrowed forces to be used to throttle the Iranian revolution and to subjugate the people of Iran and other countries. It revealed that the oil billionaires and other U.S. monopolists are preparing for war with the equally savage Soviet social-imperialists. This war has no other purpose than to divide up the world between these two fiendish exploiters. The Workers' Advocate pointed to the mass outrage that is brewing against Carter's war measures and called on the revolutionary activists to use. this burning indignation to organize the masses. The paper showed the necessity to break with the Democratic and Republican Parties of the rich, to put opposition to imperialism in the center of the struggle, and to orient the movement onto the path of independent class politics of the proletariat, the politics of mass revolutionary struggle.

The Workers' Advocate also explained the different possibilities for the struggle of the anti-militarist youth with respect to registration itself. It supported those who refuse to register and explained the role of such refusals to inspire other more conscious forms of struggle. The paper pointed out, however, that the idea must never be created that refusal to register, if only enough people take part, will stop imperialist war. Hence, the paper did not give a general call to refuse and it stressed that draft refusers must also go on to participate in and carry out mass actions.

The Workers' Advocate also supported those who register with the intention of fighting imperialism from within the military when they are drafted. These activists must be supported because the struggle inside the military is ultimately one of the decisive fronts of battle against imperialist war. These activists take full part in the mass activities against registration and by this gain experience for the struggle inside the military.

The paper also emphasized the necessity to stay close to the masses who hate militarism, yet find no alternatives to registration. This section inevitably becomes the big majority. However, the victims of the draft have not avoided struggle but on the contrary find themselves involved in stern fights inside the army. As well, the movement must seize every opportunity to influence those who are already ensnared in the "volunteer army." Most of these youth, and also those who may be drafted later, come from working class families and have no interest in being the cannon fodder for the aggression and wars of the rich. The anti-imperialist work inside the army is of great importance. In the 1960's the rise of the GI movement showed that this front is a fertile one. In the present campaign too, there were soldiers who came out to denounce the military and to support the struggle against the draft.

All of these methods of struggle are courageous and require determination. All can and must be used to advance the mass struggle against U.S. imperialism.

The MLP distributed The Workers' Advocate at the post offices and in the working class communities, at the factory gates and unemployment lines, at the high schools and universities, and at the parks, beaches and basketball courts. Wherever the youth gathered the MLP went to meet them. Nearly 100,000 special issues of The Workers' Advocate were distributed in the course of the campaign. With this paper and with thousands upon thousands of other leaflets, posters and stickers, the MLP reached out to the youth and working people to make them conscious and to draw them into the fight against the U.S. imperialists.

Militant Actions at the Post Offices

Because the youth were forced to register at the post offices, this became a focus of the struggle. At certain of the main post offices and at those in the working class communities, the MLP organized militant pickets and demonstrations. The postal workers and truck drivers, people shopping on the streets and other passersby, were very inspired by the militant actions and gave them their support. Every day at each post office, hundreds of people took The Workers' Advocate to read. Many not only expressed their support for the pickets but asked to be told of future actions so that they could take part. In fact, there were young people who came to the post offices in search of the anti-draft movement. Some of these immediately took up picket signs to join in the demonstrations. Some came later to work with the MLP comrades in other actions that were organized.

Manifesting the widespread opposition against the draft, a large number of 19 and 20 year olds never showed up to register at all. And among those who were forced to register because of the threat of stiff jail sentences and fines, most were burning with anger against the imperialists' preparations for war. Many of them took extra copies of The Workers' Advocate to give to their friends and relatives. A number joined up with the demonstrations and shouted themselves hoarse denouncing the Carter government.

Work at the Factories Helped Draw Workers into the Movement

The workers at the factories also greeted the anti-imperialist message of the MLP. The working class is the only consistently revolutionary class. And it is the youth of the working class and of the oppressed nationalities, the great majority of whom are also workers, who are being press-ganged for imperialist aggression and war. For no other reason than to increase the vast wealth of the multinational corporations, the young people will be forced to become human cannon fodder to kill their class brothers from other countries. The workers' blood boils at the thought that their young people are forced to fight and die for the interests of the rich. Increasingly they are becoming stirred by the idea of taking up mass struggle against Carter's war measures.

The MLP distributed a great deal of literature at the factory gates. Inside the plant, Marxist-Leninist and other progressive workers took large stacks of The Workers' Advocate to pass out to their workmates. Stickers against the draft and those denouncing U.S. imperialism and Soviet and Chinese social-imperialism were plastered all over the time clocks, the machines and factory walls. This work aroused the revolutionary sentiment among the workers and encouraged the most class conscious to become more active in the anti-imperialist struggle. Militants from many factories joined the pickets and demonstrations against the draft. Some were inspired to take MLP literature to distribute at the post offices in their own neighborhoods. The activation of the workers is an important issue. To direct the anti-draft movement onto a revolutionary path, the working class must take its proper place in the center of the struggle.

Demonstrations Through the Working Class Neighborhoods

An important part of the work of the MLP was the organizing of demonstrations through the working class neighborhoods. The success of these demonstrations showed the extremely widespread outrage that exists against he draft and U.S. imperialists' all-round preparations for war.

As the demonstrations wound their way through the streets in the communities, workers stuck their heads out of their windows or came onto their porches to cheer on the demonstrators and to join in the shouting of the anti-imperialist slogans. The chant with "Down with U.S. imperialist preparations for war!" rang through the communities. "U.S. imperialism, hands off Iran!" and "Soviets out of Afghanistan!" was shouted from the porches. All through the neighborhoods people joined in to yell "To hell with the parties of the rich! Wage mass struggle against starvation, fascism and war!" And the call "Down with U.S. imperialism! Down with Russian imperialism! Down with the U.S.-China alliance for war!" was greeted with applause and cheers. Some of the workers came out of their houses to take part in the demonstrations. Others sent their sons and daughters who took up picket signs and militantly joined the marches.

The outpouring of support for the anti-imperialist demonstrations showed the deep revolutionary sentiment that is gripping the workers. The fiery marches played an important role in inspiring in the workers a desire to take up the struggle.

New Forces Join the Struggle

Carter started draft registration in the middle of the summer, when the youth were out of school and many people were on vacation. He hoped that this would disorganize the mass movement and prevent the holding of mass actions. After the first few days of the sign up, when Carter's dreams of a "peaceful" registration had been dashed to dust by the fighting masses, the government resorted to telling fairy tales that the protests had supposedly "fizzled." But these warmongers' dreams, these imperialist fairy tales, can never fool anyone. The start up of draft registration enraged the workers and stirred the youth. Many new forces came out to take part in the mass actions and the militants among them began to take up the work to organize at their factories, neighborhoods and schools. The fact is that picketing spread to hundreds of post offices and the mass demonstrations spread to areas that had been previously untouched by the mass movement. Through this struggle ever wider sections of the youth and workers have been aroused to support the movement. In the course of this work the anti-imperialist direction of the struggle has become more deeply rooted in the consciousness of the revolutionary activists.

The struggle against the reintroduction of the draft is part of the ongoing and protracted struggle against all of the war preparations of the U.S. imperialist government. This struggle must be waged with boldness and determination. The U.S. government is a savage and bloodstained imperialist monster. As long as a single tooth remains in its head it will serve the monopoly capitalists in their exploitation of the workers, in their oppression of the people of other countries, in their preparations for aggression and imperialist war. Every new step the warmongers take must become the cause to draw ever growing numbers of people into mass action against the monopoly capitalists and their government. Every struggle waged must be used to build organization and to train the masses for socialist revolution, the revolution that will put an end to the imperialist system once and for all.

[Photos:

SAN FRANCISCO:

1. MLP comrades and supporters in the mass picket of 600 people at San Francisco Main Post Office on July 21.

2, 3. Pickets organized by the MLP at the Oakland Main Post Office on July 22 and at the Berkeley Main Post Office on August 2.

4, 5, 6. MLP contingent in mass demonstration of over 1,000 people which picketed at and marched from the San Francisco Main Post Office to the Federal Building on July 19.

BOSTON:

7. Propaganda march of MLP comrades and supporters on July 19.

8. An MLP comrade denouncing the reintroduction of the draft in front of the Central Square Post Office, Cambridge, following a propaganda march on July 19.

9. A second propaganda march organized by the MLP through a working class neighborhood, August 2.

BUFFALO:

10. A march through the Broadway-Filmore district and picket at the local post office organized by the MLP.

11. Meeting against the draft, addressed by local representative of the MLP and by the Union of Anti-Imperialist Students, was held at the end of the campaign, August 2.

12. Following a picket at Highland Park Post Office, the MLP organized a propaganda march through the surrounding community.

13,14, 15,16. Enthusiastic response of the masses to the MLP propaganda march in pouring rain, August 2.

17. Picket of MLP at Highland Park Post Office on August 2.

18,19. Propaganda march through southwest side community on July 26 organized by the MLP.

Following an MLP-organized propaganda march through downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan and the University of Michigan campus, the MLP participated in a mass rally against the draft at the Main Post Office on July 29.

MLP comrade distributing leaflets along the route of the propaganda march, August 2.

NEW YORK:

22. The Anti-Imperialist Contingent organized by the MLP participates in the mass demonstration of 3,500 people against the Democratic National Convention on August 10.

23. MLP contingent in mass demonstration of 2,500 people on Manhattan's upper west side on the evening of July 21.

24. MLP participates in mass picket of 300 people in front of the General Post Office in Manhattan on July 21.

SEATTLE:

25. Meeting against the draft organized by the MLP, August 2.

LOUISVILLE:

26. MLP agitates against war preparations at an anti-nuclear rally.

CHICAGO:

27. Banner of the MLP in mass demonstration of 250 people in front of the downtown post office.

28. Meeting against the draft organized by the MLP.]

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Women's freedom can be achieved through resolute struggle against the system of oppression and exploitation

FROM THE SPEECH OF THE LEADER OF THE DELEGATION CF THE PEOPLE'S SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF ALBANIA, VITO KAPO, AT THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE UNITED NATIONS ON WOMEN

At the International Conference of the United Nations Organization on Women, the floor was taken by the leader of the delegation of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, Vito Kapo.

At the beginning of her speech, she pointed out that precisely from Copenhagen, 70 years ago, V.I. Lenin and Clara Zetkin defined the road of solidarity and of the women's struggle for freedom and equality.

The International Conference on Women, Vito Kapo continued, is convened at a time when women's problems have become more acute and are on the agenda as important problems which are closely linked with destinies of the people's freedom, independence and democracy in every country.

The urgent problems preoccupying women today are closely linked with the whole development of society and developments in the world.

Today the situation is rather tense.

The two superpowers, the USA and the Soviet Union, in rivalry and simultaneously in accord, are implementing their feverish policy of expansion and hegemony. The third superpower, China, unites with one against the other in order to create conflicts and turbulent situations in various regions of the world.

The leader of the Albanian delegation stressed that it is demagogy to speak of peace, detente, and disarmament as the representatives of the superpowers do, while being at the same time the cause of the crimes of Afghanistan's occupation and of the murder of the innocent mothers and children of this people, the cause of the crimes committed against the Iranian people, the fighting Palestinian people, the peoples of Africa, the campesinos of Latin America, the Negro inhabitants of Miami, to mention in this way only a very small part of the crimes committed....

The roads and proposals submitted to this conference concerning the acute problems of the woman to allegedly put an end to her discrimination in the developing countries, continued the leader of the Albanian delegation, do not give any real solution, except creating illusions to cover up the reality of fierce imperialist and neo-colonialist oppression and exploitation.

Now, we are living at a time when no one dares to openly deny the rights of women, by law "not to acknowledge and give them" formally. But life itself, through stirring examples, proves that these "rights" announced by the law are only an illusion, because tens of legislative wiles reduce them to nothing, the equality by law where private property and the exploitation of the working people exist, does not in the least mean equality in life.

Further on, the leader of the Albanian delegation pointed out that the development of science and technique negatively influences the situation of the working people and the women only in the unequal capitalist society. She also exposed the great clamor which is being raised on the alleged "sharp contradictions" between "husband and wife," "parents and children," etc., which aim at distracting the women's attention from the fundamental problems preoccupying them....

The leader of the Albanian people, Comrade Enver Hoxha has said: "Progress should be measured with the progress of the woman...if the woman lags behind, the revolution marks time."

The successful constriction of socialism in Albania provided conditions and possibilities for the Albanian woman to enjoy all the rights in life. Vito Kapo mentioned that n Albania 46% of the working people are women. They make up 33% of the deputies in the People's Assembly, about 31% at the Supreme Court, 37% of the higher cadres and over 40% of those elected at all the instances of the people's power.

