The Workers' Advocate

WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE! 25¢

Volume 11, Number 12

VOICE OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF THE USA

November 5, 1981

[Front page:

1,500,000 Marchers in Europe Condemn U.S./NATO Missiles;

In 50 Day Strike--Philadelphia Teachers Fight Takeback Offensive;

Reagan's anti-immigrant proposals--Slave Labor and Deportations;

On Reagan's "war on crime" and criminal code revision--No to Reagan's Police-State Measures!]

IN THIS ISSUE

1,500,000 Marchers in Europe Condemn U.S./NATO Missiles

In 50 Day Strike

Philadelphia Teachers Fight Takeback Offensive

Philadelphia Committee in Support of the MLP

Vigorous Support for the Teachers' Strike

Reagan's anti-immigrant proposals

Slave Labor and Deportations

On Reagan's "war on crime" and criminal code revision

No to Reagan's Police-State Measures!

LESSONS FROM HISTORY:

On the Nixon-Haldeman Tape

Reagan's New Budget Cuts

University of Washington in Seattle:

No to Cutbacks and Tuition Hikes!

WILDCAT AT CHRYSLER TWINSBURG

400,000 Workers March Against Reagan

Correspondence

Bush Denounced in the Dominican Republic

Who Is This Visitor?

Students Protest in Cambridge, Mass.

DOWN WITH BUSH!

Springboks rugby tour denounced in U.S. and New Zealand

World's people will never be reconciled to the racist apartheid system of South Africa

Denounce the Visit of the South African Racists!

Down with the US-Backed South African Regime!

On the racist alliance between Israeli Zionism and South Africa

Mass Protest Stops Springboks' Game in New Zealand

U.S. aggression against El Salvador denounced during Duarte's visit

On the mass actions against Diablo Canyon nuclear plant:

Denounce the attacks on the anti-nuclear movement!

Reagan's New Military Spending Proposals:

No to the Nuclear Warmongers!

Reagan administration steadily marching to bring back the draft

1st National Conference of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA

Resolutions

Militant Solidarity with the Marxist-Leninist Communists throughout the World

Outrageous brutality against Haitian and Salvadorian refugees

Immigration and Imperialism

Tokenism -- A tool of monopoly capital to undermine the black people's struggle

Jesse Jackson's $30 Million Deal with Coca Cola

Traitors to the Black People Embrace Reagan

Why the Fiasco at the All-Peoples Congress?

• Resolutions Submitted to the All-Peoples Congress by the Detroit Branch of the MLP
• Resolutions Submitted by the Detroit Branch of the MLP, the Union of Anti-Imperialist Students (Buffalo) and the Chicago Anti-Imperialist Newsletter
• Facts on the Workers World Party, Organizers of the All-Peoples Congress

Joint Declaration of Seven Marxist-Leninist Parties of Europe

On the Events in Kosova

The Communist Party of Brazil Fights Rightist Liquidators

JAMAICA:

Seaga's Offensive and the Social-Democratic "Opposition"

On the Occasion of the 40th Anniversary of the PLA and Its 8th Congress

Second Edition of the History of the Party of Labor of Albania Published

On the Occasion of the 64th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution

The Ideas of the October Revolution Are Defended and Carried Forward in Struggle Against Modern Revisionism

1,500,000 Marchers in Europe Condemn U.S./NATO Missiles

In the last two months, more than 1.5 million demonstrators have poured into the streets in cities across Western Europe to protest the war preparations of the imperialist powers. The working class and people of Europe are furious about the plans of the U.S./NATO forces to introduce 572 cruise and Pershing II missiles into Western Europe. They are fiercely opposed to Reagan's plans to go ahead with the production of the neutron bomb and its eventual deployment in Europe. Indeed, the working people of Europe are outraged at all the massive war preparations of the U.S. imperialists and the West German, French, British and the other imperialists of the NATO alliance. As well they are outraged at the massive war preparations of the Soviet social-imperialists and the Warsaw Pact.

The enormous growth of the antiwar movement in Western Europe is creating nightmares for the Pentagon generals. U.S. Defense Secretary, Caspar Weinberger, is moaning aloud that the anti-war struggle in Europe "has to be taken seriously.'' But the news of the massive anti-war demonstrations which are sweeping across Western Europe is being greeted most enthusiastically by the American working class and people. The Workers' Advocate salutes the working class and progressive people of Western Europe who are taking to the streets for our common cause against our common warmongering imperialist enemies.

A Wave of Massive Protests Against Nuclear War Preparations

Last August 9, on the date of the anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Reagan announced that the Pentagon would go ahead with plans to produce and deploy the neutron bomb. The implications of Reagan's message have not been lost on the people of Western Europe. Nor have the implications of NATO's plans to deploy in Western Europe hundreds of medium-range missiles targeted on the Soviet Union. In a word, the U.S. imperialists, along with their Western European imperialist allies, are undertaking preparations to turn Europe into a nuclear battle-field and are threatening a nuclear world war. Against these criminal plans a massive wave of protests has broken out. Six of the biggest demonstrations against nuclear war preparations were held in October.

BONN: On October 10, in Bonn, the capital of West Germany, 300,000 demonstrators came out in protest of the feverish nuclear weapons buildup, in Europe. This march was larger than the size of the entire population of Bonn itself; it was one of the largest demonstrations in the history of post-World War II West Germany. Workers, youth and progressive masses from all parts of West Germany as well as contingents from Holland and other countries participated. A group of West German soldiers, ignoring a ban on demonstrating in uniform, marched with a big banner declaring: "NATO Soldiers Against Atomic Missiles.'' Other slogans of the marchers condemned the war preparations of West German imperialism and protested the measures to convert the youth into "rocket fodder for Reagan." It was also reported that one of the placards carried by the demonstrators had a satirical cartoon of Ronald Reagan, Leonid Brezhnev, and Helmut Schmidt, chancellor of West Germany, all riding together on a rocket.

The Bonn demonstration came less than a month after the powerful protest against Alexander Haig's visit to West Berlin. On September 13, some 80,000 people filled the main thoroughfare of West Berlin, shouting slogans against the neutron bomb and war dog Haig. Thousands of police were needed to keep Haig out of sight. Over 1,000 demonstrators fought the police on side streets, and an attempt was made to crash through the police barricades to get to Haig. Forty-four police were hurt, and over 100 demonstrators were arrested.

LONDON: On Saturday, October 24, upwards of 250,000 people marched to London's Hyde Park for a rally against the nuclear arms race. The demonstrators reportedly condemned the nuclear weapons buildup of the two nuclear superpowers and of British imperialism. They held aloft effigies of the imperialist chieftains Reagan, Brezhnev, and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. This was one of the largest rallies ever held in Britain. It appropriately coincided with the visit of Pentagon boss Caspar Weinberger who was attending a NATO conference in Scotland on the question of the new missiles.

ROME: On that same Saturday, 200,000 demonstrators marched past the U.S. and Soviet embassies in Rome protesting the nuclear arms race of the two superpowers. Shouting "Reagan is a hangman!," the demonstrators condemned the U.S. plans to deploy112 cruise medium-range nuclear weapons near the Italian village of Comiso in Sicily. It was also reported that the demonstrators called for the withdrawal of Italy from NATO. According to reports, this was the largest demonstration in Rome in a decade.

In Milan, on October 31st, 100,000 demonstrators held another protest against nuclear weapons, proclaiming: ''No to the Pentagon! No to the Kremlin!"

BRUSSELS, PARIS, OSLO: On the day after the Rome demonstration, Sunday, October 25, some 200,000 demonstrators marched in Brussels, Belgium. Reportedly this was the biggest demonstration in the streets of Brussels since World War II. That same day, 50,000 people marched in Paris. Both of these demonstrations called for stopping the deployment of the U.S. imperialists' new cruise and Pershing II missiles. They also called for the dismantling of the new SS-20 nuclear missiles which the Soviet social-imperialists recently deployed in Eastern Europe. Also on the same day, 7,000marched in Oslo, Norway under the banner ''No to Nuclear Weapons!"

Besides these demonstrations, during this same period there have been a number of other manifestations of protest against imperialist war preparations, such as in Dublin, Geneva and other cities and towns throughout Western Europe.

The People Will Never Be Reconciled to the Plans of the Nuclear Warmongers

The upsurge of the anti-war movement in Western Europe in recent years has been the response of the European masses to the imperialists' unprecedented buildup of the most deadly means of nuclear destruction.

In 1977, the ''human rights angel" Carter announced his intentions to build the neutron bomb. The Pentagon said that this wonderful new weapon of death was well suited for a potential European battlefield. Designed to release the maximum amount of lethal radiation with a minimum amount of blast, the neutron bomb only kills people while leaving weapons, factories and buildings intact. Carter's plans to develop the neutron bomb raised a wave of indignation and protest across Western Europe. In words Carter backed down in his decision, while in deeds the Pentagon continued to develop the neutron bomb and went about fitting existing missiles and artillery in Europe for firing neutron warheads.

In December, 1979, Carter and the 15 NATO allies agreed to upgrade their nuclear arsenals with a new generation of missiles capable of hitting targets in Eastern Europe and Western Russia. They decided to deploy 572 cruise and Pershing II missiles in Western Europe by 1983-84. This decision, too, has been met with massive protests. The governments of Belgium and Holland are now saying they will no longer agree to deploy the missiles, while the governments of Italy, West Germany and Britain are determined to carry through on the deployment of the missiles in the face of ever growing domestic opposition.

The imperialist governments of Western Europe are taking a number of other measures to arm themselves to the teeth. Margaret Thatcher, for example, plans to replace the British Navy's Polaris nuclear submarines with new U.S.-built Trident submarines, a step which will cost the bankrupt British government some $5 billion. Meanwhile, the French imperialist government led by the social- democrat Mitterrand is going full speed ahead with France's own nuclear program, including developing its own neutron bomb. Mitterrand plans to step up spending for nuclear arms by 21% in 1982 alone. At the same time, the so-called "socialist" Mitterrand backs to the hilt Reagan's European missile plans. The social-democratic government of Helmut Schmidt in West Germany is another of the staunchest backers of Reagan's missiles. At the same time West German imperialism is rapidly becoming one of the world's biggest manufacturers and exporters of tanks and other armaments.

In the meantime, the Soviet social - imperialists and the Warsaw Pact are also arming themselves to the teeth with nuclear and non-nuclear weapons. The recent deployment of the Soviet SS-20 nuclear missiles and a new generation of Soviet tanks are but one part of the monstrous arming and rearming of the Warsaw Pact.

All of these developments could not but be of the greatest concern to the European peoples. Twice before in this century, the people of Europe have suffered the terrible consequences of the two world wars. But today the nuclear warmongers are preparing an even more terrible war than before.

And if anyone had any doubts about what the NATO generals are planning to do with their monstrous weapons, in recent days President Reagan and Secretary of State Haig have been trying to eliminate any possible confusion. With their talk of a ''limited" nuclear conflict, or of a possible exchange of tactical nuclear weapons, or their promises of a "winnable" nuclear war, these warmongers are openly threatening the peoples of Europe and the peoples of the world with a nuclear conflagration.

Both the U.S.-led imperialist bloc of the West and the Soviet-led social-imperialist bloc of the East are arming and rearming for a war to defend monopoly capitalist exploitation and oppression of the working masses, for a war to redivide ''spheres of influence," for a war to preserve and expand imperialist and social-imperialist neo-colonial slavery of the oppressed peoples. The working class and people of Europe are showing with their massive protests that they want no part of such a robbers' war. The masses in their millions are demonstrating that they will never be reconciled to the fiendish plans of the nuclear warmongers.

The Social-Democrats and the European Anti-War Movement

With their actions the peoples of Europe have demonstrated that they desire a real struggle against imperialist war preparations. At the same time, recent events have shown that the bourgeoisie is striking with all its might to dampen down this movement, to divert this movement from a struggle against the imperialists to the dead-end path of reliance on the chieftains of imperialism. One of the main vehicles for accomplishing this is social-democracy.

As already mentioned, the social- democratic governments of West Germany and France are among the most rabid defenders of the nuclear arms race. But this does not stop the social-democrats in West Germany and elsewhere from striving to infiltrate the anti-war movement and sabotage it from within. For example, in West Germany, even though the social-democratic chancellor, Schmidt, denounced the protest in Bonn, and even though the Social Democratic Party did not officially endorse it, 55 SDP members of parliament took part in the demonstration. In Brussels, too, while the government itself did not give its official endorsement, three social-democratic ministers of the ruling coalition and the chairman of the Socialist Party were at the head of the demonstration. Likewise in Britain, the social-democratic Labor Party, particularly its ''left" wing led by such noisy windbags as Tony Benn and Michael Foote, have taken a place as ''leaders" of the anti-nuclear weapons movement.

These social-democrats, with varying slogans in the different countries, are all posing as champions of "peace." Their aim, however, is not to advance a real struggle against the war plans of imperialism. These social- democratic hucksters refuse to take a stand against imperialism, whether that of the U.S. imperialists, or of the Soviet social-imperialists, or of their own imperialist bourgeoisie. Nor are they in favor of organizing the masses for the sharp class war that is necessary to confront the imperialists' war preparations, a struggle in the direction of smashing up the imperialist states and imperialist blocs which are threatening the peoples with war, a struggle that leads to the proletarian socialist revolution. Instead the social- democrats want to reconcile the masses to the superpowers and the governments. They are working to lull the masses to sleep with honeyed words about the possibilities of the imperialists establishing "detente" and becoming peaceful lambs. The social- democrats are promoting imperialist pacifism, trying to create a smoke screen behind which the imperialists hope to carry out even more rabid preparations for war.

In the first place, the social-democrats are loyal servants of imperialism and would prefer to live without air than to make a real break with the imperialist warmongers. Thus we find, for example, that from Willy Brandt to Michael Foote, the social-democrats maintain their firm allegiance to the aggressive NATO alliance. Their unwavering support of NATO shows the loyalty of the social-democrats to both their own imperialist bourgeoisie and to the enslaving aims of U.S. imperialism. Their "anti-war" mask is only a ruse to tie the masses to this aggressive alliance of imperialist sharks.

Secondly, the social-democrats want the masses to trust their fate to their worst enemies, to the very chieftains of imperialism. In one form or another, all these social-democrats are telling the people that through a process of "dialogue" or "detente" among the imperialists and, first of all, between the two superpowers, some kind of disarmament can be achieved. The social-democrats want the world to forget that during the heydays of "detente" and "strategic arms limitation talks," Nixon, Ford, then Carter on the one hand, and Brezhnev on the other, merrily continued to build up their nuclear arsenals sky-high. Indeed, the SALT negotiations only served as a framework for an unparalleled arms race. And, at the same time, it served as a shield, as a propaganda ploy to make the masses think that the chieftains of imperialism were doing something to save humanity from a nuclear holocaust. What the social-democrats are demanding is that new, more sophisticated pacifist propaganda is necessary to diffuse the growing outrage of the masses against the imperialists' war preparations.

Among these social-democrats, some also have their own particular imperialist axe to grind. For example, look at SDP chairman and former West German chancellor, Willy Brandt. While not formally endorsing the Bonn anti-nuclear demonstration, Brandt gave it his tacit approval and is known for his;t pronouncements against the arms race of the two superpowers, and in favor of "detente." It should also be noted that Willy Brandt was the architect of West Germany's opening to the East which, among other things, resulted in very extensive and very lucrative; penetration of West German capital into the Soviet Union, Poland and the other Eastern European revisionist countries. While keeping West Germany firmly in the framework of NATO, the European Common Market, and a close alliance with U.S. imperialism, Brandt had advocated a quasi-"neutralist" policy in order to give West German imperialism greater leverage to act between the two superpowers; to make greater profits and to ensure more fully its own imperialist aims.

It is precisely such interests of West German imperialism which are being expressed by the leader of the so-called peace wing of the SDP and ally of Willy Brandt, Erhard Eppler, when he explains: "The peace movement shows that the old nations of Europe are more than just chessmen on the board of the world powers, both world powers." (Washington Post, Oct. 11, 1981) In other words, these SDP chieftains want to utilize the sentiments against the war plans of "both world powers" in order to strengthen the imperialist "old nations of Europe," and especially revanchist West Germany, vis-a-vis U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism.

Thus, in their struggle to advance the movement against imperialist war preparations, the peoples of Western Europe face not only the open enemies and warmongers, but also the concealed enemies, the social-democrats and other saboteurs of the peoples' movement. In October, the capitals of Western Europe resounded with massive demonstrations. This shows the enormous latent force of the working class and progressive masses against the war plans of the imperialist and social-imperialist warmakers.

[Photo: On October 10, over 300,000 people demonstrated against U.S./NATO nuclear war preparations.]

[Photo: At the October 10 demonstration in Bonn, a contingent of West German soldiers participated in defiance of a ban on soldiers demonstrating in uniform. Their banner reads: "NATO Soldiers Against Atomic Rockets."]

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In 50 Day Strike

Philadelphia Teachers Fight Takeback Offensive

From September 9 until October 28, 22,000 Philadelphia teachers waged a stubborn strike. This struggle was provoked by the school board and city government who tore up the teachers' contract and tried to force them to swallow big layoffs and a pay cut. Emboldened by Reagan's strikebreaking attacks against the air traffic controllers, they have thrown everything against the striking teachers.

For 50 days the teachers fought this vicious attack, defying strikebreaking injunctions of the courts and standing firm in the face of stiff fines and over 250 arrests. Their militant strike won the wholehearted support of the workers all over Philadelphia. Thousands joined the mass pickets and solidarity demonstrations. A general strike of Philadelphia workers, which was to have been held on October 28, was called to back the teachers' demands.

Through their militant struggle the teachers stopped the massive layoffs, for the time being. But the treacherous bureaucrats of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT) sold out the strike and stopped it halfway. On October 27, right when the strike had reached its strongest point, when on the very next day some 225,000 Philadelphia workers were expected to walk off their jobs and shut down the city in solidarity with the teachers, the PFT hacks caved in to a new court order, forced the teachers back to work, and agreed to the calling off of the general strike.

As a result of this treachery, the teachers find themselves in a difficult situation. While they have saved thousands of jobs temporarily, their previously won wage gains have been taken back, their contract has been torn up, and they are being ordered to negotiate a new one under a strict no-strike command of the courts. The government has not given up its takeaway drive, but has maneuvered to put an end to the strike in order to launch still further attacks. The teachers must get prepared to continue their struggle against the takeback offensive and also to fight the PFT bureaucrats who are disorganizing the teachers and disrupting their struggle.

The School Board Arrogantly Tore Up the Contract

The immediate origins of this conflict go back to the fall of 1980. At that time the teachers waged a militant 22-day strike to resist a whole array of takeback demands. Through their strike they won a two-year contract that guaranteed no layoffs for the first year, a 10% raise in the second year, and a limit of class size to 33 children.

When this contract was offered to the teachers, Mayor Green solemnly promised that he would find the money necessary to fulfill the contract. However in May of this year, Green cried that there had to be cuts in order to erase a $230 million school budget deficit. Of course this Democratic Party hack would never think of cutting the enormous interest payments that the city pays on their bank loans or increasing the taxes on the big corporations. No, instead he and the school board simply tore up the teachers' contract, only eight short months after it was signed, and proceeded to lay off 3,511 teachers, rescind the promised 10% raise and increase the average class size to 36 children.

The teachers were beside themselves with outrage, but the heads of the PFT tried to cool them down by preaching fairy tales of how the courts would defend the teachers and overturn the school board's blatantly illegal violation of the contract. All summer the teachers waited for the courts to act. Finally, on September 5 the local Common Pleas court ruled that the school board had every right to throw the contract out the window and trample on the teachers. What a travesty! The capitalist courts think nothing of violating even their own laws if it serves the interests of the rich.

Militant Mass Strike

The teachers could stand no more. They overwhelmingly voted for a strike and on September 8 left their classrooms to set up picket lines to close down the school system completely.

On the second morning of the strike some 2,000 teachers joined a mass picket which shut down the school district's administration building. The police attacked their picket and about 210 teachers were rounded up and held until later that day. As well the local courts went into action, imposing a ban on mass pickets, limiting the teachers to four pickets per doorway and forbidding them to impede scabs from gaining access to the buildings.

The teachers would not be intimidated. They defied the court injunction and despite numerous arrests, continued their mass picketing. When the school board tried to reopen six "senior centers'' to carry on class for high school seniors, they were frequently met by several hundred picketers. For all their efforts the school board was unable to open even a single school.

After several weeks, the courts came down with another injunction and ordered the teachers to end their strike altogether and report back to school on October 12. But again the teachers defied the court orders, stood up against the constant police attacks and continued to picket the schools en masse. In another futile effort to suppress the strike the school board fired 49 teachers who had been charged with picket line offenses and the court imposed a $15,000 fine for every day the teachers stayed out in defiance of the court's edict.

Despite every effort the government could not break the teachers' strike. Of the 22,000 striking teachers, the government was able to induce not more than 725 to return to work.

A Big Solidarity Movement

The workers all over Philadelphia were outraged at the brutal attack on the teachers and came to their support. Only shortly before, Reagan had launched his vicious assault on the striking air traffic controllers. Now the Democratic Party administration of Mayor Green was following in Reagan's strikebreaking footsteps. Nobody wanted to wait to see who would be attacked next. From many different sectors of industry the workers came out to join the mass pickets, to march in the solidarity demonstrations, to lend the teachers a hand in this struggle.

On September 14, for example, some 11,500 workers, including hospital workers, clothing workers, striking air controllers, construction workers, and others, held a big solidarity demonstration which completely surrounded City Hall and pressed the teachers' demands.

In another big action, the teachers joined with the air controllers and other workers in a 3,000-strong demonstration which caught up with Ronald Reagan, who was speaking at the World Affairs Council in Philadelphia, and denounced him for the strikebreaker that he is.

The great ferment among the workers led eventually to the call for a one- day general strike. Scheduled for October 28, this call was endorsed by some 350 local unions and promised to involve 225,000 workers. On October 18 a rally was held to prepare for the general strike. Over 5,000 workers attended and militantly chanted along with the teachers "No Contract! No Work!" and denounced the Democratic Party mayor as "Mayor Reagan." Again, on October 23rd, 3,500 workers came out to support the teachers in a mass picket outside "Mayor Reagan's" home.

Teachers' Strike Stopped Halfway

The teachers' strike was growing stronger and stronger. The stage was set for a big confrontation with the city government on October 28. But the dirty sellouts of the PFT pulled the city officials' chestnuts from the fire.

On October 27, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court, based on an appeal of the PFT, decided to intervene in the strike. In a completely outrageous arbitrary ruling it ordered a "compromise" to suppress the strike. On the one hand, the court argued, the first year of the teachers' contract was legal and binding and therefore there should be no layoffs of the teachers. On the other hand, the court claimed, the second year of the contract was no agreement at all since there was no money to fund it. Therefore the teachers had to accept the takeaway of their scheduled wage increases, return to work and negotiate a new contract. The court ruling held that the teachers' strike was illegal because they did not go through the procedures required by Pennsylvania state law for public sector workers to strike for a new contract, and therefore the teachers must stay on the job for another three months until mediation and other procedures are completed. In short, the court upheld the school board's and mayor's right to tear up any contract they please as long as they claim they don't have the money to pay, but it would stop the layoffs as a concession to trick the teachers into going back to work.

To add insult to injury, this "compromise" court order, according to the October 29 issue of the Philadelphia Bulletin, is a worse deal for the teachers than what the school board was already offering.

Despite the despicable provisions of this court order, the PFT hacks hailed it as a great victory and ordered the teachers back to work. John Murray, the head of the PFT, even admitted that he has been trying to sell out the workers from the beginning when he blurted out that "Our position all a- long has been that the schools open, teachers return to work and we can negotiate the particulars." He added that he was only sorry that "Unfortunately it took a court to put the children back in the classrooms." (Philadelphia Bulletin, October 28, 1981). What a belly crawling sellout.

Future Promises Further Struggle

Despite this slick maneuver of the government and the PFT hacks to suppress the strike, the teachers' struggle is not over. Through their militant strike the teachers have saved over 3,000 jobs. They have also learned the valuable lesson that they cannot trust their sellout PFT leaders even the slightest bit.

The school board and the city government is still out for blood and this strike has shown that they will stop at nothing to draw it. In the new contract negotiations the government will do everything in its power to extract ever greater concessions from the teachers. A new battle is already facing the teachers. They must get prepared for the fight.

[Photo: A striking teacher in Philadelphia is taken away in a police wagon after his arrest on September 9, 1981.]

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Philadelphia Committee in Support of the MLP

Vigorous Support for the Teachers' Strike

The Philadelphia Committee in Support of the MLP waged a vigorous campaign in support of the teachers' strike. The committee issued four leaflets at important junctures of the strike and distributed thousands of them at the solidarity rallies, on the picket lines, at the union meetings and other events. The analysis they provided and their vigorous activity were enthusiastically greeted by the masses of teachers and their supporters.

At the big strike authorization meeting in September, the Committee passed out a leaflet that denounced the attacks of the school board and city government and pointed out that these attacks could only be resisted by "waging a militant strike. A strike vote is necessary to defend the very real gains won by the PFT after many years of sacrifice and struggle."

Later, when the local courts issued strikebreaking injunctions, a Committee leaflet pointed out that "This scenario is a familiar one to the struggling members of PFT. In past strikes this weapon of the ruling class has been used. The school board and Mayor Green violated a legal contract, but the judges declare the workers are engaging in illegal action. Needless to say, there are no injunctions against the school board. Let there be no illusion as to whose best interest is being served by this latest attack from the government of the rich." And the leaflet encouraged the teachers to continue to "actively resist the strikebreaking tactics of the school board and the police."

The Committee pointed out time and again that the struggle of the teachers in Philadelphia was part and parcel of the resistance of the entire working class against the Reaganite offensive. Their October 18 leaflet emphasized that "The Reagan administration is leading this attack..." and that "It was inspiring to participate with thousands of members of the PFT denouncing Reagan's recent visit to Philadelphia." This leaflet called for workers and progressive people throughout the city to go "All out in the general strike October 28,1981. "

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Reagan's anti-immigrant proposals

Slave Labor and Deportations

At the end of last July, the Reagan administration spelled out its immigration program, and it is expected that the Congress will take action on his legislation sometime this fall. What Reagan is proposing is to unleash a renewed onslaught of ruthless persecution and bestial exploitation against the immigrant workers. Reagan is proposing more mass roundups, deportations and arbitrary police measures against so-called "illegal" immigrants. Reagan is also proposing to create a special legal caste of several million Mexican, Haitian and other immigrants stripped of any and all rights whatsoever except to be mercilessly exploited by the capitalists at the very worst jobs at the very lowest wages. As well, Reagan is proposing a new "guest worker" program in an attempt to revive from its grave the notorious bracero programs of the past for the importation of Mexican contract laborers.

Reagan's diabolical plans against the immigrant workers are a matter of great importance to the working class movement. The onslaught against the immigrant workers is a major front of the all-sided offensive that the capitalist ruling class is unfolding against the entire working class and oppressed masses.

The main portions of the Reagan program have been taken over whole-hog from the Carter administration. In 1977, Carter proposed very similar anti-immigrant measures. When these measures failed to make headway in Congress, Carter created a Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy to study the question further. Several months ago Carter's commission released its recommendations. These recommendations happen to be the very same as Reagan's anti-immigrant proposals with the notable exception of Reagan's plan to revive a bracero-type "guest worker" scheme. Indeed, an examination of these bipartisan anti-immigrant proposals is a telling exposure of the fact that the Reaganite reactionaries and the Democratic Party alleged "friends of labor and the minorities" are both cut from the same cloth of monopoly capitalist slavery, super-exploitation and inhuman racial and national oppression.

"Amnesty" In Words, Semi-Slavery in Deeds

The heart of Carter's anti-immigrant proposals and the heart of Reagan's present proposals is the transformation of some six million undocumented immigrants, or so-called "illegal aliens," into a special legal caste of "temporary residents." Taking a leaf from the Carterite "human rights" bible, Reagan, like Carter before him, calls this an "amnesty program." But in reality this so-called "amnesty" means reducing the undocumented workers to an even worse condition of semi-slavery.

Reagan's one-time "amnesty" proposal applies only to those undocumented workers who can prove that they entered the U.S. before January 1, 1980. The small fraction of the undocumented who could prove more than 10 years of uninterrupted residence in the U.S. and who met a number of other requirements, would be allowed to apply for permanent residence and eventual citizenship. (Of course, providing proof of residence, employment, etc., is no easy task for the undocumented worker who is often forced to live and work under an assumed name.) But the vast majority, that is approximately six million other undocumented workers would be required to register for "temporary resident" status. These "temporary residents" would pay all taxes, etc., but would be ineligible to vote or receive even essential social services, such as unemployment insurance, legal assistance, food stamps, welfare, medical assistance, or Social Security. They would not be allowed to bring their families into the country. Those families who are already in the country will face even more vicious discrimination. Reagan is already working to eliminate bilingual programs and any language but English from the schools. In Texas, the courts are already considering whether or not the children of the undocumented should be barred from the schools altogether. Moreover the ''temporary residents" would face immediate deportation upon any violation of these conditions or under any number of other pretexts.

After 10 years of continuous residence in the U.S., that is, after 10 years of living and working without any rights, without their families, in the constant fear of deportation, etc., these immigrants would be allowed to apply for permanent residence. Other requirements for permanent residence are also being floated by the administration, such as possibly requiring knowledge of English. But even then the "temporary residents" would have no guarantees against being refused residence and being deported.

Presently the undocumented workers face unbearable hardships and savage persecution. They are hunted like dogs by "La Migra" agents (agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, INS). They live and work in constant fear of arrest and deportation. Nearly one million Mexican and other immigrants are rounded up in raids on their homes and workplaces and deported every year. Nevertheless Reagan's "amnesty" is no solution for their terrible plight. Rather it will make matters worse. It will mean the official, legal creation of a sub-caste of super-exploited workers: workers who are left to starve when they are out of work or retire; workers who have no rights whatsoever but to work obediently for the capitalist bosses; workers who are placed under the strict scrutiny and control of "La Migra" and other police forces and who face the pain of arrest and deportation if they resist their miserable condition in any way.

Reagan's "Immigration Enforcement" Means Stepped-Up Deportations, Terroristic Police Measures and Vicious Discrimination Against the Immigrants

What then does Reagan have in store for the millions of undocumented workers who are not about to voluntarily submit to such an "amnesty"? Or what about the millions of others arriving after January 1, 1980 who are not even eligible for it? Moreover how will the government enforce the "temporary residence" conditions on those who do get "amnesty"? To deal with these matters of "immigration enforcement" Reagan is proposing to unleash a ruthless campaign of deportations, police measures and vicious discrimination against the immigrant workers.

First of all, Reagan is planning more funds to beef up the policing over the immigrants by the INS, the Border Patrol, and the Labor Department. Reagan is promising a new onslaught of mass deportations of undocumented workers, harsher jail sentences and other penalties for violations of immigration laws, and more "La Migra" and other agents to spy upon and harass the immigrant communities.

Employer Sanctions and More Super-Exploitation of Immigrant Labor

The other major portion of Reagan's "enforcement" measures is a proposal to apply sanctions against employers who hire undocumented workers. Fines of $500 to $1,000 would be applied to employers for each undocumented worker hired. Such employer sanctions mean that the undocumented workers will suffer even worse exploitation. It means even more strictly confining the undocumented workers to the most marginal sectors of employment, that is in the worst sweatshops and farm labor camps and other hellholes where they perform grueling labor, in many cases for 12 and more hours a day, and oftentimes for only a fraction of the legal minimum wage. Indeed with such employer sanctions, mainly those capitalists who make their profits through the super-exploitation of their workers at sub-minimum wages and under sub-minimum conditions would still find it worth their bother to hire undocumented workers.

Moreover, all Spanish-speaking or non-English-speaking workers or even those who may only "look like" possible "illegal" immigrants (including the several million non-immigrant Mexican nationality people who have lived in the U.S. for generations, as well as the nearly two million Puerto Rican immigrants who, as direct colonial subjects, are allegedly granted some rights) will be subjected to even mote vicious and arbitrary discrimination in employment. "Oh no," the capitalists will claim, "We're not discriminating against anyone, only avoiding fines for hiring illegal aliens!"

A number of senators and other capitalist mouthpieces are demanding that if employer sanctions are applied then there must also be a national identification card, such as a counterfeit-proof Social Security card, so as to protect employers from fines. Up to this point, however, Reagan's Justice Department has recommended against such a national ID card as being too expensive for what it is worth. Nevertheless the very logic of Reagan's employer sanctions and his "amnesty" plan and other measures to enforce the documentation (or deportation) of the undocumented workers, points to the introduction of a national ID card. Indeed, Reagan's immigration proposals may have a problem getting through the Congress without some form of national ID attached to them.

Such a step towards the development of an internal passport system would mark a major repressive measure against the immigrants as well as against the entire working class and oppressed masses. It would be used for blacklisting and maintaining surveillance against political activists, strikers and all class conscious and progressive militants.

Reagan's Plan for a Bracero-Type "Guest Worker" Program

While unleashing terror against the immigrants, Reagan is displaying a touching concern for the "special labor needs" of the capitalist slave drivers. As David Hiller, Special Assistant to the Attorney General, explained, Reagan's "stringent enforcement" against the undocumented must not get in the way of "accommodating the need for foreign labor in certain areas and occupations." In other words, special measures are needed to supply the capitalist bloodsuckers with the needed quantities of "foreign labor," that is, immigrant workers who have been completely stripped of all rights and are therefore easy prey for the most merciless super-exploitation.

With this aim Reagan is proposing a two-year experimental "guest worker" plan which would initially import some 50,000 Mexican workers a year. If this "experiment" proves "successful," Reagan has discussed expanding it to as many as 500,000 "guest workers" annually. These laborers would be brought in under temporary, 9 to 12 month visas which would permit them to work "only in certain places and at certain occupations for which there were not sufficient American workers." That is to say, Reagan's "guest workers" would be contracted out to the big agribusinessmen and other millionaire money-grubbers who pay their workers so little for such backbreaking work under such terrible conditions that only virtual indentured servants can "accommodate" their "special labor needs."