The People's Socialist Republic of Albania, the leader of the Albanian delegation stressed, is a state of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Some fear the word "dictatorship" But this kind of dictatorship exerts its pressure only on those who trample underfoot the laws of the people, their rights. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the broadest and the deepest democracy, because it has toppled the centuries-old pyramid of the society with exploiting and exploited classes and has brought the working class, the laboring peasantry and the people's intelligentsia into the leadership. For the Albanian it is natural that the educated peasant woman, like many of her comrades, but having leading capabilities, become minister in such a sector as agriculture; it is natural that the textile woman, elevated to the positions of the intelligentsia of the class, become Minister of the Light and Food Industry, and that others run education or scientific, research, economic or social institutions. ...

This conference must not remain as an observer, but reveal the real causes of oppression and misery of millions of women, define the road of solution not through some statements, slogans and formulations known for a long time now, but through the resolute struggle of all the peoples for national and social liberation, for the safeguard of freedom and independence.

(Reprinted from Albanian Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin, July 22, 1980.)

[Photo: Eleni Curraj, a worker at the Fier Oil Refinery in the People's Socialist Republic of Albania. She is a deputy to the highest legislative assembly of the country, the People's Assembly.]

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The U.S. military machine tramples on the freedom of the people all over the globe

The Carter administration has just completed its initial phase of registering the youth in preparation for reinstituting the draft. The draft is a means to strengthen the U.S. imperialist armed forces of aggression, enslavement and war. The war preparations of the government have as their sole purpose to ensure world domination by the U.S. monopoly capitalist billionaires. They are preparations to protect the fabulous super-profits of the U.S. imperialist corporations by drowning in blood the revolutionary and anti-imperialist struggles of the people. They are preparations to invade Iran on behalf of the oil tycoons and the bankers. The rich also want more cannon fodder available to hurl into an inter-imperialist war with their main rival for world domination, the Soviet social-imperialists. Moreover, the strengthening of the armed forces is aimed at more effectively suppressing the struggles waged by the working masses against the capitalists and their government here in the United States. The Wall Street financiers and multinational corporations cannot exist without the profits from their neo-colonial empire, without constantly striving for new territories for exploitation. Therefore the army of the rich, which is being strengthened under the imperialist lie of "defense," is and can only be an army of aggression and foreign conquest.

The aggressive and imperialist nature of the U.S. armed forces is clearly shown by the fact that roughly one- quarter of its two million troops are stationed outside of the U.S. All over the globe, hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops occupy the territories of other countries, violating the freedom and independence of the peoples. U.S. military personnel have been stationed in about 100 countries, and some 60,000 naval troops roam the world's oceans, ready to land whenever and wherever U.S. imperialism's "vital interests" are threatened. The existence of these troops not only serves to place the peoples of these countries under the yoke of U.S. imperialism, but also to turn the country into a base for further aggression and inter-imperialist rivalry between U.S. imperialism and its main competitor for world domination, Soviet social-imperialism.

U.S. troops have been stationed in every corner of the globe. Even the Soviet social-imperialist neo-colony of Cuba contains the American military installation at Guantanamo. Western Europe has been flooded by U.S. troops, with 220,000 stationed in West Germany alone. In the Far East, there are 40,000 troops stationed in South Korea, 45,000 in Japan and 15,000 in the Philippines. Tens of thousands of American troops occupy Latin America, including some 9,000 in Panama. U.S. bases also dot the Middle East and Africa, including new U.S. military facilities being set up in Kenya and Somalia. As Carter's attempted military invasion of Iran last April has shown once again, these armed forces stand ready to commit any crime to further advance the economic plunder and political domination of the rich imperialists.

The military force of U.S. imperialism props up the largest neo-colonial system in the world. The U.S. neo-colonial system consists of formally "independent" states that are in reality under the dictate of U.S. imperialism and serve its interests. The vital sectors of the economies of these countries are dominated by the U.S. banks and capitalist enterprises which reap fantastic super-profits from the exploitation of the working masses and the plunder of their natural resources. The politics of these countries are similarly dominated. The U.S. has installed the most fascist criminals to watch over its investments such as the former Shah of Iran, Somoza in Nicaragua, Mobutu in Zaire, and Pinochet in Chile. The Pentagon has armed such butchers to the teeth and trained their armies to fight against the anti-imperialist struggles of the people. In Iran, the U.S. government built a huge army 500,000 strong equipped with the most sophisticated weaponry. This brutal army murdered tens of thousands of the Iranian people. It was also used against the Omani people and other peoples in the Persian Gulf region. The fascist Nicaraguan National Guard was also a creation of the U.S. imperialists, and the now deposed dictator Somoza himself was a graduate of West Point.

The U.S. imperialists are by far the largest exporters of military aid in the world. Under the Carter administration, which made pious promises of reducing arms shipments, these shipments have been greatly accelerated, totalling some $13 billion in 1978 alone. Of course, this aid is never given to protect the independence of the countries which receive it, but is dispensed to those who will defend the interests of U.S. imperialism. These arms purchases as well as the military infrastructure in service of U.S. imperialism are usually financed under the guise of "economic aid." The military enslavement by U.S. imperialism also includes its expansionist client state of Israel which the Pentagon generals have armed to the teeth. These billions in modern arms are not only used to deprive the Palestinian people of their homeland but also to regularly launch aggression against the neighboring Arab peoples. The U.S.-led NATO alliance, with its massive nuclear arsenal and conventional forces, is the most prominent of a whole series of aggressive pacts and alliances between U.S. imperialism; its imperialist allies of Western Europe, Japan and Canada; and various of its vassal states. The recently formed U.S.-China alliance is one of the most warmongering of these alliances as, for example, last year's invasion of Viet Nam by 200,000 Chinese social-imperialist troops graphically demonstrated. Through such alliances and other means, American imperialism imposes its dictate by military force.

From these examples it can be seen how the U.S. military machine tramples on the freedom and sovereignty of the peoples all over the globe. Presently its monstrous machine of destruction and murder is being beefed up, and registration is taking place for drafting the youth in preparation for waging new wars of aggression and conquest. This reality cannot be altered by pacifist appeals to the Pentagon generals for a "non-interventionist" foreign policy or for the adoption of a "defensive military posture" because behind the Pentagon war machine stands the imperialist system. Therefore, in the fight against war preparations, the struggle against imperialism must be kept in the forefront. It is for this reason that mass revolutionary struggle against imperialism is the path forward for the developing mass movement against the draft and all U.S. war preparations. The people of the world will always be subject to U.S. imperialist aggression and war until the revolutionary overthrow of the imperialist bourgeoisie by the working class and people and the establishment of socialism.

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NO TO RACIST POLICE ATTACKS!

CHICAGO:

ON THE BRUTAL RACIST MURDER OF RICHARD RAMEY BY THE CHICAGO POLICE

On Sunday July 6, Richard Ramey, a 52 year old black man was brutally murdered by three plainclothes police assigned to the mass transit unit of the Chicago CTA. On the afternoon of July 6, these three Chicago police arrested Mr. Ramey for smoking a cigarette on the Jackson Park-Engelwood "L" (elevated train) near 35th Street. They handcuffed him with his hands behind his back, dragged him off the train and proceeded to beat him mercilessly. The police then took Mr. Ramey to the Prairie Avenue police station where to account for his severely battered condition the police concocted the fantastic lie that Mr. Ramey had resisted arrest and had to be subdued by these three thirty-year old thugs. Mr. Ramey's condition due to this savage beating was so serious that the precinct supervisor ordered him taken to Mercy Hospital for treatment. Five hours after having been arrested, Mr. Ramey died "as a result of massive internal and external injuries inflicted by a blunt object, including a broken neck and two fractured ankles." In his report, the medical examiner was forced to admit that his death was a homicide. This is how Mr. Ramey was murdered for the "crime" of smoking a cigarette on the "L."

This brutal murder is a fascist outrage which is being condemned by the working masses all throughout the city of Chicago. It is not, however, an isolated incident. Such brutal beatings and even murders of national minorities are a common occurrence in the life of the people. In point of fact, these same three police had been previously charged and were already "under investigation" for beating a man last April. Not only this but it is one of the most well-known facts of life in Chicago, facts known to all the working masses, that the Chicago police systematically terrorize and beat people up on the "L," especially the national minority peoples. Who has not seen people being dragged off and beaten by the police for playing a radio, smoking, sleeping or eating on the "L"? Who in Chicago has not seen or been a victim themselves of brutalization by the police whether for a traffic violation or simply for the amusement of the police?

Brutal beatings of the youth in the jails, strip searches of women in the jails, harassment of the people in the parks and on the beaches, and vile abuse are well-known activities of the racist and fascist Chicago police. One need only recall the brutal beating by the Melrose Park police of Bennie Leonard, a black International Harvester worker, the brutal maiming of Wallace Davis by the police, or any number of similar incidents.

This situation of police brutalization of the national minorities is not limited to Chicago. Well-known cases such as the brutal murder of Jose Torres by the Texas police; the use of cattle prods and the beating deaths in the jails by the Detroit police; and of course the brutal murder of Arthur McDuffie by the Miami police for a traffic violation, which eventually sparked the heroic Miami rebellion; are all testimony to the systematic brutalization by the police of the national minorities.

Presently the federal government has been forced to admit that there are over 3000 cases of police murders and beatings of national minorities "under investigation." This fact itself is a very sharp indication that the police murders and beatings of the black people are not isolated instances nor "breakdowns in the system of justice." Rather, they are the systematic policy of repression and terror inflicted upon the black and other national minority peoples in the U.S.

The murder of Richard Ramey by the police has produced massive outrage among all sections of the working masses in Chicago who are today suffering under the repressive regime of violence and brutality of the rich. This new incident of fascist barbarity by the police against the black people comes upon the heels of the heroic Miami rebellion where the masses of people retaliated with a vengeance against the brutal regime of the rich.

In the face of the actions of the black people of Miami in response to the brutal murder of Arthur McDuffie by the police, Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne's administration was driven into a panic over the police murder of Richard Ramey. Right from the beginning the Byrne administration attempted to cover up the incident and even the news media in their first reports denied that the murder had taken place. It was only because some youth who had witnessed the atrocity spoke out that any of the truth has come to light. Since the truth has begun to come out, the Byrne administration has further tried to cover itself. Now it is "showing concern" and calling for "an investigation" of the incident. But this call for an "investigation" is a sham. This can be clearly seen by the fact that the police who murdered Mr. Ramey were already "under investigation" for a previous beating of a man last April. Such an "investigation" is designed to pacify the outrage of the masses and to cover up and deny the truth that brutality and violence, including murder by the police, is a systematic policy under the exploiting, oppressive and racist rule of the rich.

The Byrne administration itself is already well known as an administration of "lies and promises." It is already fully confirmed by the experience of the people as a typical racist regime of the 'Democratic Party in Chicago. Riding into office under the lies of concern for the plight of the workers and national minorities in Chicago, the Byrne administration began attacking the people as soon as it came to power. First she organized an "anti-youth crime" hysteria and launched police terror against all the Puerto Rican youth. Since then she has driven the national minority youth out of the schools at record rates while turning the entire school system into a lucrative field of investment and profiteering for the rich billionaires. She has continued the policy of the segregation of the schools with her support for the fascist anti-busing movement. The activity of the open nazis continues to be protected and shielded by the police. Can the chief Chicago racist have any real interest in investigating the racist Chicago police? Of course not. She is attempting to fool the masses about how she will act to end police terror while the masses should do nothing. In actual fact, since the murder of Mr. Ramey she has begun to prepare to put even more police on the CTA.

The example of Miami is a powerful lesson for the working masses which shows that the masses of people will never accept the brutal regime of fascism and racism imposed upon them. Nor will they accept the lies and deception of the capitalist politicians, or their lackeys, such as Jesse Jackson, who tell the masses of black people to "cool it" and rely on the politicians like Jane Byrne for so-called justice. The example of Miami also shows that, through their mass struggle, the people are able to develop their resistance and forcefully declare that they will not tolerate these attacks but will go into action against them. (Taken from a leaflet issued by the Chicago Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA on July 29, 1980.)

MIAMI/ORLANDO:

The Bold Struggle of the Black People Against Police Repression Continues

[Photo: The masses of oppressed black people in Miami persist in their struggle against racist police repression in July.]

The struggle of the Afro-American people in Miami and other Florida cities is continuing. In July, rebellions took place in Miami and Orlando against the rampant racist violence and murders systematically committed against black people by the police and other government authorities. This followed by less than two months the big May rebellion in Miami. This persistent struggle, taken together with similar events across the country, is a manifestation of a great storm of Afro- American people's struggle which is looming on the horizon.

Orlando

The immediate cause of the three night-long rebellion in Orlando, which began on July 30, was a very brutal arrest of a black woman in a bar. Many Afro-Americans stood up to the racist authorities when the arrest took place and fought them. Soon the rebellion spread through the black community and groups of blacks set upon the hated police racists with whatever weapons were at hand.