Many Mexican workers have not forgotten the old bracero programs that imported as many as 500,000 contract laborers a year between 1942 and 1964. The bracero programs gained wide notoriety and hatred on both sides of the border because of the barbaric conditions the braceros were subject to. In isolated farm labor camps throughout the Southwest, the braceros were worked at times literally to death. They went without pay and without adequate food, medical care, shelter or sanitation facilities.

In 1964 the bracero programs were stopped. But a similar system of imported contract labor has gone on for decades up and down the East Coast under the so-called H-2 program. Last year this program brought in 35,000 to 40,000 temporary laborers, most of whom are agricultural workers from Jamaica and elsewhere in the Caribbean. These "guest workers" suffer terrible conditions very much the same as that suffered by the former braceros. Now Reagan wants to bring back this modern-day system of peonage to the fields and factories of the Southwest and Midwest as well.

Reagan's Anti-Immigrant Measures Are Part and Parcel of the Savage Capitalist Offensive Against All the Working Masses

Reagan's proposed anti-immigrant measures are but one front of the savage capitalist offensive against all the working masses. The Reagan regime has been installed by the monopoly capitalists to carry forward their offensive of hunger, fascism and war so as to escape the great crisis gripping the capitalist system. This is an offensive against the very livelihood of the masses; an offensive of strikebreaking and productivity drives; of wage-cutting concession takebacks and sub-minimum wages; and of massive cutbacks in the already meager social services for the working people. This is an offensive of all-sided fascization of society; of bestial oppression and racist Terror against the black people, the Mexican nationality people, and the other oppressed nationalities; and of beefed-up police measures and repression against the revolutionary movement and all the working and oppressed masses.

The immigrant workers are among the most oppressed and cruelly exploited sectors of the U.S. working class. This is particularly the case with those immigrants who have been driven by tyranny and poverty from their homelands which have been placed under the boot-heel of U.S. imperialist neo-colonial domination; from countries such as Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America, and from Palestine, the Philippines, Korea and elsewhere in Asia. The bourgeoisie is singling out this sector for particularly savage attacks in order to kill two birds with one stone. First of all to reap super-profits from the sweat and blood of the multi- million army of immigrant workers. And secondly, to divide up and break down the resistance of the working class as a whole in the face of the capitalist offensive.

The Racist and Chauvinist AFL-CIO Chieftains Are Lackeys of the Reaganite Offensive

Among the most rabid enemies of the immigrant workers and among the biggest splitters and wreckers of the working class resistance are the trade union sellouts who head the AFL-CIO.

As already mentioned, on nearly every point of his anti-immigrant proposals capitalist mouthpiece Reagan has faithfully taken over the anti-immigrant baton from his predecessor, Mr. "human rights" Carter. It is also well known that Ted Kennedy, the prince of the totally corrupt "left wing" of the Democratic Party and darling of the trade union bureaucrats is one of the most rabid racists and chauvinists against the immigrants. Among other things, it has been Kennedy, the coauthor of the infamous Kennedy-Rodino anti-immigrant bill, who has been the leading crusader in recent years for sanctions against hiring^ undocumented workers. Indeed, from the crude reactionary Republicans and Dixiecrats, to the Democratic Party self-styled heroes of "labor and the minorities," all the big capitalist chieftains are one hundred percent united in their desires for a new savage onslaught against the immigrant workers.

It is therefore not in the least bit surprising that front men of the Democratic Party such as the chieftains of the AFL-CIO are also one hundred percent in favor of the capitalist drive against the immigrants. For decades the totally shameless and caseharden- ed racists at the head of the trade unions have been among the most outspoken advocates of police measures and deportations against the immigrants. As a matter of fact, today we find the AFL-CIO leaders criticizing Reagan's anti-immigrant measures for being too soft on the immigrant workers.

Testifying before the Senate subcommittee on immigration, AFL-CIO Research Director Rudy Oswald complained that Reagan's employer sanctions are "a step in the right direction, but they do not go far enough"!And, by "far enough," Mr. Oswald put forward the AFL-CIO's own proposal to make employers "stop giving jobs to illegal immigrants" through yet stiffer penalties enforced with the help of a counterfeit-proof national identification system. At the same Senate hearing another bureaucrat voiced the AFL-CIO's often repeated appeal for beefing up the INS and the Border Patrol even further than Reagan proposes. Equally shameless, the leaders of the United Farm Workers, a union whose membership is made up mainly of Mexican nationality workers (immigrant and non-immigrant), as well as Filipino, Arab and other immigrant workers, also appealed to the Senate subcommittee for "deterrent penalties" against the undocumented for a national ID system. (For references to the subcommittee hearing, see the AFL-CIO News, October 3, 1981)

Echoing the filthy racist lies of the capitalists, the trade union hacks argue that police measures and ruthless discrimination against the immigrants are all in the interests of the American workers. Falsely speaking in the name of "American labor," the AFL-CIO propaganda machine parrots the theme that the influx of immigrant workers in general and undocumented workers in particular is causing unemployment and the deterioration of the wages and conditions of the workers in the U.S. But with these crude lies the AFL-CIO hacks only prove that they are bootlickers of the capitalists, sick racists and enemies of the workers.

In the first place, it is not the influx of immigrants but the capitalist class and their crisis-ridden system which is the source of joblessness, declining wages and conditions. How else can it be explained that in every capitalist country the world over (including the Soviet Union, China and the other revisionist countries) there is massive unemployment, falling wages, etc.?

Furthermore, when these traitors falsely speak in the name of "American labor," they "forget" a few crucial details. Among other things, they "forget" the fact that American labor is made up almost entirely of immigrants and descendants of immigrants (both voluntary and involuntary as in the descendants of the black slaves), with the noted exception of the Native people. The truth of the matter is, with or without documentation, whether or not the arbitrary and racist authorities deny some of the immigrants legal papers, all the workers in this country belong to the one American working class.

As all class conscious workers are aware, to allow the capitalist class enemy to single out one section of the class for special oppression and double exploitation means to push all the workers towards this same condition. When the capitalists strip millions of immigrants of all rights, unfold massive police measures against them, and drive them into employment at sub-minimum wages and the most inhuman conditions, this is but one front of the capitalist offensive of repression and growing exploitation against all the workers.

In a word, when the AFL-CIO labor traitors call for an onslaught against the immigrant workers, they are speaking not on behalf of labor but on behalf of the capitalists. With their strikebreaking against the air controllers, and with their eagerness to force the capitalists' concession demands onto the auto, rail, steel, and other workers, the AFL-CIO chieftains have confirmed for the umpteenth time their totally pro-capitalist and anti-worker nature. Likewise, with their rabid chauvinist campaign against the immigrant workers, the top AFL-CIO hacks are showing themselves to be nothing but two-bit lackeys of the Reaganite offensive against the working class.

Down With Reagan's Anti-Immigrant Plans!

No, it is not the immigrants, but Reagan's savage anti-immigrant plans which pose a danger to the workers. Of course, it is the immigrant workers themselves who will bear the brunt of the terror and persecution, but inevitably the working class and people as a whole will suffer the consequences of the police measures, vicious discrimination and contract labor schemes being imposed on their immigrant class brothers.

The stand of the class conscious workers is that all workers in the U.S., irrespective of nationality, whether immigrant or not, whether undocumented or not, must have the right to live and work in the U.S. without fear of arrest and deportation, without vicious discrimination and harassment. Moreover the immigrant workers must realize all the same legal, social, economic and political rights as the rest of the American workers.

What is needed is a stern and resolute struggle against Reagan's fascist anti-immigrant plans and all the attacks on the immigrants. For such a struggle, the working and progressive people can only rely on their own efforts. All the flunkeys of the capitalists, from Reagan to Kennedy to the chiefs of the AFL-CIO, are arrayed against the immigrants and the rest of the working class. Confronting the racist and fascist onslaught against the immigrants is an important part of building the independent movement of the proletariat.

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On Reagan's "war on crime" and criminal code revision

No to Reagan's Police-State Measures!

In the last few months the Reagan administration has set forward a series of proposals for the further development of a police-state apparatus in the U.S. In the middle of August, the Reagan administration's Task Force on Violent Crime unveiled its 64 proposals for strengthening the powers of the police. Then, on September 28, Reagan himself set the passage of new fascist laws as one of the priorities of his administration in a speech to the convention of the International Association of Police Chiefs in New Orleans. Following in the footsteps of the Nixon. administration, with its "law and order" rhetoric, Reagan is pushing for the enactment of the new version of Nixon's notorious bill S-l, a fascist bill which rewrites the entire federal criminal code in order to provide for yet more savage repression of the struggles of the working people.

Reagan is carrying out his drive to build up the police-state apparatus under the code words of fighting "crime" and "terrorism." Just as Reagan uses the code word of fighting, "international terrorism" to justify the bloody U.S. intervention in El Salvador, the murderous activities of the CIA, and the stationing of U.S. troops all around the world, too Reagan talks of fighting "crime" as a banner to justify breaking strikes, shooting down blacks and other oppressed nationalities, and preparing to crush the developing mass movements. The capitalist "war on crime" has nothing to do with stopping crime and everything to do with preserving the miserable conditions that give rise to the flourishing of crime. In fact, the capitalists find crime useful to them, both as a source of additional profit and as a means of disrupting the development of the organization of and solidarity among the working people.

The growing fascization of the government is a major part of the present-day capitalist offensive against the working masses. The entire bourgeoisie is shouting about crime, on the TV, in the newspapers, and through the entire crew of corrupt capitalist politicians, in order to have a pretext for fascist reaction and to hide the monstrous crimes the rich are committing against the poor. The capitalist politicians are all vying with one another to see who can offer the most extreme suggestions. The revision of the federal criminal code is the offspring of Democrat and Republican alike, of open reactionaries like Reagan and Strom Thurmond and "liberal" Democrats, concealed reactionaries, like Kennedy and Governor Brown of California.

The bipartisan support from the two big capitalist parties for stepped-up repression against the people shows that the fight against fascism is a class struggle, a struggle of the poor and exploited against the rich. This fight is a component part of building the independent movement of the proletariat.

Reagan Calls for Repression under the Code Word of Fighting "Crime"

In his speech on September 28, Reagan outlined his plans to step up repression under the signboard of fighting "crime." In the main, his proposals coincided with those of the Task Force on Violent Crime. Among the major fronts of the Reaganite crusade on "crime" are the following:

First of all, Reagan stressed the importance of creating an atmosphere of hysteria on the question of "crime." He stressed that he would "use the 'bully pulpit' of the presidency to remind the public of the seriousness of the problem." According to Reagan, looking at all questions through the eyes of the policeman is "one of the most important things we can do." As everyone knows, this program is in fact already being carried out by the capitalist media. The TV, movies, newspapers and so forth abound with dramas about crime, portrayals of the most gruesome details, glorification of the police, and the portrayal of the oppressed nationalities and all progressive movements as criminals and terrorists.

Another feature of Reagan's program is the removal of any limitations on arbitrary searches and snooping by the police against all working and progressive people. In his speech, Reagan made this point by calling for the end to the so-called "exclusionary rule." At present, the "exclusionary rule" is a mild deterrent to arbitrary police powers; it prevents the use of illegally obtained evidence in a trial. This judicial rule was established because the police are essentially never punished, but rather rewarded, for their continual violations of the law, so that one of the few ways to subject police spying to any regulation at all is to specify that the fruits of illegal searches could not be used in trials.

The elimination of the "exclusionary rule" was also proposed by the Task Force on Violent Crime, whose spokesmen stressed that this was symbolic of a wider range of measures. Griffin Bell, attorney general under Carter and a co-chairman of this task force, stressed that the elimination of this rule was a "symbol." (Washington Post, August 18, 1981) This would symbolize, of course, the end to any restrictions on the use of the police to terrorize the people. Today there is one outrage after the other where the police shoot people down in the street; these murderers in uniform become heroes to the bourgeoisie; and at most the capitalist courts go through the routine motions of declaring these murders "justifiable homicides." This police terrorism is being openly endorsed via the use of these "symbols"; this is the same kind of symbol as Reagan sent to the police when in April he pardoned two former FBI men convicted of illegal break-ins and called them "men who acted on high principle" and "served (the nation) with great distinction."

Another proposal of Reagan and the task force is the denial of bail to anyone who is designated as especially "dangerous." In fact, this means the establishment of a system of preventive detention, where anyone can be jailed without being convicted of anything simply on the complaint of a prosecutor to a sympathetic judge. The capitalist media has been especially anxious for the enactment of a law of this kind, and the public has been besieged by constant stories of this or that person committing a crime while out on bail.

A further feature of Reagan's proposal is a dramatic increase in the length of jail sentences and the development of new means of punishment. The U.S. already has one of the highest percentages of its population in jail of any major industrialized country. Furthermore, the rate of increase of the number of prisoners in state and federal prisons for the first six months of 1981 was double that of the same period in 1980; the prison population is increasing at an annual rate of over 11%. (Washington Post, October 5, 1981, p. A14) Yet this does not satisfy the bourgeoisie. In preparation for the major class battles that are on the horizon, the capitalists want more and yet more prisons, harsher and yet harsher laws.

Reagan also proposes a whole series of sweeping changes in the laws that are summed up in the Nixonite legislation for revision of the federal criminal code that is pending in Congress. Reagan puts a high priority on the revision of the federal criminal code. The particular features of this bill have undergone numerous changes as it has been developed over the last decade, and are still being revised and amended. But the basic feature of this bill is a notorious fascization of the laws. It dramatically lengthens sentences. It carries through the pet project of the Nixon administration of encouraging the wider use of agents provocateurs, entrapment, and conspiracy charges by changing the laws on conspiracy and "liability of accomplices" and inventing whole new categories of law such as "criminal facilitation," the holding of an organization guilty for the conduct of a representative and so forth. It also contains special laws for the suppression of the workers' movement, the anti-imperialist movement and the struggles of the oppressed nationalities, including laws on obstruction of government agents, laws allowing for the suppression of militant or revolutionary speeches or publications, laws bringing militant strikes under federal extortion laws, and so forth.

The revision of the federal criminal code is also designed to serve as a model for the revision of state laws. Although the various versions of the federal revision have not yet passed Congress, nevertheless it has already affected state laws, particularly during the Carter administration and since. During this period, numerous states have revised their laws. For example, the provisions of the proposed federal law calling for harsher sentences have been echoed in state after state. Thus, in the last four years 37 states have passed mandatory sentencing laws to put more people in jail. (Washington Post, October 5, 1981, p. A5)

As well, Reagan elaborated a number of other measures. The only differences between Reagan and the task force were over gun control, which the task force favored, and the financing of new prisons. The task force recommended that the federal government provide up to $2 billion in matching funds to the states for the building of more and yet more jails. This was only logical, seeing that the task force's recommendations envisaged a huge increase in the prison population. Reagan the clown, however, prefers to pretend that these proposals won't cost a cent. In actual fact, Reagan is quite willing to make adjustments on these minor differences.

The Democratic Party Fervently Supports the Reaganite Program of Building Up the Police State

The Reaganite drive to step up the fascization of the government apparatus has the full support of the Democratic Party. It is notable that Reagan's Task Force on Violent Crime was a bipartisan body. As we have pointed out above, one of its two co-chairmen was Griffin Bell, attorney general under former President Carter. Another task force member is William Hart, traitor to the black people, police chief of Detroit and a protege of the Democratic Party's mayor of Detroit, Coleman Young.

Senator Kennedy, the standard- bearer of the "left wing" of the Democratic Party, is a particularly fervent supporter of the further development of the police state. He criticizes Reagan simply for not going far enough and appropriating more money for the police apparatus. Discussing Reagan's proposals, Kennedy put on his John Wayne hat, wrapped himself in red, white and blue Reaganite rhetoric, and stated, on September 28, that: "The president is...calling for a new war against crime. That war has been declared again and again -- and it has been lost over and over. If this latest war is to be more than words, more than a partisan slogan for the coming political year, then it is time for the administration to put its money where its rhetoric is. Talking tough is not enough.

"We are told these days that national defense is vital, and it is. But national defense begins in our neighborhoods, where we must stop the reign of aggression by the muggers, the thieves, the robbers and the rapists. We cannot fight crime on the cheap -- which is the hard lesson we should have learned in earlier years." (Washington Post, September 20, 1981, p. A2, emphasis added)

Don't fight the police state, but finance it more lavishly -- that is the war cry of the Kennedyite liberals. This is the Kennedy "alternative." As well, Kennedy agrees with the Reaganite task force on "gun control," while Reagan disagrees with some minor aspects of this. It is clear that nothing essential divides Kennedy from Reagan on the issue of crime.

It is no accident that Kennedy backs Reagan's anti-crime hysteria and Reagan's proposals for strengthening the fascist iron fist against the people, differing with Reagan only on being more forthright on the need for financing this repression. In fact, the fascist revision of the federal criminal code has been a pet project of Kennedy's for years.

Kennedy's favorite legislation, the reactionary criminal code revision which was called "Criminal Code Reform" or "grandson of S-l" during the Carter administration, dates back to the administration of Lyndon Johnson in the 1960's. Faced with the surging mass movements of that time, with the huge movement against U.S. aggression in Indochina, with the powerful struggle of the black people against racial discrimination, and so forth, the bourgeoisie worked to build up its means of suppression and police terror. War criminal Johnson appointed a National Commission on Criminal Law

Reform in 1966, chaired by "liberal" Democrat Edmund G. Brown, then governor of California (and father of the present "liberal" Democratic governor, Jerry Brown). This was a bipartisan committee of Democrats and Republicans, liberals, Dixiecrats and reactionaries, who all worked together harmoniously on how to suppress the people. This commission submitted its report during the Nixon presidency. After several years, the recommendations of this commission were combined with those of the Criminal Code unit of the Justice Department set up by arch-fascist fiend Nixon. The result was the fascist Nixonite bill S-l.

Bill S-l immediately received the condemnation of all progressive people. Amid much controversy, it failed to pass the Senate Judiciary Committee and died there when Congress closed at the end of 1975. At this point who else but that prince of liberals, smiling Ted Kennedy, pranced onto the scene to rescue the bill. Over a period of years, Senator Kennedy teamed up with one arch-racist after another. Again and again Kennedy strove to have this Nixonite abortion pass Congress. In 1977 he and arch-racist Dixiecrat McCellan introduced a revision of it popularly known as ' 'the son of S-l." In 1979, Kennedy teamed up this time with arch-reactionary, Republican ex-Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond, with a bill known as "grandson of S-l." Incidentally Jerry Brown, another luminary of the left wing of the Democratic Party, also endorsed this bill.

Thus Kennedy's support for Reagan's crime hysteria and for the new "grandson of S-l" is simply the consistent stand of the "left wing" of the Democratic Party.

Only the Socialist Revolution Will Solve the Question of Crime

The capitalists are making a hysterical campaign against "crime" as a way to whip up ugly sentiments and generate support for their reactionary repression of the people. But, in fact, the capitalists have no intention of stopping crime.

For one thing, crime is a source of profit to the bourgeoisie. The organized crime of the Mafia, the drug trade, and so forth, could not continue to exist without not just benevolent toleration from but direct links to the bourgeoisie and the police apparatus. Abundant police manpower and severe laws already exist; the lack of laws is not the reason why organized crime remains.

As well, the bourgeoisie uses crime to disrupt the organization of the working and oppressed masses. It glorifies crime in the mass media in order to divert the youth and other elements onto a dead-end path. At the same time, the bourgeoisie fosters such criminal elements as the racist and nazi gangs. Most revealing too is the way the CIA worked hand in hand with the Mafia in attempts to assassinate Castro, the head of state of a foreign country.

Besides the organized crime of the bourgeoisie, there is social crime. The increase of social crime is linked to the rapidly worsening conditions of life of the masses, the living hell that is capitalism, the grinding poverty, hopelessness and racial discrimination. A section of the people has its spirit broken by these conditions. The capitalists, of course, have no intention of easing these conditions. On the contrary, Reagan is the chieftain of the capitalist offensive against the masses which is destroying the livelihood of the working people for the benefit of the profits of a handful of rich parasites.

Hence only the socialist revolution will eliminate the cause of crime by overthrowing the bourgeoisie and thus both overthrowing that class, the rich, who have a vested interest in the continuation of crime, and also ending the exploitation that breeds the inhuman conditions in which social crime flourishes. The plans of the Reaganites will not eliminate crime and are not intended to. At most, they are designed to ensure the security of the rich and of their property. Their main purpose, however, is to create a huge apparatus to suppress the people. It is this huge apparatus that Reagan hides under the banner of "small government."

In his speech of September 28, Reagan gave his ideas of big and small government. He argued that crime too was a product of "big government," saying that "We have learned the price of too much government" and that "government bureaucrats not only fail to solve social problems but also frequently make them worse." He attributed this big government to the "social thinkers" of the 1950's and 1960's who thought that spending money on people's conditions of life was necessary.

Actually, of course, these government bureaucrats ("social thinkers") were not guilty of "utopian assumptions about human nature," as Reagan says, but were simply forced to provide some meager assistance to the starving because of the great growth of poverty in the U.S. and the huge wave of mass protest of the times. Now Reagan, on behalf of the capitalists, wishes to cut even these meager programs. Thus in his speech he ridiculed the idea of the existence of "desperate people seeking bread for their families" and talked of "a problem of the human heart," a "spiritual problem," which presumably is to be cured with the police truncheon.

Thus, according to Reagan, social programs, i.e., Social Security programs, unemployment insurance, school lunch programs, bilingual education, and so forth, are all examples of "big government" and "utopian assumptions about human nature." But an unprecedented military budget, cancerous growth of the police departments and prisons, government spies snooping on everyone -- why that is small government and a "spiritual" approach to matters.

Reagan's fascist offensive against the masses is a major threat to the working masses. At the same time it is also a sign of the desperation of the monopoly capitalists. Feeling themselves the object of popular hatred, seeing the inevitability of the rise of a powerful mass movement against them, knowing that their cutbacks and increased exploitation are bound to inspire a profound reaction from the masses, the capitalists are reacting the only way they know how -- with the big stick. But no matter how savage the bourgeoisie becomes, no matter how many bloody crimes it commits against the people, it cannot stop the development of the class struggle. As long as exploitation and reaction exist, just so long will the struggle against it continue and grow in intensity.

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LESSONS FROM HISTORY:

On the Nixon-Haldeman Tape

Another small fragment of the thousands of hours of still secret Nixon White House tapes has recently been brought to the light of day. The tape reproduces a discussion between then-president Nixon and his chief of staff, Bob Haldeman, on the morning of May 5, 1971, right before the third day of the massive "May Day" anti-war demonstration in Washington, D.C. The subject of this revealing discussion was how to smash up such demonstrations and, in particular, Nixon's plans to recruit teamster thugs to "knock (the) heads off'' the anti-war demonstrators.

Today mass demonstrations are again spreading across the country against Reagan and the capitalist program of hunger, fascism and imperialist war. The high tide of struggle in the 1960's and early 1970's provides invaluable experience for the present movement to learn from. An examination of the latest Nixon tape reveals some important insight into how the government fights the revolutionary movement.

Arrests and Police Attacks Couldn't Stop the Mass Demonstrations

From May 3 to 5,1971, in what were called the "May Day" actions, over 100,000 demonstrators converged on Washington, D.C. to protest Nixon's prosecution of U.S. imperialism's genocidal war in Indochina. In this powerful mass action the demonstrators spread their protest across the capital, setting up roadblocks and blocking traffic on bridges and key intersections throughout the city. The police authorities went into a frenzy. Nixon's attorney general, convicted Watergate criminal John Mitchell, ordered mass arrests of the demonstrators. The police attacked savagely and the revolutionary youth heroically fought back. In massive sweeps, the police arrested and detained some 10,000 anti-war protesters in the first two days of demonstrations alone. On the third day, May 5th, 1,200 more were arrested on the steps of the Capitol building. Later even the capitalist courts ruled these indiscriminate arrests to be in flagrant violation of the capitalists' own repressive laws.

This, of course, was by no means the first time the police had ruthlessly come down on anti-war demonstrations. Indeed only 12 months before, the National Guard had gunned down demonstrators in cold blood at Kent State and then at Jackson State. But no matter how brutal the police measures, they could not put down the mass demonstrations.

Nixon Creates the So-Called "Hard Hat" Movement of Hired Thugs and Strikebreakers

Therefore, to supplement police measures, the government attempted to organize counter-demonstrations and reactionary mass movements to confront the revolutionary movement. This was an important part of Nixon's fascist strategy. Among other things, this strategy had the aim of a propaganda ploy to diffuse the overwhelming opposition to the hated U.S. war in Viet Nam and to create public opinion against the just struggles of the youth and students and the heroic struggles of the black people, and against the entire revolutionary movement of the working class and progressive masses. Such government-sponsored and organized demonstrations and movements were advertized as expressions of Nixon's non-existent "silent majority."

As one facet of this mythical "silent majority," Nixon and his henchmen floated the so-called "hard hat" movement which was made up of goons from among the reactionary trade union bureaucrats and other rabid anti-working class elements. The so-called "hard hats" were created by Nixon in order to foster his fiction of an alleged "working class backlash" against the revolutionary movement and in support of the barbaric war in Indochina. Moreover the "hard hats" were recruited as storm troopers against the progressive masses. The Nixonite strategy was to unleash a reign of violence and terror against the mass movements and progressive activists under the thin disguise of a "spontaneous" "working class backlash."

The Nixon-Haldeman tape reveals precisely what this "working class backlash" was all about.

Speaking of the "May Day" demonstrations, Nixon crows to Haldeman: "These people try something, bust 'em." This will set "an example," Nixon explains, "for universities, for other cities, and so forth and so on." Then, on this same topic the tape transcript carries the following exchange:

Haldeman: Colson's [White House aide and Watergate criminal] gonna do it through hard hats and Legionnaires. What Colson's gonna do on it, and what I suggested he do, and I think that they can get a, away with this, do it with teamsters. Just ask them to dig up those, their eight thugs.

Nixon: Yeah.

Haldeman: Just call, call, uh, what's his name.

Nixon: Fitzsimmons, [the ultra-corrupt former boss of the teamsters]

Haldeman: Is trying to get -- play our game anyway. Is just, just tell Fitzsimmons...

Nixon: They, they've got guys who'll go in and knock their heads off.

Haldeman: Sure. Murderers. Guys that really, you know, that's what they really do. Like the steelworkers have and -- except we can't deal with the steelworkers at the moment.

Nixon: No.

Haldeman: We can deal with the teamsters. And they, you know...

Nixon: Yeah.

Haldeman: ...it's the regular strike-busters-types and all that... and then they're gonna beat the [obscenity] out of some of these people. And, uh, and hope they really hurt 'em. You know, I mean go in with some real -- and smash some noses (tape noise) some pretty good fights.

(Transcript from The New York Times, Sept. 24,1981)

It should be noted that when former Nixon aide John Erlichman was recently asked about this charming dialogue between his fellow Watergate criminals, The New York Times reports him saying that he always "'assumed'...that some of the seemingly spontaneous attacks on anti-war demonstrators by workers wearing hard hats 'were laid on,' or inspired by the White House." Erlichman also pointed out that Nixon had sought to "break up demonstrations" by such means as early as 1968.

All this provides convincing proof of the fact that, far from a "spontaneous" phenomenon, the very highest levels of government, right up to the Oval Office, were the architects and organizers of the so-called "hard hats." Moreover it confirms that the "hard hats" was not a phenomenon mainly of workers at all. Rather this was a phenomenon involving fascist hoodlums under the wing of the arch-corrupt trade union bosses along with a number of other anti-working class scum. As Haldeman himself endearingly described it, this was a phenomenon of "thugs," "murderers," and "regular strikebusters-types." Obviously this was not a "working class backlash" at all. On the contrary. It was an attempt to organize a reactionary mass movement, a movement of the fascist "brown shirt" variety, as a striking force against the revolutionary mass movement.

The Smashing Up of the "Hard Hats" in Cleveland

In 1970, Cleveland was one of the centers of the government's attempts to launch a fascist "hard hat" movement. This posed a major challenge to the revolutionary movement. And the Marxist-Leninists in Cleveland bravely took up this challenge. The American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist), one of the predecessor organizations of our Party, correctly assessed the danger which the government's attempts to organize this fascist mass movement posed and waged a truly heroic struggle against the "hard hats."

At the time, a holy alliance of revisionists, trotskyites and other opportunists complained bitterly against the ACWM(M-L) comrades for wanting to smash the "hard hat" movement. The opportunists, with their anti-working class outlook, considered the "hard hats" to be a mass phenomenon of simply misguided and backward workers. But in reality, the "hard hats" were not only government-organized, in Cleveland they were not workers at all. They were reactionary businessmen, big shot labor bureaucrats, and assorted fascist elements, who put on five and dime hard hats just for the occasion of their pro-imperialist parades.

Undaunted by the pinpricks of the opportunists, the Marxist-Leninists went widely among the workers of Cleveland to explain the truly anti-working class nature of these supposed "hard hats" and to mobilize the workers into mass action against this fascist movement. The "hard hats," swollen with arrogance, tried to violently suppress the ACWM(M-L) comrades from distributing revolutionary, anti-fascist literature. The Marxist-Leninists resolutely rebuffed these attacks. Then on July 26, 1970, the ACWM(M-L) organized a major demonstration which successfully smashed up a "hard hat" show of force. These "hard hats" rapidly collapsed when confronted by the anti-fascist militants. At this point the police launched a massive assault on the anti-fascist demonstrators, In this struggle the anti-fascist militants fought back fiercely against the police defenders of the fascists.

The exposure of the "hard hats" and the active resistance to them waged by the ACWM(M-L) and the anti-fascist masses successfully knocked the wind out of this fascist movement. Soon it vanished from the national scene completely.

The Bourgeoisie Has Not Given Up Its Efforts to Organize Fascist Movements

While Nixon's "hard hat" movement collapsed and the arch-criminal Nixon himself resigned from office in disgrace, nevertheless the bourgeoisie did not give up its efforts to organize fascist movements.

Since the mid-1970's, for example, the government has been working to organize a fascist anti-busing movement. Thinly disguised as a movement of ordinary working people innocently carrying a fanatical grudge against school buses, the anti-busing movement is in fact a straight-up segregationist movement of attack on the black people. The fascist anti-busing movement has been systematically organized from top to bottom by the various levels of government, from the White House down to the local courts, school boards, and police. While not abandoning its efforts, the government has run into severe difficulties in its attempts to organize this fascist movement. This has been due to the broad democratic sentiments among the masses. As well the Marxist-Leninists have organized active resistance to this movement. In Louisville, Boston, Seattle and other cities where the government has tried to push this movement, the Marxist-Leninists have carried out a great deal of work to actively combat these attempts and to expose the true racist and fascist and government-organized nature of the anti-busing movement. (See the pamphlet Combat the Fascist Anti-Busing Movement with Active Resistance, detailing the work of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists, predecessor of the MLP, in the struggle against this fascist movement.)

Another example of an attempt to float a reactionary movement was Carter's effort to whip up a so-called "anti-Iranian backlash" in support of U.S. aggression against the Iranian revolution. In trying to foment a,rabid, chauvinist hysteria against Iran it almost seems that Carter must have already reviewed the Nixon-Haldeman tape. In this tape Nixon talks about organizing pro-Viet Nam war demonstrations of government employees. Nixon also talks about giving instructions to the American Legion and to the Veterans of Foreign Wars to have a national campaign of jingoist flag waving in support of the hated criminal war in Indochina. But, like Nixon's efforts, Carter's attempts to organize from the White House a patriotic fervor in support of U.S. imperialism and aggression proved to be a dismal flop. In early 1980, when the rabid anti-Iranian crusade was at its peak, the MLP went all out to organize demonstrations, protests and meetings which expressed the true sentiments of the American working class and people in solidarity with the Iranian people's revolution.

The Monopoly Capitalist Ruling Class Is Racist and Fascist to the Core

The attempts to organize the "hard hats," the anti-busing movement, the "anti-Iranian backlash," or similar such anti-working class, racist and fascist movements, have in the main been carried out under the false signboard of the ordinary citizen, "the silent majority," or "mainstream America." The thugs and gangsters organized in these movements are cloaked in the red, white and blue and a pretense of capitalist respectability. However, the government also organizes the openly racist and fascist gangs such as the Ku Klux Klan and the nazi Hitler-worshipers. Wherever these scum try to raise their ugly heads, the links inevitably come out with the police, the mayor's office, the FBI, and so forth, right up the line. The continuing revelations of the complicity of the federal and local authorities in the coldblooded assassination of five anti-racist demonstrators by the KKK/nazi terrorists two years ago in Greensboro are a most telling exposure of such links. It should also be noted that the government-organized anti-busing movement, for example, has had the deliberate purpose of creating a field of action, propaganda and recruitment for the KKK and other fascist storm troopers against the masses.

Lest anyone believe the fairy tales that such fascist scum are merely a product of some ultra-right fringe, separate and apart from the big bourgeoisie and its government, the Nixon-Haldeman tape is quite instructive. It shows the real nazi-like nature of the dignified gentlemen who lead the capitalist government.

Assuring themselves about the "discredited" nature of the Chicago Seven anti-war figures, Nixon and Haldeman held the following dialogue:

Nixon: Aren't the Chicago Seven all Jews? Davis's a Jew, you know.

Haldeman: I don't think Davis is.

Nixon: Hoffman, Hoffman's a Jew.

Haldeman: Abbie Hoffman is and that's so.

Nixon: John Luzens or Leubens or... the other one they got.

Haldeman: (tape noise) is.

Nixon: About half of these are Jews.

Yes, mein fuhrer Nixon! And not only that, but the entire revolutionary mass movement against you, and the overwhelming opposition of the American working class and people to your fascist war in Viet Nam was most likely, in your eyes, nothing but a Jewish conspiracy! Nixon not only plans fascist tactics of recruiting "thugs" and "murderers" to "smash some noses," he even uses the filthy racist language of a nazi.