The following morning, at a meeting called by city officials to try to cajole the people into giving up their just struggle, the masses angrily denounced the systematic racial discrimination and violence committed against them by the government. Speakers demanded jobs, and that adequate sanitation and housing be provided in the black community. Afterwards, the arrogant mayor ridiculed the people's demands and the rebellion continued with new fury. The police made constant "vehicular sweeps" through the community. But they were again and again confronted by the people. In one case the youth cornered the unmarked car in which the police Public Safety Director and the Sheriff were riding, smashed out the windows with rocks and sent the wounded big shot racists running for their lives.

Miami

The renewed struggle in Miami took place on July 15 and 16. As in May, the rebellion was triggered by the intolerable, bestial treatment of the people by the police. On Tuesday afternoon, July 15, a new, specially formed "Robbery Suppression Team" of the Miami police department was unleashed to terrorize the black community of Liberty City. The first activity of this plainclothes unit was to set about chasing and arresting black youth robbery "suspects" in the middle of the housing projects. The arrogant police brutally assaulted 2 youth, but the youths militantly fought back and called on the people to assist them. The police drew and fired their revolvers. Nevertheless, the masses of black people in the housing projects fearlessly came to the youths' rescue, liberated them from the police and shot back at the fleeing cops. One of the police was seriously wounded as he fled.

Within minutes the projects were confronted by a line of shotgun-toting police. But the masses of black people came into the streets and boldly confronted them. After three hours the police had fallen back and secured a perimeter of roadblocks around a nine square mile area. For two nights the cowardly, racist police drove through the community firing tear gas, and sometimes shotguns as well, in the direction of any gathering of Afro- Americans, even at families on their porches. Cars and pickup trucks of armed white racists, klansmen and other scum were allowed through the police lines to terrorize the community. One such carload fired at least 17 rounds at a group of black youth on the street, including several rounds which were fired into a crowded grocery store where the youth ran for cover. Many people were injured by the violent assaults of the police and racist gangsters, including one 15 year old black youth who was seriously shot in the back while running from police tear gas.

But the people did not allow the racists -- whether in uniform or out -- to freely carry on their racist terrorism. Again and again the police and the KKK "night-riders" were rebuffed by the people. In all, six police were injured, five of whom were shot. Some of these were hit by sniper fire, others were surprised in ambush-like incidents, wanted on minor traffic violations. Large groups of youth fought against the police as well, at times forcing the police to temporarily retreat. The masses also completely burned to the ground a notorious gas station which charged 30¢ more per gallon than other stations in the area.

These rebellions in Miami and Orlando are a direct continuation of the struggle in May. The rebellion in May was the response of the black people to the acquittal of the Miami policemen who had brutally beaten to death Arthur McDuffie, a black man wanted on minor traffic violations. This was a most blatant and insulting instance of the systematic violence and murder which the black people suffer at the hands of the police and other government authorities. The black people found this situation absolutely intolerable and rose in defiance of the racist authorities. The racist government, however, responded to this just struggle with the savage repression of its police and National Guard. Carter, for his part offered "whatever assistance is necessary" to crush the rebellion. In all 18 people were killed, mostly by the police, over 350 were wounded and 1,200 were arrested in what was the largest-scale black rebellion since the 1960's.

The Deceptive Schemes of the Rich Cannot Quell the Revolt of the Black People

The systematic racial discrimination and violence against the black people is at the source of these powerful outbursts of struggle. Not only are low wages, high unemployment, poverty and wretched housing the normal conditions for black people under monopoly capitalism, but also at present the black people are being forced to bear an extra-intense burden of the economic crisis which the rich are placing on the backs of the working class. Over the last five years the black workers have suffered more than double the unemployment compared to white people, and. for example in Miami itself, over 30% of the black youth are unemployed. During these recent rebellions, the black masses have not only fought against the police terror but also raised their voice against this vicious capitalist exploitation.

After the May rebellions in Miami, the government and various capitalists came out to promise the black people all kinds of jobs, just around the corner, in order to try to diffuse the struggle of the people of Miami against unemployment, etc. But this was nothing but a fraud. For example, in June and July leaflets were issued which advertized in big letters': "Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!" -- as though there would soon be a job for everyone and anyone.

Then the day of truth came. On July 15, a much publicized CETA "Jobs Fair" was held. Six hundred youths showed up. But the lying government bureaucrats had a mere 200 jobs available, and then, too, many of these were highly skilled jobs which the youth couldn't conceivably qualify for. Realizing the cruel hoax the rich had manufactured to diffuse their struggle, the youth wrecked their vengeance on this "Jobs Fair" charade. Later that day, the renewed rebellion broke out in Miami.

This is one example of the fact that the bourgeoisie does not rely on armed force alone to forestall the rebellion of the people. It combines the use of forcible suppression with the tactics of deception. The Carter White House, with its vociferous "human rights" rhetoric, has been very active in its attempts to divert the struggle of the black people in Florida with an avalanche of empty promises and lies. For example, it sent Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson of PUSH, Benjamin Hooks, the NAACP leader, and others to Miami in May to try to convince the people to give up their mass struggle. These lying agents of Carter preached that the acquittal of the murdering police was purely a local "miscarriage" of justice. They repeatedly promised that the federal government would step in and guarantee that justice is done. However, over three months later, the criminal police are still free, and all that this federal "investigation" has resulted in is one paltry indictment on the relatively minor charge of "accessory after the fact" -- and this for a cop who admits to being the first to strike McDuffie! Most likely, he was charged as punishment for being the only cop willing to testify in exchange for immunity against the other police-murderers at the original trial in a local court.

The masses of black people in Miami have been quite militant in rejecting the political deception and honeyed lies, of the agents who have been sent by the White House to undermine their struggle. Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson and the rest were forced to flee for their lives before the angry masses. And so too, when Carter personally came to Miami in June to make deceptive promises about huge "federal aid" and jobs, etc., the people were not fooled by this advocate of "human rights." Recalling his personal endorsement of the violent suppression of their rebellion, they sent him running in a hail of bricks and bottles shouting derisively: "Hail to the Chief Racist!"

The continuing struggles of the black people in Florida, and elsewhere in the country, have tremendously encouraged the workers and oppressed nationalities throughout the country. These events have served as an impetus towards the development of a powerful storm of Afro-American struggle.

The unyielding struggle of the black people has exposed before the entire world the truly ugly and barbaric features of the home rule of U.S. imperialism. It has demonstrated that the imperialist system can never provide real equality and justice for the black people. Indeed, monopoly capitalism has "no room" for the liberation of the oppressed Afro-American people. It is the rule of the class of capitalist billionaires and millionaires that is the source of the brutal racial discrimination and violent terror against the black people.

Therefore, in order to sweep away the oppression of the black people, it is the rule of the bourgeoisie, its state machine, that must be demolished. This can only be accomplished through the proletarian socialist revolution. The struggle of the black toiling masses is a powerful force for the overthrow of this man-eating system. The Afro-American people's struggle is part of the struggle of the entire working class and people for the overthrow of the rich.

[Photo: Young black woman remains defiant in the face of brutal repression against the Orlando rebellion.]

PHILADELPHIA:

Afro-Americans Besiege Police Station to Protest Cold-Blooded Police Murder

On Monday, August 25, Afro-Americans in Philadelphia mounted a courageous struggle against the racist police murder of a 17 year old black youth. This murder was yet another of the racist and fascist attacks that the Philadelphia police have long been notorious for, a typical example of the violent repression that is systematically carried out against the black people by the capitalist authorities throughout the U.S.

On Sunday, 17 year old William Johnson was apprehended by the police after a car chase. When the youth's car ran into a tree, he tried to flee on foot, but was caught and forcefully suppressed by the police. He was handcuffed, brutally beaten and then fatally shot in the stomach. This was nothing but cold-blooded murder and enraged the Afro-American community.

On Monday, 500 Afro-Americans demonstrated outside the 22nd Precinct station. The masses threw rocks and bottles, and skirmishes took place against the police till late into the night. In the course of the evening's struggle seven policemen were injured. Despite the presence of hundreds of riot-helmeted police and many big shot government officials to intimidate the masses, they remained firm and defiantly faced the authorities. Indeed, the police were so frightened that they complained that the masses laid siege to the station for hours.

The murder of 17 year old William Johnson is yet another example of the barbarous conditions imposed on the black people by the rich. The black people are entirely correct in fighting against the racist U.S. government. The Philadelphia events show once again that a new upsurge of the Afro-American people is clearly on the agenda.

[Photo.]

BOSTON:

ON THE RACIST POLICE MURDER OF LEVI HART

The police murder of Levi Hart last month, a 14 year old black youth from Roxbury, evoked deep outrage and anger among the people of Boston. Levi Hart was beaten until his skull was fractured and then shot point blank in the head. Now, the Suffolk County Grand Jury has, in its usual fashion, whitewashed this brutal murder. The court has decided through its secret deliberations that it is perfectly alright for these racist murders to continue -- that no punishment will be handed out. This murder and cover-up is just one more example of the everyday treatment of the black people at the hands of the rich and their government.

In order to suppress the just struggle of the black people in Boston against racist and fascist attacks, the government has adopted a number of deceptive tactics which it carries out simultaneously. After the murder of Levi Hart, Mayor White set up a secret "inquest" and appointed a black judge, Judge Banks, to head it up. Then the case was sent to the Grand Jury, which has let the police off the hook again. The government went through all these legal maneuvers to create the illusion that somehow "justice will be done" if only the people will "give the system a chance to work." The legal proceedings were just delaying tactics, to cool out the outrage of the black masses before the cops were let off the hook. Various so- called "leaders" of the black community assisted the government in their efforts. They ran around telling people to keep cool and calm. In other words, the black people should not fight against brutal racist attacks, but should put their faith in the very same government which is the source of these daily attacks and racial discrimination against them.

Now that the Grand Jury has exonerated the police, the Federal Justice Department is stepping in with the same old tired plea: "Wait! Don't rebel! We will make sure that justice is done, just give us a chance to investigate the case!" Come on gentlemen -- when have you ever really punished a cop for killing a black youth or any working class youth? It doesn't matter whether the government is represented by a black face or a white one, whether it is the federal, state or local government, it still remains the dictatorship of the monopoly capitalists and racist to the core.

One of the special features of the attacks on black people in Boston over the last six years has been the use of government organized fascist gangs to carry out some of the most foul attacks on the black people. In the 1974-76 period the fascist anti-busing movement and these gangs which form the core of it were organized straight out of city hall. The same night that Levi Hart was killed, a black sailor and his white companions were stabbed and beaten by the fascist leaders of the "Powderkeg" anti-busing group in Charlestown. These fascist gangs carry out their attacks in conjunction with the police and even for murder the worst punishment they ever get is a slap on the wrists. A number of the leaders of the fascist gangs, such as James Kelly of the South Boston Marshalls, have been awarded lucrative jobs with the government for the dirty work they do. The government uses these gangs to hide its own criminal activity and to then pose as the great protector of the black people while it organizes attacks against them. Also, by using "civilian" fascists the government tries to terrorize the black people and the ordinary whites who defend the black people into thinking that their struggle is hopeless because it is supposedly ordinary white people who are behind the racist attacks.

But with the police murder of Levi Hart the thinly masked hand of the government in the racist attacks was exposed for all to see. The black people have denounced this crime of the government and have taken action with demonstrations and fights against the police. In this situation the government is very afraid of a major and just rebellion of the black people such as the one in Miami, where the masses directed their fire squarely at the rich and their state and burned down the police headquarters and other institutions of the government.

In addition to deception, the government uses straight forward repression against the black people. The police are patrolling the black communities, gestapo-style -- cruising Blue Hill Avenue, Columbia Road and other streets sometimes as many as 50 at a time -- breaking up gatherings of the youth and generally terrorizing the people.

But in spite of all these attempts by the government to stifle the struggle, the masses of black people are realizing that the defense of their rights is something that they must take into their own hands and they are doing just that. Last weekend the police sent a gang of "civilian" racists to provoke black youth in the Egleston Square area who were holding a block party. The racists drove up in a van and began shouting racist insults at the people. But the youth didn't sit there and take it, they began punishing the racists. In a few minutes the police buddies of the racists showed up with 70 cops to attack the black youth, but the youth were not intimidated by this show of force either and pelted the police with bricks and bottles and severely beat up a number of them! This is the correct path of active resistance!

Shaken by the growing struggle of the black masses, the rich and their government are trying to discredit, the struggle of the black people as a racist struggle directed against ordinary whites. The news media barely reports on events like what took place in Egleston Square, but they and officials like Mayor White are quick to blow up any incident where black youth, in frustration, misguidedly throw rocks at ordinary white passers-by. By doing this they try to say that the problem is blacks attacking whites, or simply black and white youth fighting over turf, while the government is the neutral mediator trying to work for peace amongst all the people. No! The problem is not the black and white masses fighting each other! The problem is that the rich and their government are viciously attacking the black people a part of their attack on the whole working class. The rich and their government are the racists and trouble makers and the black people will never give them peace.

The courageous struggle which the black people are waging against the racist and fascist attacks of the government is an inspiration to all the working and oppressed people who are fighting against the brutal regime of the rich.

(Reprinted from Boston Worker, newspaper of the Boston Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA, August18, 1980.)

CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE:

Afro-Americans Strike Back at Klan Terrorism and the Racist Justice of the Rich

On July 22, the black people of Chattanooga, Tennessee rose up in rebellion against the racist government for its acquittal of three Ku Klux Klan terrorists. On April 19, these three KKK members had burned a cross in the black community and then drove through the streets, firing a shotgun into crowds of black people. Four elderly women were seriously wounded by these bestial criminals. However, even though they openly admitted to their ugly deed in the court, two of them were let go scot-free, and the third was given a mere slap of the wrist (9 - 20 months in jail and a $250 fine).

This court verdict was an outrage. The black people of Chattanooga refused to swallow this barbaric capitalist "justice." The struggle they waged in protest of this racist verdict is a manifestation of the great storm of Afro-American struggle which is brewing in the U.S. today. The gathering of this storm has been heralded by the revolt of the black people in Miami, Orlando and Tampa, Florida, as well as by protests and mass struggles in Wichita, Kansas; Oakland, California; Brooklyn, New York; Battle Creek, Michigan; Greensboro, North Carolina and numerous other parts of the country.

Not only did the courts hand down their outrageous verdict condoning the terrorism of the KKK, but the authorities carried out widescale repression against the people's struggle as well. Twice, shortly after the verdict was announced the black people attempted to march in protest. In both cases, the police dispersed the demonstrations. A strict curfew was declared also and arbitrarily enforced only against blacks.

However in spite of the all-out efforts of the police, the black people's just struggle gained momentum. During the first two nights of the rebellion, several police who were terrorizing the community were injured by bottles and bricks thrown at them. As well, a dozen of the most notorious racist businesses which prey upon the ghetto community were ransacked and burned. The struggle continued during the third night. At that time, eight police were wounded with shotgun pellets and a ninth was injured attempting to come to their aid. This occurred when the people set a number of bonfires and set up a roadblock in the middle of a housing project. However, when the police came and tried to clear the area, they were caught and wounded in what they described as an ambush.

After this incident the police arrested six blacks on "suspicion" (although having no evidence to link them to the shooting) and another 28 were arbitrarily rounded up for "curfew violations," bringing the three-day total to 50 arrests. Cars carrying blacks were stopped and searched for weapons. The mayor himself ran around the streets with a pistol in his belt, hellbent on putting the black people "back in their place." Later this raving racist openly met with the national leader of the KKK at city hall to discuss strategy.

However, it became clear that the black people could not be frightened into submission. Since the racist police were the main target of the people's wrath, the bourgeoisie decided to withdraw them from the community for the time being. Minister-led patrols walked the streets instead and reported back to the police. As well, the well-known sellout, Jesse Jackson, was hurriedly flown in and sent into the community as a fireman to put out the flames of revolt. The basic sermon Jackson was sent to preach was the absurd idea that the masses should not fight against their oppression but instead rely on the federal Department of Justice which was going to step in and supposedly carry through the prosecution of the KKK terrorists.

But the fact remains that the masses were completely just in their protest of the so-called justice of the capitalist authorities. Here you have this criminal racist and fascist gang, the KKK, which gives itself the right to commit murder and every kind of atrocity against the Afro-American people, and they are let go by the courts with only the most flimsy "penalty," and the people are supposed to quietly accept this?! No, never! The masses will never accept this kind of twisted bourgeois logic. In the 1950's and 60's the Afro-American people waged a glorious struggle against racial discrimination and violent repression, putting an end to many of the most medieval and savage features of Jim Crow segregationism. Today they are not about to calmly let the bourgeoisie turn the clock back on this.

Today the KKK and other fascist gangs are being increasingly activated by the bourgeoisie to terrorize and suppress the black people and other oppressed nationalities. Real life experience is showing every day that the KKK has the full backing of the government authorities. The Chattanooga verdict shows that the KKK carries out its terrorism with the full approval of the local authorities. Attempted murder is supposed to be a major crime according to the bourgeois laws, but the courts shut their eyes when the KKK carries out such a blatant atrocity against the black masses.

The KKK and other similar gangs are actually backed by the government at all levels. Time and again it has been exposed that some of the most brutal racist terrorism of the 1960's and 70's, including the November 1979 murders in Greensboro, North Carolina, have been organized by federal government agents, especially from the FBI working hand in hand with klansmen and nazis. At the same time, the federal government goes to the greatest lengths to provide a platform and widescale advertising for their racist ideology. For example, the Supreme Court itself has officially declared the "right" of the KKK and nazis under the federal constitution to march, demonstrate and advocate their genocidal ideology with the full protection of the police and the courts.

This proves that the masses of Afro-American people are entirely just in waging active resistance against attacks of the racist and fascist gangs, and they are completely justified in striking at the government authorities who are the organizers of the racists in the first place. This exposes also the utterly rotten and sellout nature of the firemen like Jesse Jackson who come to counsel the black masses to not fight the racists, to not avenge the racist atrocities but to rely for protection on the non-existent justice of the capitalist government, at whatever level.

The increased activation of the racist and fascist gangs is part and parcel of the growing fascism of the monopoly capitalist exploiters. The racist and fascist gangs are used not only to intimidate the black people but are also especially intended for use as a striking force of fascism against the Revolutionary workers' movement and against all progressive people generally. It is the capitalist class which, in its drive to shift the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the working class, is developing fascism in an all-sided manner. The target of this fascization is the forcible suppression of the working class movement. As well, this all-round program of fascization includes the stepped-up racial discrimination against the black people in all aspects of life, and government-organized reactionary movements such as the fascist anti-busing movement and the fraud of reverse discrimination.

The government at all levels spearheads the fascist offensive on behalf of the bourgeoisie. Not only does it organize racist and fascist violence through the racist gangs, but the police and government authorities themselves are vicious perpetrators of fascist attacks against the workers and oppressed nationalities. Police murders and brutal terrorism on the part of the police are an everyday occurrence in every corner of the U.S. The federal government makes a show of "opposing" the brutality of the local police at times, but this is a complete fraud. For example, the federal Department of Justice has made countless promises to prosecute police who kill and beat up black people and then go scot-free in the local courts. But the fact is that of some 3,000 cases of this type being investigated by federal agents reported in a recent nine-month period from across the country, in only 75 cases have even initial federal charges been filed. Needless to add, these few trials are as much a farce as are local trials like the one in Chattanooga.

In short, while the government officials sometimes promise to punish the racist gangsters, they are in fact behind them 100%. This is equally true whether there is an openly reactionary Republican administration or a Democratic administration as at present which hides its racism under the slogan of "human rights." The real sympathies of the Carter administration are clear. In each of the recent black rebellions the Carter White House has been quick to offer "whatever assistance is necessary" to the local authorities in suppressing the rebellions, while at the same time sending professional "riot stoppers" such as Jesse Jackson, Andrew Young and other flunkeys of the Democratic Party to preach non-violence and to call on the masses to rely on the government.

However, with their recent rebellions in many cities, the black people are showing that they are not about to submit to the degrading racist justice of the government, nor to the barbaric terrorism of the police and racist gangs. Rather they are determined to rise in revolutionary mass struggle against the rich. This rapidly spreading struggle of the black people across the U.S. is a manifestation of the powerful storm of Afro-American rebellion, the clouds of which are gathering on the horizon. This struggle is a great impetus to the development of the struggle of the entire working class against the exploitation and oppression of monopoly capitalism.

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10th Anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium Against U.S. Aggression in Indochina

August 29,1980 marks the tenth anniversary of the National Chicano Moratorium. Ten years ago on this day, more than 20,000 people, overwhelmingly of the Mexican nationality, demonstrated in East Los Angeles against the U.S. imperialist war of aggression in Indochina and the oppression of the Mexican nationality people in the U.S. The demonstration was viciously attacked by the police, and the moratorium turned into a heroic mass action of the Mexican nationality people against the rich and their state.

This courageous struggle was a major event in the mass movement that emerged in the 1960's among the Mexican nationality people against their oppression. It showed that this movement itself took on a strong and pronounced anti-imperialist character and that the Mexican nationality people have a burning hatred for, and a vigorous fighting spirit against the reactionary violence of the state. The Mexican nationality people, otherwise known as Chicanos or Mexican-Americans, include both those born in the U.S. and immigrants from Mexico.

The 1960's and early 1970's were a period of powerful upsurges of the broad masses of people in the U.S. The struggle of the Afro-American people against racial discrimination and violent repression, the workers' movement against capitalist exploitation, the youth and student movement against the capitalist educational system and the mass movement against the war in Indochina all profoundly stirred the Mexican nationality people in the U.S. In addition, the anti-imperialist revolutionary struggles of the people of Latin America, Asia and Africa had a strong influence on them. Thus, in the mid-1960's vigorous struggles broke out among the Mexican nationality people.

In 1965, the agricultural workers in California, most of whom were of Mexican nationality, launched a series of strikes and other mass actions against the vicious exploitation of the agricultural capitalists. Beginning in 1968, in California, Colorado and elsewhere in the Southwest, Mexican nationality youth in the high schools and colleges organized strikes and boycotts against racial discrimination and the suppression of their language and culture. Struggles also broke out against the fascist attacks of the state in the communities. The masses also participated in the growing mass movement against the U.S. imperialist war in Indochina. Indeed by 1969, all over the Southwest and among the Mexican nationality people throughout the U.S., there developed a widespread anti-imperialist sentiment, and Chicano Moratoriums involving hundreds to several thousand took place against the war in Indochina. This broad anti-imperialist sentiment arose not only from the influence of the broad mass movement against the war in which many Mexican nationality people participated, but also from recognition among them of the link between U.S. imperialism's aggressive war in Asia and the oppression and violence practiced against them at home. In particular, the casualty figures coming from Indochina graphically illustrated the racial discrimination against the Mexican nationality people. These showed that Mexican nationality people represented a disproportionate number of the casualties. Hence the Chicano masses demonstrated their opposition to the war abroad and declared instead: Our war is here!

In 1970 a national Chicano Moratorium was called for August 29 in East Los Angeles, in the wake of a series of local protests throughout the South-west. East Los Angeles has the largest urban concentration of Mexican nationality people in the U.S. It manifests all the brutal features of the systematic national oppression that exists against the Mexican-American people. In 1970, the average family income there was less than $4,000 a year, the school "dropout" rate was over 60%, unemployment high, and the housing conditions over-crowed and intolerable. To maintain this vicious situation the community was brutally terrorized by the police, with beatings and murders a common occurrence. For example, just in the months prior to the August 29 action, six people had been murdered in the jails and two were shot dead just six weeks before the event. At the same time, East Los Angeles had also become a center for the developing Mexican nationality movement, especially of the high school youth who had repeatedly fought since 1968 in the high schools against racist administrators and teachers, discrimination and suppression of their language and culture. Also, in February 1970 more than 4,000 people had marched in pouring rain to protest the war in Indochina.

So when on August 29 more than 20,000 people from different parts of the country gathered and marched in East Los Angeles, they were warmly greeted with cheers and applause from the community. But as soon as they had gathered after the march for a rally in Laguna Park (later renamed Salazar Park), the police organized a deliberate provocation nearby and launched a violent attack on the demonstrators. More than a thousand policemen attacked the people in the park with clubs, tear gas and guns.

But the masses were not intimidated. They vigorously resisted the police violence with their bare fists and whatever else was at hand. The entire community joined in the struggle. Many outright came and joined the fight. Others brought out carts of empty bottles to use against the police. Still others offered their homes for protection to the injured. The masses were able to injure dozens of policemen and damaged more than 25 police cars, setting fire to many of them. They also used the occasion to express their wrath against their all-sided oppression by setting fire to numerous banks, finance companies and stores notorious for their exploitation of the community. In fact, it took the police two days to suppress the uprising. As a result of their violent attack, three people were killed, hundreds injured and over 400 arrested.

For months afterward, the masses in East Los Angeles rose up again and again to avenge the violent state attack on the August 29 Moratorium, and delivered powerful blows against the police. For instance, just two weeks later, on September 16th, 300,000 people came out to celebrate Mexican Independence Day. They raised slogans against the police attacks and commemorated the Moratorium, and a section fought the police, injuring 64 policemen. Similar mass actions continued against the police every few months well into 1971.