While being kept around as a "respected elder statesman," fascist Nixon is no longer in office. But with or without Nixon, the monopoly capitalist ruling class has not changed its stripes. It remains racist and fascist to the core. And it can be said for certain that behind the TV smiles and Hollywood masks of his successors, the government continues to plot the most fiendish Nixonite measures for combating the growing revolutionary movement.

[Photo: The police attacked the demonstration organized by the ACWM(M-L), a predecessor of the MLP, against the fascist "hard hat'' movement in Cleveland, July 26, 1970. Photo shows an anti-fascist militant defending the demonstration.]

[Photo: The fascist crimes of Nixon have not been forgotten by the people. Photo shows a section of the picket of 200 people who denounced Nixon when he came to speak at a Republican fund-raiser in Seattle on May 10,1981.]

[Photo: Five hundred people marched to denounce U.S. imperialism's campaign of war hysteria against the Iranian people at the University of Washington in Seattle on November 28, 1979. They smashed up an attempt by a few reactionaries to hold a racist anti-Iranian counter-rally. The Marxist-Leninists' banner at the demonstration reads: "Down with U.S. imperialism's attacks against the Iranian people!'']

[Photo: The Marxist-Leninists played an active role in the fight against the racist and fascist anti-busing movement. Photo shows a banner of the COUSM.L (immediate predecessor of the MLP) in a march against the anti-busing movement in Louisville, January 15,1976.]

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Reagan's New Budget Cuts

On September 24, Reagan proposed a new series of budget cuts in the social benefits programs. This new round of attacks on the livelihood of the masses is especially vicious since it comes on the heels of Reagan's notorious 1982 budget, which went into effect on October 1. With these new measures Reagan is continuing his ruthless efforts to starve the masses for the benefit of the capitalist moneybags.

The latest proposal by Reagan calls for cuts of $11 billion in non-military spending over and above the nearly $40 billion already cut in the 1982 budget. These new proposals will mean further unemployment, severe reductions in the meager assistance to the poorest sections of the masses, as well as further erosion of Social Security benefits.

The cuts will swell unemployment through an additional 12% cut in the CETA jobs program. In addition, there are plans to eliminate 75,000 federal workers' jobs through firings and attrition. Combined with the provisions of the now-operative 1982 budget, roughly half a million workers employed by the federal government are to be thrown into the ranks of the millions who are unemployed.

The measures of September 24 also continue the brutal attacks against the poorest workers and the most destitute sections of the masses. Already very harsh qualification standards exist for obtaining the miserly benefits offered by the government's food and income- assistance programs. Reagan's budget plans are aimed at mass disqualifications of those presently receiving benefits. The 1982 budget eliminates a million people from the food stamps program. As well, now an administration task force is recommending a mandatory provision for all states that families getting funds under the AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) program have their benefits ended after four months if the father lives at home. Currently about half the states make such payments. It is also recommended that for large families, aid should be given only for the first four children.

The funds of numerous other types of compensation for the poor are being drastically reduced. With the approval of Congressional Democrats and Republicans, a $700 million cost-of-living increase scheduled for the food stamp program in April has recently been canceled. Medicaid and Medicare payments are to be further cut. Large cuts are planned for energy costs assistance. Also big reductions are due for loans to finance college expenses and for bilingual education programs. Reagan has even begun to bypass the formality of first having his programs rubber-stamped and has ordered the government agencies to implement them before Congress acts on them. Using this method, the administration has cut education aid to poor schoolchildren by 37.5%, the child nutrition program by 31% and maternal and child health care by 41% compared to 1981 levels.

The new recommendations by the Reagan administration continue their crusade against the retired workers. Fearing a great protest by the masses, Reagan and the Congress have temporarily shelved their attempt to eliminate altogether the $122 per month minimum Social Security benefit, although not without specifying that no new people will be able to receive the $122 per month minimum. But they are still collaborating to attack the retirees further. Just look at the provisions passed in October by the Senate. Benefits to retiree families are to be reduced by limiting them to a maximum of 150% of the basic payment (a figure calculated on the basis of the average annual earnings of the worker) rather than the present maximum of 188%. Benefits for 350,000 government employees are reduced. Moreover, the Senate resolutions make sick pay subject to Social Security taxes for the first six months. While the Republican and Democratic congressmen are blustering about "saving Social Security," they are in fact dismantling it piecemeal.

The new frenzied wave of budget cuts shows the depth of the capitalist economic crisis. The administration is admitting that their previous rosy predictions of small budget deficits are a pipe dream and that in reality the deficit for 1982 may approach an astronomical $100 billion without the new cutbacks. Now the administration is scrambling to reduce the deficit to "-only" $60 or $80 billion. Therefore, on September 24 Reagan declared that the small crumbs received by the poor were an "extravagance" that must be further cut. Thus Reagan is trying to reduce the deficit by attacking the poor.

Of course, while the administration ruthlessly cuts social benefits, they are spending billions of additional dollars to step up the feverish war preparations of U.S. imperialism. For appearances' sake, Reagan's new budget cuts include a $2 billion cut for the military. But these cuts come only a few months after the monstrous increases of the.1982 budget. Furthermore, only a few days after unveiling his new budget- cutting proposals, Reagan announced plans to spend $180 billion to build MX missiles and B-l bombers. Reagan is bleeding the masses so that war preparations can continue to grow at record levels.

While Reagan is preparing to starve and slaughter the people, the Democrats are trying to puff themselves up as the guardians of the downtrodden. But the nature of the Democratic Party "opposition" has already been shown by their approval of Reagan's notorious 1982 budget. Indeed, when the budget took effect on October 1, the Democrats' leader in the House of Representatives, Tip O'Neill, admitted: "We've given him [Reagan -- ed.] what he asked for and what he wanted. Starting today, the rich get richer." Trying to explain away the Democratic honeymoon with Reagan, O'Neill, at a fund-raiser in Mt. Clemens, Michigan on October 23, said that "We want to give the president's program an opportunity to work so it can't be said that we were obstructionists." Clearly, the savage budget cuts and militarization are not the exclusive property of Reagan, but the bipartisan program of capitalist reaction.

With his budget plans, Reagan has thrown down a challenge to the workers and other oppressed masses. And already the masses have started to reply. Through their participation in mass demonstrations, such as on September 19, and through other protests, hundreds of thousands have already demonstrated their determination to fight Reaganite reaction. The mass struggle against Reaganite reaction must be intensified! In the course of fighting Reaganite reaction it is vital to oppose the Democratic Party politicians as the two-faced Reaganites that they are. The struggle against Reaganite reaction can only advance by building it independently of the political parties of the capitalist offensive.

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University of Washington in Seattle:

No to Cutbacks and Tuition Hikes!

(The following article is taken from a leaflet issued by the Seattle Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party on October 16, 1981.)

There is tremendous indignation brewing among the students and staff of the University of Washington (UW) against the massive cutbacks and fee hikes which the politicians of the rich are proposing and implementing at the UW and the other universities and community colleges across the state. These cutbacks and fee hikes follow closely on the heels of a huge 70% hike in tuition (54% this fall which is to be jacked up another 11% on top of that next fall). These cutbacks also come in the wake of the vicious salary restrictions, and strikebreaking activity imposed on the staff, graduate student teaching and research assistants (TA/RA's), medical interns et al., by UW President Gerberding last spring. It is evident that the students and sections of the staff are under fierce attack. And they are not alone. The continually deepening fiscal crisis of the Washington state government is bringing ever more sections of the population into struggle -- public school teachers and ferry workers, the unemployed and poor people in general -- against being made to bear the burden of the fiscal crisis of the government of the rich.

The seriousness of the latest round of cutbacks can be seen in the measures already carried out this fall. At the UW, for example, enrollment has been slashed by nearly 1,000 students as many have been driven out (and others driven up the wall) by the steep tuition, board and fee hikes combined with Reagan's cuts in student loan and financial aid programs. Nearly 150 class sections have been cancelled in the fall quarter, affecting upwards of 3,000 students. The cuts are even more severe in the community college system. Already in the three Seattle community colleges some 3,500 student positions have been wiped out and class sections reduced by 18.8%. Vocational training and night and weekend classes have been effectively wiped out. As if these cuts were not enough, the news media and various leading lights in the legislature are threatening to drive some 48,000 students total out of the state college system as part of Governor Spellman's "financial emergency."

What Is the Source of the Cutbacks?

Governor Spellman and his cronies of both capitalist parties, Republican and Democratic, together with the UW administration and the news media are working to create maximum confusion over the nature and extent of the current state fiscal crisis. They claim that for some vague, unclear reason a "$655 million'' deficit unexpectedly looms in the state's current two- year budget. These same forces of calculated confusion also moan that the working people of Washington are shamefully "undertaxed'' and therefore must be the cause of the crisis in education and social services.

But what is the truth about the fiscal crisis? There are two fundamental causes of the state fiscal crisis -- namely (1) Reagan's gargantuan war budget and (2) the increasingly desperate economic crisis of the capitalist system in the U.S. in general and Washington state in particular....

Clearly then, to fight the vicious Reaganite offensive it is necessary to step up the mass struggles and rise up in a single voice: No! to the cutbacks and tuition hikes! To hell with the war budget and war preparations of U.S. imperialism! Make the rich pay for the crisis, not the masses!

Why Is Gerberding Making "Radical" Noises?

What is this "curious'' phenomenon of UW President Gerberding calling upon the students to become politically active, to "express themselves'' and take to the streets "in Olympia and elsewhere''? Gerberding? -- the strikebreaker! Gerberding? -- the defender of the University of California's nuclear weapons projects while employed at UCLA! Gerberdjng? -- Governor Spellman's intimate friend! Why, President Gerberding almost sounds like a fiery "outside agitator''! But in what way does Gerberding want the students to "express themselves"? He wants the students to demand, not the elimination of cutbacks, not the elimination of huge tuition and fee increases, but to demand...that a big tax increase be jammed down the throats of the working people of the state!

Gerberding, Spellman et al., want the students to lobby the legislature (and particularly to pressure the Republicans!) for a huge tax increase on the workers, under the flimsy hoax that by doing so funding for education will be restored. What a fraud!

On October 1, Spellman announced that the legislature will sit in a special session to vote for new taxes and to legalize various cutbacks and money-raising schemes dictated by the withdrawal of federal funds from the state budget. Is this for the purpose of "restoring funding" to education? Spellman himself blurted out the truth on October 7 when he said that the question of tax hikes is tied, not to "restoring funding," but to restoring Washington state's credit ratings with the big banks. In other words, Spellman, Gerberding el al., want to use the students to push through their policy: Tax the workers to death to guarantee the payment of millions of dollars of interest (i.e., profits) to the filthy wealthy banks and other financial sharks.

Gerberding, Spellman, Evans and crew -- imagining themselves quite clever -- are trying to capitalize on the political inexperience of this new generation of students through lies, swindles and political deception. In this way they want (1) to derail, misdirect and render impotent the students' own continuing struggles against the cutbacks, tuition hikes and dismantling of the educational system, a struggle which must be directed at the government of the rich, but which they want directed against the workers of the state; (2)They also want to use the students as a political shock force to help impose tax increases on the working people; and (3) thus to split the unity of the masses in opposition to the Reagan-led capitalist offensive. These "sharpshooters" of the rich, swollen with arrogance, want to kill three birds with one stone!

New Taxes: A Bipartisan Plot of the Rich

The scheme to impose new taxes on the people of Washington is a bipartisan program. On the one hand you have the Republican Party, which either openly calls for new taxes (Spellman. Evans) or demagogically "opposes" them to maintain the fraud that the Republicans want to cut the masses' taxes. They want to hide the real-life shifting of the tax burden onto the working people and to demand even more vicious cutbacks in social services (State House Speaker Polk).

On the other hand -- the "left" one -- you have the Democratic Party and its hero Jim McDermott who are also enthusiastic about a tax increase. This impotent "opposition" to the Reaganites is whining that "the Republicans would not listen to reason" last February and raise taxes high enough then. They try to portray their version of any new tax as a "progressive" tax and advocate the imposition of a state income tax on top of existing taxes. McDermott, however, is even discouraging such "progressive" talk of late in order for "the rhetoric to be lowered" and thus ensure passage of a new sales tax increase. After all, Spellman himself says that the special session of the legislature will be convened with this much arranged in advance.

To Build the Mass Movement, the Saboteurs From Within Must Be Fought

There is also a whole flock of faculty sellouts and student politicians -- "leaders" who represent nobody but Gerberding, the Regents and their Financial Emergency Committee -- who are trying to wreck any opposition to the cutbacks by working from within the protest movement of the students and working staff. These elements posture that they too oppose cutbacks (especially if they are not consulted first so they can "participate in the budget-cutting process"). They posture that they too oppose any taxes on the people (except of course for the "progressive" measure of adding an income tax onto the immense tax burden of the people, just like the Democrat McDermott and the Republican Evans). But in the final analysis, these so-called "leaders" work to channel the students and staff into trailing behind Gerberding and co. to plead with the Republicans to simply "raise taxes" period. And their main motive for approving protest rallies is to let the students blow off a little steam, or, as they put it, "as a constructive outlet for the students' outrage."

Despite the presence of such flaky elements within the protest movement, the students and staff should participate in all actions and protests of a mass character, including those organized with cunning Reaganite motives. Rather than staying away from such actions, the students must work even harder to turn such rallies into arenas of struggle against the rich and their plans. To do so, the issue is to oppose the line of appealing to the "reasonableness" and "good conscience" of the legislators. The federal, state and local governments are nothing but the executive arm and tool of the monopoly corporations and banks. The legislators' "good conscience" is owned lock, stock and barrel by the rich. On the contrary, the issue for the students is to take up the line of confronting the government with mass actions and protests composed of organized, enlightened, militant and united students and working staff. This is the way to force the shifting of the burden of the fiscal crisis back onto the rich and not onto the students, staff or working people as a whole....

Rise up in protest against the cutbacks and tuition hikes!

Make the rich pay for the crisis!

No to U.S. imperialist war preparations!

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WILDCAT AT CHRYSLER TWINSBURG

On October 19 over 1,000 workers at the Chrysler stamping plant in Twinsburg, Ohio staged a wildcat work stoppage to protest deteriorating safety and other working conditions. The action effectively stopped production for the day. Stung by the workers' defiance, the Chrysler bloodsuckers immediately howled that the work stoppage was "unfair" and "illegal" and called on the courts to suppress the workers and fine them $125,000. This is an outrage! The workers are entirely right to resist the attacks by the capitalist moneybags.

In the last two years the workers at Twinsburg have accumulated a mountain of unresolved grievances while the Chrysler capitalists have merrily intensified the speedup, job combination, overwork and terrible safety conditions. These brutal conditions are the fruit of the hated "concessions" jammed down the workers' throats by the auto billionaires, by the government and by the UAW trade union bureaucrats led by the arch-sellout Doug Fraser. These "concessions" have meant a $17,000 wage and benefit cut for each worker over the three- year contract. They have financed the further automation of the plants with job-eliminating robots and computers. Preaching the gospel of salvation through "concessions," " Brother" Fraser has led the Chrysler workers to the brink of ruin. He has put up every possible roadblock to the workers' attempts to fight back. He has set up joint labor-management committees to tighten the labor discipline in the plants. Arbitrary suspensions and firings have reached new highs.

The conditions that exist at Twinsburg and throughout Chrysler have made the workers fighting mad. In recent months, despite frantic efforts by the top UAW hacks to cool out the workers, walkouts and demonstrations have broken out at the Belvidere, Illinois assembly plant; Vernor Tool and Die in Detroit; the engine plant in Windsor, Canada; the Chrysler tank plant in Warren, Michigan and now in Twinsburg.

Fight the Takeback Offensive of the Monopolies

These struggles are part of the overall resistance of the working class to the wage-cutting offensive of the monopoly capitalists. Ever since the 1979 Chrysler contract, monopolies all across the country have been demanding "Chrysler-style" concessions from the workers. It was the Carter administration which dictated the Chrysler bailout to the workers as part of its plan to "reindustrialize America and increase productivity" by driving the workers into the ground. Now Reagan has enthusiastically picked up this program and accelerated it as his own. Cutbacks and concessions are spreading to all sections: auto parts, rubber, steel, trucking, railroads, government employees and others.

In the auto industry itself, the presidents of Ford and GM are pointing to the Chrysler "example" and are eagerly drooling over the hundreds of millions of dollars they plan to extort from their workers. At Ford this robbery is already well under way. Last March, Ford cut the pay of its steel division workers by an average of $33 per week under the guise of "saving jobs." Of course, since then hundreds of workers have been laid off and more cutbacks are being planned. At Ford's aluminum casting plant in Sheffield, Alabama the 1,000 production workers have been told they must accept a 50% pay cut or lose their jobs by January 1. At the same time workers at the Ford transmission plant in Livonia, Michigan have been ordered to make concessions or see their work sent to a Toyo Kogyo (Mazda) plant in Japan which is 25% owned by Ford. Similar work rules, overtime and job classification "concessions" have already been forced down the throats of Ford workers at two other Michigan plants, Monroe Chassis and Rawsonville Parts. As well Ford is demanding "sacrifices" from workers at its Cleveland stamping plant and the Sterling Heights, Michigan Axle Plant. While Ford extracts concessions plant by plant, GM Chairman Roger Smith, too, is screaming for blood from the workers to make GM "more competitive."

As for Fraser and his crew, they would rather die than lift a finger against their auto monopolist masters. Even though the present contract does not expire until September 1982, the soldout labor chieftains are meeting right now with the auto fat cats to plan the imposition of further concessions on the workers in exchange for fraudulent "profit sharing" schemes and for what UAW Secretary-Treasurer Ray Majerus calls "greater worker participation in management decision making." Just ask any Chrysler worker what "greater worker participation in management decision-making" means. It means Doug Fraser sits on the board of directors to better supervise the speedup, job elimination and wage cutting against the workers.

The strikes and demonstrations at the Chrysler plants are a sign that the workers are seeing through the treachery of Fraser and co. These actions are a blow to the monopoly capitalists' scheme to make an example of Chrysler to the whole working class -- an example that the workers must knuckle under and "sacrifice" to pay for the capitalist economic crisis. When the Chrysler workers, who have been so viciously attacked by the billionaires, who have been so ruthlessly sold down the river by the labor bureaucrats, stand up to fight, it is an inspiration for all the auto workers and the workers in other industries. The future promises even sharper takeback attacks from the monopolies. To save their jobs and protect their livelihood the workers must oppose their trade union sellouts and take the road of mass struggle.

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400,000 Workers March Against Reagan

[Photos.]

[Photos: Part of the 6000-strong air traffic controller contingent in Washington; A portion of the mile-long march to the Capitol building in Washington.]

September 19 was a day of workers' protest against the Reagan government. Reagan deserted Washington that day to avoid the workers' rally. But, the day before, the workers caught up with him in Denver. There, over 2,000 workers marched opposing Reagan and Vice-President Bush as they spoke at a meeting of Republican women. September 19 found the workers demonstrating in several other cities. The rally in San Francisco drew 7,000 workers. In Los Angeles over 5,000 demonstrated to condemn Reagan. Another 1,000 workers protested in San Diego, while several thousand more marched in Tucson, Arizona and in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

In Washington, D.C. the workers came out 400,000 strong. The mile-long march from the Washington Monument to the foot of the Capitol continued for hours as the demonstrators packed the streets, stretching out as far as the eye could see. The workers came from every sector of industry, from the steel mills and the rubber factories, the auto assembly lines and the clothing sweatshops, the coal mines and harvest fields, the railroad yards and shipping wharves, the post offices, schools, and sanitation trucks. They came from all over the country, the women workers, the retired and unemployed. Workers of the oppressed nationalities, blacks, Puerto Ricans, workers of Mexican nationality and so forth participated in large numbers. So too, the sons and daughters of the workers came to march in this massive protest.

The workers came with one purpose, to oppose the Reagan government and the capitalist offensive that it heads. Banners and signs expressed the workers' hatred for Reagan. They branded him as the henchman of the capitalists and voiced their desire for a stern fight. Slogans like "Reagan's budget cuts help the rich, not us," "Hands off Social Security," "Jobs for all," and "Stand up against contract takeaways" were painted on placards and shouted on the march route.

For years the outrage has been building up among the masses of workers against the capitalist wage cutting, the job-eliminating productivity drives and reindustrialization schemes, against the wholesale layoffs, the plant closings, the cuts in social benefits and the war on the poor. Today the Reagan government has taken the reins of this capitalist offensive into its hands, and the workers' sentiment to fight the capitalist onslaught is finding its target in the battle against the Reagan regime. The struggle against Reagan is a class struggle, a struggle of the working masses against the capitalist exploiters.

On Solidarity Day the big time bureaucrats of the AFL-CIO claimed that they too are against Reagan, but in fact they are against the class struggle. Only a few months ago Lane Kirkland, the head of the AFL-CIO, voiced his concern that "at a time when the Administration seeks to strengthen the role of America in the world, it risks dividing Americans at home." And he went on to add that it is the "plain duty" of the trade union bureaucrats ' 'to do our best to head off the disasters we see in the making." (AFL-CIO News, April 18, 1981, p. 3) Clearly Kirkland's "opposition" to Reagan is not to defend the workers against the capitalist offensive, but to head off "division," to put a damper on the class struggle. These aims were made clearer still shortly after Solidarity Day was over. At a conference on national priorities Kirkland renewed his call for "a new partnership between government, management and labor" to "re- industrialize America." God knows how Kirkland is going to oppose Reagan without "dividing Americans" and while joining with the monopolies and Reagan himself in a "new partnership." Kirkland even promised to use the workers' "private pension funds" to finance the monopoly capitalist billionaires. (AFL-CIO News, October 17, 1981, p. 5) Kirkland is jeopardizing the workers' pension funds in order to assist the capitalists' drive to automate and build new factories while laying off thousands of workers and speeding up the rest. This is the way Kirkland "fights" Reagan, by joining with the capitalists to find a better way to sell the workers down the river.

The masses of workers did not come out to march on Solidarity Day in order to kneel down before the capitalists. Their opposition to Reagan is far more profound and deep-seated than this. The fact that they came from all over the country, from every industry, from every nationality, could not help but raise the class issue. Here stands the working class, organizing and preparing itself for the class battles against the Reaganite capitalist offensive.

The MLP worked in the demonstrations to bring this fact home to the workers. The Workers' Advocate emphasized that "Reagan is the chief of the monopoly capitalist class. The struggle against Reaganite reaction must be waged not by appealing to the moderation or reasonableness of the exploiters, but by stepping up the struggle of class against class." And this fighting call was taken deeply among the marching workers by the militants of the Party.

Enthusiasm for the Mass Struggle

The Solidarity Day actions also showed the workers' enthusiasm for the mass struggle. For many this was their first demonstration, but they were heard to say repeatedly throughout the day that it would not be their last. The MLP's banner Wage mass struggle against hunger, fascism and war! was greeted by many. And over and over the workers hailed the air traffic controllers' strike. The AFL-CIO bureaucrats have been stabbing the air controllers in the back, even complaining, in the words of United Auto Workers head Doug Fraser, that the strike "could do massive damage to the labor movement." The AFL-CIO hacks again showed their contempt for the controllers on Solidarity Day by trying to bury them in the back of the demonstration in Washington. But they could not bury the great enthusiasm of the masses of workers for the strikers. All along the march the workers lined the ranks of the 6,000-strong PATCO contingent chanting "PATCO Yes, Reagan NO!" and "Strike! Strike! Strike!

The sheer size of the demonstrations on September 19 brought out the potential power that the workers represent. "We could have taken over the town," one worker said, and he voiced the feeling of many of the workers there. It is the millions upon millions of working masses that are the iron bastion against the Reaganite program. Mass struggle is the powerful weapon that they wield.

Seeing the great potential, the workers immediately began a wide-ranging discussion of how to put their strength to use. They talked of the necessity of striking to fight the vicious contract takebacks of the capitalist corporations. They talked of further demonstrations to press the battle against Reagan and of returning to Washington for more militant mass actions. The September 19 demonstrations showed that the working masses are starting to come into action.

Racial Discrimination and Imperialist War Preparations Also Denounced

On Solidarity Day the workers not only protested their economic exploitation, but also opposed other aspects of Reaganite reaction.

The top dogs of the AFL-CIO hoped that the demonstrations would be a general endorsement for their corrupt leadership and a blank check to continue to pursue their disgusting racist policies and their patriotic imperialist warmongering. They put forward vague slogans like "Justice" and "Progress." But there is a growing spirit among the masses to fight the hunger, fascism and war that the capitalist government of Reagan is preparing. The AFL-CIO bureaucrats could not keep this spirit from manifesting itself at these mass demonstrations.

For example, the AFL-CIO hacks have given their ardent support to the fascist Duarte clique in El Salvador and are directly involved in the U.S. imperialist aggression against the Salvadorian masses through the AFL- CIO's American Institute for Free Labor Development and its infamous Viet Nam-style "land reform" program. Despite the wishes of these imperialist trade union misleaders, banners appeared demanding "U.S. out of El Salvador!," and numbers of placards raised slogans against the frenzied war preparations of U.S. imperialism. Although these calls were not great in numbers, they represented the sentiments of the masses of workers. Even a survey of the demonstrators by a capitalist TV station admitted that the vast majority of the workers stood for a fight against the militarization and the astronomical war budget of the Reagan government.

The workers too expressed their outrage against the vicious racist onslaught taking place under the Reagan regime. As well, they opposed Reagan's storm trooper tactics against the air traffic controllers' strike and other of his police state measures.

It is of vital importance for the workers to stand up against Reagan's reactionary program. The working class must take its place in the center of the struggle against U.S. imperialism and militarism. It must give its reply to the racists and fascists. It must support all of the progressive struggles against the common monopoly capitalist enemy. In this way the workers can and will come forward to lead and orient the struggle of all of the working and oppressed people.

Mondale Booed

The big time bureaucrats of the trade unions are trying to channel the tremendous mass discontent with Reagan into support for the Democratic Party. Kirkland admitted beforehand that the reason he called Solidarity Day was to prop up the Democratic Party, to "put a little iron in their backbone" so that in the next elections those "who share our values" will be put on Capitol Hill.

These same views were echoed by other labor bureaucrats at the September 19 demonstrations. Speaking from the platform in Washington, UAW head Doug Fraser proclaimed, "This meeting should serve notice on our enemies that the labor movement and its allies are ready to fight and struggle." But what is this struggle? Fraser continued, "This turnout will hopefully stiffen the spine of some of our friends" in the Democratic Party. Fraser sees the workers as nothing more than a "special interest group" tailing behind the Democratic Party liberals, and he believes the demonstrations of the workers have no value other than to prop up the Democrats. Rochele Horowitz, a lobbyist for the American Federation of Teachers, was more forthright in pointing out that "many unions are viewing this march as the first step in the 1982 (election) campaign."

In fact some of the trade union bureaucrats were already campaigning for their favorite Democrat for the 1984 presidential elections. The top dogs of the International Association of Machinists made their banner in the march "Get ready for Teddy" to promote Edward Kennedy's campaign for 1984. Meanwhile, at a meeting held immediately before Solidarity Day and reported on in the same issue of the United Mine Workers Journal that reported on the demonstrations, Sam Church lavishly praised Walter Mondale, the former vice-president under Carter and a Democratic Party aspirant for president in 1984. Church cooed, "We know the good work you're trying to do, trying to pull the Democratic Party back together." Church handed over $5,000 to Mondale to be used to back Democrats in the 1982 elections.

This whole drive of the trade union bureaucrats is the most shameless belly crawling. The Democratic Party, despite all of its liberal, "pro-worker" rhetoric is a big capitalist party just like the Republicans. Its notable "pro-worker" measures in the last few years include such outrages as the use of a Taft-Hartley injunction to try to break the coal miners' strike, wage controls, draft registration, etc., under Carter. Its achievements of late have been a "honeymoon" with Reagan that has meant passing one after another, of his barbarous anti-worker measures with hardly a whimper. The fact is that Reagan's program is the common program of the Democrats and Republicans alike, the bipartisan program of the entire capitalist class.

But let the Democrats speak for themselves. At the Solidarity Day rally in San Francisco, the AFL-CIO hacks paraded Walter Mondale on their platform, where he proclaimed the Democrats' program. "First and foremost, we want a free America, a nation where we have the right to worship god. Second, we want a strong America. We insist that this nation possesses the strength to fulfill our responsibilities around the world to protect freedom.'' He also stated, "Let no one mistake our meaning: sacrifice was and will be needed. We must restrain federal spending, and reduce until we eliminate federal deficits. We must provide tax incentives for new plants to out-compete and out-produce our competitors. We must care for our defense needs. And we believe in free enterprise, we want it to work.''

Alleged "friend of labor" Mondale could not have put it better than Reagan himself. Mondale lectures that the "sacrifice" squeezed from the workers "was" needed under Carter and "will be needed" under Reagan too. He proclaims that the slashing of social benefit programs is not only correct, but must be deepened "until we eliminate federal deficits," while the billionaires must be provided ever greater "tax incentives" and other reindustrialization handouts. Above all there must be enormous military spending for a "strong America" to protect the plunder of other peoples by the U.S. imperialists. This program, preaches Mondale, will save "free enterprise" and make capitalism "work." And this man has the gall to stand before the workers and claim that he is "opposed" to Reaganomics.

The similarities of the Democratic Party liberals to the Reaganite reactionaries were not lost on the masses of workers present at the San Francisco rally. Throughout his speech the workers jeered and booed Mondale, drowning out parts of his speech with chants of "PATCO, PATCO, PATCO" until finally he had to give up and cut his talk short. Likewise when Diane Feinstein, the Democratic Party mayor of San Francisco, tried to speak to scold the workers for heckling Mondale, she was booed off the stage in two minutes flat.

This event shows that among the masses of workers distrust and opposition to the Democratic Party politicians is beginning to grow. The workers want a real fight against Reagan, not the same old Reaganite poison poured from a new Democratic Party bottle. The trade union bureaucrats are trying to drag the workers back, to submerge the workers' movement under an ocean of electioneering fables and Democratic Party lies. These traitors from the trade unions, these stooges of the Democrats must be fought. The struggle against Reaganite reaction must find its firm foundation in the independent movement of the working class, the movement independent of both the Republicans and Democrats and firmly opposed to their common program of capitalist misery, fascism and war.

The MLP Works to Build the Independent Movement of the Working Class

The Marxist-Leninist Party participated actively in a number of the September 19 actions. It worked widely among the working masses to show them the path of building the independent movement of the working class.

Contingents of Party supporters marched in the Washington and San Francisco demonstrations carrying big banners that read "Down with Reagan, chieftain of capitalist reaction!" Singing groups of the Party performed revolutionary songs, and the militant slogans shouted by Party supporters were warmly received by the workers.

The Party's literature was widely distributed at the Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Denver rallies. In the Washington demonstration alone 30,000 copies of the special September 19 issue of The Workers' Advocate were passed out to the workers. This paper gave the call "All out against Reagan!" It provided a thorough condemnation of Reaganite reaction, including particular articles that lambasted his fiendish attacks on the air controllers' strike and his escalation of U.S. imperialist aggression against the Salvadorian masses. It also exposed the Democratic Party as Reagan's twin and emphasized that "The fight against Reaganite reaction must target both the big capitalist parties, both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party." The Workers' Advocate boldly laid bare the treacherous aims of the trade union bureaucrats in calling Solidarity Day, exposing them as front men for the Democratic Party and scabs against the workers' struggles. Through these articles, the paper made it clear that "A real fight against Reaganite reaction requires breaking with the Democratic Party as well as with the Republicans, opposing their flunkeys in the trade unions, and building the independent movement of the working class."

For the AFL-CIO bureaucrats, Solidarity Day meant the launching of a campaign to saddle the workers with the corrupt politicians of the Democratic Party. But for the MLP it provided a field to extend the work to strengthen the workers' movement, to encourage the mass struggle and organization of the workers and to imbue them with the revolutionary class ideology of Marxism-Leninism.

Following the September 19 actions the Party took the campaign against the Reagan government even wider. The Workers' Advocate was taken to factories, communities and schools in cities across the country. In all, on September 19 and in the weeks that followed, 80,000 copies of the special issue of the paper were distributed. As well, in a number of cities the Party organized rallies and meetings to mobilize the workers against the Reagan regime and the capitalist offensive that it heads.

Through all this work, the Party kept before the workers the lofty goal of socialism, encouraging the struggle forward in a revolutionary direction. As the September 19 Workers' Advocate points out, "The goal of socialism inspires the working masses and gives them determination and courage in the harsh class battles today. The goal of organizing the working class as a class so that it will be able to carry out the socialist revolution provides the insight into how the struggle against Reaganite reaction should be carried out today. The building of the independent movement of the working class, independent of the exploiters and their political parties, is an indispensable step on this path."

[Cartoons.]

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Correspondence

September 20,1981

Comrades:

I wish to give you a brief report of the September 19 demonstration in Los Angeles.

There were about 8,000 massed in this demonstration. The main speakers were AFL-CIO labor fakers and Democratic Party hacks (as specified in the enclosed news article). Many dozens of union locals were represented, including big contingents from Winpisinger's IAM, the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the PATCO strikers, Farmworkers (UFW) and ILGWU. Smaller contingents were organized by the UAW, USWA, the UE. (electrical) and URW (rubber) unions.

There were no threats of violence (this time anyway) when Marxist literature was disseminated. The labor fakers seemed a bit restless but the rank and filers were by and large more receptive to the open Marxist-Leninist ideas of our Party than usual.

Hundreds of the special Workers' Advocate of September 19 were passed out, as well as the Workers' Advocate of August 25.

The ranks of Wimpy's IAM, the PATCO and SEIU workers were especially receptive. The only growls we got were from peddlers of capitalist ideology -- a few reactionaries in the teachers' union, plus some coldness from the shipfitters' union who waved the American flag most of the time like it was a magic wand.