In commemorating the tenth anniversary of this mass struggle it is important to note that the struggles of the Mexican nationality people in the 1960's, including the Chicano Moratorium, show that they participated actively in the working class movement and the anti-imperialist movement generally, and also that the mass movement that developed against their national oppression itself took up a pronounced anti-imperialist character. Furthermore the 1970 Chicano Moratorium especially demonstrated that, faced with the brutal violence of the U.S. imperialist state, the Mexican nationality people waged a vigorous tit-for-tat resistance, delivering strong blows against the bourgeois state.

Through the last decade and into the 1980's the Mexican nationality people have persisted in their heroic struggle. The 1970's have seen the Mexican nationality workers drawn even further into the working class movement. The struggle of the agricultural workers has extended throughout the Southwest and into the Midwest as well. The Mexican nationality masses continue to battle against the racist and fascist attacks of the state, in such upsurges as the Houston rebellion of May 1978 to avenge the police murder of Jose Torres. Mexican nationality masses have also fought in numerous struggles throughout the country against the attacks of the government's hated immigration department on the immigrants and the harassment of the immigration department against the Mexican nationality communities generally. In addition the anti-imperialist sentiment among them has drawn them into movements in solidarity with the anti-imperialist revolutionary struggles of the world's peoples such as the Iranian revolution and the struggles in Central America. Today they are coming forward to join the growing movement against U.S. imperialist war preparations.

However, in the course of standing up in struggle the Mexican nationality masses have had to overcome many obstacles placed in their path by the flunkeys of the monopoly capitalist state. They have had to fight against the treachery of the cultural nationalists whose role in the mass movement has been to divert the masses away from revolutionary struggle against the state, to divide the ranks of the masses and in particular to take up the bourgeoisie's attacks on the immigrants from Mexico, and to deliver the masses into the arms of the rich. The cultural nationalists have simply worked to tie the masses to the Democratic Party, the American bourgeoisie's main party for deceiving the working class and oppressed people.

Indeed for decades the Democratic Party has infiltrated the Mexican nationality community promising equality and justice for the people. But this is nothing but gross deception. For what has the Democratic Party shown during these past decades? It has presided over numerous governments, but the conditions of the Mexican nationality people have only worsened. In the 1960's it was the Democratic Party which sent the youth of this country, including the Mexican nationality youth, to die as U.S. imperialism's cannon fodder in Indochina. In the last several years for instance, it has been the Democratic Carter administration which has used the immigration authorities to terrorize and carry out hundreds of thousands of deportations. It was the Democrats Kennedy and Rodino in 1974-75 and the Democrat Carter in 1977 who cooked up and launched even more fascist plans of terror and intimidation against the immigrants and the Mexican nationality people generally -- plans of mass roundups, deportations and harassment to intensify even more the exploitation and oppression of the Mexican nationality people in the U.S. No different than the openly reactionary party of monopoly capital, the Republicans, the Democrats are implementing the common program of the rich of starvation, fascism and war.

Still various flunkeys of the Democratic Party continue to try to tie the Mexican nationality masses to the coattails of the Democrats. They counsel the masses not to rise up in struggle against their oppression but to rely on the promises of the Democratic liars. And should the masses nevertheless break through these obstacles and rise up and fight, the flunkeys of the Democrats try to convert the mass struggles into pressure groups for this or that Democratic politician and place every roadblock against the struggling people. The role of Cesar Chavez of the United Farm Workers union bureaucracy is a notorious example. Not only has he tried over and over again to limit the struggles of the farm workers to the narrowest, legal and "peaceful" forms of struggle, but he has also repeatedly tried to turn the farm workers' struggle into a tail of the Democratic politicians such as Kennedy and Jerry Brown. And he has taken up the treacherous role of promoting the worst imperialist politics in the ranks of the workers' movement, such as support for zionism and for the U.S.-Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines, and support for the U.S. government's immigration raids and deportations. Indeed, by attempting to split the Mexican nationality people among those born in the U.S. and the immigrants and by taking up the campaign of harassment and deportations against the immigrants., the cultural nationalists openly reveal themselves as agents of the rich, nothing but two-bit flunkeys of the Democrats.

The Democratic Party is a party of imperialism -- a party of starvation, fascism and war. The Mexican nationality masses cannot rely on any such party of the rich for their salvation. The only path forward is the path of revolutionary struggle against imperialism, capitalist exploitation and national oppression. This is the independent class politics of the proletariat, the path charted out by the working class party, the party of revolutionary struggle and socialism, the Marxist- Leninist Party.

On the tenth anniversary of the National Chicano Moratorium, The Workers' Advocate hails the just struggle of the Mexican nationality people. The 1970 Chicano Moratorium was a splendid episode of this struggle. It is this struggle against capitalist exploitation, national oppression and imperialism that is preparing the Mexican nationality masses to play a powerful role in the proletarian socialist revolution which will smash the U.S. monopoly capitalist system and usher in socialism. And it is only this which will bring liberation and true equality for the Mexican nationality people.

[Photo: A whole series of militant local protests throughout the Southwest preceded the big Moratorium of August 29. On February 28, 1970, more than 4,000 people marched through East Los Angeles in a pouring rain to protest the war in Indochina and the systematic national oppression of the Mexican nationality people in the U.S.]

[Photo: The Chicano Moratorium of August 29,1970 in East Los Angeles.]

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Oppose the Brutal Oppression of the Mexican Nationality in the U.S.!

The Mexican nationality people have a glorious history of struggle against the capitalist rulers of the United States. This struggle arises because as part of the American proletariat, they are viciously exploited by the capitalists and in addition, because they are subject to systematic national oppression by the bourgeoisie. Like the Afro-American people, they are racially discriminated against and violently attacked by the police. Their language and culture suppressed by the capitalists, the Mexican nationality people are given the hardest and worst jobs, constantly face an extremely high level of unemployment, are driven into rat-trap housing and have their children forced into the worst schools from where they are driven out in record numbers. The reactionary police maintain a reign of terror in the Mexican nationality communities. They think nothing of shooting the youth down in cold blood. In addition, because the Mexican nationality people include a large number of immigrants, they are subject to continuous harassment and intimidation by the government's hated immigration department, and large numbers are rounded up and deported every year.

The source of this oppression has its origin in the history of relations between the U.S. and Mexico, and in the more than a century long effort of the U.S. bourgeoisie to subjugate the Mexican nationality people in this country as an oppressed and exploited national minority. In particular, the roots of this oppression lie in the forcible annexation of the Southwest from Mexico in the early and mid-19th century and the simultaneous development of U.S. political and economic domination over Mexico itself. It was the expansionist drive of U.S. capitalism in the early 19th century that led to the military annexation of the Southwest. Through the Texan War of 1839 and the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, the U.S. capitalists stole over half of Mexico's territory. This included what are today Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, Utah and a section of Wyoming. These were some of the richest lands of Mexico with fertile soil and abundant mineral wealth.

The annexationist wars of the bourgeoisie were some of the most brutal wars in history. During these wars and in the subsequent conquest of the Southwest, the Mexican people living in these territories became the target of violence, racial discrimination and vicious exploitation. At the time of annexation, there were about 80,000 Mexican people living in this territory, which was very sparsely populated. The majority of these people were peasants and farmers. But in the decades following annexation, these territories were rapidly colonized by settlers, and by the turn of the century, the settlers had converted the Mexican nationality people into a minority throughout the Southwest. On the other hand, the Mexican and Native people had their lands expropriated through violence, theft and the full use of the laws and courts of the government. This oppression of the Mexican nationality people was maintained by the use of brutal violence from the army, rangers and armed racist vigilantes. It is noteworthy that the annexation of the Southwest was engineered by the slave owner-dominated U.S. government. The terroristic rule established in this region immediately after annexation was similar to the brutal conditions in the South.

As the process of the subjugation of the Mexican nationality people proceeded, the conditions were laid for the rapid expansion and development of capitalism in the Southwest, and for the exploitation of Mexican labor. Driven off their lands, the Mexican nationality people were transformed into wage slaves providing a super-exploited supply of labor to the agricultural, mining and railroad capitalists.

At the same time, the annexation of the Southwest had serious consequences for Mexico itself. It weakened Mexico's own economic development by depriving it of some of its richest lands. Simultaneously, U.S. capital began to penetrate Mexico itself and brought it under its economic and political domination. By the turn of the century, the great bulk of the mines, smelters, oil fields, railroads and other key sectors of the economy were in the hands of the foreign imperialists, especially of the United States. The profits extracted from the plunder of the land and labor of Mexico were among the highest in the world.

The U.S. was able to ensure this economic exploitation of Mexico by propping up the rule of the most reactionary landlord and bourgeois classes. When the Mexican toiling masses rose up between 1910-1920 in a democratic revolution, it was U.S. imperialism which assisted the reactionary bourgeoisie to sabotage the revolution and ensure the continued economic and political domination by the U.S. The result of the severe exploitation of Mexico by the U.S. and other imperialists, and of the internal rule of the capitalists and landlords has been the massive poverty of the Mexican people.

A particular feature of the U.S. domination of Mexico has been the use of that country as a source of cheap labor for the capitalists inside the U.S. as well. Thus, especially with the setbacks to the Mexican Revolution, large numbers of immigrants have come into the. U.S. from Mexico, forced to emigrate because of the intolerable conditions of the reactionary rule of U.S. imperialism and internal reaction. At the same time, beginning in the 1920's, the U.S. has repeatedly organized the importation of contract labor into the U.S. These Mexican immigrants and contract laborers have joined the ranks of the other people of the Mexican nationality already living in the U.S.

They have also been subject to fierce oppression by the U.S. bourgeoisie. They have been forced to work at starvation wages and in inhuman conditions, always subject to the threats, violence and blackmail of the capitalist exploiters and the U.S. immigration authorities. Repeatedly the Mexican immigrants and even those who have been born here in the U.S. have been targeted for mass roundups and deportations. In particular, these attacks have been used whenever and wherever the Mexican nationality masses have risen up in struggle against their exploitation and oppression. For instance, one of the most brutal deportation campaigns was the so-called "Operation Wetback" in the mid-50's. During this campaign, the U.S. deported two million people to Mexico from 1953 to 1956. Many militant and revolutionary elements were especially targeted for deportation.

Thus it is the annexation of the Southwest and the U.S. imperialist domination of Mexico which are at the root of the national oppression of the Mexican nationality people in the U.S. This history has not only determined the character and composition of this oppressed national minority, but also given rise to and determined the actual features of their longstanding struggles. Today, there are over 10 million Mexican nationality people in the U.S. whose ranks are constantly added to by further immigration from Mexico. The overwhelming majority are workers and form a militant section of the American proletariat. Although a majority live in the Southwest, Mexican nationality people have migrated to other sections of the country and form a vital sector of the proletariat elsewhere, such as in the industries of Chicago, the farms of Ohio, etc.

The Mexican nationality people have a long and glorious tradition of struggle against the bourgeoisie and the government which is responsible for their oppression. The annexation of the Southwest and its subjugation was vigorously resisted by the Mexican masses. In fact, throughout the 19th century and into the early years of the 20th century, the Mexican people in Texas, New Mexico and California, etc., repeatedly fought armed battles against the U.S. government, the Texas Rangers, etc.

In addition, despite the Southwest being stolen from Mexico and included into the U.S., the Mexican nationality people in this territory never gave up their ties with Mexico itself. They have always sympathized with and supported the revolutionary struggles of the Mexican people. At the time of the Mexican Revolution, many Mexican-Americans in the U.S. lent support to it, and Mexican revolutionaries even organized out of the Southwest. It is this tradition that has made the revolutionary Mexican leaders Zapata and Pancho Villa widely respected folk heroes among the Mexican nationality people in the U.S.

By the late 19th century, the Mexican nationality masses had in the main been transformed into modern proletarians in the farms, mines, railroads and industry. The Mexican workers brought their traditions of struggle and fighting spirit into the working class movement. They actively participated in many heroic struggles against capitalist exploitation. For instance, in 1910, a wave of strikes swept southern California initiated by a strike of Mexican nationality workers on the Los Angeles street railway. In 1914 and 1915, vigorous struggles were waged by the miners in Arizona and Colorado, which included the famous Ludlow, Colorado strike which was suppressed by a Rockefeller-ordered massacre of the strikers by troops and hired goons. In the early 30's, a series of agricultural workers' strikes swept through California.

In recent decades it is these same conditions which have given rise to the vigorous struggles of the Mexican nationality people and determined the actual features of these struggles. The Mexican nationality workers are a militant section of the proletariat. They have shown this in the broadening struggles of the farmworkers throughout the U.S. and in such struggles as that of the mainly women Mexican nationality workers in the Farah textile workers' strike of the early 1970's. The national oppression of the Mexican nationality people has brought them into motion in many battles against racist and fascist attacks of the police and the immigration authorities, etc. Widespread anti-imperialist sentiment has led to many struggles in solidarity with the anti-imperialist revolutionary struggles of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America. A glorious example of this was the 1970 National Chicano Moratorium. These struggles are preparing the Mexican nationality people in playing an important role in the proletarian socialist revolution which will smash up the rule of the U.S. monopoly capitalist dictators and ensure freedom and true equality for the Mexican nationality people.

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UNIROYAL WORKERS SUFFER A 19.4% WAGE CUT

URW Hack Bommarito Sells Out the Rubber Workers

On August 1, a 12.9% pay cut went into effect for the members of the United Rubber Workers employed at 11 of Uniroyal's tire, chemical and plastics plants. For each of these 6,000 workers, who earn an average of $9.13 an hour, this cut amounts to $1.22 an hour in wages, or over $48 a week. Moreover, next year there will be further pay cuts which will mean a total cut in wages of 19.4% over two years. This is a big blow to the workers' livelihood, particularly in the face of the current 14.3% inflation. The plan for these savage wage cuts was imposed onto the rubber workers under the totally fraudulent hoax of "saving jobs" and preventing plant closings by helping the Uniroyal capitalists out of their financial difficulties.

This anti-worker plan stems from an agreement arranged in May between Uniroyal President Joseph Flannery and the traitorous URW President Peter Bommarito. According to this agreement, for the rest of this year the workers will suffer a 58$ per hour cut in wages, plus a cut of 64¢ in cost-of-living adjustments. All COLA provisions are suspended. In 1981 the workers will lose another 16¢ in cost of living and all COLA will be suspended for the year, amounting to an additional 6.5% cut in wages. None of this lost pay will be regained by the URW workers. Moreover, after Bommarito shamelessly agreed to submit to these wage cuts, Uniroyal went on to impose similar cuts on other unions at the company as well as on the office employees. In total, the Uniroyal capitalists plundered $39 million out of the workers' wages.

The Criminal Betrayal of URW Chieftain Bommarito

This outrageous robbery of the rubber workers provides important lessons for the working class movement. Firstly, it illustrates the most shameless treachery of the opportunist trade union chieftains, in particular that of the so-called "militant labor leaders" such as Peter Bommarito.

In 1976, the URW workers waged a militant, determined and heroic strike in defense of their livelihood. Sixty-eight thousand strong, the workers struck the four big tire monopolies, Goodyear, Firestone, Uniroyal and Goodrich for 141 days. Workers at the smaller tire companies wildcatted in solidarity. Through their militant mass struggle, the rubber workers won major concessions in wages and, for the first time, a COLA clause. This tenacious struggle on the part of the workers was carried out against every roadblock Bommarito and co. could set against it. The rubber workers' wages had fallen way behind the pace of inflation in the first place because of the URW leadership's submission to Nixon's wage controls in the 1973 contract. When the contracts expired in 1976, Bommarito attempted to curtail any serious mass struggle whatsoever, advocating to strike only one company at a time while keeping the other rubber workers on the job to fill the struck company's orders. Nevertheless, Bommarito found it convenient to utilize the powerful 1976 strike of the rubber workers to puff himself up as some sort of "militant."

Last year 8,200 URW workers at Uniroyal waged a five and a half week strike in defiance of the Carter administration's wage guidelines. This time, however, the URW leadership succeeded in limiting the strike to just one of the rubber monopolies. Even so, through this strike struggle, the workers again forced concessions from the rubber capitalists. They achieved a wage increase and improved COLA which made for a total increase of 48.1% over three years, approximately enough to keep pace with inflation. Bommarito made loud noises about not bowing to Carter's wage guidelines and the URW hacks boasted of their "difficult leading role" in a court case against the wage controls. But once again Bommarito and co. did everything they could to sabotage the workers' mass action.

Now, 12 months later, we find Bommarito down on his knees before the rubber monopolies, obediently signing away the workers' wages which were won in bitter struggle. The "militant labor leader" Peter Bommarito has revealed himself as a belly-crawling strikebreaker for all to see. This experience of the rubber workers shows that the workers must never rely on the opportunist trade union chieftains, no matter what "militant" posture they may take. It shows that the workers can only rely on their own efforts to defend their vital class interests. To defend themselves against the merciless exploitation of the monopolies, the workers must take matters into their own hands and wage revolutionary mass struggles in spite of and against the sabotage of the scab labor lieutenants of the capitalist class such as the likes of Mr. Bommarito.

Wage Cuts to "Save Jobs" Is a Capitalist Swindle

The wage cuts against the URW workers is not an isolated event. It is part of a massive offensive on the part of monopoly capital to exploit the workers to the bone. They are trying to make the workers "sacrifice" and shoulder the burden of the capitalist economic crisis under the enormous hoax that this is the only way to "save the workers' jobs." Thus the Uniroyal workers are not alone in suffering wage cuts and other "sacrifices" in the name of preventing plant closings and layoffs. Furthermore, this is not the first time the URW workers have been forced to make concessions to the employers under the hoax of providing job security. The history of such concessions shows that, rather than "saving jobs," they have paved the way for the further devastation of the workers.

For example, the Naugatuck, Connecticut footwear division of Uniroyal previously employed 5,500 workers. In the early 1970's the URW called for a "cooperative effort" to keep the Naugatuck division in operation and in 1970 and 1973 imposed wage and benefit freezes on the workers. In the 1976 contract the workers again made "sacrifices" and received less than the master settlement. Nevertheless, in 1978 Uniroyal shut down the footwear plant and today only 150 warehouse workers remain on the job!

Similarly, in Akron, Ohio in 1972 the leadership of URW Local 5 at Mohawk Rubber agreed to a plan of concessions to "save" jobs. A massive productivity drive was launched and production doubled. Then after six years of slaving the workers to the bone, Mohawk shut down the plant, throwing the workers into the street.

The same thing happened in 1973 when the URW leaders joined the rubber monopolists in a plan called "Make Akron Competitive." Under the threat of further plant closings in the Akron area the URW bureaucrats agreed to work rule changes to "increase efficiency and productivity in the Akron plants." Also in 1973 the Akron workers received lower wages than the rubber workers in the rest of the country. The end result has been that the workers are poorer and more overworked; the profits of the capitalists are bigger; and the workers continue to lose their jobs in Akron.

The present wage cuts to the Uniroyal workers will be no different. This year Uniroyal has already closed down two tire plants, in Detroit and Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts. To solve its "financial difficulties" the Uniroyal capitalists will not show the slightest compassion for the workers. Their sole objective is to rake in profits and guarantee the interest on the loans to their financial backers. As Uniroyal President Flannery put it, he "wasn't sure" if simply closing down more plants and laying off more workers would "satisfy the banks." So he cut the workers' wages by $39 million and added this to the tribute to "satisfy the banks. " But the greed of the monopoly capitalist bloodsuckers is insatiable. The workers' $39 million will be poured into new means to exploit the workers, to automate production, close down plants and throw more workers into the streets.

In short, wage cuts and concessions in the name of "saving jobs" is a capitalist swindle to impoverish and ruin the workers. Only an uncompromising mass struggle on the part of the workers to defend their livelihood, to oppose the capitalists' productivity drives, plant closings and layoffs can bring any degree of job security.

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USWA Convention Endorses the Steel Capitalists' Productivity Drive

MORE BETRAYAL OF THE STEEL WORKERS

In Los Angeles, from August 4 to 8, the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) held its 20th Constitutional Convention. This convention has taken place at a time when the steelworkers are facing vicious attacks by the steel monopolies on all fronts. With the deepening worldwide capitalist economic crisis, the steel monopolies are drastically cutting back the production of steel. Already 70,000 steelworkers (approximately one out of every four) have been laid off. The steel companies are also reorganizing their production by shutting down all or parts of many "older and less efficient plants." This reorganization has meant the permanent elimination of tens of thousands of jobs for steelworkers in Youngstown, Ohio; Lackawanna, N.Y.; Fontana, California and other cities. Workers not already laid off face being murdered and maimed by the unsafe conditions and worked to the bone under the steel barons' productivity drive. A special attack has been launched against the workers in steel fabricating, in the subsidiary industries and in the smaller steel mills. The steel monopolies are demanding that these workers take wage freezes and make other concessions such as that their contracts be broken away from the Basic Steel Agreement.

This situation demands that the steelworkers wage determined mass struggles in defense of their jobs and livelihood and against the productivity drive and job eliminating schemes of the steel monopolies. But just look at the outcome of the 1980 USWA Constitutional Convention. It was betrayal on every front. To be exact, this convention took up the program of the steel billionaires hook, line and sinker.

For example, the convention endorsed the provisions of a soon to be released report by the Steel Tripartite Committee, a joint committee of the steel billionaires, the USWA traitors led by President Lloyd McBride and co., and officials of the Carter government. This report calls for; 1) more tax breaks for the steel monopolies; 2) increases in the rates of depreciation for capital investment -- "to encourage" the steel billionaires to introduce new machinery and technology into the plants; 3) direct government investment and loan guarantees to subsidize, modernize and automate the steel industry; and 4) increased tariffs to eliminate steel imports.

Plain and simple, this is a program which ties every demand of the workers for job security to the productivity drive of the steel capitalists. The USWA chieftains are trying to impose on the steelworkers the capitalists' swindle that they will have job security if they only "improve efficiency and productivity": that is, if they allow job classifications to be combined, if they beg the steel billionaires to install computers and highly automated equipment in the plants, and if they take wage freezes and make other concessions to the steel capitalists. This program of the USWA traitors has not and will not protect a single job, but in fact it has paved the way for thousands of steelworkers to end up jobless in the unemployment lines. In short, Lloyd McBride and his men are working on behalf of the ruthless productivity drive of the mill owners, a drive which has already permanently eliminated more than 60,000 jobs over the last seven years.

Only by waging a most determined mass struggle can the steelworkers defend their jobs and livelihood against the attacks by the steel capitalists. Fight against the job combinations and speedups! Smash up the joint labor- management committees set up in the 1980 contract which are aimed at revising work and safety rules! Fight the overwork and forced overtime schemes which are being imposed while thousands of steelworkers are laid off and while millions of unemployed workers walk the streets! Fight against plant closings and layoffs! Utilize these struggles to get organized against the capitalists and their labor lieutenants!

This struggle is already under way. In Youngstown, Ohio and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania hundreds of steelworkers staged mass protests against layoffs and plant closings. At two Indiana steel mills, several hundred workers organized demonstrations and held mass meetings to denounce job combinations, fascist disciplinary rules, and the introduction of the piecework system. At Bethlehem Steel's Lackawanna, New York mill, hundreds of workers waged wildcat strikes against murderous working conditions. And in many of the small steel mills, in the fabricating plants and in the subsidiary industries, workers are waging hard-fought strikes against wage and benefit cuts, plant shutdowns and the elimination of COLA.

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BOLIVIA:

Fierce Struggle of the Working Class Against the U.S.-Backed Junta

The working class and oppressed people of Bolivia have launched a determined struggle against the ruling military junta. With the militant mine workers in the forefront, the Bolivian people are striving to overthrow the regime of General Luis Garcia Meza, which imposed its rule through a military coup in mid-July, cancelling the scheduled national elections in the process. Throughout the mining districts. the workers have shut down the mines and gone into action against the fascist regime. In the zinc mining district of Santa Ana, 5,000 armed miners blockaded the roads with trucks and dynamite. The miners have unflinchingly battled the troops of the junta sent to repress their struggle. The miners of Catavi, for example, along with peasants in the area bravely launched a five hour assault on the local army barracks. The struggle of the Bolivian miners has continued into August and has greatly shaken the military junta. In addition to the ongoing miners' struggle, the fascist junta has met wide-scale resistance from other sections of the oppressed masses. Soon after the coup, a general strike was organized in La Paz, and mass demonstrations against the junta were held, raising the slogan, "Death to Fascism!"

On behalf of U.S. imperialism and the local capitalists and landlords, the regime of General Meza is trying to ruthlessly crush the revolts of the workers. The vast tin and other valuable mineral resources of Bolivia have long been plundered by U.S. imperialism. To protect its interests, U.S. imperialism has never spared any expense to arm to the teeth a long series of fascist regimes.

During the reign of the terrorist Banzer regime, for example, the Carter administration openly expressed its support for this fascist butcher and stepped up its military aid. Today, the Meza regime is subjugating the people on behalf of U.S. imperialism in the same fashion as Banzer. The new military dictators are resorting to barbaric massacres and whole-scale torture in order to suppress the masses. The regime's troops have opened fire on demonstrations in La Paz and are gunning down the miners and cutting off their food supply in an effort to bring them to their knees.