I believe that the issue of September 19 (Workers' Advocate) was the best the Party has ever put together. The way we not only exposed the Reaganite crowd but also the AFL- CIO and their Democratic Party hangers-on was extremely brilliant. I want also to praise the wit of the comrade who writes the slashing attacks on the exploiters and their apologists with the rejoinder "Oh no!"... etc....

I met up with a leader of the "C"P-USA-influenced California Democratic Council (CDC). She was furious when she,.saw we were not like the liberals in the so-called "C"P. I told her both the "C"P and her outfit were part of the capitalist attacks on the masses -- "without your party's votes in the Congress on June 25, the mass of this Reaganite program would not have been legally passed! In fact, the Democratic Party 'alternative' was just a carbon copy of the Reaganite poison but with sugar-coating!" Needless to say -- she was pissed off.

We here in Los Angeles think the effort was a success. But we realize we will have to follow-up in other protests in the near future because the liberals are still in ideological control of the workers' movement, though some workers are beginning to question their strategy and tactics....

Signed

Los Angeles

September 23,1981

Dear Comrades,

Let me begin by first congratulating you on your magnificent achievements: the founding of the Party; the publication of the indispensable Workers' Advocate; the bringing to reckoning of the revisionists, cowards and traitors of all hues and colors; your leading role in the movement of the masses; and your growth within the ranks of the working and oppressed peoples of this country.

Almost all of the agitational work I do is taken directly from the pages of Workers' Advocate, in both the political line and the examples given. The response I get is overwhelming. For example, during the first week of this month in a speech given at a union meeting, I gave a call to go down to Washington for Solidarity Day and to oppose the Reaganite Republicans, the double-talking Democrats and the soldout labor leaders and to build the independent movement of the working people. The call was carried almost unanimously and a delegation was selected to go to Washington with this purpose in mind. (I am including copies of the speech and the leaflet we distributed.) Not having to fit my agitational work into cocamamie schemes of "national fronts" or "anti-Russian" chauvinism, the workers receive my leaflets and speeches without hesitation.

This is part of the reason that I was confused when I first read of the open split with CPC [Communist Party of Canada (M-L) -- ed.]. I had admired CPC(M-L) and its leader, Hardial Bains, and wondered if my feelings could have been based to some extent on friendship and some misplaced ideological unity. But over and and above the rantings and ravings of CPC(M-L), one thing rang clear: that in the real world in my contacts with the Party, with my agitational work based upon the line of the Party, and in the ideological agreement with the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists -- that the MLP,USA was seriously and successfully working toward the revolutionary seizure of state power by the working class. And so the split has only served to reaffirm, by reexamination, my confidence in the Party....

Signed

New Jersey

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Bush Denounced in the Dominican Republic

Who Is This Visitor?

In mid-October, U.S. Vice-President George Bush visited the Dominican Republic, as part of a tour which also took him to Colombia and Brazil. This visit comes only six months after the visit of two U.S. warships to the Dominican Republic last April. These events show that U.S. imperialism has its claws deep in that country. As well, that country has been given an important place in the new Caribbean basin strategy of the Reagan administration for putting down the revolt of the peoples of the Caribbean and Central America.

Bush's visit, just like the visit of the two U.S. warships last April, was greeted with powerful demonstrations by the Dominican people. The people there know U.S. imperialism very well. Indeed, fearing such forceful manifestations of the popular opposition to U.S. imperialism, the Dominican government took various measures to disrupt the opposition. It carried out large-scale arrests, including of comrades of the Partido Comunista del Trabajo. As well, it deployed large police forces on the streets of Santo Domingo. But none of these were able to prevent the protests from breaking out.

Below we reprint an article from the August, 1981 issue of Lucha, Central Organ of the Partido Comunista del Trabajo. Entitled "Who Is This Visitor?, " it was written in preparation for Bush's visit.

The Partido Comunista del Trabajo repudiates and calls on the Dominican people to repudiate next month's visit of the North American Vice President George Bush.

Any visit from an official of the imperialist government which has committed the greatest number of aggressions and abuses against the nation and which has caused the greatest amount of suffering to our people, must be the object of the justly felt repudiation of our compatriots. But this is even more so when it is the case of a personality such as Bush, representing a government such as Reagan's and at such a difficult and delicate time that America is now living in.

George Bush has a long history of imperialist and fascist militancy. He was a pilot in the Pacific Fleet in the North American Navy; later he was a businessman in Texas, associated to the Mexican oil tycoon Diaz Serrano, General Director of Petroleos Mejicanos (PEMEX), with whom Bush shared risks and benefits in the world of business.

Trying to use the influence of his position in the political apparatus in favor of his businesses, Bush tried to get elected as senator on two different occasions but was repudiated by the voters. Nevertheless, in 1970 he succeeded in having Nixon name him representative to the United Nations Organization.

Soon afterwards Bush was named National Chairman of the Republican Party, having the sad honor of occupying this position at the time of the Watergate scandal.

In 1973 he was appointed to the U.S. office in Beijing, and there, together with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, he plotted the intrigue which has ended up turning China into a sworn enemy of the revolutionary struggle of the peoples and an agent of the war plans and aggression of the USA.

In November of 1975, George Bush was named chief of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), no more no less, from which the blackest plans and the darkest conspiracies have been traditionally hatched.

In February of 1979 he announced his decision to run for the highest electoral post, and as a result of this today he shares with Ronald Reagan the responsibility to develop an aggressive and expansionist policy, which has given rise to the resurgence of the blackest fascist positions, has raised chauvinist feelings and war hysteria. And within this strategy, logically, the Central American and the Caribbean countries, occupy a very important place.

Bush is coming to give impulse to those projects, to get the Dominican government even more involved in backing the U.S. policy. And for that reason, his visit, far from being advantageous to us, will only be harmful. And rather than exalt our country, it humiliates it and tramples upon it, it injures its dignity and its legitimate patriotic sentiments, and for this reason the only answer he should receive from our people is the firmest and most conscious repudiation.

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Students Protest in Cambridge, Mass.

DOWN WITH BUSH!

[Photo: 3,000 youth and students denounce Bush in Cambridge, Mass., on October 30.]

Reagan and the various officials of his administration are finding it increasingly difficult to travel almost anywhere without running up against demonstrations and protests of the masses against them.

In mid-October, Reagan's Vice-President George Bush visited the Dominican Republic where he was met by big demonstrations of the Dominican workers, peasants, and youth who denounced the U.S. imperialist plunder of their country and the Reagan government's aggression in Central America. After returning home, Bush traveled to Cambridge, Massachusetts to address the wealthy financial contributors to Massachusetts Institute of Technology on behalf of the Reagan administration. There, on the night of October 30, he was confronted by 3,000 angry youth and students, who denounced him as the "Assassin from the CIA'' and condemned the Reagan government for its savage aggression against El Salvador and its rabid, all-round preparations for imperialist war.

The rally against Bush and the reactionary policies of the Reagan regime began at the MIT Student Center. As the youth began to arrive the singing group of the Marxist-Leninist Party (Boston Branch) started up the spirited singing of a number of anti-imperialist songs. Hundreds of young people gathered 'round to listen and many joined in to sing the refrains like "We Say No! to Imperialist War!,'' and "Down With Bush and Reagan, Chieftains of Capitalist Reaction!"

After a while, various speakers began to address the rally. But the rally was cut short by the arrival of Bush down the street. Thousands of young people charged off the campus into Massachusetts Avenue hoping to confront Bush. The vice-president was forced to sneak into the building through a back door in order to avoid the demonstrators. Nevertheless, the youth and students remained out on the street cursing Bush and militantly shouting slogans like "No Draft, No War, U.S. Out of El Salvador!,'' "Down with Reagan, Down with Bush!,'' and "No to Imperialist War!" For several hours traffic was blocked on the avenue as the masses continued their spirited demonstration until they learned that Bush had snuck away.

Today, the officials of the Reagan regime are being given no peace. This is a good sign. The Reagan government represents a great danger, a real threat of deepening fascization and stepped-up preparations of imperialist aggression and war. It must be fought at every turn. The mass demonstrations that are haunting Reagan in the U.S. and around the world are the opening shots for greater class battles to come.

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Springboks rugby tour denounced in U.S. and New Zealand

World's people will never be reconciled to the racist apartheid system of South Africa

In late September, the Springboks Rugby Team of the racist regime of South Africa came to the United States with the approval of the Reagan administration. This was the final leg of their international tour which began in New Zealand in July. In that country, the Springboks tour was opposed by a huge mass movement involving tens of thousands of people. In fact, in many cases the masses were successful in preventing the games from being played. As a result of this mass opposition, the Springboks tour to New Zealand was a complete fiasco, and the people of that country thus demonstrated their fighting solidarity with the Azanian people oppressed by the racist South African regime.

Frightened by the prospect of similar mass opposition in the U.S., the sponsors of the Springboks tour in the U.S. tried to play the scheduled games away from the sight of the masses. Even so, the tour was met with a series of demonstrations wherever it went. When they arrived at Los Angeles airport at one o'clock in the morning they were met with a picket. On September 12, three hundred people marched against the tour in Chicago, near where one of the games was to be held. Unable to get a site to play in Chicago, they scheduled their September 19 game for Lake Geneva, Wisconsin but had to cancel it when protestors discovered the site and planned a demonstration. Finally, they literally snuck out to play at a stadium in Racine, Wisconsin; but even here a small demonstration took place when people found out what was going on. Two demonstrators were arrested for trying to disrupt the game here.

When the Springboks played in Albany, New York, 3,000 people took part in a vigorous demonstration against the rugby tour of the racist apartheid South African regime. A large police force was mobilized to intimidate the protestors and prevent the game from being disrupted. Nine people were arrested on that day. Finally, the Springboks were forced to play their third game in full secrecy on September 25 on an abandoned polo field in Glenville, New York.

The fact that two of the rugby games had to be played secretly and the third could only be played under massive police protection from a large demonstration shows the fear of the authorities and the racist tour organizers in the face of the mass movement in solidarity with the oppressed Azanian people. Indeed, this year's Springboks tour has only further demonstrated the great isolation of the apartheid regime from the working and progressive people throughout the world.

Below we reprint several items on the Springboks tour. The first is an excerpt from an article in The West Indian Voice, September-October, 1981, calling for opposition to the rugby tour. The second is an excerpt from the September 10, 1981 issue of the Chicago Anti-Imperialist Newsletter which, in a call for opposition to the racist tour, exposes the U.S. imperialist backing for the reactionary South African regime. We also include an item from the same issue of the newsletter which exposes the links between Israel and South Africa. Finally, we also reprint excerpts from a report on a New Zealand demonstration against the Springboks game in Hamilton, New Zealand on July 25. This is taken from an article by a worker correspondent in the August 3, 1981 issue of People's Voice, newspaper of the Communist Party of New Zealand.

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Denounce the Visit of the South African Racists!

[The West Indian Voice masthead.]

Towards the end of September, the Springboks Rugby Team of the racist regime of South Africa will visit the United States. They are scheduled to play a series of three matches in New York and Chicago as the final leg of an international tour that began in New Zealand. By bringing this team from the hated apartheid regime of South Africa to play in the U.S., the arrogant monopoly capitalist government is throwing a vile provocation and insult in the face of the working and oppressed masses in the U.S.

Indeed, everywhere this international tour went, it has been met with the fiery and widespread opposition of the working and all freedom-loving people.

In New Zealand, where the tour began, for example, mass protests and demonstrations were held in a number of cities both prior to and during their visits, in which fierce clashes took place between the demonstrators and the police. On August 15th, 6,000 demonstrators marched in Christ-church, the site of the first international match, shouting "Don't play rugby with a fascist state.'' In Auckland and Wellington large protest marches were also organized where the masses burnt both the New Zealand and South African flags to a frazzle. So fierce and widespread was the opposition of the working masses in New Zealand that the reactionary government there called out 2,000 police troops (nearly half of the country's active police force). But still the masses refused to back down; sacrificing wide-scale arrests, they forced the prime minister and his cabinet to "go underground,'' canceling several public appearances in order to escape the wrath of the people.

These anti-apartheid protests in New Zealand are a clear manifestation of the contempt with which working people all over the world hold the apartheid regime of South Africa, a regime which cruelly subjugates the Azanian people. The people of New Zealand regarded the visit of the South Africans as an insult and an utter condemnation of their own bourgeois rulers, and took to the streets to demonstrate their unyielding solidarity with the heroic struggles of their class brothers in Azania who, at this very moment, are sacrificing their martyrs and defying the prisons and dungeons of the racist regime to gain their freedom.

Meanwhile, U.S. government officials, in explaining their granting of visas to the 30-man South African team, have stated that "it was not U.S. policy to interfere in private sports exchanges between South African and American sporting bodies.'' So they are waxing with enthusiasm to lay the red carpet for this rugby team of apartheid, in order to throw mud in the face of the working people in the U.S. and excite the fascist cutthroat gangs, such as the KKK and nazis.

Of course this visit has nothing to do with mere "sports exchanges,'' but signifies a definite policy of the monopoly capitalist rulers to openly flaunt their approval and support for the apartheid system in South Africa. It comes quickly in the wake of the visit and talks between the U.S. representative to the UN, Jean Kirkpatrick, and two South African generals in March, and the "friendly talks'' between Reagan and the South African foreign minister in Washington in May.

This visit is yet another confirmation of the utterly corrupt nature of U.S. monopoly capitalism and the entire government of the rich....

For all of these reasons, already there is strong outrage against the coming tour. Some demonstrations and anti-apartheid rallies have already been held in New York, with the promise of more. Despite this, the city administration headed by that mouthpiece of rabid racist and fascist reaction, Democratic Party hero, Mayor Koch, has given the green light to the tour. At first, Koch boasted of his full approval; then he modified his position saying that they could play but not on city fields because it would cost too much money to protect them from the outrage of the masses. So if someone else pays, Koch will be more than delighted to protect them. Koch is shuffling his cards, doing a little election dance, since this is the mayoral election year. Because Koch is conscious that his capitalist political adversaries in the race would jump at any opportunity to capitalize on the chips.

All progressive persons should participate in any actions of a mass character called to protest the visit of the rugby team of racist South Africa, and utilize these actions to not only denounce South Africa, but to issue a stinging condemnation of the monopoly capitalist government and the capitalist ruling class of the U.S.

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Down with the US-Backed South African Regime!

[Chicago Anti-Imperialist Newsletter masthead.]

(The following article is excerpted from the Chicago Anti-Imperialist Newsletter, September 10, 1981.)

During the month of September the rugby team of racist South Africa will be visiting the U.S. The Reagan administration has granted the team visas to visit and play games in three cities.... This is an outrage against the working class and oppressed nationalities in the U.S. and all democratic and progressive people. The visit of the rugby team of racist South Africa deserves the protest of the masses of people and the denunciation of the racist and fascist regime of South Africa and one of its principal backers, racist and fascist U.S. imperialism.

South Africa is a racist and fascist regime which savagely subjugates the Azanian people under the racist system of apartheid. This system of apartheid that governs the country deprives the majority of the population, who are native black workers, of freedom of movement, land ownership, the right to organize, the right to education and even citizenship in the land of their birth. This segregationist system serves to cruelly exploit the workers and is enforced by a vast network of repressive laws and a powerfully equipped military and police force. Constant utilization of this repressive force is the order of the day in racist South Africa against the Azanian people who refuse to accept this situation and are valiantly waging a national liberation struggle to topple the racist regime. Besides subjugating the Azanian people, the brutal South African regime occupies the neighboring country of Namibia (South West Africa) where it is presently carrying out wholesale massacres of the people in attempts to wipe out their national liberation struggle. As well, the South African regime launches brutal attacks, carries out massacres and assassinations in the neighboring countries of Southern Africa. Presently it has launched a brutal invasion of Angola. All totaled, the South African regime is one of the most bestial, reactionary and contemptible regimes in the world....

The Reagan administration is seeking to break the isolation of the racist South African regime and to make them appear "respectable'' in the eyes of public opinion. This is not the first public support given to the South African racists by Reagan. Presently, the U.S. government is supporting and justifying the brutal South African invasion of Angola in which over 400 Angolan men, women and children were massacred. All along the Reagan administration has been working closely with the South African racists to suppress the national liberation struggle of the people of Namibia. In May 1981, the Reagan administration dined and courted the foreign minister of South Africa, Roelf Botha, at the White House. Prior to this the Reagan administration voted to seat the racist government at the United Nations in opposition to the vote of the majority of countries. And right after his election Reagan sent his advisors to confer with the South African regime. This policy on the part of the U.S. government, however, is not new. It represents the bipartisan policy of both the Republicans and Democrats. In 1978, the Carter administration also received the racist foreign minister Botha at the White House, and last year it was the Carter administration which secretly granted visas to rugby teams from racist South Africa to visit the U.S.

While the U.S. government engages in much demagogy about opposing the apartheid system in South Africa, its actions speak much louder than its words. They show that the real policy of the U.S. government is to support and assist the South African racists. Everyone knows that those who sit and dine with the racists, who hold discussions with them are racists themselves. In fact, this policy warms the hearts of the racist and fascist cutthroat gangs in the U.S. and encourages them in their attacks against the oppressed nationalities....

Besides this racist kinship for the South African regime, behind the support of the U.S. lies the interests of the system of imperialism. The U.S. imperialists have heavy economic, military and political interests in South Africa, which is their principal outpost in that region. South Africa is one of the main sources of gold, diamonds and rare metals which are crucial for the U.S. aerospace industry, missiles and other weapons. Since 1960, U.S. corporate investment in South Africa has grown from $286 million to more than $2 billion in 1980, making it the second largest foreign backer of the regime, after racist Britain. More than 300 U.S. companies directly operate there, participating in the brutal plunder and exploitation of the people. Recently, U.S. banks have bolstered the economy with over $2.2 billion in loans. South Africa also provides the U.S. with a reliable outpost to control the sea route between the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic, a vital link to the Persian Gulf oil profits so coveted by U.S imperialism. In fact, the South African regime has built one of the most modern naval installations in existence which it has openly proclaimed is ready and waiting for U.S. occupation. The South African regime also serves as an outpost for launching aggression against the African people in the region....

[Photo: Part of the MLP contingent in the march of 300 people to the South African Consulate in Chicago, September 12.]

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On the racist alliance between Israeli Zionism and South Africa

(The following article is reprinted from the Chicago Anti-Imperialist Newsletter, September 10, 1981.)

The racist regime of South Africa is one of the most notorious forces for racial and colonial oppression in the world. In the eyes of progressive people throughout the world, it represents and epitomizes one of the most barbaric forms of reaction. It is not surprising that one of its closest allies and supporters is the zionist state of Israel.

Economic, political and military links between Israel and South Africa have been maintained since the founding of the state of Israel. These links have steadily been increasing in recent years. Since the zionist war of aggression in 1967, the military links between the two regimes have grown closer and more cordial. Since 1967 the South African government has sent "volunteers'' to Israel to work in civilian and paramilitary capacities. High-level meetings to discuss joint military affairs have gone on continuously. When Shimon Peres, so-called socialist, was a member of the Golda Meir cabinet he held extensive discussions on military affairs with the South African defense minister, P.W. Botha. In September 1967, General Hod, commander of the Israeli air force, addressed a selected group of officers at the Air Force College in South Africa. Through these high-level military links Israel has served as a conduit for western military hardware and technical know-how for the racist South Africans. This has included cooperation on the development of nuclear weapons.

Economically, Israel has increased its trade steadily with the South African racists from $1.4 million in exports in 1961, to $4 million in 1967, up to $15 million in 1970.

The roots of the Israeli-South African relationship lie in their common economic, political and military interests of colonial oppression and as tools for U.S. imperialism. However, the racist reactionary kinship which these two states have in common is a further factor in their alliance.

The former prime minister of South Africa, Jan Christian Smuts, was not only a lifelong supporter of zionism but also a close personal friend of Dr. Chaim Weizmann. The attraction which Israel holds for the racist rulers of South Africa is based on the fact that zionism has much in common with apartheid. Former prime minister of South Africa, Hendrik F. Verwoerd, stated that the Zionists "took Israel from the Arabs after the Arabs had lived there for thousands of years. In that I agree with them. Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state.'' (Rand Daily Mail, November 21, 1961) South African government spokesmen have repeatedly hailed Israel as constituting, together with themselves, the only barrier to the taking over of Africa by "world communism,'' that is, the struggle of the African people against colonialism and neo-colonialism.

The zionists on their part have also praised the South African rulers. At the time of Verwoerd's death, the chief rabbi in South Africa said of him that "a moral conscience underlay his policies: he was the first man to give apartheid a moral ground.'' (Rand Daily Mail, September 12, 1966) In short, the official spokesmen for zionism are outright apologists for the racist system of apartheid.

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Mass Protest Stops Springboks' Game in New Zealand

[People's Voice masthead.]

(The following article is excerpted from People's Voice, newspaper of the Communist Party of New Zealand, August 3, 1981.)

An historic victory against apartheid was won in Hamilton on Saturday, July 25. The anti-tour united front broke through the forces of the state to strike a blow for freedom which will echo around the world. Defying police threats to go in boots and all, 500 militant demonstrators marched on Rugby Park at kick-off time. The front ranks tore down a section of the security fence and 500 poured on to the field before police reinforcements stemmed the tide.

The 500 demonstrators backed together and linked arms in mid-field before police riot squads could be deployed in attack formation. Confronted by this formidable human obstacle the riot squads were ordered to withdraw. The 80-minute occupation of Rugby Park had begun.

Outside the ground, and away from television cameras, the other demonstrators kept up the pressure. Time and time again demonstrators charged up the slopes towards police units blocking the hole in the security fence, only to be forced back by the boot and baton.

After the male members of her family had been injured, a young woman led three charges up the slope. A young worker, already badly knocked around by police batons, kept going back for more.

This united front spirit was shown by all the demonstrators outside the field who kept up the struggle until the moment of final victory -- even though, not being able to see what was happening inside the ground, they thought the crowd noise meant that their comrades had been arrested and the game started.

Midway through the 80-minute struggle, 1,000 demonstrators broke through the security fence on another side of Rugby Park and were halted only by police squads standing behind a barricade of truck and trailer units.

This new offensive forced the scaling down of police arrests inside the ground as police units were diverted to the truck and trailer barricades. The banging on the truck and trailer units reverberated right around the main grandstand.

Inside the ground, the demonstrators were still standing firm despite all the tactics of the police. They rejected all the "easy deals" offered by police officials (like sitting down and being arrested without struggle).

They did not fall for the lies (like being told the tour was off -- if only the Hamilton game could be played). They did not panic when the police said no protection could be guaranteed from pro-tour thugs.

When the police started arresting some of the 500 demonstrators, it took two, three, four and sometimes more cops to drag one demonstrator away from the tightly packed group.

All the time anti-apartheid slogans were being shouted to spectators and the ranks of the demonstrators remained firm....

At 3:20 p.m. the game was officially called off. As the demonstrators moved towards the park exit, scores of fascist thugs among the spectators threw bottles, cans, rocks, fists and boots. The main target seemed to be those least able to defend themselves -- women and young teenagers.

Some spectators, right throughout the 80-minute struggle, spontaneously battled these thugs. What else could they do when they saw their own family, friends and workmates among the demonstrators getting the stick from hooligans? Others publicly expressed their respect for the demonstrators, a sentiment shared by many of the spectators.

Out of the crowd of 28,000, very few joined the fascist terror campaign. Only a handful of the cops at Rugby Park were assigned to "protect" the demonstrators as they left the field -- so the demonstrators pulled together to protect each other.

A timber worker walked out guarding a young woman under each arm. Another local worker, carrying an injured woman, took a savage blow on his face which he could not block.

And a homeowner close to the park risked physical injury and property damage when he spontaneously threw his home open to injured demonstrators.

Finally, all the 500 demonstrators battled their way out of the park grounds and joined the main united front column for a mass march back into town before dispersing.

The thugs they left behind pelted press and television reporters with bottles and cans because they said without "publicity" there would not be an anti-tour movement. A rugby official ripped the copy out of one reporter's typewriter because he didn't like what was written!

All this, combined with the deliberate slanted distortions introduced by their editors, and the difficulties created by the police, must make some reporters question what sort of "freedom of speech" we have in this society.

Fascist thugs were organized for terrorist attacks on the homes and persons of anti-apartheid united front militants on Saturday and Sunday nights. Some have found it necessary to organize a roster of bodyguards for the protection of their families.

But no matter what the forces of reaction do, they cannot hold back the progress of mankind. When the workers become conscious of their role of the gravediggers of capitalism, all the evils of class oppression, such as apartheid, will be wiped out.

And the historic victory against racist sport at Hamilton is a great milestone on the way.

[Photo: Banner of the Communist Party of New Zealand, Waikato Branch, which was carried onto the rugby field by Party supporters who were among the 500 demonstrators who occupied the field in Hamilton and stopped the Springboks match, July 25.]

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U.S. aggression against El Salvador denounced during Duarte's visit

Jose Napoleon Duarte, head of the Salvadorian militarist junta, visited the U.S. for ten days at the end of September. The people denounced Duarte in vigorous demonstrations in San Francisco and New York, while Reagan and company conspired with him on how to step up the massacre of the Salvadorian people.

Duarte, the Christian Democratic window dressing at the head of the Salvadorian fascist regime, came to the U.S. to procure more supplies for the death squads in and out of uniform and to receive more political support from his U.S. imperialist patrons. The military regime is tottering in El Salvador, and Duarte came to consult on how to prop it up. He was received by Reagan in Washington and by other imperialist politicians. The bigwigs of the news media also put themselves at his service and gave him time on TV to spout his cynical justifications for the slaughter of the Salvadorian people.

However, because of the growing outrage of the people against U.S. aggression in El Salvador, the U.S. government tried hard to keep the Duarte visit as low-key as possible. Duarte himself, on the TV program "Face the Nation," pretended that what he wanted was mere economic assistance. However, as he himself admitted, this assistance was to include "radar, radios, trucks, helicopters, things we can move around and protect the country, protect the crops." In short, Duarte was asking for more and yet more military equipment, for up to $300 million for a small country like El Salvador. With this request, Duarte implicitly admitted the desperate situation facing the Salvadorian junta, which finds itself isolated and facing the wrath of the Salvadorian people.

The low-key approach was a flop. Every time Duarte dared show his face in public, which was but rarely, he was met with stern denunciation. Both in San Francisco on September 27 and when he went to the United Nations in New York on September 29, Duarte was met with mass protests. The demonstrators denounced his visit, condemned the atrocities of the U.S.-backed military junta and expressed their solidarity with the liberation struggle of the Salvadorian people.

Duarte Denounced in San Francisco

The demonstration in San Francisco was the largest of the mass actions. Duarte appeared at a banquet given in his honor by assorted reactionaries and a group of fascist commandos. Over 5,000 took part in the picket which surrounded the Jack Tar Hotel where the banquet was being held. Meanwhile, inside the hotel, a number of waiters refused to wait on Duarte while other workers refused to handle Duarte's telephone calls. As well, a dozen progressive people went into the banquet itself where they courageously denounced Duarte to his face. Police and secret agents scurried to Duarte's defense, dragged the activists out of the banquet, and arrested several of them.

The demonstration outside the hotel was spirited. The contingent of the San Francisco Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party participated vigorously with banners and militant slogans. Many demonstrators took up the anti-imperialist slogans raised by the Party contingent, shouting "U.S. imperialism, get out of El Salvador!" and "Victory to the Salvadorian people! "

The government authorities resorted to repression against the demonstration. The San Francisco city authorities, in this city ruled by liberal Democratic mayor Diane Feinstein, were in a frenzy to prevent the slightest embarrassment to Reagan's imperialist foreign policy and to chief Salvadorian hatchet man Duarte. Over 100 police, on foot, on motorcycles, in cars and on horseback, were mobilized from the riot and tactical squads and outfitted in full gear.

As well, a small group of 20 reactionary provocateurs from the Moonies came out to support Duarte and U.S. aggression against El Salvador. The Moonies stationed themselves in front of the hotel right where the center of the demonstration was to have been. Protected by the police, the Moonies were allowed to keep this position. The demonstrators boiled with anger at the various provocations of the Moonies. Denouncing the Moonies for being creatures of the secret police agencies, the demonstrators shouted "Moonies are CIA." At one point, a number of demonstrators got into a good position and pelted the Moonies with eggs.

The police launched repeated attacks on the demonstrators. Itching for a fight, the police marched right up to the picket line and snatched away placards and banners from the demonstrators. Later, after the demonstration had wound down and most of the activists had left, the police saw their chance. They launched a brutal charge against the remaining demonstrators. Riding through the people on horseback, they swung their sticks wildly against demonstrators and bystanders.

Trickery of the Democratic Party

The imperialists went all-out to suppress the protests against Duarte. Besides their violent attacks on the demonstration in San Francisco, they also used political deception. Their tool for this deception is centered on the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is in favor of U.S. domination and intervention in El Salvador, but it wishes to put a Carterite "human rights" mask on the military junta. According to Kennedy and other Democratic Party bigwigs, the problem is not U.S. imperialism, but to restore moderation and reason to the butchers and hangmen of the Salvadorian people. In this way, the Democratic Party hopes to deflect the anger of the people against U.S. aggression in El Salvador and divert this anger into concocting schemes to help the Salvadorian junta.

This was clearly shown during Duarte's visit. The Democratic Party bigwigs did not want to denounce Duarte, but to find ways to support him. Hence on September 24, during Duarte's visit, the Democratic Party, with the help of various Republicans, passed a bill providing for aid for the Salvadorian militarists. But the bill specified that, as a condition for this aid, reactionary chieftain Ronald Reagan should have to certify, twice a year, that the Salvadorian junta was moving to end "indiscriminate torture and murder, ' ' and was carrying out reforms. (Washington Post, September 25, 1981, p. A5) The problem, according to the Senate, was not that the military junta was massacring people right and lift in order to stay in power, oh no, but that the allegedly well-intentioned men of the fascist junta couldn't control the death squads under their command.

What a fraud! Why the Salvadorian military men themselves had placed the Christian Democrat Duarte at their head precisely in order to have a mask of meaningless words of reform to cover their atrocities, their beheadings, their wild shootings of the workers, peasants and students. And the Democratic Party finds the solution in requiring Ronald Reagan, of all people, to give the Salvadorian junta a certificate of good behavior every six months! This is what the Democratic Party calls a fight against Reagan! This is what they advise the people to accept as the substitute for the fight against imperialism! Clearly this is nothing but a bill to continue U.S. aggression in El Salvador, but to ensure that the slaughter is done on behalf of "a government down there that we can support," as Senator Charles Percy (R-Dl.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, declared in support of this bill. (Ibid.)

But neither the repression of the police nor the tricks of the Democratic Party can prevent the development of the anti-imperialist movement. The vigorous demonstrations against Duarte's visit show the burning anger of the people against the U.S. intervention in El Salvador.

Victory to the Salvadorian people!

Death to U.S. imperialism!

[Photo: A section of the mass picket of 5,000 people which surrounded the Jack Tar Hotel in San Francisco where Duarte was attending a banquet, September 27.]

[Photo: After a series of provocations against the anti-Duarte picket in San Francisco, the police launched a vicious attack on the demonstrators and bystanders.]

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On the mass actions against Diablo Canyon nuclear plant:

Denounce the attacks on the anti-nuclear movement!

[Photo: Demonstrators climb over the fence at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, Sept. 15]

(The following is based on a leaflet issued by the San Francisco Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA on October 23, 1981.)

In the last month, over 20,000 people have actively participated in mass actions opposing and denouncing the starting up of low power testing at Pacific Gas and Electric's (PG&E) Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. In San Luis Obispo, where Diablo Canyon is located, as many as 5,000 anti-nuclear activists participated in the blockade against the plant. As well, the local community turned out in force, some 5,000 strong on two separate occasions, to demonstrate against Diablo Canyon. All throughout California rallies and demonstrations took place. In Berkeley a rally in front of the PG&E offices turned into a mass march of 1,500 as the activists spontaneously took to the streets. In Los Angeles too, hundreds rallied against Diablo. These recent events show that opposition to Diablo Canyon and to the U.S. nuclear program is widespread among the people.

U.S. imperialism Will Use Everything in Its Power to Suppress the Anti-Nuclear Movement

The capitalists are intensely committed to their nuclear energy program for it is an integral part of their war preparations and wild profiteering. For instance, bringing Diablo Canyon on line not only ensures a 30% increase in PG&E's yearly profits, but also furnishes a "secure" source of electricity for the two key centers of California's high-technology war industry -- the Silicon valley electronics and Los Angeles Basin aerospace complexes. On top of that, it will free up huge amounts of liquid fuels for bombers and tanks while producing plutonium to feed Reagan's escalating nuclear weapons program. For these reasons the capitalists will go to great lengths to suppress the anti-nuclear movement.

This was clearly illustrated when PG&E and the government turned the area around Diablo Canyon into an armed camp last month. More than 1,000 police and National Guard took up positions around the plant, bringing with them scores of helicopters and other military vehicles. PG&E itself hired an extra 200 Pinkertons to augment its 100-man special armed guard, while at least several thousand police and other soldiers were kept on standby throughout California.

Long before the action itself came threats of long jail terms and heavy fines for demonstrators. As well, the capitalist media conveyed threats of shootings with its cynical promotion of PG&E's special Diablo Canyon firing range where human-like silhouettes were used for targets. During the blockade the fascist thugs of the government arrested nearly 2,000 activists, beat many of them, and generally used every opportunity to threaten, harass and rough them up. In one case a California Highway Patrol fascist threatened to kill a number of activists, chambering a round of his shotgun and aiming it at them.

The "Left Wing" of the Democratic Party Is Out to Liquidate the Anti-Nuclear Movement

Along with these open fascist methods of suppression the capitalists also use their weapon of deception -- the "left wing'' of the Democratic Party. These two-faced flunkeys pose as opponents of Diablo Canyon and the U.S. nuclear energy program in order to promote the politics of the Democratic Party among the activists. They work to destroy the militant, oppositional character of the anti-nuclear movement and to tie it to the state through legalism, thus rendering the struggle impotent in an underhanded way. For instance, Governor Brown swears up and down that he is opposed to Diablo Canyon and "will fight it every step of the way,'' etc., etc. But what has this meant? Nothing but promotion that the anti-nuclear activists need not wage mass struggle against the nuclear program of U.S. imperialism. Oh no! Just rely on Democratic Party politicians like himself. Just rely on legal pleadings to the courts and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). It makes no difference that the NRC was set up in the first place solely to develop confidence in the nuclear program of U.S. imperialism and not to safeguard the people. It makes no difference that an NRC staff memo states that no safety problem will be allowed to interfere with the licensing of Diablo Canyon because of the impact on ' 'the viability of continued operation of plants at other sites," " because of the large financial loss involved and the severe impact such an action would have on the nuclear industry." In fact the only thing that really matters to Governor Brown, and other such lackeys of the rich, is that the anti-nuclear movement be dissipated, either by pursuing endless legal proceedings or through the use of the National Guard and California Highway Patrol which this "anti-nuke" governor himself called out to crush the blockade.

Governor Brown and other politicians of the rich are not the only ones peddling Democratic Party politics. There are also the political friends of Brown who use their position right inside the movement to push the very same politics. For instance, at Diablo Canyon the friends of Brown revealed their opposition to developing the mass struggle by strenuously objecting to mass participation.

This they did by excluding all activists who had not gone through lengthy training courses in pacifism. It was not enough that the activists wanted to fight against Diablo and the nuclear energy program of U.S. imperialism -- oh no! They had also to meet the arbitrary "standards" of these friends of Brown or be excluded. In fact many activists were told outright to stay away from the area. This limited participation at a time when thousands upon thousands of activists wanted to take part in the fight against Diablo.

As well, the true stand of the friends of Brown is shown by their opposition to a West Coast-wide call for a mass action at Diablo in conjunction with the blockade. It is clear from the 5,000- strong demonstration of San Luis Obispo residents, called on short notice, that a wider call would have resulted in a very powerful mass action. And indeed, this would have been a real encouragement for the overall fight against the U.S. imperialist nuclear energy program. But this is not what the Democratic Party or its friends want.

The friends of Brown also promoted the Democratic Party politics of collaboration and cooperation with the capitalists and their state, thus weakening the blockade by stifling the fighting spirit of the activists. Despite the fact that PG&E and the police.were clearly out to crush the blockade and set back the anti-nuclear movement, this in no way stopped the friends of Brown from finding ways to praise them and encourage cooperation with them. In general they did their best to promote to the activists that these enemies of the anti-nuclear movement could be "reasonable" or even "friends." And of course, against "reasonable" and "friendly" enemies, there is no need to build a fighting mass movement. Quite the contrary, all that is necessary is to present convincing arguments in a "reasonable" or "exemplary" manner!

These treacherous politics were aimed at disarming the activists and disorganizing their struggles. Their effect is not only to leave the activists defenseless in the face of the police and PG&E goons, but also to prevent them from carrying out a militant and persistent mass struggle against the nuclear energy program of U.S. imperialism.

These flunkeys of the Democratic Party are old hands at trying to tone down the movement and wipe it out. It is no secret that they have long been calling for the abolition of militant and popular slogans such as those demanding the complete liquidation of the nuclear program. It is "wrong," they say, to be anti-nuclear, to say nothing of anti-imperialist. One must be "positive." What they mean by "positive" boils down to joining with the monopolies in a patriotic crusade to "solve the energy crisis" through higher oil prices and reindustrialization tax breaks to "conserve energy" and help the capitalists develop "alternative energy sources." So while the Democratic Party as a whole follows the Carterite energy policy of promoting nuclear energy and higher oil prices under the slogans of "conservation" and "alternative energy," the "left wing" of the Democratic Party tries to convince the masses that "conservation" and "alternative energy" is the answer to nuclear energy.

Clearly, those who promote the politics of the Democratic Party are not fighting against U.S. imperialism's nuclear energy program, but rather are opposing the development of the fighting strength of the anti-nuclear movement.

Putting Opposition to Imperialism at the Center of the Struggle and Waging Mass Revolutionary Struggle Is the Path Forward for the Anti-Nuclear Movement

Despite the fascist suppression and intimidation by the state as well as the treachery of the "left wing" of the Democratic Party, thousands of anti- nuclear activists participated in rallies, demonstrations and the blockade. Their participation has greatly increased their consciousness of the real nature of the barbarous nuclear program and, furthermore, has politicized them against the imperialist system itself. They have seen firsthand that the monopoly capitalist class is totally committed to the nuclear energy program and will use everything in its power to carry it through -- its state apparatus, armed troops, police, courts and jails, as well as its political hacks like Governor Brown and his friends. From this, they begin to understand that the nuclear program is not a temporary aberration or a mistake, not something that can be corrected by appealing to the mythical goodwill or benevolence of the energy industry or the government. Rather, the nuclear program is an integral part of the entire economic and political system of imperialism, from its wild profiteering and designs for world domination to its present war preparations. The correctness of putting opposition to imperialism at the center of the anti-nuclear movement is becoming clearer to many activists. They have also gained valuable experience with how the "left wing" of the Democratic Party tries to liquidate the mass movement by stifling the mass participation and fighting capacity of the people. From this they begin to see that to develop the mass struggle, to draw wide participation from the people, and to develop the militancy of the movement, the treachery of the Democratic Party flunkeys must be opposed every inch of the way.

Putting opposition to imperialism at the center of the struggle and waging mass revolutionary struggle is the path forward for the anti-nuclear movement.

Fight the war preparations of U.S. imperialism!

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Reagan's New Military Spending Proposals:

No to the Nuclear Warmongers!

The Reagan administration is massively building up the nuclear weapons arsenal of U.S. imperialism.

In early August, it was decided to go ahead with the production of the neutron bomb, the bomb which "only" kills people but leaves property intact. The bomb's components, built under the Carter administration, will be assembled and stockpiled in the United States, although nearly 1,200 of these bombs are to be eventually deployed in Western Europe.

On October 2, Reagan announced plans for a monstrous $180.3 billion program to strengthen the U.S. strategic nuclear forces. This program calls for the construction of 100 MX missiles and 100 B-l bombers. The first 36 missiles are scheduled to be put into presently existing Titan missile silos. Meanwhile, the Reagan administration is exploring other plans for deploying the remaining missiles, including having them flying around the skies aboard aircraft. In addition to the B-l bomber, research and development for the more advanced Stealth bomber is to be pressed forward. Reagan's plan also calls for building more Trident-2 submarines equipped with cruise missiles, six more AWAC's reconnaissance planes, five more F-15 fighter squadrons and research for equipping anti-missile laser weapons on spaceships. Of particular note in these plans is the "Strategic C3" command network which assists the U.S. imperialist warmongers to wage "protracted' ' nuclear war.

These weapons are not for "defense" but for furthering U.S. imperialism's quest for world domination. U.S. imperialism wants to suppress the revolutionary struggles of the working masses in its neo-colonial empire. The U.S. capitalist billionaires are also trying to defeat their chief rival for world domination, Soviet social-imperialism, in a battle for markets, sources of raw materials and areas of profitable investment. Thus, U.S. imperialism is preparing for war. It is preparing to slaughter the working masses in the U.S. and worldwide to protect the profits of the billionaires. As Comrade Stalin pointed out in 1928: "The bourgeois states are furiously arming and rearming. What for? Not for friendly chats, of course, but for war."

Reagan Is Openly Preparing for Nuclear War

The bloodthirsty plans of U.S. imperialism can be seen in their plans to deploy the neutron bomb among their imperialist NATO allies in Western Europe. U.S. imperialism is drooling at the prospects of using their neutron weapons because, while they are much deadlier to troops and civilians than the weapons they replace, they do relatively less damage to capitalist property. On October 14, war dog Reagan frankly admitted his enthusiasm for a nuclear war in Europe. According to Reagan: "You could have the exchange of tactical [nuclear -- ed.] weapons against troops in the field without it bringing one of the major powers to pushing the button." How humane! Thanks to the constant perfection of the nuclear armaments, Reagan claims that it is now possible to "merely" slaughter the working masses of Europe as well as the American and Soviet youth press-ganged into the armed forces, while delaying until tomorrow the decision for all-out war. With this statement, Reagan is speculating out loud that destroying Europe is just fine if it advances the aims of U.S. imperialism. Of course such a "limited" war in Europe tremendously escalates the chances for an even bigger nuclear war. Reagan's speculation on the limited use of tactical nuclear weapons is a dangerous game which threatens not only Europe, but the world with a major nuclear bloodbath. The huge demonstrations that have swept Western Europe are an expression of the outrage of the masses of that region against these criminal plans.

The Reagan administration is not preparing just for "limited" wars in Europe. They are also preparing for bigger wars, and in particular for an inter-imperialist bloodbath between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. This can be seen in the plans for the "Strategic C3" command network. The avowed purpose of this $18 billion program is to enable a nuclear war to be conducted for several months after the U.S. and Soviet Union fire missiles on each other. For many years, U.S. imperialism justified its nuclear weapons buildup under the hoax that if they and the Soviet social-imperialists had the capability to destroy each other, this would act as a "deterrent" to war. This imperialist fraud was appropriately named the "MAD" (mutually assured destruction) theory. But today, with such programs as the "Strategic C3," the Reagan government is flaunting the fact that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is built up not as a "deterrent" to war, but to make a nuclear war "winnable" for the U.S. imperialists.

The War Preparations Mean Big Profits for the Capitalists and Starvation for the Masses

The massive nuclear weapons buildup also means fantastic profits for the weapons manufacturers such as Rockwell International, Lockheed, Boeing, Northrup and General Electric. The research and development alone on the Stealth bomber, for which Northrup is the prime contractor, is estimated to be worth $9-10 billion. A particular boondoggle for the armaments capitalists is the B-l bomber. The government will fork over $200 million for each of these planes.

Besides this, the Reagan government is presently drawing up plans to put industry more on a war footing. This plan includes a proposal for tax breaks to assist the modernization of the weapons-related industries. As well, Weinberger is talking of creating a contingency program so that in the event of war as much as one-half of the gross national product could be converted into war production.

While the capitalists are reaping a fortune, the working masses are being bled white with increasing taxes and cuts in services in order to finance the ever-growing war machine. Starving the masses to feed the bloated military is the essence of Reagan's promise of "reducing big government."

The Democratic Party "Opposition" Is Trying to Out-Warmonger Reagan

The war plans of the rabid jingoist Reagan are a continuation of the program pushed forward by the "human rights" "peacenik" Carter. In April 1978, The Workers' Advocate pointed out that Carter's "postponement" of the neutron bomb was a ruse and that the military was in fact adapting its artillery in Europe to allow neutron bombs to be fitted to them. It was the Carter administration that developed the prototype for the B-l bomber. Under Carter's reign the plans for the MX missile were perfected. And Reagan's "Strategic C3" is merely the implementation of Carter's own plan contained in his Presidential Directive 59.

Today the Democrats are continuing to prove that they are virulent imperialist warmongers. They are currently trying to out-warmonger Reagan. They are criticizing Reagan's plan for the MX and B-l not because they are weapons of mass slaughter, but because they are allegedly not effective enough. For example, Harold Brown, Carter's Secretary of Defense, is complaining that Reagan's MX plan is "not much" and "does nothing to solve the vulnerability problem." Instead he favors the infamous Carter MX plan which called for twice the number of missiles as the Reagan plan and for "shuffling" the missiles among thousands of newly constructed silos. Similarly, the Democrats are criticizing the decision to mass produce the B-l bomber because they favor pouring more money into the Stealth bomber. Meanwhile Kennedy, the darling of the liberal Democrats, has demonstrated his support for Reagan's plans by voting for Reagan's war budget. Kennedy is also in the front lines of the warmongering chorus which is fretting over the "vulnerability" of U.S. imperialism's arsenal of mass murder. Thus, the Democratic Party "opposition" to Reagan is simply over the best way to drown the working masses in blood.

Wage Mass Revolutionary Struggle Against Reagan's War Preparations

The recent decisions on the neutron bomb, the MX missile, the B-l bomber, etc., are a dangerous escalation of the frantic war preparations of U.S. imperialism. The Reagan administration must not be given a free hand to carry out its plans for war. Every step towards war should be met by mass struggle.

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Reagan administration steadily marching to bring back the draft

(The following article is reprinted from The Buffalo Anti-Imperialist Newsletter, newspaper of the Union of Anti-Imperialist Students, August 25, 1981.)

In January 1980, when Carter announced plans to reintroduce the military draft, this was met with massive opposition all across the country. When the actual plans were set in motion and registration for the draft began in July of 1980 and January 1981, demonstrations were organized in all major cities calling for an end to draft registration. Since that time, the movement against U.S. imperialist war preparations has continued to grow.

In an attempt to escape the militant and powerful opposition of the masses of the American people, the Reagan administration is maintaining a low profile on the question of the draft. Secretary of State Casper Weinberger has made it clear that the U.S. government is afraid of the opposition of the masses, stating that President Reagan believes that resuming the draft would lead to public unrest comparable to that in the 60's and 70's. Meanwhile however, the Reagan administration is steadily marching to bring back the draft, as a number of recent developments clearly show:

1) On July 20, the Selective Service Administration with the approval of the Reagan administration, asked the Justice Department to begin prosecution of those 18-20 year olds who refused to register for the draft.

2) In June, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution permitted Congress to limit draft registration to men alone. While this in no way precludes the possibility of drafting women should the U.S. imperialist military machine require them as cannon fodder in its preparations for war, the decision does clear away this "legal" obstacle in the reintroduction of the draft.

3) The General Accounting Office, a Congressional investigative agency, has made public an analysis detailing the shortcomings of the all-volunteer force, recommending that a resumption of the draft be considered. In addition, the Army has told Weinberger in a secret report, Program Objective Memorandum, that it doubts President Reagan's military strategy can be carried out under the "all-volunteer concept," and suggesting that a draft may be required. Many senior military officers, including Admiral Thomas B. Hayward, Chief of Naval Operations, have come out publicly in favor of resumption of the draft. And finally, Reagan himself has appointed a commission headed by Casper Weinberger to review all aspects of the military manpower issue, including a possible draft.

Simultaneous with these developments, the volunteer armed forces are being strengthened -- pay increases have been voted in by Congress, the GI Bill reactivated, and further improvements in benefits have been recommended by Reagan. This is being done with the aim of creating a strong caste of "professional soldiers" to serve as non-commissioned officers, a necessary prerequisite to a mandatory military draft. Also with this same aim, the reactivation of ROTC is being promoted and attempted at universities across the country, including here in the Buffalo area.

These steps towards reintroduction of the military draft on the part of the Reagan administration coincide with its steady increase in the all-round preparations for war, highlighted by his recent approval of full-scale production of the neutron bomb. The war preparations of U.S. imperialism have the sole aim of launching wars of aggression and conquest -- wars against their main rival for world domination, Soviet social-imperialism, and against the just struggles being waged by the peoples against imperialist domination, such as in El Salvador. Reagan is carrying out the preparations to bring back the draft very quietly, but surely. These moves must be exposed to the light of day and the movement against the draft must be further built and strengthened. The fight against the draft should be combined with the fight against every step being taken by U.S. imperialism towards reactionary and aggressive war.

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1st National Conference of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA

[Portraits and Graphic.]

The First National Conference of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA was held in summer 1981.

Every so often a fighting party pauses to assess its work in the light of new developments and to check its judgements. The year and one-half since the founding of the Marxist-Leninist Party on January 1, 1980 has been a time of vigorous struggle and intense work. In this short time, the MLP has already established itself among the masses as the rallying point for the forces of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism. It has proudly continued the revolutionary traditions of its predecessors, the American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist) and the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists, and has carried the Party's banner in the front ranks of the class struggle. Moreover, this one and one-half years since the Founding Congress have not only been a period of concentrated activity for the Party, but have also seen several new political developments of first-class significance for the working class and the Marxist-Leninists.

The role of the First National Conference was to consider the new developments. The Conference was attended by all militants working under the discipline of the MLP. Held under the fighting slogans "BUILD THE INDEPENDENT MOVEMENT OF THE WORKING CLASS!" and "FOR THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY, AGAINST LIQUIDATIONISM AND SOCIAL-DEMOCRACYI," the Conference concentrated its attention on the four following areas:

First, the Conference assessed the current national political situation. It discussed the significance of the inauguration of Reagan as the chieftain of capitalist reaction. The installation of the Reagan administration as the hatchetmen for the monopoly capitalist dictators is another sign of the savage capitalist offensive and the dangerous reaction in the U.S. At the same time, it is a sign of the desperation of the bourgeoisie and of the deepening all-round crisis facing capitalism.

As well, the Conference discussed how the current political situation affected the efforts of the Democratic Party, the main capitalist party for deceiving the workers and the oppressed nationalities, to latch hold of the mass movements. In fact, the Reaganite program is the joint program of the two big parties of capitalist reaction, the Democrats and the Republicans. The Republican Reagan administration is following in the footsteps of the Democratic Carter administration. Nevertheless, the "left wing" of the Democratic Party and the social-democrats are seeking to undermine the mass struggle against Reaganite reaction by tying the working masses to the Democratic Party. This lends added importance to the stand of the MLP to "Build the Independent Movement of the Working Class." Under this slogan, the MLP not only encourages the mass struggle against capitalist reaction, but strives to direct it onto the path of splitting with all the capitalist parties, the Democratic Party as well as the Republican Party.

Second, the Conference assessed the pace of work of the Party since the Founding Congress and discussed the outstanding questions of party-building.

The last year and one-half has seen a tremendous development of the Party's work. Vigorous and sustained political agitation has been maintained on the mass fronts, major advances have been made in strengthening the theoretical foundations of the Party, the struggle against opportunism and revisionism has been kept at a high level, and so forth. It is also notable that, despite the setback to the strike movement since the defeat of the auto workers in the "concession" battles of late 1979 and despite layoffs and plant closings, the Party continued to make steady progress in entrenching itself at the factories.

This intense work of the Party is vivid testimony to the strength and vigor of the Party organizations at all levels, to the clarity of the Party's orientation and to the self-sacrificing spirit of the militants of the Party. It also brings up new problems in building the Party. Party-building remains a decisive activity not just in founding a party, but in the day-to-day work and struggle of a Marxist-Leninist party. The Conference discussed current problems in the internal life of the Party, the new developments in the building of anti-imperialist mass organizations, and the steady development of party organization at the factories.

Third, the Conference assessed the significance of the emergence of liquidationism as the main feature characterizing the revisionist circles in the U.S. today.

The Founding Congress of the MLP had already raised a warning against the increasing activation of social-democracy by the bourgeoisie and called for stepping up a relentless struggle against social-democracy. As well, the Congress had pointed to the significance of the fact that the "three worlders" and followers of Chinese revisionism were merging with social-democracy.

Later, at the start of 1981, The Workers' Advocate warned that out-and-out liquidationism had become the central feature of revisionist treachery in the U.S. Renegacy and merger with social-democracy are basic features of this liquidationism. Today the struggle against liquidationism has come to the fore of the struggle against the domestic revisionist circles, including both the followers of Soviet and of Chinese revisionism, much as the struggle against social-chauvinism was the cutting edge of the struggle against the followers of Chinese revisionism in the 1976-1980 period. A fight must be waged on two fronts, both against social-democracy and against the revisionist and trotskyite liquidators who advocate and practice merger with social- democracy.

The Conference denounced liquidationism as the mortal enemy of Marxism-Leninism and the revolutionary movement. It approved the assessment of liquidationism elaborated in The Workers' Advocatein such articles as "The Advance of the Revolutionary Movement Requires a Stern Struggle Against Social-Democracy and Liquidationism."

Fourth, the Conference assessed and condemned the war being waged by the leadership of the Communist Party of Canada (M-L) against the MLP,USA.

The leadership of CPC(M-L) had treacherously broken off relations with the COUSML, predecessor of our Party, on December 5,1979, less than a month before the founding of the MLP,USA. Since December 5, 1979, the leadership of CPC(M-L) has gone all out to strangle our Party.

The Conference condemned this wrecking activity of the leadership of CPC(M-L) and considered that it resulted from their grave Maoist and liquidationist deviations. The Conference held that the work of fighting this wrecking activity has been essential in safeguarding the integrity of the MLP, strengthening the theoretical foundations of the Party, and defending the interests of world revolutionary Marxism-Leninism against the international factional activities of the leadership of CPC(M-L).

The unanimous condemnation at the Conference of the deviationist activity of the leadership of CPC(M-L) is another sign of the total fiasco that they have suffered in their attempts to overthrow the leadership of the MLP and set up an anti-party network in the U.S.

Besides the four main points listed above, the Conference also discussed such topics as the situation in the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement; some questions of tactics in the fight against social-democracy including the question of social-democracy in the black people's movement; some questions concerning work in the reactionary trade unions and trade union elections; and the role of domestic Trotskyism as little helpers of the pro-Soviet revisionists.

The Conference after reviewing the new developments of the past year and one-half, stressed that these developments showed the correctness of the line of the Founding Congress of the MLP. It held that the task was to march firmly along the path laid down at this Congress.

The Conference was marked by its militant spirit and its steel-like unanimity on all the major questions. Also notable were the enthusiasm of the participants, the high level of participation in the discussions and the increase in the ideological level of the militants of the Party during the last period.

It was a historic Conference. Held in the face of the crusade of the liquidators against revolutionary Marxism- Leninism, held despite the savage wrecking work of the leadership of CPC(M-L) against the MLP, and held in defiance of the capitalist offensive, the Conference was a resounding affirmation of the theory and practice of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism. It was the Conference of a monolithic Party, a Party determined to march forward a- long the path of socialist revolution and communism.

BUILD THE INDEPENDENT MOVEMENT OF THE WORKING CLASS!

FOR THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY, AGAINST LIQUIDATIONISM AND SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY!

HAIL THE FIRST NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE MLP,USA!

--Editorial of The Workers' Advocate

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Resolutions

The following resolutions were unanimously approved by the First National Conference of the MLP,USA.

Uphold the Line of the Founding Congress

The First National Conference of the MLP,USA firmly upholds the stand of the Founding Congress of the MLP, USA and holds that the orientations from the Congress have proven to be more necessary than ever in the light of the new developments since January 1, 1980. The Conference expresses its satisfaction that the line of the Founding Congress has been resolutely implemented in the work of the Party.

The Conference notes the important role played by the Communique of the Founding Congress of the MLP, USA and the General Rules, which correctly set forth the line of the Founding Congress....

On the Current Political Situation

The First National Conference of the MLP,USA denounces the barbarous Reagan regime as the butchers delegated by the monopoly capitalists to carry out their savage offensive of starvation, fascism and war. In its short period in office, the Reagan regime has already made itself the symbol of reaction, warmongering, racism and capitalist slave-driving in the eyes of the working masses. This regime has already proved itself to be a regime of open warmongering, brinkmanship and the big stick around the world, a regime whose answer to every question is more bombs, more bloodletting and more support to the reactionaries and fascists around the world, a regime which personifies the U.S. imperialist hangman. This regime has already proved itself to be a regime of the savage capitalist program of "revitalization" of industry, of brutal productivity drives, wage cuts and layoffs, of flagrant strikebreaking and of cutbacks in social benefits and an all-out war on the poverty-stricken, a regime of driving the masses to the wall. This regime has already proved itself to be a regime of casehardened racists, dedicated to terrorizing the oppressed nationalities and to unleashing the most savage attacks upon them.

The installation of this regime is another sign of the increasing danger that reaction and fascism pose to the working masses, a sign of the deepening process of fascization. The ferment among the masses is growing, and the capitalists are preparing to crush them with prisons, police, and storm troopers. At the same time, the installation of the Reagan regime is another sign of the increasing desperation of the monopoly capitalists and of the deepening crisis besetting capitalism. The masses are stirring and a deep outrage is developing. Great class battles are on the agenda in the 1980's.

The First National Conference also stresses that the fascist policy of the Reagan regime is nothing but the bipartisan policy of monopoly capital. The Republican Reagan regime is carrying out the program set by the Democratic Carter regime before it, a regime which imposed the fascist Taft-Hartley act against the coal miners, which instituted wage controls and the program of "reindustrialization" and "revitalization" of capitalism, which championed an energy policy of squeezing the whole country for the benefit of the oil billionaires, which escalated military spending to record levels and began registration for military conscription, which fostered the development of racist and fascist gangs, which carried forward the enslaving and neo-colonialist aims of U.S. imperialism through its hypocritical "human rights" policy, and so forth. Furthermore, today the Democratic Party is falling all over itself in its rush to support the Reaganites and to prove itself ready to militarize just as much if not more than the Reaganites, to give just as much if not more tax breaks to the rich, to use the lash against the masses just as much if not more than the Reaganites, and so forth.

The Conference observes with contempt that despite the Reaganite nature of the Democratic Party, nevertheless the bourgeoisie and its servile servants, the "left wing" of the Democratic Party, are going all-out to present the Democratic Party as the alternative to Reaganism. The social-democrats are being activated more and more by the bourgeoisie to divert and clamp down on the mass disgust with the capitalist parties. The social-democrats, liquidators, labor bureaucrats and the "respectable" traitors to the oppressed nationalities are falling all over themselves to adapt their programs to the reactionary drive of the monopoly capitalists, and they are being drawn further and further to the right by the Reaganite reaction. This situation lends even more importance to the stand of the Marxist-Leninist Party to "Build the Independent Political Movement of the Working Class," the stand of orienting the mass struggle onto the path of breaking with all the capitalist parties and particularly with the two big parties of capitalist reaction, the Democratic and Republican Parties, and of fostering the development of the independent class stand of the proletariat.

The situation of a threatening reaction and of imminent class battles lends even more urgency to the rallying of the working class around its own class party, the Marxist-Leninist Party, and for the resolute upholding of the tasks of party-building. Only the proletarian party is capable of guiding the working class through all the twists and turns of the struggle against the bourgeoisie. The building of the genuine communist party is the core of the building of the independent political movement of the working class; it is the central driving motor necessary for the success of the whole movement.

The Conference also discussed the program of building the independent movement of the working class as the orientation and guide for unfolding the method of approach to the masses, the tactics to bring them step-by-step to revolutionary positions. New upsurges in the revolutionary movement among the oppressed masses are imminent. The development of the anti-imperialist movement, the great tension preceding an inevitable new upsurge in the struggle against racial discrimination and all forms of national oppression, and the great movements inevitable among the working masses against the dramatically worsening economic conditions, all point to the great class collisions lying ahead. The development of the forms of approach to the masses is inseparable from the historic task of the proletarian party to guide and orient the revolutionary struggle of the working masses. The present political situation requires the Party to tread forward firmly along the line laid down at the Founding Congress. The bourgeoisie has thrown down its challenge to the masses -- it is up to the toiling masses to give their reply.

Against Liquidationism and Merger with Social-Democracy

The First National Conference of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA reviewed the new developments in the struggle against revisionism and opportunism. Today all the various currents of revisionism in the U.S. are in positions of out-and-out liquidationism. This includes the followers of Chinese revisionism, for whom liquidationism is the culmination of the bankruptcy of U.S. neo-revisionism, and the various followers of Soviet revisionism, including the "C"PUSA who have been liquidators for decades. The liquidators are renouncing the very idea of the party and of the independent class organization of the proletariat; they are actively spreading an atmosphere of abject renegacy; and they are advocating and putting into effect a policy of merger and fusion with social-democracy, the soldout labor bureaucracy and the entire liberal-labor marsh centered on the Democratic Party. This Browderite liquidationist crusade arises at this time owing to a number of factors, some of which are the utter fiasco of Chinese revisionism and Maoism; the capitulation of the opportunists to the savage capitalist offensive; and the increasing use the bourgeoisie is making of social-democracy in order to stamp out the revolt which is brewing among the masses and to keep them under capitalist influence. Liquidationism represents the influence of the bourgeoisie dressed up in pseudo-"communist" and "Marxist-Leninist" disguises.

The First National Conference considers the rise of liquidationism in the recent period to be a most significant development. Liquidationism and the advocacy and practice of merger with social-democracy have become the central features of the bitter revisionist war against Marxism-Leninism and the revolutionary movement. Thus, much in the same way as the struggle against social-chauvinism was the pivot or cutting edge of our tactics in the struggle against neo-revisionism during the 1976-1980 period, today the struggle against liquidationism and merger with social- democracy has come to the fore as the central focus of the struggle, the pivot of our tactics against all the various revisionist currents, against the Khrushchovite "C"PUSA and their trotskyite and other hangers-on, against the Maoist and social-chauvinist sects, and against the other revisionists.

The First National Conference approves the analysis of the Central Committee of the MLP, USA of this question which has been developed in The Workers' Advocate since the first of this year. This analysis is in accord with the recent developments which have come into focus since the Founding Congress, and it is in accord with the line that was set forth by the Founding Congress which laid stress on refuting the main liquidator theses, particularly the process of merger with social-democracy and the denigration of the party principle.

The First National Conference of the MLP holds that there can be no peace in the struggle between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and revisionist liquidationism as this is a life and death struggle for the defense of the Party and for the defense of Marxism-Leninism, an arduous struggle for the class independence of the proletariat, a bitter struggle which is absolutely necessary to advance the revolutionary movement.

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Militant Solidarity with the Marxist-Leninist Communists throughout the World

The First National Conference of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA salutes the Marxist-Leninist communists throughout the world.

The Marxist-Leninst Party of the USA is the American contingent of the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement. It hails the Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries who are fighting and shedding their blood in struggle against imperialism, social-imperialism, and reaction, for a new world, the world of socialism and communism. Our Party supports the heroic struggle which is being waged all around the world to build up the Marxist-Leninist communist parties in the face of the bitter opposition of the bourgeois and revisionist enemies of the party. This requires the greatest dedication and sacrifice on the part of the Marxist-Leninist militants, for the class enemy aims his blows in the first place against the genuine communist parties. Fighting in defiance of the savage fury of the bourgeoisie, the parties have given many martyrs in the revolutionary cause.

The Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA works to strengthen the unity of the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement. The proletariat is an international class. The parties the world over are united by solid bonds of proletarian internationalism and are contingents of a single international movement because they are the vanguard of the proletariat and because they wage a revolutionary struggle against the class enemies of the proletariat, against the bourgeoisie, the imperialists and social-imperialists, and the reactionaries. The solidarity, cooperation and fraternal bonds between the parties are a powerful factor in favor of the revolution.

The unity of the world Marxist-Leninist communist movement finds its granite foundation in the revolutionary doctrine of Marxism-Leninism. Modern revisionism, right opportunism, constitutes the main danger to the international Marxist-Leninist movement. Safeguarding and strengthening the international movement and its unity require that the ideological struggle against Soviet revisionism, against Chinese revisionism and Maoism, and against all the other currents of modern revisionism be carried forward. The continuation and extension of the great polemic of Marxism-Leninism against revisionism is the imperative duty of all Marxist-Leninist communists.

The international Marxist-Leninist communist movement is the guardian of the future of the proletariat and of mankind, the herald of a new day, a new world. To the Marxist- Leninist communists fighting on every continent, this Conference declares the undying militant solidarity of our Party in this glorious cause.

Long live the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement!

Glory to Marxism-Leninism!

Workers of all countries, unite!

Revolutionary Greetings to the Party of Labor of Albania

Central Committee Party of Labor of Albania

Dear Respected Comrades,

The First National Conference of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA sends its ardent revolutionary greetings to the Party of Labor of Albania on the occasion of the jubilee year of the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the Party of Labor of Albania.

In the 40 years of glorious struggle since the founding of the PLA on November 8, 1941, the PLA has won the profound respect of Marxist-Leninists, revolutionaries, and class-conscious proletarians all over the world. In the face of the savage imperialist-revisionist encirclement, the Albanian working class and people, closely united around the PLA, have continued to advance along the road of revolution. This victorious march of socialism in Albania is a great inspiration to the workers and oppressed people throughout the world. Today Albania is the only genuine socialist country in the world. It serves as a powerful beacon of socialism, as the shining example of the new life without exploitation of man by man and as a steadfast bastion of the world revolution.

All the victories of the Albanian people and of socialism in Albania are inseparable from the development and strengthening of the PLA. The PLA is a party built in the flames of the revolutionary struggle, a party of Marxism- Leninism, a proletarian revolutionary party of the new type, the type of Lenin and Stalin. The forty years of the life of the PLA are a militant testimony to its thorough devotion to the cause of revolution and socialism, to its rigorous adherence to the immortal principles of Marxism-Leninism and to its courageous and resolute stand against revisionism and opportunism. The history of the PLA is an inspiration and a rich source of lessons in the conduct of the revolution and the building of the genuine communist party.

The PLA has always fought against modern revisionism of all hues, be it that of Tito or Khrushchov, of the Euro- communists or of the Chinese revisionists. It is the merit of the PLA that it was the first to recognize the counterrevolutionary features of Khrushchovism and to rise against Soviet revisionism. This was an immense contribution to the cause of international Marxism-Leninism. And once again, in the struggle against Chinese revisionism and Mao Zedong Thought, the PLA has made a gigantic contribution to the world Marxist-Leninist communist movement. The Seventh Congress of the PLA opened the way to the worldwide exposure and condemnation of "three worlds-ism" and Chinese revisionism. Moreover, at the same time as the PLA has fought Chinese revisionism and Mao Zedong Thought, it has not forgotten to keep up the fire against the other currents of revisionism as well and, for example, has scorchingly condemned any manifestations of reconciliation with the Soviet revisionists. This fight against all the currents of modern revisionism has been a gigantic struggle. The last several years alone have seen a series of scientific sessions and major documents against revisionism and opportunism from the PLA, including the outstanding Marxist-Leninist works of the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the PLA, Comrade Enver Hoxha, such as Imperialism and the Revolution, Reflections on China, Eurocommunism Is Anti-Communism, With Stalin, and The Khrushchovites.