However, the bloody government repression will never halt the struggle of the Bolivian toilers. When the fascist Colonel Natush Bush took power in November 1979, he proclaimed that he would never resign. But two weeks later the powerful uprising of the Bolivian miners and other working people overthrew the arrogant dictatorship. The present regime will undoubtedly suffer a similar fate. All over Latin America, the working class and oppressed masses are rising in revolutionary struggle against U.S. imperialism and its domestic lackeys. In Nicaragua, last year the "invincible" U.S.-backed Somoza dictatorship was smashed. Today powerful actions of the masses are threatening the regimes in El Salvador, Guatemala and elsewhere. The valiant struggle of the heroic Bolivian working class and people will surely triumph over the fascist military dictators and their U.S. imperialist sponsors.

[Photo: Workers and students in La Paz, Bolivia erect barricades to battle the fascist junta.]

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The Party of Labor of Albania writes on the 45th anniversary of the 7th World Congress of the Communist International:

A glorious page in the revolutionary work of the Comintern

(The following is a commentary on an article from Zeri i Popullit, Organ of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania. Reprinted from the Albanian Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin, July 25, 1980.)

In an article published today on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of the 7th Congress of the Comintern, the newspaper Zeri i Popullit stresses that this Congress constitutes one of the most glorious pages in the work of the Third Communist International, this militant revolutionary organism, which was created under the direct leadership of V.I. Lenin and which maintained the banner of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian revolution unbent. The Congress had at the center of its proceedings and decisions the struggle the communist parties should wage against fascism and imperialist war. It armed them with a wise and farsighted platform, the correctness of which was proved by the later development of events.

The newspaper stresses that the Comintern considered the struggle against fascism as the fundamental duty for the communists, for at that time fascism had become the most savage enemy of the proletariat and the main danger to the freedom and independence of the peoples of the world.

In order to face the fascist storm, the Comintern instructed the communist parties at the 7th Congress that it is indispensable to fight for the unity of the ranks of the proletariat and for the creation of a united proletarian front, for the alliance of the proletariat with the laboring peasantry and the other democratic forces in an anti-fascist people's front.

After speaking about the correctness of this line and of these directives Zeri i Popullit exposes the undermining activity waged by separate opportunist elements who did not accept these directives. The newspaper also points out that in certain cases several leaders due to their unclarity were unable to make summations from the concrete situations in which they operated and drew inaccurate conclusions. At its 7th Congress, the Comintern issued the directive that the communist parties mainly concentrate their attention on the struggle against fascism. It never instructed the communist parties to give up the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat and to put forward opportunist platforms on the alleged transition to socialism through bourgeois democracy, as the American arch-revisionist Earl Browder did.

The Comintern issued the instruction for the formation of the people's fronts as a powerful means of preventing fascism. But this did not mean that the communist parties should be merged and lose their ideological and organizational independence, that they should embark on the road of the unprincipled alliances which harmed the fundamental interests of the proletariat just as, for example, the revisionist group of Mao Zedong did in China. The genuine proletarian party, the newspaper Zeri i Popullit stresses, never sacrifices the vital interests of the class for the sake of the daily tasks. Marxism-Leninism requires from such a party to closely link its daily struggle with the question of the proletarian revolution and of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Any deviation from this road leads to revisionism.

The newspaper writes further on about the experience of the Party of Labor of Albania for the correct and profound implementation of the decisions and the directives given by the Comintern. The Communist Party of Albania, (today the PLA), solved three key questions during the revolution: it rallied the broad masses of the people round the anti-fascist National Liberation Front, created the new people's power and the armed forces of the revolution, the National Liberation Army.

No compromise was made in Albania with regard to the question of the leadership of the national liberation struggle. The leading role of the party was preserved. The power of the National Liberation Councils was set up and recognized as the only power. No concession was made to the foreign imperialist powers which aimed at interfering and hindering the development of our people's revolution and at reestablishing the previous feudo-bourgeois regime.

The PLA led by Comrade Enver Hoxha and all the other genuine Marxist-Leninist parties, Zeri i Popullit writes in conclusion, have defended the glorious deed of the Comintern from the false accusations of the modern revisionists, and at the same time, they have drawn lessons from its revolutionary experience. The adoption of that principled stand maintained by the Comintern which was led by V.I. Lenin and J.V. Stalin is the most fundamental among them. Only in this way can the Marxist-Leninists organize, mobilize and lead the masses in their struggle towards the future, towards socialism and communism.

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International Solidarity with the Iranian People

A program organized in Paris by the Workers' Communist Party of France and the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran in solidarity with the anti-imperialist and democratic struggles of the people of Iran

The following are excerpts from an article in La Forge, Central Organ of the Workers' Communist Party of France, June 1-15, 1980. Translation by The Workers' Advocate staff.)

Friday, May 30, in Paris an evening of solidarity with the anti-imperialist and democratic struggles of the peoples of Iran was organized by the Workers' Communist Party of France and the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran. This program was supported by the Union of Anti- Fascist and Anti-Imperialist Youth, the Union of Popular Resistance against Reaction, Fascism and War, and the Union of Iranian Students in France (member of the Confederation of Iranian Students National Union -- the Voice of the Student). It brought together an enthusiastic and militant internationalist gathering to support the revolution in Iran....

Speech by the Workers' Communist Party of France

The comrade representing the Workers' Communist Party of France spoke in the name of our Party to stress the place of the Iranian revolution in the world revolutionary movement....

Our Party specifically denounced the maneuvers and propaganda carried on by French imperialism in our country to denigrate the Iranian revolution and crush the sympathy it has won among the working and broad masses in France. "It is clear once again," he added, "that all this propaganda, all this browbeating about Iran, like yesterday's support for Khomeini, has nothing to do with support by the French bourgeoisie for the just democratic demands of the Iranian masses. No, this propaganda aims above all at an objective, an objective, naturally, consistent with its interest as an exploiting class, that of cutting into the wealth of support which the Iranian revolution has won in the hearts of the broad masses of our country. And this at a time when the peoples of Iran need support from the whole world's peoples in opposing the maneuvers of all sorts which imperialism and reaction are hatching to try to regain their positions in Iran."

Our Party affirmed its support for the democratic demands of the peoples of Iran and said that "the working masses of our country support the just aspirations and democratic demands of the peoples of Iran and are opposed to the attacks of the bourgeoisie against them, not to mourn the regime of the Shah, as does the French bourgeoisie in chorus with all the imperialist powers -- and one can understand why! -- but because it is clear that the people are the decisive force in the anti-imperialist fight, and every attack against the Iranian broad masses is a blow struck against the anti-imperialist struggle of the peoples of Iran."

Our Party continued its speech by expressing its support for the brother Iranian party and said: "Marxism- Leninism teaches us and the history of all revolutions has confirmed that only the working class, under the leadership of its party, can lead the revolution through to the end (...). This is why our support goes first and above all to the fraternal Iranian party, the Workers' and Peasant's Communist Party of Iran," and indicating that "we also strongly support and call on the working class and broad masses of our country to support the efforts of Iran to free itself of imperialist domination, to oppose all dependence and interference of imperialism, like Soviet social-imperialism, [to support] its efforts to resist all pressure, threats and blackmail of the imperialist powers, notably the USA."

Speech by the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran

In their speech the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran underlined the importance of the Iranian revolution, the heavy blow struck by this revolution and its development against world imperialism, principally against U.S. imperialism. [The speech] explained the multiple effects of this revolution in international politics and at the internal level. It stressed the revolutionary momentum given by this revolution to the anti-imperialist movements in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf region. It explained the reasons which drive U.S. imperialism to try to snuff out the Iranian revolution and the different plots hatched by imperialism and social-imperalism against Iran; it denounced the support given to U.S. imperialism by the Chinese social-imperialists against Iran as well as the expansionist policy of Soviet social-imperialism in Iran and in the Persian Gulf.

In conclusion, the speech of the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran asserted that:

"Iran is an important stake for the imperialists and Soviet social-imperialists in the struggle which pits the one against the other for the redivision of the world.

"In such a situation, our Party, aware of the danger which threatens the Iranian revolution but conscious of the anti-democratic and unstable character of the Iranian bourgeoisie, fights to advance the anti-imperialist and democratic movement in Iran.

"Our Party has taken as its own the just demand of the peoples of Iran for the restitution and the judgement of the criminal Shah, while knowing and explaining to the masses that the anti-imperialist struggle can not restrict itself to the occupation of the embassy.

"The communists in Iran are ready and work for the mobilization of the broad masses to oppose the imperialist plots. The communists in Iran have a policy of unity with all national forces which are prepared to fight against foreign aggression or the plots fomented in the interior.

"But our Party, contrary to the revisionists of the Tudeh Party (pro-Soviet) and the pro-Chinese revisionists and other opportunists in our country -- who totally dissociate the anti-imperialist struggle from the democratic struggle, for the defense of the democratic victories of the February revolution and for new democratic victories -- our Party closely unites these two aspects of the struggle (...).

"Our Party supports and fights for the just democratic aspirations of the masses and works to organize them. That is why we defend the democratic rights of the national minorities in Iran. But for our part, we closely link these aspirations to the anti-imperialist struggle. For to so suppress the people means to weaken the front inside the country facing the menace of imperialism, to dissociate the democratic struggle from the anti-imperialist context means to weaken the anti-imperialist struggle."

The speech of the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran concluded with praise for the internationalist solidarity given to the Party, the working class and peoples of Iran by the international communist movement, with the glorious Party of Labor of Albania at its head. It was approved and applauded by the gathering to shouts of "Toufan will win!" (Note: Toufan is the Central Organ of the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran.)

[Photo: Scene of the May 1 demonstration in Tehran called by the Council for the Formation of the General Union of Workers of Iran and supported by the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran. The large placard reads: "The worker will win; the Yankee will be beaten."]

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Leninism and the Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism

[Photo.]

Revolutionary Marxism-Leninism is the only theory that can guide the revolution to victory. This article is the third in a series written in honor of the 110th anniversary of the birth of Lenin. It discusses the teachings of Leninism on the struggle against social-chauvinism. It is these teachings which have inspired our Party and been its ever-accurate compass in the struggle against the counter-revolutionary "three worlds" theory, Chinese revisionism and all social-chauvinism.

The Struggle Against Imperialism Is Inseparably Connected with the Struggle Against Opportunism

Leninism teaches the absolute necessity of a stern and continuous struggle against opportunism. Without this struggle, there can be no thought of a consistent struggle against capitalism and imperialism. Leninism is absolutely hostile to all those lifeless formulas and all those revisionist and social- democratic theories that counterpose the struggle against capitalism and reaction to the struggle against opportunism. On the contrary, Leninism insists that:

"Struggle against imperialism that is not closely linked up with the struggle against opportunism is either an empty phrase or a fraud." ("The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution," Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 83)

Leninism developed and grew strong in the struggle against all forms of opportunism. In the period of World War I, opportunism resulted in the collapse of the Second International. The struggle against opportunism expressed itself in the struggle between revolutionary Marxism and social-chauvinism. Lenin stressed that:

"During the two odd years of the war the international socialist and working-class movement in every country has evolved three trends. Whoever ignores reality and refuses to recognise the existence these three trends, to analyse them, to fight consistently for the trend that is really internationalist, is doomed to impotence, helplessness and errors." ("The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution, Draft Platform for the Proletarian Party," Collected Works, Vol. 24, p. 75; in all quotations the emphasis is as in the original unless otherwise indicated)

These three trends were "the social-chauvinists";"the 'Center';" whose "chief leader and spokesman was "Karl Kautsky, the most outstanding authority in the Second International"; and "the true internationalists." (Ibid., pp. 75-77)

Today in the U.S. there is just such a life and death struggle between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and social-chauvinism. In 1976 the opportunist, anti-party trend of neo-revisionism gave rise to the social-chauvinist and warmongering thesis of "directing the main blow at Soviet social-imperialism." Neo-revisionism, fostered in the main by Chinese revisionism, had degenerated into open social-chauvinism and class collaborationism, into being the "left"-sloganeering frontmen for the Pentagon. The struggle between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and neo-revisionism had found its highest expression in the struggle against social-chauvinism. This fierce struggle upheld the honor of the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement and spelled utter fiasco for the "three worlders" and Chinese revisionists. Continuing to degenerate, the "three worlders" and neo-revisionists are merging with social-democracy, following the same path of treachery as the other modern revisionists before them. Today the struggle against social-chauvinism is continuing, while the struggle against social-democracy is intensifying.