The 40th anniversary of the founding of the PLA is being celebrated at a time when the imperialists and social-imperialists have stepped up their pressure against socialist Albania. The recent sinister provocations of the Yugoslav revisionists against socialist Albania are part of the imperialist-revisionist blockade as well as being related to the Titoites' savage persecution of the Albanian nationality in Kosova. The First National Conference of the MLP,USA firmly condemns these vile acts of the Yugoslav revisionists and stands by the side of the Albanian people. The PLA and the Albanian people have faced many such vicious attacks over their history and have rebuffed all of them. Just as in the past the revisionists and imperialists have broken their heads in vain over Albania, so will they today whenever they dare raise a hand against her. In this struggle, the revolutionary proletariat and progressive people all over the world defend and support socialist Albania.

The upcoming 40th anniversary of the PLA coincides with the holding of the 8th Congress of the PLA. The First National Conference of the MLP,USA sends its militant proletarian internationalist greetings to the 8th Congress and its best wishes for further victories in the glorious work of the PLA in defense of Marxism-Leninism, the construction of socialism and the defense of the socialist homeland.

Long live the Party of Labor of Albania!

Long live Comrade Enver Hoxha!

Glory to Marxism-Leninism!

With warmest revolutionary greetings,

First National Conference of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA

Revolutionary Greetings to the Partido Comunista del Trabajo (Dominican Republic)

Central Committee

Partido Comunista del Trabajo (Dominican Republic)

Dear Fraternal Comrades,

The First National Conference of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA sends its ardent revolutionary greetings to our brother Party in the Dominican Republic, the Partido Comunista del Trabajo, as an expression of proletarian internationalist solidarity with the Dominican Marxist-Leninists who have shouldered the glorious task of building the Marxist-Leninist communist party of the proletariat. On the second anniversary of its founding, the Partido Comunista del Trabajo has shown that it is in the vanguard of the struggle of the Dominican working class and people against U.S. imperialism and the Dominican exploiters, a struggle which will pave the way for the triumph of the new socialist and communist society in the Dominican Republic. The Partido Comunista del Trabajo is the true standard-bearer of the glorious revolutionary traditions of the Dominican working class and people, including those of the Movimiento Popular Dominicano and of the historic revolution of April 1965. The Partido Comunista del Trabajo has also waged a courageous and principled struggle against revisionism and opportunism, and in particular against the influence of Chinese revisionism and Castroism, in order to embody the revolutionary traditions in the form of a party of the new type, the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary party of the proletariat.

The fraternal ties between the Partido Comunista del Trabajo and the Marxist-Leninist Party are part of the proletarian internationalist relations binding together the world Marxist-Leninist communist movement. Our Party is committed to strengthening these relations; to developing the indispensable mutual collaboration between the working class of our two countries against our common U.S. imperialist enemy; and to furthering the cooperation in our common struggle against the bourgeoisie, against U.S. imperialism and Soviet and Chinese social-imperialism, against the Khrushchovite, Maoist and other brands of modern revisionism, against social-democracy and all opportunism, and for the triumph of the glorious cause of the revolution and communism.

Long live the unity between the PCT and the MLP, USA!

With fraternal revolutionary greetings,

First National Conference of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA

On the Wrecking Activity of the Leadership of the Communist Party of Canada (ML)

The First National Conference of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA wholeheartedly endorses the principled stand and painstaking work of the Central Committee in vigilantly defending the Party in the face of the hostile, wrecking activity of the leadership of the Communist Party of Canada (M-L). The Conference expresses its contempt for the December 5,1979 letters and other brutal letters of the leadership of CPC(M-L); endorses the June 16, 1980 letter of the Central Committee of the MLP,USA and the analysis of the polemical series "Against Mao Zedong Thought!'', parts one through five; and vows to carry the struggle in defense of the Party and of the purity of Marxism-Leninism through to the end.

The Conference denounces the attempts of the leadership of CPC(M-L) to impose a "special relationship" on our Party, a factional relationship outside of the norms dictated by Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. The Conference declares that our Party will always vigilantly defend the Marxist-Leninist norms and that these norms are an indispensable tool in forging the unity of the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement. The Conference condemns the war of the leadership of CPC(M-L) against our Party, a war in which they have descended to gutter politics, to straightforward wrecking activities and even to attempting to build an anti-party network inside the U.S.

The First National Conference rejects the attempts by the leadership of CPC(M-L) to impose upon our Party a pacifist stand in opposition to the struggle against revisionism and opportunism and their attempts to bludgeon our Party into accommodation with social-democratic and revisionist groupings. The Conference vows to carry the struggle against all forms of revisionism and opportunism through to the end.

The First National Conference observes that the wrecking activity of the leadership of CPC(M-L) against our Party is the consequence of their anti-Marxist-Leninist blunders and their Maoist and liquidationist deviations. The Conference expresses the hope that the leadership of CPC(M-L) will overcome these deviations and take up the path dictated by revolutionary Marxism-Leninism. The Conference notes that the deviationist stands and activities of the leadership of CPC(M-L) are not only the banner of their wrecking activity against our Party, but are also doing grave damage to the CPC(M-L) itself.

The Conference considers that, in order to defend the integrity of the Party, to defend the interests of the revolutionary movement in the U.S. and worldwide, to continue our tradition of rendering wholehearted proletarian internationalist assistance to the Canadian Marxist-Leninists and to shoulder its responsibility to international Marxism- Leninism, it is absolutely necessary for our Party to make public the truth about the relations between the MLP,USA and the CPC(M-L) and publicly denounce the deviationist positions of the leadership of CPC(M-L).

The Conference reaffirms the traditional stand of our Party that the close unity and cooperation of the Canadian and U.S. Marxist-Leninists is a powerful factor for the development of the proletarian socialist revolution in these two neighboring countries, the proletarians of which are linked by many close, historic ties. The Conference expresses its conviction that fraternal bonds will again be established between the Canadian Marxist-Leninists and the U.S. Marxist-Leninists.

The Conference pledges that the entire ranks of the Party will continue to exert every effort to defend and strengthen the party of the proletariat in the U.S., to defend the principled unity of the Marxist-Leninists worldwide and to defend the invincible revolutionary doctrine of Marxism-Leninism.

On the International Factional Activity of the Leadership of the Communist Party of Canada (ML)

The First National Conference of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA discussed various features of the international factional activity of the leadership of the Communist Party of Canada (M-L). The Conference expresses its complete contempt for this hostile activity by the leadership of CPC(M-L), activity which damages the cause of international Marxism-Leninism and the interests of the world proletarian revolution.

The Conference rejects the polycentrist and factional theory advocated by the leadership of CPC(M-L) on the alleged existence of two separate but equally legitimate Marxist-Leninist trends in the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement, one of these trends being centered on and led by the leadership of CPC(M-L). The Conference reaffirms the traditional position of our Party that there is only one legitimate Marxist-Leninist trend, that is, the trend of international revolutionary Marxism-Leninism....

The First National Conference of the MLP,USA affirms the stand of the Central Committee in opposing this international factional activity of the leadership of CPC(M-L) and considers the work of the Central Committee of the MLP,USA in this regard to be an important contribution to the cause of the unity of the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement.

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Outrageous brutality against Haitian and Salvadorian refugees

The Haitian refugees are a special target of the "stringent enforcement" measures of Reagan's immigration policy. In recent months, large numbers of Haitian refugees have been arriving in the U.S., risking their very lives to flee the bloody tyranny and unbearable misery under the fascist dictatorship of the U.S.-backed puppet "Baby Doc" Duvalier. Upon their arrival, the U.S. authorities have subjected the Haitian refugees to the most outrageous brutality. Treated worse than if they were cattle, large numbers of the Haitian refugees have been thrown into overcrowded concentration camps, like the Krome Avenue detention center in Miami, and civilian and military base prisons elsewhere in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. The Haitians are being held in these terrible camps for months on end while the government works on deportation proceedings to send them back to be persecuted and tortured at the hands of "Baby Doc" and his infamous Ton-Ton Macoute police.

On September 29, Reagan issued an order for the Coast Guard to intercept on the high seas (that is, outside of U.S. territorial waters and right up to the Haitian coast) any boat even suspected of carrying Haitian refugees to the U.S. and to escort such boats back to "Baby Doc." Moreover, Reagan has ordered the indefinite detention of all Haitian refugees who do make it into the U.S. to guarantee their eventual deportation.

The U.S. authorities are applying similar brutal measures to the hundreds of thousands of refugees from the civil war in El Salvador. Many of these refugees are fleeing the fascist death squads of the U.S.-backed fascist junta. Reagan has adopted a systematic policy of arresting and detaining these refugees in order to send them back to face torture and death at the hands of his good friends, the Salvadorian fascist generals. The INS has been making broad sweeps of the Latino community in the Los Angeles area, where there are an estimated

200,000 Salvadorian refugees, rounding up and imprisoning thousands of undocumented Salvadorians. It is reported that in Los Angeles some 300 Salvadorian refugees a week are being put on planes by the INS to be deported back to El Salvador.

Recently the administration has proposed turning an abandoned air force base on a mountain plateau in northwest Montana into a national detention center, a massive concentration camp, for Haitian, Salvadorian and other refugees. The obvious idea behind this cynical and inhuman proposal is that if the 40 degree below zero temperatures and howling winds do not convince the Haitian, Salvadorian or other detained refugees to request to go home, these refugees from the tropics will simply be frozen to death. The outrageous brutality against the Haitian and Salvadorian refugees is being used as an example of Reagan's "get tough" policy against all the downtrodden and dark-skinned immigrants from the Caribbean, Mexico and other countries of Latin America.

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Immigration and Imperialism

(The following article is excerpted from a newspaper issued by the Denver Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, October 1981.)

Ronald Reagan's highly publicized "immigration reform'' comes at a time when the rich capitalist class in the U.S. is mounting a fierce attack, politically, ideologically, and physically against the immigrant workers, particularly against the workers from Mexico. This attack is part of the overall capitalist offensive against the masses; of exploitation and impoverishment, feverish war preparations and militarization, and fascist and racist attacks directed especially against the Afro-Americans and the Mexican nationality in the U.S. and minorities in general.

It is an attack aided by both the Democrats and Republicans, "liberal or conservative," and all the bootlickers of the billionaire capitalists.

Since Ronald Reagan's inauguration and the end of the so-called "census amnesty,' ' fascist INS raids and arrests have been stepped up. In Colorado the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service), aided by state and local police forces, is arresting an average of 1,000 Mexican immigrant workers a month in its raids on the factories, foundries, railyards, social gatherings and homes of the immigrant workers.

Hand in hand with the roundups, police harassment and abuse of the Mexican immigrants goes the vicious ideological campaign against immigrants. This campaign is being waged at all levels in the bourgeois-controlled media, from national TV networks to local city newspapers. In Denver, the Post and the News regularly carry pseudo news stories and guest editorials by Governor Lamm and others, stating that the "Mexican population bomb" and hordes of "undocumented Mexican immigrants" are "threatening the prosperity of the American people," "overpopulating and using up financial and natural resources [i.e., energy, food stamps, unemployment]."

The other view promoted by these articles and stories is that "this is no longer America of the open frontier" when "we [i.e., the rich capitalists] needed a lot of immigrants" so now it is a big privilege that should be granted to very few "foreigners." The trade union bureaucrats also are on the bandwagon of anti-immigrant hysteria, crying that foreign workers are stealing American workers' jobs both abroad and inside the U.S., and calling for more restrictions on even "legal" immigration plus a crackdown on "illegal" immigration.

All of this coming from notables and important politicians is just a very slightly disguised version of the line of the Ku Klux Klan which has in recent years "declared war on the Mexican," organized (with the complicity of the INS) border patrols and called for a return to the "law of the rope and tall tree" in the southwest USA. It is aimed at splitting the working class by nationality and citizenship, whipping up racist hysteria and giving the capitalist class a free hand in carrying out their offensive against all the laboring masses.

The Attacks Against Immigrants Are Attacks on the Entire Working Class and All Oppressed Nationalities

The attacks against the Mexican immigrants are designed to maintain them as a super-exploited sector of the American working class and to divide the working class, weakening its struggle against the bourgeoisie's program of starvation, fascism and war.

The American working class has no common interest with its oppressors! It is these rich capitalists and their lackeys who are parasites and a burden to the workers -- not the immigrant workers!

The entire Mexican nationality has been historically and still is subject to vicious racial discrimination in jobs, housing, recreation, schools and so on; to fascist police and state-organized gang (KKK, nazi) attacks, like the Longmont murders and police attack on Columbus/La Raza park; as well as to the INS raids, harassment and deportations.

But for many years the capitalists, aided by their most obedient servants in the Mexican nationality, have used the issue of citizenship and legal status to split the nationality and to weaken the fight against all forms of national oppression. Although they criticize the most blatant racist abuse of the immigrants, the so-called Hispanic "leaders" have propagated the view that Mexican immigrants compete for jobs with American-born Mexicans and that immigration should be restricted and controlled; deportation should take place only "in a more humane way." This is nothing new. In the 1930's the U.S. capitalists found a sector of the Mexican nationality quite willing to help organize the forced repatriation of some 500,000 Mexican people (50% of whom were U.S. citizens; under the guise of "avoiding abuse."

Imperialism and Mexico

Nowhere is the relationship of imperialism to immigration more obvious than in the case of U.S. imperialism and Mexico.

The overwhelming majority of immigrants "legal and illegal" to the U.S. are from Mexico, and it is the Mexican immigrants who bear the brunt of the bourgeoisie's fascist and racist immigration policies. For example, in 1977, 92% of more than one million INS arrests were of Mexican workers. In Colorado 90% of all arrests are of Mexican workers.

The U.S. imperialists and Mexican bourgeoisie have long spoken of a "special relationship" between Mexico and the U.S. This relationship is pretty special all right -- U.S. imperialism has enjoyed more than a century of "special" exploitation and economic domination in Mexico. Mexico is a large country, wealthy in natural resources (oil, natural gas, copper, fish, etc.) with a large area of fertile farmland, grazing lands, etc. Yet it is a country with a 50% unemployment overall (80% in rural areas) and a country which is forced to import even staples like corn and rice.

In 1848 more than half of Mexico's total territory (now California, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and parts of Utah and Nevada) was forcibly seized by the U.S. capitalists and slave owners, creating a significant Mexican nationality population inside the annexed territory.

The U.S. imperialists have made tremendous profits from their exploitation of Mexico. At the present time approximately 60% of the Mexican economy is completely controlled by U.S.-dominated or owned transnational corporations. U.S. corporations are given extra special deals with tax breaks, low wages, no unions, etc., by the Mexican government to set up industry along the border (i.e., the infamous sweatshops, "Las Maquiladoras," which pay one-tenth to one-fourth the wages paid for the same work on the U.S. side of the border).

Not only have the U.S. imperialists profited from the export of capital, the extraction of raw materials and the labor of the workers in Mexico, but they have profited tremendously from the millions of Mexican immigrants forced out of Mexico into the U.S. The Mexican immigrants, especially the so-called "illegals," make up a super-exploited sector of the American working class which is concentrated in the lowest paying jobs (sweatshops, agriculture and service) and in the most grueling physical labor. The immigration laws and police are used to terrorize these workers, rob them of their wages and benefits and to disorganize their resistance to all these conditions. The imperialists have no intention of ending this situation, but only intend to regulate it even more to their advantage. This has been the real purpose of all the "immigration reforms" from the Kennedy-Rodino bill to Carter's "aliens" bill to Reagan's current proposals.

The Mexican Capitalists Are Not the Friends of the Immigrants

In spite of the fact that the bourgeois politicians of the main Mexican bourgeois party, the soldout and corrupt PRI (Revolutionary Institutional Party), like to posture as being opposed to U.S. exploitation of Mexico and of its immigrants, they have aided it in every way. Squabbles with U.S. capitalists over the conditions and price of selling their country can't disguise their eagerness to do business with "tio (Uncle) Sam." This is obvious in the latest visits between Reagan and Jose Lopez Portillo and in the recent agreement to sell Mexican oil to the U.S.

The Mexican capitalists have said that "the immigration problem could be solved if Mexico could offer more and better paying jobs at home; therefore the U.S. should invest more in developing the Mexican petroleum industry." This promise to the Mexican people that overwhelming problems of unemployment and hunger could be solved by more U.S. imperialist exploitation in the discovery of big oil reserves is a disgusting lie! A clear example of the kind of development U.S. imperialism encourages is the situation of oil-rich Iran under the Shah. The oil billionaires and Iranian ruling class gained fabulous riches while the Iranian people remained unemployed, starving and without even heating oil for their houses. Indeed, in the regions of Mexico where the oil industry has been developed so far it has brought skyrocketing inflation, terrible pollution and the destruction of entire villages and farmlands and has made no real dent in the unemployment rate.

The truth is that the Mexican bourgeoisie has no interest in the well-being of the Mexican workers and has always been partners with the U.S. in exploiting the Mexican workers in Mexico and in the U.S.

The real attitude of the PRI and the Mexican ruling class toward the immigrant was let out of the bag by Mexican President Jose Lopez Portillo in a television interview early this year. After discussing how oil was going to save Mexico from unemployment, etc., Portillo blurted out that anyway "a great many" of the undocumented Mexican workers now in the U.S. are "just adventurers" who will go anywhere "just for a change of climate." He went even further in shamelessly attacking the immigrants to say, "What is all this fuss about immigration? The Mexican workers are the cheapest source of labor you have; take advantage of it." What a dishonorable sales pitch to the U.S. capitalists on the benefits of exploiting Mexican workers!

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Tokenism -- A tool of monopoly capital to undermine the black people's struggle

Jesse Jackson's $30 Million Deal with Coca Cola

(The following article is taken from The West Indian Voice, newspaper of the Caribbean Progressive Study Group, Issue. No. 15, October 1981.)

On August 10, a $30 million deal was struck between the president of Coca Cola company and Reverend Jesse Jackson, leader of PUSH (People United to Save Humanity). This deal came about after eight months of cozy negotiations which were interrupted on July 10 when Jackson announced a "withdrawal of enthusiasm campaign," that is, to "withdraw enthusiasm" for Coke products in order to pressure the Coca Cola billionaires to settle with him, to make them see the light (i.e., Coke could run a more profitable enterprise if only they listened to Jackson). Jackson argued for the further expansion of the Coca Cola capitalists into the black communities and "demanded" black wholesalers, black bottlers and blacks on the board of directors of the multi-billion dollar enterprise.

Jackson's boycott was short-lived because the Coca Cola billionaires saw prospects in Jackson's logic and, therefore, proved only too willing to fork out $30 million for "black business development" and as a bribe to keep Jesse Jackson on a leash and help foster a sold-out stratum of his caliber among the Afro-American people.

Actually, this agreement is nothing but a demonstration of tokenism in action. Tokenism is the favorite agency used by the capitalist exploiters and their government to buy off and groom a stratum of traitors to the black people and flunkeys of the monopoly capitalist system. It is used to manipulate this stratum like a Trojan horse inside the black communities in order to undermine the black people's struggle from within and foster illusions about a possible "good life" under the rich exploiters. This sold-out stratum is used to preach to the black people that they should rely on the monopoly capitalist system -- their own worst enemy -- for their salvation, and on the very government that orders the police to shoot them down on the streets with impunity, like dogs.

Of course, a lot of attention was paid to cloaking this $30 million bribe and passing it off as being "in the interest of the black people." But clearly, this agreement has nothing to do with advancing the interests or improving the wretched conditions of the heavily oppressed black masses.

Of course, the Coca Cola capitalists, with a vast worldwide corporate empire of their own, extending throughout every capitalist town and city on the map, have not earned their notorious reputation by making business blunders. Hardly. The Coca Cola monopolists are among the most ferocious money-grabbers the world over and are able to squeeze a penny out of a rock. And they did not fork out $30 million to Jesse Jackson without at first carefully calculating their returns in terms of cash and clout.

According to the agreement reached with Jesse Jackson, the Coca Cola billionaires will increase their business dealings with black investors and black-owned banks, media and other advertising concerns; establish and train 32 black-owned distributorships for Coca Cola products and appoint one black to its board of directors; increase its contributions to black organizations to $250,000 as payoff to Jesse Jackson and his poverty-pimping colleagues. And, as window dressing, Coca Cola will provide 100 "blue collar" jobs for blacks (this is not covered by the $30 million since these blacks would be viciously exploited like all Coke employees).

With this agreement, Jackson secured some financing for a tiny handful of black fat cats and a larger donor base for the services of rent-a-traitor outfits such as Jackson's PUSH, while the Coca Cola capitalist billionaires roped in a neat package deal for themselves. By spreading a few dollars around to "grease the palms" of a few black fat cats, Coca Cola will have a cheap advertising and marketing agency along with a network of agents on its leash to ward off its other capitalist competitors and increase its monopoly of soft drink consumption market in the black communities (not to mention the returns which Coca Cola would rake in from tax write-offs on this $30 million "contribution").

Upon striking this deal, Jesse Jackson, this low-life crook and poverty pimp, was so emboldened by his latest well-earned bribe that he immediately embarked upon a campaign to publicize this "new relationship that has been established between black America and Coca Cola Co." According to Jackson, "This agreement points in the direction of a new way of viewing and relating to black America by corporate America." That is, Jackson is arguing that Hallelujah! the corporate billionaire exploiters have come to their senses, become new converts to Jackson's congregation, changed their exploitative nature and now regard the black masses as "copartners in development, production, ownership and shared wealth." What a hoax this is! What a shameless traitor and servile flunkey of the rich he is! Indeed, this deal struck between Jackson and the Coca Cola capitalists clearly demonstrates that these so-called "representatives of the black people" are in fact representatives of black business, and moreover, of business generally, of the rich.

It is Jackson and his ilk who are the new copartners of the monopoly capitalist exploiters, not the masses of heavily impoverished and exploited blacks. He wants the black masses to close their eyes to the money-grabbing exploiters -- their enemies and those of the entire working class. This is a glaring prettification of the rich exploiters and the monopoly capitalist system itself. Supposedly, the corporate billionaires have found a new way of "relating to black America" other than by sucking their blood, subjecting them to severe discrimination and slaughtering their sons on the streets. What a cruel attempt to cover up the humiliating subjugation of the black people by the monopoly capitalist ruling class! No, Judas Jackson. It is you and your kind that have found "new ways of relating" to corporate America.

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Traitors to the Black People Embrace Reagan

(The following article is taken from The West Indian Voice, Newspaper of the Caribbean Progressive Study Group, Issue No. 15, September-October 1981.)

Reagan was the official guest at the NAACP's 72nd Annual Convention, which was held from June 29 to July 3. He came to the convention to lobby support for his budget. Margaret Bush Wilson, chairwoman of the NAACP, introduced Reagan stating, "the NAACP does not necessarily subscribe to the views which are about to be expressed," because the leadership of the NAACP was rooting for the Democratic Party's "alternative" budget. Actually, the alternative budget of the Democratic Party endorsed 75% of the Reagan cuts, and in fact demanded that $1 billion more be thrown in for the U.S. war machine. So therefore, what is the substance of this Democratic Party "opposition," the mantle of which the NAACP leaders so proudly uphold and which so touchingly inspires them?

The NAACP gave Reagan a platform at their convention in an effort to reconcile with Reaganite reaction. Reagan appealed to them "to join me to build a coalition for change." In response, the chairperson said amen, proclaiming "that is the beginning of the dialogue and we shall overcome." She then chided Reagan for not coming to their convention last year so that the "dialogue" could have started sooner. This caused them embarrassment since they were more eager to sit with Reagan than he with them. Mrs. Wilson went on to state that blacks are more prepared to communicate "in the halls of Congress, in the boardrooms," and reluctantly added, "in the streets if necessary.... We have much hope that the line of communication which we opened today will make the last alternative unnecessary." These postures were taken in Reagan's presence in order to maintain some sign of independence or militancy, just enough not to make Reagan uneasy. Indeed, just a week prior to the convention, both Benjamin Hooks, the NAACP executive director, and Mrs. Wilson forewarned Reagan by telling him to expect a "skeptical" reception. Since the convention is well publicized, these Democratic Party hacks have to feign opposition to try to save face among the black masses.

The leadership of the NAACP, which has long cursed any prospects of struggle and has repeatedly acted as "firefighters" and "riot stoppers" against the struggle of the black people, is not going to lift a finger to organize the mass struggle against Reaganite reaction. It is placing all its hopes in its "dialogue" and new "line of communication" with Reagan and his circle of generals. This speaks mountains for the treachery of these so-called "representatives" of the black people, these respectable "civil rights" leaders. It shows that they are nothing but flunkeys of the capitalist parties and the government which are the enemies of the black people. The only source of "opposition" of these sellouts to Reagan's attacks is about the flow of government grants, the payoffs and bribes -- their sacred cow and raison d'etre.

The leadership of the NAACP is not alone in its attempts to reconcile with Reaganite reaction. During July, Reagan and his crew also rallied with the respectable black bourgeois leaders of the National Urban League (NUL), representatives from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc., and various assorted black businessmen and poverty pimps to win support for his budget.

Ralph Abernathy of the SCLC was one step ahead of the bunch, coming out to declare open support for Reagan during his election campaign.

But at the 71st Annual Conference of the NUL, Vernon Jordan, in true Democratic Party "honeymoon" style, was determined to outdo Abernathy. Jordan expressed his heartfelt desire to reconcile with Reaganite reaction. He described Reagan, the infamous racist and bigot, as "a good nan, a courageous man and, on a personal level, a compassionate man." He explicitly reiterated the NUL's aim to prettify the monopoly capitalist government. Jordan declared, "Black people don't need to be told that government is on our backs because we know it has been by our side, helping to counter-balance the vicious racism that deprived us of our lives, our liberty and our rights." So touched was Reagan's crew that the Health and Human Services Secretary, Richard Schweiker, commented that the goals of the administration and the League are virtually identical. "You have trouble telling them apart," he said.

Meanwhile, Coretta Scott King, president of the Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc., is terrified over the outrage and disgust of the broad masses against the Reaganite offensive. She and her Center have devised a plan to deter a "similar explosive crisis such as what developed in Britain."

Hacks of the Democratic Party and Servile Tools of the Entire Monopoly Capitalist System

The traitors to the black people only feign opposition to the Reaganites to save face. Their so-called "opposition" is completely hypocritical. These Judases pretend to oppose the rich solely in order to tie the masses to the coattails of the Democratic Party. Their job is to make sure that the mass unrest is contained and liquidated and they seek to use the anger among the masses as a springboard to put the Democratic Party back into power.

This soldout stratum among the black masses is comprised, in the main, of stooges of the Democratic Party -- well accomplished, card-carrying Democratic Party hacks. During the 1980 presidential elections they rooted for Carter up and down the country. They even followed the national guard troops into Miami to pledge allegiance to Carter and the Democratic Party. The same "riot- stopping" activity occurred in Chattanooga. While in Buffalo, for example, Jesse Jackson denounced the masses for organizing themselves to wage mass actions against the racist attacks of the Klan and police. Instead, he told them to go out and vote for his man Carter.

The aim of the traitors to the black people is to extinguish the flames of revolt and put the masses to sleep with fables about reliance on the government, investigations, etc. Today, their overtures to Reagan, their slavish crawling before Reaganite reaction, clearly proves that being hacks of the Democratic Party they are servile tools and flunkeys of the entire monopoly capitalist system. Regardless of which capitalist party is in power, the traitors remain better defenders of the bourgeoisie than the bourgeoisie itself. Hence, it is no wonder that Jesse Jackson too complains, "There are Black Republicans and Blacks have every right to expect to be well represented in the Reagan administration... it would be in his and the nation's best interest to broaden his base of advisors and administrators.... If you think our backs were valuable, check out our minds." This vividly demonstrates where the utter reformism of the soldout stratum among the black people inevitably leads to. This stratum has nothing in common with the interests of the black people. Their crusade as the "representatives" of the black people is a cruel and shameless hoax. They deserve to be branded as traitors and treated with the contempt they have earned.

[Photo: Chief racist and fascist Reagan and Chairwoman Margaret Bush Wilson in a warm and touching scene from the 72nd Annual Convention of the NAACP.]

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Why the Fiasco at the All-Peoples Congress?

On October 16-18, the All-Peoples Congress was held in Detroit. About 1,300 people attended this conference. The APC was held at a time when the anti-Reagan temper of the masses is beginning to boil. Numbers of activists came to the conference in order to denounce the Reaganite program of attack against the working masses. Yet despite this favorable timing, the APC proved to be a sorry fiasco. By the end of the conference, the participants were denouncing the leadership of the APC up and down. Finally the organizers of the APC abruptly ended it, canceling the rest of the planned program.

The reason for the disaster at the APC was that its leadership was seeking to divert the mass movement against Reaganite reaction into the dead-end path of unity with the liberal-labor marsh centered on the Democratic Party. The APC was organized and tightly controlled by the trotskyite Workers World Party. The WWP is hardly distinguishable from the social- democrats. The social-democrats paint the program of the Democratic Party as "socialist" or "democratic socialism," while the trotskyite and revisionist liquidators paint the policy of unity with the Democratic Party and the social-democrats in "Marxist" colors. The WWP, who are nothing but typical trotskyite liquidators, shout up and down about "organizing on an independent basis against capitalism" and "overturning the Reaganite program," while in fact supporting the program of the equally Reaganite Democratic Party. Thus the WWP proudly paraded Democratic Party hacks as sponsors of the APC and did their best to ensure that nothing would be said or done at the APC that would not be acceptable to the trade union bureaucrats and the "left wing" of the Democratic Party.

Despite the reactionary trotskyite leadership of this conference, it was clear in advance that the APC would have at least something of a mass character. Hence the Marxist-Leninist Party decided to carry out political work at the APC, as part of the MLP's consistent policy of working in all demonstrations, rallies and conferences with a mass character. Activists from the Detroit Branch of the MLP, along with activists from various anti-imperialist organizations, took part in this conference.

At the APC, the Marxist-Leninist activists did their best to unite with the mass of anti-Reagan activists and discuss with them the path forward for the mass movement. The MLP put forward the path of building the independent movement of the working class, thoroughly analyzed and denounced the program of Reaganite reaction, stressed the fatal character of support for the Democratic Party, and showed the importance of denouncing U.S. imperialism. To this end, the Detroit Branch of the MLP put forward a number of resolutions for the APC. The resolutions gave answers to the basic questions of the activists on the burning questions of the movement. Although the WWP used the most despicable means to slander these resolutions and obscure the questions of principle, nevertheless the work of the Marxist-Leninists around these resolutions was well received by the participants of the APC.

The importance of the work of the MLP at the APC was shown when mass discontent with the conference broke out among the participants. The participants were especially indignant at the undemocratic and anti-people way the APC was run. The APC had been billed in advance as a "democratic, open forum for all segments of society under attack" (APC brochure) where all activists should put forward their views. In practice, the WWP did its best to suppress any disagreements with its plans and to railroad what it wanted through the APC. For example, when the workshops passed resolutions disagreeable to the WWP, the WWP ensured that fake reports which gave lying summations about the workshop discussions were given to the full sessions of the APC. The dissension caused by these and other underhanded methods resulted in the APC not passing any resolutions at all other than a vague, undefined call for "National Days of Resistance" in spring 1982.

Many participants at the APC were disgusted by these bureaucratic tricks and rigid repression by the APC leadership. But the danger existed that this indignation would remain without focus, and thus most activists would have their attention concentrated on secondary issues and surface features. Hence the supporters of the MLP worked patiently and painstakingly to show the political basis for the fiasco at the APC. A fact sheet circulated by the Marxist-Leninist activists played an important role in this work. Consisting only of quotations from the WWP, this sheet exposed the double-dealing phrasemongering of the WWP and showed their role as "left" apologists for the liberal-labor politics of the Democratic Party. The WWP's subservience to liberal-labor politics was reflected not just in their opposition to any condemnation of the labor bureaucrats and the "left wing" of the Democratic Party, but in their approach to all issues, for example, in their watering down any condemnation of U.S. imperialism. The careful, explanatory work of the Marxist-Leninist activists was crucial in helping to open the eyes of many of the participants as to what was the root cause of the APC's flop.

The WWP Prostrates Itself Before the Democratic Party Hacks and Worships the Labor Bureaucrats

The WWP stage-managed the APC in such a way as to promote the liberal-labor politicians. The WWP, in promoting the APC, went around shouting about the "broadest" unity and so forth. Yet the APC proves once again that the liquidators, such as the WWP, when they talk of "broad unity" and "broad fronts," mean unity with capitalist politicians and their labor lieutenants and suppression of the working masses. This is what gave rise to the dissension at the APC.

On one hand, the various "left" apologists of the Democratic Party cannot even agree among themselves. At the APC, as elsewhere, they engaged in dogfights and squabbles. This is only natural, because sectarianism cannot be avoided unless one has faith in the revolutionary capacity of the masses. As the liquidators have renounced the revolutionary path, and as they have faith only in the wonder-working powers of the big-name liberal-labor celebrities and not in the masses, they constantly squabble among themselves as to who will collect the crumbs thrown by the capitalist politicians.

On the other hand, there is another profound cause for the dissension at the APC. This reason is the fundamentally false position of the liquidators. The liquidators cannot openly present themselves before the masses as the simple pawns of the "left wing" of the Democratic Party that they are. They must put on "militant" makeup. Nevertheless, they are in fact attempting to impose liberal-labor politics upon the mass movement. Hence the constant divergence between their words and their deeds, their constant evasions and double-dealing, and the constant generation of contradictions between them and the progressive masses.

The Workers World Party finds itself precisely in such a fundamentally false position. It constantly screams about its "independence" while kneeling and licking the backsides of the Democratic Party politicians and the reactionary, diehard-imperialist trade union bureaucrats. This is vividly reflected, for example, in the reportage on the APC in their journal Workers World.