The struggle against social-chauvinism in the U.S. is part of the momentous worldwide struggle against Chinese revisionism. With the development of the U.S. imperialist-Chinese revisionist alliance starting approximately in 1971, Chinese revisionism turned to direct alliance with Western imperialism. Its followers all over the globe advocated alliance with the imperialist bourgeoisie. By the mid-1970's, this social-chauvinism was rapidly deepening and ripening. The world's Marxist-Leninists rose up against this sickening betrayal. The struggle against Chinese revisionism and "three worlds-ism" flared up fiercely and was given great impetus by Comrade Enver Hoxha's Report to the Seventh Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania. The form of this struggle and how it manifested itself differed from country to country according to the concrete circumstances, but all over the world the ultra-opportunist, social-democratic and social-chauvinist theses of the Chinese revisionists were condemned. As Comrade Agim Popa pointed out at the Scientific Sessions held in Albania in October 1978:

"At present the true communist parties have set themselves the task of refuting the opportunist thesis of the Chinese revisionists, who call on the proletariat to unite with 'its own' bourgeoisie for the 'defence of the Fatherland' and to make clear to the masses of the proletariat the lesson set out in the 'Manifesto of the Communist Party' 130 years ago, by the founders of scientific socialism, K. Marx and F. Engels, that 'the proletariat of each country must, of course, first settle accounts with its own bourgeoisie.'"(Problems of Current World Development, Tirana, 1979, pp. 68-69)

In carrying through to the end the struggle against social-chauvinism in the U.S., it is essential to be guided by the teachings of Leninism. Both Lenin's whole body of teachings against opportunism and his particular lessons about the struggle against social-chauvinism have proved to be the powerful pathfinder orienting this struggle and leading it from victory to victory.

Social-chauvinism Is the Inevitable Result of the Long Corrosion of Opportunism

Leninism teaches that the emergence of open social-chauvinism is not an accident. On the contrary, it is necessary to examine the struggle between revolutionary proletarian internationalism and ultra-opportunist social-chauvinism in the light of the struggle that had been going on in the Marxist-Leninist and workers' movement for whole decades previously. Lenin taught that:

"The first and most fundamental demand of scientific research in general and of Marxist dialectic in particular is that a writer should examine the link between the present struggle of trends the socialist movement -- between the trend that is doing the talking, vociferating, and raising a hullabaloo about treachery, [i.e. the revolutionary Marxist internationalists -- ed.] and the trend which sees no treachery [i.e. the social-chauvinists and "centrists" -- ed.] -- and the struggle that preceded it for whole decades." ("The Collapse of the Second International," Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 238, emphasis as in original)

The Leninist study of the history of the revolutionary movement showed that social-chauvinism was the continuation and consummation of opportunism. Lenin stressed that:

"It is perfectly obvious that social-chauvinism's basic ideological and political content fully coincides with the foundations of opportunism. It is one and the same tendency." (Ibid., p. 242)

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

"Social-chauvinism is a consummated opportunism.... The alliance with the bourgeoisie used to be ideological and secret. It is now public and unseemly. Social-chauvinism draws its strength from nowhere else but this alliance with the bourgeoisie and the General Staffs." ("Opportunism and the Collapse of the Second International," Collected Works, Vol. 21, pp. 442-43)

Thus Leninism proves that the struggle against social-chauvinism is the continuation of the struggle against opportunism. There can be no talk of internationalism except through struggle against opportunism. Lenin stated:

We are told that division 'along the line of opportunism ' is outmoded, and that only one division is of significance, namely, that between the adherents of internationalism and the adherents of national self- sufficiency. This opinion is fundamentally wrong. The concept of 'adherents of internationalism' is devoid of all content and meaning, if we do not concretely amplify it; any step towards such concrete amplification, however, will be an enumeration of features of hostility to opportunism. In practice, this will prove truer still. An adherent of internationalism who is not at the same time a most consistent and determined adversary of opportunism is a phantom, nothing more. The political behavior of 'internationalists' who are not consistent and determined adversaries of opportunism will always aid and abet the nationalist trend." ("Under a False Flag," Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 156)

Thus the division into internationalists and social-chauvinists does not replace the struggle against opportunism, but continues it, amplifies it and provides further proof that it is necessary to build the Marxist-Leninist parties without the opportunists and social-chauvinists and against them. As Lenin teaches:

"In the past, before the war, opportunism was often looked upon as a legitimate, though 'deviationist' and 'extremist,' component of the.., Party. The war has shown the impossibility of this in the future. Opportunism has 'matured,' and is now playing to the full its role as emissary of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement. Unity with the opportunists has become sheer hypocrisy.... Today unity with the opportunists actually means subordinating the working class to their 'own' national bourgeoisie, and an alliance with the latter for the purpose of oppressing other nations and of fighting for dominant-nation privileges; it means splitting the revolutionary proletariat of all countries." ("Socialism and War," Ch. I, Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 311)

These teachings of Leninism appear ever fresh. The recent history of the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement provides yet further proof of their vitality. Our Party right from the start emphasized that the emergence of open social-chauvinism and the Pentagon- socialist thesis of "directing the main blow at Soviet social-imperialism" was not an incomprehensible accident or an act of god, but instead was the result of years of corrosion of opportunist neo-revisionism in the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement. It was the bankruptcy of neo-revisionism. Our Party set forward the call to utilize the outrage against social-chauvinism to expose the reason for the disunity in the revolutionary movement in the rotten nature of the anti-party trend of neo-revisionism, to push forward the struggle against Chinese revisionism and to provide clarification on the burning issues of the revolutionary movement.

Furthermore, our Party not only links the question of social-chauvinism with the struggle against neo-revisionism, but also shows its connection with the underlying curse of the U.S. workers' movement, the decades of corrosion by Browderite liberal-labor and social-democratic politics. The ultra-opportunist Browder was expelled from the CPUSA, but Browderism was never thoroughly repudiated. With the rise of Khrushchovite revisionism, the CPUSA therefore quickly degenerated into a fully Browderite and Khrushchovite party. For over forty years the central issue for the advance of the proletarian revolution in the U.S. has been the development of revolutionary Marxist-Leninist politics against the liberal-labor and social-democratic politics fostered by Browderism and modern revisionism. U.S. neo-revisionism itself represents the unity of two corrupt traditions: the merger of ultra-opportunist Browderite liberal-labor politics with Chinese revisionism and Mao Zedong Thought.

The Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism Means Regenerating All the Fronts of Struggle of the Revolutionary Working Class Movement

The Leninist struggle against social-chauvinism is a profound, deep-going struggle. It is inseparable from a regeneration and invigoration of all the activity of the revolutionary working class movement. It does not consist simply of changing a phrase or two or simply passing some pretty resolutions, but of thoroughly rooting up opportunism in all spheres of work. It means the establishment and consolidation of the party, the regeneration of a revolutionary spirit in the working class movement and the development and application of revolutionary methods, tactics and strategy in all the work of the working class movement.

Thus Lenin stressed that it was not enough to simply write a revolutionary resolution. He stated:

"Lastly, it stands to reason that opportunism can never be defeated by mere programmes; it can only be defeated by deeds. The greatest, and fatal, error of the bankrupt Second International was that its words did not correspond to its deeds, that it cultivated the habit of unscrupulous revolutionary phrase-mongering.... " ("The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution," Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 86)

No, revolutionary resolutions must be backed up by an all-round struggle in every aspect of the work of the Marxist-Leninist party and of the working class movement. Thus Lenin stated:

"And such a declaration does become a hollow phrase if we merely reject defence of the fatherland without being fully aware of, i. e., without appreciating, the demands implied, without realizing that all propaganda, agitation, organization, in short, the sum total of party activity, must be radically changed, 'regenerated' (to use Karl Liebknecht 's expression) and adapted to the supreme revolutionary tasks." ("Principles Involved in the War Issue," Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 152)

Elaborating the same idea, Lenin taught that the chief difference between the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists and the social-chauvinists and opportunists did not lie in their nonrecognition of the future armed insurrection. The chief difference is that in all spheres of work the revolutionary policy is in opposition to the opportunist, social-democratic, liberal-labor or at best inconsistent policy. Lenin stated:

"The Schiedemann [rabid German social-chauvinist -- ed.] and Kautsky [centrist -- ed.] gang differ from us not only (and not chiefly) because they do not recognize the armed uprising and we do. The chief and radical difference is that in all spheres of work (in bourgeois parliaments, trade unions, co-operatives, journalistic work, etc.) they pursue an inconsistent, opportunist policy, even a policy of downright treachery and betrayal.

"Fight against the social-traitors, against reformism and opportunism -- this political line can and must be followed without exception in all spheres of our struggle. And then we shall win the working masses." ("Greetings to Italian, French and German Communists," Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 62)

This teaching of Lenin rings absolutely true today. The Klonskyite "directors of the main blow against Soviet social-imperialism" were and are quite willing to phrasemonger about what great feats they will perform in the future insurrection or about how they will allegedly follow the Leninist line of "converting the imperialist war into a civil war" in the future, anything you like, as long as they are allowed to be military recruiters for the Pentagon in the present. Even a section of the social-democrats engages in the same "revolutionary" and "Leninist" phrasemongering. Yet they remain renegades for all that.

Thus Leninism teaches that the fight against social-chauvinism, social-democracy and opportunism must be extended into all the spheres of work, without exception, "and then we shall win the working masses.'' Therefore a crucial part of the struggle against social-chauvinism is to oppose the opportunist organizations based on the upper crust with an organization based on the widest proletarian masses. There are those who advocate that the rank and file revolutionary need not worry about the struggle against opportunism, and that this struggle should be restricted to a squabble among a handful of leaders. Leninism is absolutely hostile to any such idea, and insists that not only the rank and file revolutionary, but the working masses should be drawn into this struggle. Leninism holds that bringing revolutionary organization to the widest masses, below the strata of "quiet, respectable communists," below the labor lawyers and bureaucrats, below the "poverty pimps" from the petty government officialdom and so forth, is the essential heart of the struggle against opportunism. Lenin taught that:

"Engels draws a distinction between the 'bourgeois labour party' of the old trade unions -- the privileged minority -- and the 'lowest mass,' the real majority, and appeals to the latter, who are not infected by 'bourgeois respectability. ' This is the essence of Marxist tactics!

"... But we know for certain that the 'defenders of the fatherland' in the imperialist war represent only a minority. And it is therefore our duty, if we wish to remain socialists, to go down lower and deeper, to the real masses; this is the whole meaning and the whole purport of the struggle against opportunism....

"The only Marxist line in the world labour movement is to explain to the masses the inevitability and necessity of breaking with opportunism, to educate them for revolution by waging a relentless struggle against opportunism, to utilize the experiences of the war to expose, not conceal, the utter vileness of national-liberal labour politics." ("Imperialism and the Split in Socialism," Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 120)

These Leninist teachings are decisive for the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement. The struggle against social-chauvinism and "three worldsism" must not mean just putting a new signboard on top of the old neo-revisionist and Browderite liberal-labor politics. It must not be reduced to a mere squabble over what is the best or most fashionable signboard for putting a thin red veneer over social-democratic coalitions of opportunist chieftains. No, the struggle against social-chauvinism means replacing the fashionable opportunist politics with revolutionary politics. It means replacing the neo-revisionist negation of the party concept with the constant strengthening of the party and the inculcation of the proletariat with the party concept. It means replacing the neo-revisionist distrust in the allegedly "backward" nature of the masses with a genuine faith in the revolutionary capacity of the proletariat and with the consequent fervor to take the revolutionary politics and organization deeper into the oppressed masses, below and despite the opportunists and labor lieutenants of the bourgeoisie. It means stepping up the genuinely communist struggle which the predecessors of our Party embarked on over a decade ago in May 1969 with the formation of the American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist).

Our Party has firmly taken to heart these lessons of Lenin. Our Party propagates the burning sentiment to all our militants and sympathizers that the struggle against social-chauvinism imbues all the work to build a genuinely revolutionary Marxist-Leninist and workers' movement. Every step in this direction, every step towards converting the factories into bastions of communism, every step towards building up the revolutionary party methods of work, every revolutionary agitation and action, is an indispensable part of the struggle against social-chauvinism and is accomplished in fierce opposition to the obstruction and resistance of the bourgeoisie and the opportunists. The Marxist-Leninist tactics and strategy are opposed point by point by the social-chauvinist and liberal-labor tactics and strategy. The Leninist struggle against social-chauvinism is both a particular front of struggle against the opportunists, a vigorous front including polemics, theoretical work, intense and widespread explanatory work, meetings and so forth, and also this struggle in its broad aspect is a force that inspires, regenerates and manifests itself through all the work to build up a powerful revolutionary working class movement. This is the only Leninist conception. For if the struggle against social-chauvinism does not include the invigoration of all aspects of the work of the revolutionary movement, then it risks becoming a mere change of signboards over the same old marsh. But if there is no particular front of struggle against the social-chauvinists at all, if the struggle against opportunism is shuffled aside or extinguished altogether, then the struggle against imperialism too, and all talk of revolutionary work in the mass movement becomes "either an empty phrase or a fraud."

(The concluding part of "Leninism and the Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism" will be carried in the next issue.)

[Photo: Lenin at the First Congress of the Third International, March, 1919. "The Third International actually emerged in 1918, when the long years of struggle against opportunism and social-chauvinism, especially during the war, led to the formation of Communist Parties in a number of countries." -- V.I. Lenin, April 1919]

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