Thus, in the issue of the Workers World summing up the APC the editorial is entitled "Democrats' hypocrisy." (Oct. 23, 1981, p. 12) Here the WWP admits that the Democratic Party is a party of the big bourgeoisie, "dedicated to serving the needs of the capitalist ruling class" and "in the hip pocket of the military-industrial complex." (Of course, even here the WWP is silent on the labor bureaucrats.) However, apparently exhausted by the effort of denouncing the Democratic Party for even a few paragraphs, or perhaps frightened by its own short-lived militancy, the editorial immediately begins to back down when it gets to discussing the APC. It states that the APC wanted "to forge an independent political struggle, not only against the Reagan administration, but against racism, cutbacks, and war." Note that the editorial carefully evades saying a struggle against the Democratic Party as well as against the Republican Reagan administration. Already, even in this editorial window dressing, the WWP is equivocating.

What stands behind this equivocation is clearly shown in the description of the APC given in that same issue of the Workers World and elsewhere. Throwing aside its sham militance, the WWP boasts to the skies about the important personages from the Democratic Party who have attended the APC or endorsed it. So it seems that the WWP's left hand knows not what its right hand is doing.

Thus the list of sponsors of the APC is saturated with supporters of rebuilding the Democratic Party, of working inside the Democratic Party, and of just plain Democratic Party politicians. Usually, but not always, the WWP discretely neglects to mention the party affiliation of these worthies, but instead brags of their status as congressmen, elected officials, prominent capitalist celebrities, former attorney generals, and so forth.

For example, the APC went into ecstasy over the endorsement of the APC by John Conyers, Democratic Party congressman from Michigan. WWP gave this endorsement its own article, in a red box, in the centerfold of the August 29, 1981 issue of Workers World, as part of a display with the overall title "Building for the All-Peoples Congress." The WWP happily quotes Representative Conyers about building "A broad coalition of people to develop means to combat reactionary trends evident in the nation." Indeed, it is hard to tell the difference between the rhetoric of Sam Marcy, chairman of the WWP, and that of Representative Conyers. This, of course, goes to show that the WWP's rhetoric is perfectly designed to fit into Conyers' plans to get people to vote Democratic. Conyers, of course, is a prominent "riot stopper" who has been repeatedly trotted out to help the government pacify the people, as seen in his role in helping the government during the black rebellions in Detroit in 1967 and Miami in 1980.

Many more examples could be given. For instance, take the New Alliance Party of New York City. The New Alliance Party is a group dedicated to running Democratic Party hacks as allegedly "independent" candidates.

The WWP lovingly gave the New Alliance Party status not just as a sponsor of the APC but as a member of the National Coordinating Board of the APC.

Then again, the WWP is overjoyed that other members of the Congressional Black Caucus besides Conyers endorsed the APC. This includes Walter Fauntroy, Chairman of the caucus, and Ron Dellums, a prominent member of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, a group that calls for everyone to work inside the Democratic Party and push it to the "left," all the way to "socialism."

The smallest and most elite of the various leading groups of the APC that the WWP boasted about was the National Advisory Board (NAB). This board also contains Democratic Party hacks. For example, Bella Abzug, prominent "left-wing" Democrat and Pentagon-feminist supporter of militarizing women, is on this board. Another example is Ramsey Clark, who worked hard to suppress the Detroit rebellion of 1967 in his job as attorney general under the racist and warmongering administration of Lyndon Johnson and who more recently tried to negotiate with the Iranian government over the hostages as an unofficial spokesman for U.S. imperialism, is on the NAB.

The WWP also did its best to get support from the soldout trade union bureaucracy for the APC. The WWP is head over heels in love with the reactionary labor lieutenants of the bourgeoisie; it doesn't even like to phrasemonger against these most holy of holy personages. The WWP was unable to get the endorsement of the big-name bureaucrats for the APC; nevertheless, they did their best to prevent any condemnation, even in the slightest, of the trade union misleaders and their notorious racist, chauvinist and "law and order" stands. The American labor bureaucrats are notorious the world over for being among the most corrupt and servile labor bureaucrats anywhere, but the WWP has stars in its eyes when it contemplates these worthies.

The Double-Dealing Sophistry of the WWP

The WWP defended its support for the liberal-labor politics characteristic of the "left wing" of the Democratic Party with a number of renegade arguments. For example, the WWP especially went all out to defend the top labor bureaucracy. According to the WWP, any denunciation of such diehard enemies of the working class as Lane Kirkland, head of the AFL-CIO; Doug Fraser, head of the UAW and member of the Chrysler Board of Directors; Sam Church, the man who sold out the last national coal strike from his position as head of the United Mine Workers; and so forth, is allegedly an attack on "labor." The WWP argues that opposition to the labor bureaucrats is opposition to the "labor movement." With this argument, the WWP identifies itself foursquare for alliance with these diehard reactionary and ultra-imperialist, bribed agents of the bourgeoisie, an alliance directed against the mass of workers and in opposition to the development of their movement.

In fact, the labor bureaucrats are the bane of the working class movement. For that matter, not only are they imperialists and fascists in politics, but they are saboteurs of the economic, trade union struggle as well. Today it is Doug Fraser, prominent social- democrat, who has led the way in giving one concession after another to the billionaires, in cutting wages and reopening contracts, in return for a seat on the Chrysler Board of Directors. It is Lane Kirkland and the other top bureaucrats who are serving as little helpers of the bourgeoisie, imposing one cutback after another on the workers, and in return humbly demanding of the capitalists only that they, the labor bureaucrats, should be included on the committees that decide how to distribute the cutbacks among the workers. Any talk of the "independence" of the working masses is a fraud unless there is also a determined, severe and relentless war against the labor bureaucracy.

The WWP also concocted a series of arguments opposing any meaningful denunciation of the Democratic Party. This is because the WWP has the same politics as the "left wing" of the Democratic Party. Hence the WWP is willing to talk about the "collapse of the liberals" and the "caving in of the Democratic Party," as if the liberal-labor politicians and the Democratic Party were not always an indispensable part of the capitalist offensive against the masses, but always in the same way as the more smooth-talking Democratic Party politicians themselves talk of these things. Any denunciation of the Democratic Party that goes beyond these bounds, that shows the Reaganite program underlying the ideas and action of the Democratic Party and its "left wing," is a horrible crime in the eyes of the WWP.

Thus, according to the WWP, to call for a fight against the Democratic Party as well as the Republicans is sectarianism as it would allegedly mean to condemn any ordinary worker who had simply registered Democratic or voted Democratic in an election. What a fraud! The truth is that resolutions against the Democratic Party are especially necessary to appeal to those with illusions about the Democratic Party and help open their eyes to the reactionary, Reaganite nature of this party. It is not the working masses who are threatened by these resolutions, but the WWP, which has its tacit alliance with the Democratic Party, and the big-name Democratic Party hacks. For example, could such people as Bella Abzug, Walter Fauntroy, John Conyers and Paul O'Dwyer agree to endorse a conference which waged a real struggle against the Democratic Party?

Faced with the outrage of the anti-Reagan activists at the APC over the presence of Democratic Party hacks on the National Advisory Board, the WWP tried another dodge. They argued that, true, the Democratic Party politicians are present at the APC but, after all, they don't control the APC.

If this is true, so much the worse for the WWP. It proves that the WWP are better defenders of the Democratic Party than the Democratic Party politicians themselves. It is true that the Democratic Party hacks often cannot control the mass movement directly.

John Conyers was booed at various times at the APC, and the outrage would have been even greater if Democratic Party politicians themselves had taken the lead in trying to suppress the resolutions condemning the Democratic Party, U.S. imperialism, and the labor bureaucrats. That is why the Democratic Party politicians endorse the liquidators and social-democrats, who dress up the Democratic Party program in "socialist" colors. The liberal-labor politicians have decades of experience, and they know it is useful for them to have alleged "militants," like the WWP, to help them control the mass movement and divert it back into channels that are safe for the bourgeoisie. Thus the Democratic Party hacks may indeed not have controlled the APC directly, but they controlled it indirectly through their loyal servants, the WWP liquidators.

In fact, the whole analysis of the WWP is that of the liberal-labor politicians, covered up in trotskyite and "socialist" rhetoric. Whether it is the WWP's feverish worship of respectability, their belief in the alleged decades of social progress in the U.S. prior to Reagan's election, or their whitewashing of the arch-reactionary trade union bureaucracy, the WWP is fully in the liberal camp. The WWP's only difference from the other liberal- t labor politicians is their shameful defense of the Soviet social-imperialists, a malady which they share with most other trotskyites and revisionists. Just as the WWP fails to understand the nature of state monopoly capitalism in the U.S., falling in love with it every time it takes on a liberal-labor facade, so too they worship state monopoly capitalism in the Soviet Union, explaining away its every crime with double talk about the "dual" character of the Soviet revisionists. They are supporters of Soviet social-imperialism not out of a mistaken impulse in the fight against U.S. imperialism, but as a manifestation of their desire to conciliate with imperialism whenever it puts on the slightest disguise. This is why they prettify the ultra-chauvinists and anti-Soviet warriors of the AFL-CIO bureaucracy on one hand and the Soviet revisionists on the other.

For a Real Struggle Against Reaganite Reaction!

It is precisely the liquidator program of alliance with the "left wing" of the Democratic Party that spelled fiasco for the APC. Today great class battles are brewing. The mass movement is growing against Reaganite reaction and U.S. imperialism. This movement must be oriented onto the correct path, onto the path of struggle, onto the path of building the independent political movement of the working class. This requires a struggle against all the Reaganites -- whether they come in Democratic Party or Republican Party clothing -- and against their loyal handservants, the liquidators and social-democrats.

We reprint with this article the resolutions submitted by the Detroit Branch of the MLP to the APC. None of these resolutions were passed; nevertheless, the work around these resolutions met with a warm response from the anti-Reagan activists.

As well, we reprint the fact sheet on the double-dealing of the WWP that was circulated at the APC.

Resolutions Submitted to the All-Peoples Congress by the Detroit Branch of the MLP

-- RESOLUTION 1 --

GO ALL OUT AGAINST REAGANITE REACTION!

The workers and the poor and downtrodden masses are boiling mad against the Reaganite reactionaries.

The Reagan administration is nothing but the latest bunch of butchers delegated by the monopoly capitalist exploiters to carry out their savage program of hunger, fascism and war. In its short period in office, the Reagan regime has already made itself a world symbol of reaction, warmongering, racism and capitalist slave driving.

On the economic front, Reagan is carrying out the brutal capitalist program of "revitalization" of industry. "Revitalization" means man-eating productivity drives,.the,slashing of wages, and massive layoffs. "Reaganomics" and the Reagan budget mean fabulous subsidies for the rich combined with an all-out war on the poverty stricken. The Reagan economic policy is nothing but flagrant strikebreaking and a system of driving the masses to the wall for the benefit of the monopolies.

On the international front, the Reagan administration is U.S. imperialism personified. He has already proven himself a dangerous warmonger and diehard militarist. The Reagan regime is a regime of arming to the teeth to prepare for aggression and war to redivide spheres of influence with its equally imperialist rivals, the Soviet social-imperialists. It is a regime that has stepped up arms shipments and political support to every bloodstained fascist and reactionary around the world; a regime which flaunts its love for the notorious South African racists and the bloody Chilean hangmen; a regime which has already found its own Viet Nam-style adventure in El Salvador.

As well, the Reagan government is an administration of casehardened racists and fascists. It is a government dedicated to terrorizing the oppressed nationalities and unleashing the most savage attacks on them, a government elected on a program which was endorsed by the racist Klan as one that "reads as if it were written by a Klansman." It is an administration of the police state; a regime dedicated to the police truncheon, the spying agencies, and more prisons and penitentiaries.

The working masses and all progressive people attending the All-Peoples Congress condemn the Reagan government, stand firm against its capitalist program, and call for stepping up the struggle against Reaganite reaction.

-- RESOLUTION 2 --

TO HELL WITH THE DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS, PARTIES OF THE CAPITALIST OFFENSIVE!

In the ten short months since the Reaganites took office there has been one mass action after another against their aggression in El Salvador, their continuation of draft registration, their strikebreaking against the air traffic controllers, their cuts in unemployment benefits and other social benefit programs. The widespread demonstrations and deepening ferment show that the masses are burning to fight the Reaganite reaction. What path must this fight take?

Smooth-talking Democratic Party liberals like Ted Kennedy, Jerry Brown, Bella Abzug, John Conyers, Coleman Young, Ramsey Clark and others are posturing as anti-Reagan gladiators. They are trying to paint up the Democratic Party as a party of "peace" and of the "workers and minorities" to bring it to the head of the mass movement. But to hitch the anti-Reagan struggle to the bandwagon of the Democratic Party is to condemn it to complete and utter impotency. The Democratic Party is Reagan's twin, another big party of capitalist reaction. It should never be forgotten that it was the Democratic Party administration of Jimmy Carter which issued the hated Taft-Hartley injunctions against the striking coal miners. The Carter government introduced the capitalist "reindustrialization" schemes along with forcing brutal wage and benefit "concessions" down the throats of the workers at Chrysler and other companies. It was the so-called liberal Democrats of Carter's regime who engineered one energy "shortage" after another, squeezing the masses while pouring billions in profits into the bank vaults of Exxon, Mobil Oil and Texaco. Under the Democratic Party "peaceniks" draft registration was reintroduced, the MX and B-l bomber programs begun, and militarization and aggression were stepped up.

Today the Democrats are on a "honeymoon" with Reagan, passing one after another of his barbaric anti-worker measures. In fact Reagan's policies are, more often than not, a mere rehash of the recommendations of the Democratic Party. Reagan's proposed Social Security cutbacks come from the recommendations of Carter's blue ribbon panel on Social Security. The Reaganites have taken up all the essentials of Teddy Kennedy's fascist S-l Criminal Code Reform Bill. So too, the Reaganites are calling for vicious measures against immigrants including mass roundups, deportations, an essentially slave labor program for Mexican workers, etc., which were first set out in Carter and the Democrats' "aliens" bill.

In short, the Democratic and Republican Parties are twin parties of capitalist reaction and the fascist policy of the Reagan regime is nothing but the bipartisan policy of monopoly capital. The workers and progressive people attending the All-Peoples Congress declare that the fight against Reaganite reaction must target both the big capitalist parties, both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.

-- RESOLUTION 3--

DOWN WITH THE TRADE UNION BUREAUCRATS -- SABOTEURS OF THE WORKERS' STRUGGLES

Under the Reagan administration, the capitalist offensive is being intensified. The Reaganites have unleashed the most vicious attacks against the workers, oppressed nationalities, the poor and downtrodden. The working masses are burning with anger against this program and are longing for a real fight against the capitalist offensive of hunger, fascism and war.

In this situation, the top trade union leaders like Kirkland (AFL-CIO), Fraser (UAW), Winpisinger (IAM), Church (UMWA), McBride (USWA), etc., are working day and night to sabotage the fight against Reaganite reaction and preserve the profits of the billionaires. They claim to oppose Reagan, but in fact their so-called opposition is nothing more than the completely discredited program of Jimmy Carter and the Democrats. By supporting the Democrats, the trade union chieftains are in reality supporting the capitalist offensive, but under a "pro-worker" mask.

The trade union hacks are rabid imperialist warmongers. They are clamoring for war preparations by calling for a "stronger national defense system." Lane Kirkland has voiced concern that Reagan's attacks on the livelihood of the masses may "create new anti-defense constituencies," thus jeopardizing Reagan's military buildup. Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO, through its American Institute of Free Labor Development (AIFLD), is working to undermine the just struggles of the working masses on a global scale. Under the banner of so-called "land reform," the AIFLD and the CIA are organizing a Viet Nam-style rural pacification program in El Salvador to help the fascist Duarte clique slaughter the revolutionary masses.

The trade union bigwigs are thoroughgoing racists and chauvinists. They claim to oppose Reagan's Klan-approved program of terrorism against the oppressed nationalities, but approve of the same program if it is carried out under the "human rights" fraud of Carter. And the AFL-CIO chieftains are open mouthpieces of the most rabid attacks on immigrant workers. They blame rising unemployment and low wages not upon the capitalists, but upon the immigrants, and call for mass deportations and more roundups and border patrols.

The soldout trade union bureaucrats have been most eager supporters of the monopoly capitalists' program for "reindustrialization" under Carter and "revitalization" under Reagan. By either name, this program remains the same: wage cutting with a vengeance, speedup and automation, plant closings and unemployment for the workers while billions of dollars are handed over to the monopolies. Moreover, the trade union hacks are nothing but strikebreakers and scabs as proved once again by their stabbing the air controllers in the back and denouncing their strike because it "could do massive damage to the labor movement."

A fight against Reaganite reaction requires breaking with the Democrats and the Republicans, and opposing their flunkeys, the trade union bosses.

-- RESOLUTION 4 --

BUILD THE INDEPENDENT POLITICAL MOVEMENT OF THE WORKING CLASS!

The fight against Reaganite reaction must be oriented along the path of breaking from the capitalist parties, both the Democratic and Republican Parties, opposing their flunkeys in the trade unions, and building the independent political movement of the working class.

This is not a movement for labor-management cooperation and lying down before the capitalist offensive. No! The independent working class movement stands for the fight against the capitalists and their government and for the development of mass revolutionary struggle. It strives for the separation of the mass movements from the influence of the capitalist parties and especially from the Democratic Party liberals.

This is not a movement to tail behind the capitalist parties, to become a pressure group or special interest group trailing after the smooth-talking Democratic Party liberals. No! This is a movement of the class struggle, a movement to organize the working class as a class for itself, a class with its own revolutionary mission and goals.

The working class must come forward in its own right, rallying all of the poor and oppressed around itself, and leading them into battle against the capitalist offensive and its Reaganite mouthpiece.

The workers and progressive people attending the All-Peoples Congress declare that the fight against Reaganite reaction requires persistent work to build the independent political movement of the working class.

Resolutions Submitted by the Detroit Branch of the MLP, the Union of Anti-Imperialist Students (Buffalo) and the Chicago Anti-Imperialist Newsletter

-- RESOLUTION A --

DOWN WITH U.S. IMPERIALISM!

The rabid warmongering of the Reagan government is the product of imperialism. The U.S. is a monstrous imperialist superpower. The monopoly capitalists, who have grown fat off the sweat and blood of the American workers, are also raking in fantastic super-profits from the plunder of the people of other countries. The U.S. imperialists continue to maintain old-style colonies in Puerto Rico, the South Pacific and elsewhere. As well, through neo-colonialism and puppet dictators the U.S. maintains control over countless countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

The history of U.S. imperialism is one of bloody aggressions and war, of interventions and CIA coups d'etat. These include: Korea, the Bay of Pigs, the Dominican Republic, the Congo, Indochina, Chile, Iran and elsewhere.

Following these same barbaric traditions today, the Reagan government is imperialism personified. To protect the profits of the giant oil tycoons and bankers, Reagan is arming and rearming the Israeli zionist aggressors while propping up the kings and petty tyrants throughout the Middle East. He is backing the racist apartheid regime in South Africa and sending Green Berets to prop up the fascist Duarte regime in El Salvador. With over two million troops stationed in Korea, Latin America, Europe and elsewhere the U.S. imperialists are working to subjugate the people. And they will commit any crime -- no matter how hideous, and any aggression -- no matter how bloody, in pursuit of political domination and economic plunder for the big multinational corporations.

The workers and progressive people attending the All-Peoples Congress declare their determination to step up the struggle against the war preparations of the Reagan government and to put opposition to imperialism in the center of this struggle.

-- RESOLUTION B --

OPPOSE THE WAR PREPARATIONS OF ALL THE IMPERIALIST POWERS

Today all the imperialist powers are preparing for war. While the U.S. is clamoring for new and more destructive weapons its equally imperialist rival, Soviet social-imperialism, too, is arming to the teeth. The Soviet Union was once a proud socialist country, the defender of the workers and friend of the oppressed people everywhere. But with the rise of Khrushchov it degenerated into a bloodstained imperialist superpower. It sent its tanks to enslave the people of Czechoslovakia and put much of Eastern Europe under its jackboot. It subjected Cuba to neo-colonial domination and strove for conquest and plunder throughout the world. The barbaric aggression against the people of Afghanistan, the military "advisors" and puppet armies marauding in countries of Africa, the troop maneuvers and daily threats of invasion of Poland all demonstrate the savage imperialist nature of the new tsars of the Soviet Union. The rivalry between the U.S. and the equally dangerous Soviet Union is a rivalry over which imperialist thief will take what share of the loot robbed from the world's people.

China too has joined the imperialist dance. The Chinese social-imperialists have openly come out against revolution and the revolutionary struggles of the people. In the U.S., they've denounced the movement against the draft and war preparations. They were longtime supporters of the Shah of Iran. And they even kissed the bloody hand of the fascist butcher Pinochet in Chile. They have concluded a warmongering alliance with the U.S., and the recent visit of war criminal Haig to China has meant closer collaboration of the two imperialists and more arming of Chinese social-imperialism for war.

So too the lesser imperialist powers and imperialist puppet states, lined up behind the NATO and Warsaw Pact military blocs, are arming and rearming against the people and for imperialist war.

The workers and progressive people attending the All-Peoples Congress stand opposed to all the imperialists, be they U.S., Russian, Chinese or others. While supporting the struggles of the world's peoples against all the imperialists and reactionaries, the American working class and people must first and foremost settle accounts with "our own" U.S. imperialist rulers.

Facts on the Workers World Party, Organizers of the All-Peoples Congress

1) Workers World Party/Youth Against War and Fascism talk "tough" against the Democratic Party and the liberals:

"The prolonged economic crisis that emboldened big business to push Reagan into office and has cowed any significant opposition from the Democratic Party...." (Workers World, June 5, 1981, article by the editor, Deirdre Griswold)

"A major theme of Marcy's talk was that the turn to the right in the ruling class has routed the liberal establishment. The reason the Democrats have collapsed, he said, was that they all agree with Reagan in principle -- they are all for the military-industrial complex, and every one of them in the Senate voted for the administration's defense budget.

"...added Marcy, 'we say to the liberals, the Carters, the Kennedys, etc., "You paved the way for the rightwingers.'"...

"For the first time in many decades, the speaker stated [Marcy], there is a unique historical opportunity to organize the workers and oppressed on an independent basis against capitalism." (Workers World, June 12,1981, article by Robert Dobrow reporting on a speech by Sam Marcy, chairman of WWP, p. 5, emphasis as in the original)

2) WWP/YAWF use the All-Peoples Congress to promote soldout liberal-labor politicians and Democratic Party hacks as "anti-Reaganites":

'"Important new endorsements in the Detroit area have just come in,' said Roundtree, 'including Erma Henderson, president of the Detroit City Council, U.S. Representative George Crockett,....'

"Other significant support has come in from members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Congressman Walter Fauntroy, chairman of the Caucus and congressman- at-large from Washington, D.C., has endorsed. Other members of the Congressional Black Caucus who are supporters of the APC include Reps. Gus Savage (D-Ill.), John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), Parren Mitchell (D-Md.), and Ron Dellums (D- Calif.)." (Workers World, Sept. 25, 1981, article by Kathy Durkin, p. 16)

Soldout Democratic Party/liberal-labor politicians on the APC National Advisory Board include:

Bella Abzug

Ramsey Clark (former attorney general for Lyndon Johnson)

Paul O'Dwyer (former president of the New York City Council)

3) WWP/YAWF prettifies the liberal-labor politicians and the Congress:

"...Nor is it possible, as it was earlier, to rely on friendly capitalist politicians to assist in the struggle against recalcitrant employers and for improved social legislation." (Workers World, August 14, 1981, article by Sam Marcy on the APC, p. 11, emphasis added)

"For the first time since the establishment of the republic over 200 years ago, there is now a totally submissive and subservient Congress, which is insensitive to the needs and the cries of the people." (Ibid., emphasis added)

4) WWP/YAWF paint the AFL-CIO sellout leaders as anti-war militants when they are freelance advisors to the Pentagon:

"The AFL-CIO News reports that this was discussed in the Executive Council session in Chicago last week. These labor officials noted that there is a 'new anti-defense constituency among workers, the poor, minorities, and the elderly,' the AFL- CIO News said." (Workers World, Aug. 14, 1981, "New mood of militancy in AFL- CIO ranks/September 19: 'Solidarity Day' with controllers," p. 5)

Just look at what the AFL-CIO warmongers really had to say:

"The Administration drew a sharp warning from the council that it risks shattering the national consensus for a stronger defense if it pays for massive boosts in the military budget by continuing to slash domestic programs that aid low-income groups." (AFL-CIO News, Aug. 8, 1981, article reporting on the activities of the AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting held in Chicago, p. 3, emphasis added)

5) WWP/YAWF on Soviet social-imperialism:

"...considering the present U.S.-China alliance, so clearly directed against the USSR, our most important task is to emphasize the working class character of the Soviet Union. Our most important task theoretically is to explain it; and politically, to defend it." (Vince Copeland, from the January 1979 introduction to Sam Marcy's pamphlet The class character of the USSR -- An answer to the false theory of Soviet social-imperialism)

"We, of course, believe neither that there is a new exploiting class in the Soviet Union, nor that there has been a return of the bourgeoisie to power there under the guise of Marxist-Leninist phraseology. We firmly adhere to the position that the USSR is a workers' state,...." (Sam Marcy, Ibid., p. 5)

Twisting and turning to cover up the reactionary character of Soviet social-imperialism:

"The USSR is itself a contradictory social phenomenon, on top of which sits a heavy-handed bureaucracy which has a dual character. This is most strikingly shown in its capacity to play both a progressive as well as a reactionary role in domestic and foreign policy." (Ibid., p. 6)

"It is one thing to attack the Soviet leadership as revisionists, renegades, opportunists, and so on. It is qualitatively different and a crossing of class lines to write off the Soviet Union itself and the social system that prevails there." (Ibid., p. 7)

"Nevertheless, it is something that the USSR has the wherewithal to purchase such huge amounts of grain and see to it that the population is taken care of." (Apology for the decay of agriculture under the rule of the social-imperialists) (Ibid.)

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Joint Declaration of Seven Marxist-Leninist Parties of Europe

On the Events in Kosova

Since April 1981, the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, its Party of Labor and its people have been the object of provocative attacks by the Yugoslav leadership. The pretext for these is known: the Albanian population in the province of Kosova and the other regions of Yugoslavia, basing itself on the Constitution of the Yugoslav Republic, is demanding that they be accorded the same economic and democratic rights as the other peoples of Yugoslavia. These legitimate demands are not new. They were stated right at the creation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia just after the 1939-1945 war. The patriots, the Albanian youth who went unarmed onto the streets, were demanding only what was their due. Instead of satisfying these legitimate demands, the Yugoslav leaders replied with the slaughter and assassination of hundreds of demonstrators. In the face of this situation, the People's Socialist Republic of Albania has adopted a position which conforms with the interests of the sister population of Kosova and of the other peoples of Yugoslavia. It has spoken, as was its right, on the injustices suffered for many years by the Albanian population of Kosova, a situation which has not improved but has continued to worsen. In its stand, in no way has the PSRA attacked the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia. Appealing to the reason of the Yugoslav leadership, it has called on them to satisfy the demands of the Albanian population of Kosova. To do this it would be enough to apply the Yugoslav Constitution. Far from responding to this call, the Yugoslav leaders have replied by intensifying the repression in Kosova and have accused the PSRA of being the originator of the demonstrations. Provocative elements have gone as far as to stage a so-called attack on the Yugoslav Embassy in Tirana, the capital of Albania. The aim is clear -- to discredit Albania, its Party of Labor and its people, to damage the state-to-state relations between Albania and Yugoslavia, to create in the Balkan Peninsula a center of tension by setting the peoples against each other, to pave the way for the maneuvers of imperialism, in particular of the two superpowers, the USA and the Soviet Union. The Yugoslav leadership, by refusing to satisfy the demands of the Albanian population of Kosova, carried the entire responsibility for the events in Kosova. It serves the warmongering policy of the superpowers in a region which saw the outbreak of the first imperialist war to redivide the world.

Our Parties consider that the situation created there is fraught with danger for the peoples of the region and for peace in Europe. It must be recalled that the Albanian region of Kosova was attributed to Yugoslavia after the 1914-18 war, in spite of the protests of the Albanian patriots.

At the end of the first imperialist world war, Yugoslavia became a monarchy in the hands of a Serbian king. The other nationalities were oppressed. The Albanians of Kosova in particular, who have always lived in that region, were systematically dispersed and deported. The transfers of population carried out by the Serbian national chauvinists could not put an end to the desire of the Albanians to live free on the land of their ancestors.

During the second world war, the Yugoslav and Albanian peoples, under the leadership of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and the Communist Party of Albania (today the Party of Labor of Albania), waged a heroic and victorious struggle against the Italian fascists, the Nazis and all collaborators.

Based on their common struggle, it would have been easy to settle the national problems inherited from the past in the interest of the peoples, that is, to unite each people in one state. During the war of national liberation, at a meeting between Enver Hoxha and Tito, the latter undertook to settle the problem of the Albanian population of Kosova -- according to the desire which they themselves had expressed -- by their reattachment to the People's Republic of Albania. But when liberation came, Tito reneged on his undertakings. He refused the Albanians of Kosova the right to choose their motherland. When Yugoslavia became a federal republic the rights accorded to all the peoples of Yugoslavia were refused them and Kosova was integrated into the Serbian Republic.

Tito took up on his own account the nationalist and chauvinist policy of the Yugoslav monarchy, that is the same policy of division and subversion as the bourgeoisie and imperialism. He put on his program the realization of "Great Yugoslavia,'' and to this end, he multiplied the plots ?ind attacks against socialist Albania. The PLA denounced the aggressive policy of the Titoites. With the support of the USSR of Stalin it exposed all the plots and resisted all the attacks. But socialist Albania did more than resist. Applying Marxism-Leninism consistently in all the spheres of life, she made of Albania an example for all the peoples of Yugoslavia, for the Albanian population of Kosova and for all the peoples of the worlds.

It was at that moment, when it was racked by all sorts of national, economic and political contradictions, that Yugoslavia received the "help'' of Khrushchov and his group who had usurped the power of the working class in the USSR. Yugoslavia was already a springboard for imperialism to disintegrate the socialist camp. It became in addition a pawn of the Soviet social-imperialists, an instrument of their policy of plots against Albania, a base for their expansionist and hegemonic policy in the Balkan region, towards the Mediterranean. To achieve their ends the social-imperialists, relying on Serbian chauvinism and on the most degenerate elements of the Yugoslav leadership, sought to stir up conflicts between the states and peoples of the region.

On the death of Tito, the different clans in rivalry within the Yugoslav leadership began to confront each other openly. The terrain became favorable for the manipulations of the imperialists and social-imperialists. Because of the unprincipled policy of the Yugoslav leaders a dangerous situation has been created in the Balkans. The peoples of the Balkans and all the European peoples have not forgotten that it was in this region that the spark of the first imperialist world war was ignited, a war which sent millions of human beings to be slaughtered, the majority of them young people.

Faithfully carrying out the teachings of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, the Party of Labor of Albania and the Albanian people won the sympathy of the peoples of the region, their brothers-in-arms in the struggle against Nazi-fascism. Albania says clearly what she thinks and does what she says. She nurtures no expansionist aim. She defends the right of the peoples to live free and to be masters of their destiny. This is why she supports the demand of the Albanian population of Kosova to constitute itself as a republic within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a right enjoyed by the other peoples in the Federation. This is why she is the target of the slanderous attacks by Yugoslav reaction in whose shadow the superpowers are intriguing.

Our Parties denounce this campaign of slanders, and support the demand of the Albanian people in Kosova; They emphasize the necessity of settling existing national problems front the standpoint of the aspirations and rights of each nation, having as a base the strengthening of the camp of the peoples against the expansionist aims and plans for war of the two superpowers, the USA and the Soviet Union.

Our Parties call on the workers, the individuals and forces who love peace justice and freedom to support this declaration.

Issued by:

Communist Party of Germany

Communist Party of Denmark (M-L)

Communist Party of Spain (M-L)

Workers' Communist Party of France

Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (M-L)

Communist Party of Portugal (Reconstructed)

Revolutionary Communist Party of Turkey -- Organization Abroad

September 1981

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The Communist Party of Brazil Fights Rightist Liquidators

Recently the Communist Party of Brazil expelled a number of factionalist and liquidationist elements. Joao Amazonas, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Brazil, wrote an important article in the Party journal Principios, No. 1, 1981, repudiating the general standpoint of Nelson Levy, one of the leaders of the rightist elements. Below we reprint excerpts from the translation of this article that appeared in Albania Today, No. 4, 1981 under the title "A Marxist Theoretician or a Liberal-Bourgeois Dilettante."

Posing as a great theoretician and critic of Marxism, Nelson Levy wrote a book entitled The Crisis of Imperialism and the Revolution. In the preface to it, he describes this book as an attempt "to revive polemics as a scientific mode of production (?) in the fire of the political and ideological debate.'' His book is merely a shoddy treatment of some problems already much debated and clarified on the whole, except for some changes or confirmations in the economic and financial field, though it always shirks the political refutation of the theory of three worlds and, in the ideological aspect, passes in silence the main source from which this theory originates -- a source already determined in broad outline in the period in which he formulated his conclusions.

In the introduction the author comes out openly as a supporter of trends hostile to Marxism-Leninism, though he does this under the guise of rejecting dogmatism, adopting some views of the petty-bourgeois (or bourgeois) intellectuals which lack all perspective confronted with the process of the sharpening class struggle, which is growing even more, especially from the middle of the 50's. In this aspect, he borders closely on the ideas of the "regenerative Marxists'' of the type of Garaudy, Lukacs and others.

In his attack against Marxism he goes as far back as the 30's, indeed even the 20's, immediately after the death of Lenin....

The Stress on Dogmatism

In the introduction to his book, Nelson Levy starts out with the claim of the renewer of Marxism, putting the stress on dogmatism which has allegedly struck root in and led the workers' movement, as well as Marxism, according to him, to distortions of consequence. "Dogmatism,'' he writes, "led to a whole range of distortions which atrophize the scientific and revolutionary content of Marxism.'' In bringing in this accusation, he is neither original nor does he say anything new. He simply takes in his hands the banner unfurled by the revisionists, old and new, as well as by the best organized and manipulated bourgeois propaganda. All the variants of modern revisionism, created by Browder and Mao Zedong, by Tito, Khrushchov, Togliatti and company, harped ceaselessly on the string of dogmatism, which, they claimed, hampered the "creative'' development of the doctrine of the working class. None of them created anything of value. On the contrary, they defended reactionary formulas of different shades with the aim of benumbing the consciousness of the masses and giving a new lease of life to the aging capitalism....

The possibility for dogmatism to emerge in some aspects of the workers' movement or the necessity of combating it can not be denied. All along their life Lenin and Stalin resolutely combated dogmatism. The Marxist-Leninists of our time have always opposed dogmatism which hampers the advance of the revolutionary movement.... Nevertheless, there is a colossal difference between the struggle against dogmatism waged by Lenin and Stalin, or that conducted today by the Marxist-Leninists -- a struggle which is closely connected with the liquidation of every hindrance to the revolution, and the "anti-dogmatic'' onslaught launched by the carriers of bourgeois tendencies, the revisionists and "critics'' of Marxism in their attempts to sow ideological confusion and distort the revolutionary doctrine of the working class....

Marxism-Leninism -- the Science of the Working Class

... His [Nelson Levy's] critical references are taken from people who have never assimilated Marxism or who have abandoned it long before. While underrating the revolutionary contribution of the true Marxists, Levy overrates the distorters of Marxism and accuses the adherents to the proletarian revolution of allegedly having shown unduly little interest in the "works'' devoted to the various trends of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois thought. "The overwhelming majority of the attempts at making a new contribution to Marxism(!),'' says Levy, "were a priori treated as revisionist manifestations.'' But which are these contributions? He considers as a valuable experience of "scientific creativeness" the works of Lukacs, the so- called "Marxist" who sang loud praise to Khrushchov and applauded with enthusiasm the "grandiose and many-sided reforms" ("Letter on Stalinism") of the Khrushchovite 20th Congress of the CPSU, who wrote the book Problems of Cultural Coexistence and was much in the limelight of the Hungarian revisionist party. Nelson Levy, likewise, extols as "the last word of systematization in the field of social sciences" the Keynesian or post-Keynesian bourgeois political economy, the German and North American bourgeois sociology which, in his words, were not well-assessed from the Marxist standpoint. Although he admits that these questions have been discussed, he adds that to address oneself to the classics of Marxism-Leninism over these problems would be dogmatism....

In this connection Levy upholds the view that limitations in scientific and aesthetic activity have allegedly led to "progressive abandonment of the party ranks by the intellectual strata." By this he tries to insinuate that those intellectuals who left the party did so because they were prohibited from doing what they wanted. Thus, partisanship is completely discarded by him. And, as a result, he comes to the same pass as the liberal-bourgeois concepts of Mao Zedong do: "Let a Hundred Flowers Blossom, Let a Hundred Schools of Thought Contend..." Experience, however, teaches us that the intellectuals who do not succeed in assimilating Marxism, the proletarian style and method in the class struggle, endeavor to sever the threads which link them with the vanguard organization. But this does not weaken the party. And in order to arrive at the well-known bourgeois intellectualist concept, in which the intelligentsia in general is considered as the carrier of theoretical scientific thinking, Levy has to make only one step. He not only laments the departure of these intellectuals (fellow- travelers) from the party, but with the false allegation of unsuitable conditions for their stay in the party, he also tries to justify the non-proletarian class position of these elements. "Doubts, criticism," says he, "were suppressed for years on end. And when they could be suppressed no more, in most cases they burst out outside the bounds of Marxism... or mixed with other trends of thought." Would it not be more correct to say that their desertion of the Marxist camp had its roots precisely in their false class position? When the question is about Marxists with proletarian concepts, the outbursts which may take place (and they have taken place when the worker parties have turned revisionist), do not lead to other trends of thought; they are not shut up "in the shell of skepticism," but continue in the Marxist tradition. The truth is that there are proletarian intellectuals, or intellectuals closely linked with the working class, with a revolutionary world outlook, and bourgeois and petty-bourgeois intellectuals who strut about posing as extraordinary beings, as if it were up to them to make the law in the party, in the state and society. To keep the Marxist ground or abandon it is not simply a question of particular conditions but a question of class concepts....

Struggle of Opinions In the Social-Democratic Manner

In his book Nelson Levy betrays his own utterly wrong idea of the true Marxist-Leninist party. In his opinion, such a party would, in the last analysis, be only a club for endless discussions and debate, a party open to all ideologies, a party in which several antagonistic lines would coexist "within the framework of a greater unity." Of course, such a party would never be a Marxist-Leninist, revolutionary and proletarian party, but a revisionist social-democratic and bourgeois party. In this case, willy-nilly, ideological pluralism would crop up in the party, and would fatally lead to its organizational disintegration, to its infiltration by all kind of bourgeois, opportunist and revisionist elements.

Disagreement Over Criticism of the Revisionists

In the introduction to his book Nelson Levy analyses from his anti-Marxist angle the stand of the Marxist-Leninists towards modern revisionism. He thinks that the renegades from socialism are criticized from dogmatic positions, which according to him, "benumbed creativeness in the camp of Marxism itself and hampered the deepening of criticism of the revisionists." He should have much pent-up petty-bourgeois hatred to bring in such accusation.

It is known that criticism of modern revisionism, as well as of its Soviet, Chinese and other forms, was made by the Marxist-Leninists all over the world right from the first moments of its emergence. The creation of new Marxist-Leninist parties is one of the main results of this consistent criticism. This stand against revisionism did not emerge from those sections of intellectuals who criticize Marxism today. These sections accepted revisionism on a whole for a long time, and repudiated it, if they really have come to repudiate it, only when its exposure became too evident.

The exposure of revisionism is a great historic merit of those who detected and attacked it to defend the principles of Marxism-Leninism....Criticism of this form of social- democracy was deepened in twenty years of relentless struggle against Soviet revisionism, against the so- called Eurocommunism, against Tito- ism and, recently, Chinese revisionism. And the transformation of the USSR and China into social-imperialist countries was clearly analysed in this process. Apart from this, the criticism of the Marxist-Leninists was also directed against another form of revisionism, against those trends which try to revise Marxism from the positions of the so-called struggle against dogmatism, a struggle which is not aimed at revisionism, but at the foundations of Marxism-Leninism. So the Marxist-Leninists conduct their criticism on two fronts: against the open revisionists and against those who disguise themselves as "creative" Marxists, like Nelson Levy. And there is no doubt that the criticism of the Marxist-Leninists against the revisionists has been profound and fruitful. That is why they arrived at a common conception of the revisionist errors of Maoism....

Maoism and the Theory of Three Worlds

In the introduction to his book, Levy refers himself with discontent to some aspects of the struggle waged up to now against Maoism and against the theory of three worlds.

He shows his disagreement with the exposure of Mao Zedong thought on the part of the Marxist-Leninists. According to him, Maoism is allegedly "accepted en bloc and in an uncritical manner, or at most, after some weak and intuitive criticism..., and since Mao Zedong thought, as it seems, must have a probable connection with the failure of the construction of socialism in China, it began to be rejected in the same unsystematic manner as it was exalted initially." In this reasoning opposition to the criticism formulated by the world communist movement is quite obvious, and, in a certain manner, regret about the fact that Maoism has been rejected "unsystematically," is expressed. Not unintentionally Nelson Levy... keeps silent about the theoretical and ideological source (Mao Zedong thought) from which the problem of three worlds emerged, at a moment when this "theory" is not a mere invention of Deng Xiaoping, nor was it enunciated suddenly, without connection with the past, in the speech he delivered at the General Assembly of the UNO when Mao Zedong was still alive. Likewise, it is not unintentionally that he talks only of a possible connection between Maoism and the failure of socialism, being unable to see the events in China as directly deriving from the concepts of the old Chinese leader. It seems that he employs the word "unsystematically" in the sense that Mao Zedong thought has good things which ought to be introduced into Marxism. This may be inferred from his criticism of the criticism made by those who radically refute the Maoist viewpoint....

Conclusion. After pointing out that he considers his book as "a contribution to the discussion of the principal problems of our time," Levy expresses the desire that one day this debate becomes "powerful and fiery," calling expressly on his readers to follow the road he describes. But what is his road? It is the road of the struggle against Marxism-Leninism under the guise of the struggle against dogmatism; it is the road of the struggle against the genuine party of the working class under the idiotic pretext that an end should be put to ideological monopolism; it is the road of the attack on the revolutionary methods and style of the proletariat in the class struggle, which are considered as restrictive and sectarian; it is the road of the attack on scientific socialism which allegedly is nothing other than a set of errors. It is the same road as that which led the well-headed bourgeois and petty-bourgeois intellectuals, who divorced themselves from political and ideological coexistence with the advanced proletariat, who lost faith in the revolution and communism, into the morass of revisionism.

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JAMAICA:

Seaga's Offensive and the Social-Democratic "Opposition"

(The following article is reprinted from The West Indian Voice, newspaper of the Caribbean Progressive Study Group, Issue No. 15, September-October 1981.)

"We will cooperate much more than they [Seaga and the Jamaican Labor Party -- ed.] did when they were the opposition. We wish to see the country at peace. We wish to see the country with investments. We wish to see the country with a good tourist image.... "

These were the marriage vows of Michael Manley (ex-Prime Minister of Jamaica and leader of the People's National Party -- PNP), as he and the PNP joined Seaga and the JLP on the altar of "national recovery." This is the code of conduct for the loyal PNP social-democratic "opposition" in face of the ruthless offensive being conducted against the working masses by the Seaga government. In Jamaica, what was yesterday a hidden alliance between the PNP "socialists" and the JLP "laborites," is today taking the shape of an open alliance, with "cooperation" as the favorite theme song. The basis of this disgusting collaboration is that even when they were at each other's throats in the past (and likely in the future too), these two parties, the PNP and the JLP, share a common platform and program. They are united in defense of the bourgeoisie and imperialism; they are parties of neo-colonial exploitation and reaction.

Seaga is a devout servant of the U.S. imperialist domination of Jamaica. He takes as his mission in life ' 'the deliverance" of Jamaica to the banquet table of the U.S. money kings. He is a self-avowed reactionary and favorite of the capitalist exploiters in Jamaica. Seaga and the JLP are feverishly carrying forward a ruthless offensive against the working masses. They are sharing out hundreds of millions to the exploiters as their "reward for enterprise," through holidays, incentives, concessions, etc., and they have backed the masses against the wall, slashing wages, launching productivity drives, jacking up prices, etc. Seaga took over from Manley and the PNP who ran the show for the last eight years. Indeed, Manley initiated the offensive that is underway today. Therefore, it is no surprise today that the PNP is openly showing its enthusiasm to see the job of sellout being carried forward.

During the elections contest last year, several hundreds of people were slaughtered in Jamaica due to the fierce rivalry between the JLP and the PNP. Manley and the PNP swore before the world that the crimes committed by their side against the people were all for the good of the struggle against imperialism and against the evil designs which Seaga had in store for Jamaica. Yet today, with their pledges of "cooperation," Manley and the PNP are in fact endorsing the attacks being conducted by the JLP administration. This situation shows the utter fallacy of the "anti-imperialist" postures of the PNP, and is a sharp manifestation of the crisis taking place inside the PNP; this crisis reveals their bankruptcy.

Upon losing the October 1980 elections, the PNP was thrown further into crisis. A soul-searching examination was initiated to see what they could pin the blame upon for their defeat and for the collapse of their discredited banner of "Democratic Socialism." Dogfights flared up into the open between the various equally treacherous fractions inside the PNP. And the PNP suffered a series of desertions from within their ranks, including some which went over to the JLP. And what did they come up with? Today these renowned "anti-imperialists" and "socialists" are openly climbing into bed with Seaga and the JLP, and they are apologizing profusely for and even renouncing their veiled pretense of being "progressive."

This demonstrates what the real substance of the PNP's social-democratic "opposition" to imperialism has been all along. This "opposition" seeks to dress up neo-colonial reaction and exploitation in liberal "anti-imperialist" clothing in order to deceive the working masses politically. And it seeks to tie them hand and foot to the designs of imperialism.

The utter bankruptcy and counterrevolutionary nature of these social-democrats was also seen last May when the PNP's National Executive Council insisted that their whole party recognize:

"that the commitment to a dynamic private sector in a mixed economy is neither temporary nor lip service, but stems from a sincere commitment to a form of socio-economic and political development."

They further mandated that:

"The party must so act as to make it absolutely clear that we are not communist, that our objectives with respect to the organization of Jamaica society are not Marxist- Leninist objectives and that our methods are not Marxist-Leninist methods."

Just in case anyone was mistaken.

Forced to strip itself of its disguises, the PNP is exposing itself for all to see as a social-democratic party in crisis. It is displaying its utterly rotten counter-revolutionary nature and working with all its effort to keep its bourgeois image intact and to restore itself to a position of respectability and competency in the eyes of its bourgeois and imperialist masters.

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On the Occasion of the 40th Anniversary of the PLA and Its 8th Congress

Second Edition of the History of the Party of Labor of Albania Published

November 8, 1981, marks the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Party of Labor of Albania. This falls just after completion of the 8th Congress of the PLA, which has been held just as we go to press. On the eve of these occasions, the Institute of Marxist-Leninist Studies under the direction of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania has recently compiled and published the second edition of the History of the Party of Labor of Albania.

The History of the Party of Labor of Albania, published for the first time in 1968, has served a powerful role for the revolutionary education of the Albanian communists and working class. As well, it has been read and studied by Marxist-Leninists throughout the world.

The first edition has been reprinted several times and published in several foreign languages. From the second edition, so far only the three supplementary chapters and the general conclusions have been translated into foreign languages and are expected to come off the press soon. Later on, the whole book is to be published in foreign languages.

The Workers' Advocate warmly greets the announcement of the publication of this book. Below we reprint a commentary on this book which appeared in Zeri i Popullit, Organ of the Central Committee of the PLA, as published in the Albanian Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin of September 17, 1981.

The second edition of the History of the Party of Labor of Albania, prepared by the Institute of Marxist-Leninist Studies by decision of the Central Committee of the Party, preserves the structure and content of the first edition, meanwhile it reflects the later activity of the Party till 1980, to which three new chapters (7,8,9) have been devoted.

Dealing precisely with the fundamental question embodied in the supplement to the text of the History of the PLA, the newspaper Zeri i Popullit writes among the other things in one of its editorials that the years 1966-1980 are the richest period in generalizations of theoretical and practical Marxist-Leninist character made by the Party of Labor of Albania in the documents of its 5th, 6th, and 7th Congresses and of the plenums of the Central Committee, but especially in the works by Comrade Enver Hoxha written in these years. These generalizations make a new contribution to the defense and creative application of Marxism-Leninism, at the same time they constitute an enrichment and further development of the theory and practice of scientific socialism.

The supplement to the text of the History of the PLA, Zeri i Popullit continues, reflects in the first place the leading role of the Party, as the decisive subjective factor in the uninterrupted development and deepening of the socialist revolution in all the fields, in the safeguard of its victories, the realization of the hegemonic role of the working class.

This role has kept constantly increasing. The increase is conditioned by a series of factors. The first factor is the correct line of the Party with its capability, courage and determination to implement this line in every situation. The other factor is the revolutionary implementation of the Marxist-Leninist principles and organizational norms.

Particularly the preservation and strengthening of its ideological, political and organizational unity has influenced the increase of the leading role of the Party.

The increase of the leading role of the Party is also the result of the strengthening of the proletarian makeup of the Party. During the 1966-1980 period its ranks increased by 80 percent with workers, cooperativists and officials, distinguished in the wave of the struggle for the socialist construction and the defense of the homeland, as the best among the best, as determined proletarian revolutionaries, as the most progressive ones. Since 1970 the workers constituted the majority in the makeup of the general effectives of the Party.

The persistent following of a correct revolutionary road, which complies with the demands of the masses of the people, the interests of the fast rate and reliable development of the country on the road of socialism, of the preservation of the national independence, has brought about the strengthening of the unity of the people around the Party.

Dealing with this unity, the newspaper stresses among other things that a great proof of the Party-people unity has been the unanimous backing of the masses for the revolutionary foreign policy of the Party. The masses of the people not only have backed up this policy, but they have also actively taken part under the leadership of the Party in the struggle to expose the aggressive and expansionist policy and activity of the U.S. imperialists, Soviet and Chinese social-imperialists and other imperialists, to expose various trends of modern revisionism. Backing up unreservedly the correct Marxist- Leninist stands of the Party with regard to the events in Kosova, they have unanimously condemned the big Serb policy and activity of of reprisals and genocide against the Albanians in Yugoslavia, have supported their efforts to gain their national and political-social rights in the context of Yugoslav federation.

The unity with the Party has been reflected with extraordinary force at special moments, such was the difficult situation created as a result of the cutting off of Chinese credits when the whole people, upon the appeal of the Party, rose on foot to fulfill all the tasks of the 6th Five-Year Plan, or such was the April 1979 earthquake in the northern regions when all the districts of the country, as a single body, went to the assistance of the affected population to implement the decision of the CC of the Party and of the Council of Ministers of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania to liquidate within 5-6 months the aftermath of this earthquake without any foreign aid.

The years 1966-1980 are also years of a great struggle of the Party to further revolutionize the people's power, to strengthen and improve the dictatorship of the proletariat.

To the strengthening of our socialist state served especially the the approval of the new Constitution (in 1976) which embodies that new qualitative development of this state at the stage of the complete construction of the socialist society.

"The new Constitution," Comrade Enver Hoxha has said, "reflects a genuine socialist society, which is built according to the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, embodied and proved in the revolutionary practice of our country."

The vitality of the policy and practical revolutionary activity of the PLA, Zeri i Popullit continues further on, is seen particularly in the development of the socialist economy and culture and of the well-being of the masses of the people.

The rates of their development have been higher than in any capitalist and bourgeois revisionist country, despite the savage imperialist-revisionist blockade, although our economy and culture develop relying on the inner resources, means, forces, without foreign loans, while since 1978 without any foreign credit or material aid.

The Khrushchovite revisionists, cutting every material aid in 1960, said that Albania could not take even a step forward in economic and cultural development without this aid! But what happened in fact? The total industrial production in 1979 as against 1960 increased five times, agricultural production three times. During this time, there were built powerful hydropower stations, such as the Vau i Dejes hydropower station, the "Light of the Party" hydropower station in Fierza, which are compared with the biggest hydropower stations of Europe. Engineering industry managed to fulfill 95 percent of the spare parts the country was in need of, it is able to turn out even complete industrial plants and factories. Chemical industry is able to meet all the needs for chemical fertilizers. The light and food industry has managed to meet over 85 percent of the needs of the people for consumer goods. Since 1976 agriculture (for the first time in the history of our people) is self-sufficient in bread grains. In 1970 the complete electrification of all the villages of the country concluded. In 1968 there was completely abolished the system of taxes. So, socialist Albania, once the most backward country in Europe, became a country with multi-branch industry, with mechanized agriculture, one of the few countries in the world with completely electrified villages, the first country without taxes.

Both the Khrushchovite revisionists and the Chinese revisionists, cutting off their credits and aids, thought that the economic development in socialist Albania would mark time. But they were mistaken. Our people found means and forces to build without any foreign aid the works that remained incomplete when the Chinese credits were cut off and to realize all the other economic tasks. Total industrial production in 1979 and 1980, the first two years after the cutting off of these credits, increased at a higher average annual rate then in the 1976-1978 period.

Under the leadership of the Party, during the 1966-1980 period, the newspaper writes further on, ideological revolution was intensified in an unprecedented way. In order to promote this revolution, great popular movements burst out such as the movement to put everywhere the general interest above the individual one, the movement against religion and backward customs, the movement for the complete liberation of women, the movement for the revolutionization of school, etc. Albania, with the will of the masses of the people, according to the teachings of the Party, became the first country in the world without churches and mosques, without Christian and Moslem priests, thus dealing a telling blow to religion and backward customs linked with them. These movements revealed the great transforming force of the communist ideas and of the Marxist-Leninist line of the party of the working class when they become an idea and line of the masses, the vigorous educative force of socialism in the spiritual liberation of man from all the moral evils cultivated by the society with antagonistic classes. In this period the Party attached a very great care to the increase of the defense capacity of the homeland. By deepening the implementation of the Marxist-Leninist principle of the arming and military training of the whole people for defense, it completely put into life the system of military training of the working masses that are at the same time builders and defenders of socialism. In this way the army and the armed people have ensured as never before a high level of readiness and capability for defense, being fully able to resist any aggressor or coalition of imperialist and revisionist aggressors, at any situation.

Intense activity has been carried out by the "Party from the 5th Congress and on in defense of Marxism-Leninism and the cause of the revolution on the international scale.

In order to stamp out the revolution, to liquidate socialism, to quench the liberation movements of the peoples, the counter-revolutionary forces -- U.S. imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism, Chinese social-imperialism, all international imperialism and revisionism -- undertook and are undertaking frenzied attacks resorting to all means against Marxism-Leninism, attacks unprecedented by the revolutionary world movement before. In these conditions, the PLA deemed it necessary to strengthen the struggle against these forces, to expose them and to defend Marxism-Leninism. The documents of the 5th, 6th and 7th Congresses of the Party as well as the documents of the plenums of the Central Committee are a program of work and struggle not only for the complete construction of the socialist society in our country, but also a weapon for the defense of Marxism-Leninism on the international scale.

The struggle of the PLA in defense of Marxism-Leninism and the cause of the revolution on the international scale is fully embodied in a series of speeches and writings by Comrade Enver Hoxha especially in his major works Imperialism and the Revolution, Yugoslav"Self-Administration" -- A Capitalist Theory and Practice, Reflections on China, With Stalin, Eurocommunism Is Anti-Communism and The Khrushchevites. These works of great theoretical and practical value are new powerful weapons in the hands of our communists and working people in the struggle against imperialism and modern revisionism for the socialist construction and the defense of the homeland. To the great theoretical and practical value on the national and the international scale of these works testify the course of events in the world, which speak of the correctness and farsightedness of their theses and conclusions as well by the broad international echo they had and continue to have.

The PLA defends Marxism-Leninism on the international scale not only by defending the Marxist-Leninist principles from the attempts of its enemies, bourgeois and revisionist, to liquidate them, but also by adopting Marxist-Leninist stands for the world development in general and for any international event in particular by denouncing and fighting against the counter-revolutionary policy and ideology of various imperialists and revisionists, by supporting the revolutionary movements, the liberation struggles of the peoples, the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement, part of which is it itself.

The PLA renders all its possible help to all the sister Marxist-Leninist parties in their ideological and organizational strengthening by considering such help as its great international task. On the other hand, it considers the support that the Marxist-Leninist and revolutionaries far and wide the world over give to it as a great aid for its struggle for the complete construction of the socialist society. As Comrade Enver Hoxha stresses in the work Imperialism and the Revolution they "see that the Party of Labor of Albania defends Marxism-Leninism when the others attack it, that it defends the principles of proletarian internationalism when the various revisionists have thrown these principles overboard. They see that in its stands the Party of Labor of Albania not only proceeds from the interests of its own country, but also expresses and represents very great interests, near and dear to the entire proletariat, the interests of genuine socialism, the interests of all those who base themselves on and are guided by Marxism-Leninism for the revolutionary transformation of the world."

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The second edition of the History of the PLA, enriched with the reflection of its revolutionary activity for 1966-1980 period and with very important theoretical generalizations that the Party has made in this period, writes in conclusion Zeri i Popullit, will serve even more, according to the evaluation of Comrade Enver Hoxha as "a sharp and powerful ideological and political weapon for the revolutionary tempering of the communists, the working class, of all the people, for the solution of the great actual problems."

[Photo: Placard hailing the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Party of Labor of Albania.]

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On the Occasion of the 64th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution

The Ideas of the October Revolution Are Defended and Carried Forward in Struggle Against Modern Revisionism

On the occasion of the anniversary of the October Revolution, we are reprinting excerpts from a speech by Comrade Hysni Kapo delivered at the commemorative meeting in Tirana, Albania on November 7, 1977, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution. Comrade Hysni Kapo was an outstanding leader of the Party of Labor of Albania and a member of the Political Bureau of its Central Committee until his death in 1979.

Dear Comrades,

Sixty years are completed from the time of the most outstanding event in the history of mankind, when the great teacher of the proletariat, V.I. Lenin, at the head of the Bolshevik Party he founded, led the Russian proletariat in the decisive battle, which led to the overthrow of the odious bourgeois regime, the triumph of the Great October Socialist Revolution in 1917.

Today, the genuine Marxist-Leninists, all the international proletariat, the freedom-loving and progressive peoples in the world, who are fighting against imperialism and social-imperialism, the bourgeoisie and international reaction, the revisionists of every hue and all the enemies of Marxism-Leninism, to break the chains of slavery once and forever, to do away with any oppression and exploitation, to become masters of their own destinies, are celebrating this day with joy and full of inspiration and hope for the happy future.

All our people are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the triumph of the Great October Revolution as their own victory, because with the triumphant ideas of the Great October is closely linked the most important event in the centuries-long history of the Albanian people, November 8, 1941, when the beloved leader of the Party and people, Comrade Enver Hoxha, founded our glorious Party, which on the basis of the teachings of Marxism-Leninism, led our people in the great liberation struggle against the nazi-fascist occupiers and the traitors to the country, made them masters of their own destinies and is leading them with wisdom and clarity towards the happy life they enjoy today and the still happier and more prosperous future they are building on the road of socialism and, later on, of communism.

History Has Proved the Life-Giving Force of the Ideas of the October Revolution

The triumph of the October Revolution put its seal on the development of the most important events of our century. The guns of "Aurora" informed the world that a new historic epoch began, the epoch of the proletarian revolutions, the epoch of the downfall of the last oppressive and exploiting order -- capitalism, and of the construction of a new world, free from any exploitation of man by man and from any national oppression, of the construction of the socialist and communist society. They were a thunderous call which awakened the world proletariat to rise in revolution.

The triumph of the Great October Socialist Revolution, which put an end to the national oppression by Russian czarism and established the relations of equality among the nations in the first socialist state, also awakened and aroused the multimillion masses of the oppressed peoples in the colonies and semi-colonies in the struggle for liberation from the barbarous colonial yoke of world imperialism. The October Revolution opened the epoch of the national liberation revolutions in the oppressed countries, the epoch of the collapse of colonialism.

Under the direct influence of the October Revolution and the determined struggle of Lenin in defense of Marxism-Leninism against the deviators and traitors of the Second International, the great process of the differentiation took place in the world socialist movement of that time, the communist parties were created, as parties of a new type, parties of the revolution. After the victory of the Great October Revolution, Lenin founded the Third Communist International, which played an historic role in the development of the world communist and revolutionary movement, equipped it with a revolutionary strategy based on Marxism- Leninism, raised to new heights, enriched and further deepened the militant solidarity of the working people throughout the world, the proletarian internationalism.

The Great October Socialist Revolution for the first time embodied in practice the correctness of the Marxist doctrine, it proved that the proletarian revolution and the overthrow of capitalism are inevitable, that socialism is the future of mankind.

Celebrating the 60th anniversary of the triumph of the October Revolution, together with the genuine Marxist-Leninists and revolutionaries, the proletariat and the peoples of the whole world, the Albanian communists and our entire people, too, honor with profound respect the name and immortal deed of the founder of the Bolshevik Party, the great strategist of the revolution, the glorious inspirer and leader of the first socialist state and the Communist International, the beloved leader of the world proletariat, the unbent fighter for the defense of Marxism from the opportunists and revisionists, the genial successor of the ideas and the revolutionary work of Marx and Engels, Vladimir Ilich Lenin.

Celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, they honor with deep respect also the name and work of the disciple and close comrade-in-arms of Lenin, the great proletarian Marxist-Leninist and revolutionary, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, who for 30 years in succession, at the head of the Bolshevik Party raised higher and higher the triumphant banner of the October Revolution, successfully leading the construction of the new society in the first socialist country in the world, led the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet people against the Hitlerite aggressors to complete victory and made an outstanding contribution to the development of the world revolutionary movement. It is the great Stalin who defended loyally the teachings of Lenin and the October Revolution and developed them further, waging a determined and irreconcilable struggle against all the enemies of and renegades from Marxism-Leninism, the revolution and socialism, from Trotsky and Bukharin down to Tito and other traitors of every hue.

History, the great events of our century proved the life-giving force of the ideas and experience of the October Revolution. Marching on the glorious road the Great October opened, on the road indicated by Lenin and Stalin, the workers' and communist parties in a number of countries of Europe and Asia led the proletariat and the working masses in their countries in struggle and the revolution and reaped victories. As a result of these victories the camp of socialism was created and telling blows were dealt at the positions of world imperialism. All these victories gave a powerful impetus to the liberation movement of the oppressed peoples which led to the destruction of the colonial system of imperialism and the creation of a great number of new independent states. The international communist movement grew in scope and strength as never before, the workers' and communist parties strengthened and gained a great authority, the ideas of Marxism-Leninism spread widely throughout the world.

The Revisionist Betrayal Cannot Darken the Light of the Great October

Neither the betrayal of the Khrushchovite revisionists and the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union nor the wide spread of the revisionist trend in the international workers' and communist movement can darken in the least the historic importance of the October Revolution and the correctness of its teachings and experience. No matter how much the traitorous Khrushchov-Brezhnev gang may try to falsify the historic experience of the October Revolution, presenting it as a "relatively peaceful" and almost "bloodless" revolution, and violating the river of blood shed by the Russian proletariat for its victory and in its defense, they cannot darken the light-giving teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin on the absolute necessity of the armed revolution, the use of revolutionary violence to overthrow the anti-popular regimes and to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. Likewise, the Soviet revisionist renegades, who have destroyed the deed of the October Revolution in the Soviet Union with their anti-Marxist and counter-revolutionary theories and practices, cannot darken in the least the great lessons of Marxism-Leninism on the dictatorship of the proletariat and the construction of the socialist and communist society. The revisionist tragedy in that country is the clearest testimony as to where the betrayal of these vital lessons leads.

The Khrushchovite revisionist leadership, which came to power at the head of the Soviet party and state after the death of Stalin, betrayed Marxism-Leninism and the ideas of the Great October. This great betrayal at the head of the Soviet party and state transformed it from a party of the proletariat into a bourgeois party under the label of the "party of all the people," from the party of the revolution into the party of the counter-revolution and the restoration of capitalism, from the party of Marxism-Leninism into the party of anti-Marxism.

The present Soviet revisionist leaders and their followers speculate on the ideas of Marxism-Leninism and the October Revolution, use them as a disguise to hide their betrayal, to justify their anti-Marxist, bourgeois and imperialist course. But in fact they have discarded the October ideas, have deprived Marxism-Leninism of the revolutionary essence, just as social-democracy did with the ideas of Marx before them. The revisionist party of the Soviet Union is today at the head of international modern revisionism. Its 20th and 22nd Congresses are the embodiment and codification of all the previous opportunist and revisionist theories of Bernstein and Kautsky, Bukharin, Browder and Tito, etc. All the present revisionist theories and trends, from the Dubcek followers down to the "Eurocommunists" and others, are nourished by the notorious 20th Congress of the Soviet revisionist party.

The putsch carried out by the Khrushchovite revisionist renegades who usurped the party led to its transformation into a weapon of the counter-revolution, and they used it to undermine and liquidate the decisive victory of the working class and the October Revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat. Spreading and presenting its anti-Marxist theories on the extinction of the class struggle, on leaving behind the dictatorship of the proletariat and its alleged transformation into a state of all the people, also sanctioned lately by law in the new anti-Stalinist Constitution of the Soviet Union, as "creative development" of Marxism-Leninism, the Soviet revisionist ruling clique is trying to hide the fact that it has established the fascist dictatorship of the new bourgeoisie, which represents the main weapon of its domination on the working people, of the suppression of their revolt and the restoration of capitalism. The pompous words of the Soviet revisionist propaganda on the development and prosperity of the socialist democracy in the Soviet Union are but cynical and demagogic mockery. Of what kind of socialist democracy can you speak about in a country where the dictatorship of the proletariat, which constitutes the indispensable and decisive condition for the existence of true democracy for the working people, has been liquidated? Life and facts in the revisionist Soviet Union testify to an unprecedented swelling of the repressive bureaucratic, technocratic and military-police machine which excludes every democracy for the working people, which has barred every road for the Soviet working class and people to take part in governing the country and has reduced them to a merely producing and exploited force....

The Soviet revisionists have long since liquidated the socialist relations in production and have fully restored capitalism -- the state monopoly capitalism of a special kind. The state property in the Soviet Union, just as the kolkhozian one (collective farm -- ed.), has long since stopped being a socialist property. It is in the hands of the new bourgeois class, made up of bureaucratic-technocratic, state, economic, military and intellectual hierarchy, and serves it to ensure the surplus and super-profits from the savage exploitation of the working class and the working masses. Along with this state capitalist ownership, the private ownership in the countryside is enlivening and strengthening from year to year. It gives about 28% of the total agricultural production and 30-60% of some main farm products, such as meat, eggs, milk, vegetables, potatoes, etc. It is deepening more and more the gap between the new bourgeois class, which lives in luxury and increases its profits with every passing day on the sweat and toil of the people and the broad working masses, who are subjected to a merciless exploitation and the operation of the capitalist law on the relative and absolute impoverishment.

A clear and ugly expression of the complete restoration of capitalism is the unrestrained operation of the economic laws of capitalism in the Soviet economy, such as competition, crises, unemployment, chaos, etc. The opening of the doors to the mass penetration of capital of the trusts and monopolies of the Western imperialist states in the Soviet Union, its ever greater inclusion in the cogs and wheels of the world capitalist economy, with all its catastrophic consequences, especially in the conditions of the deep crisis which has the international capitalist system in its grip, are also its consequence. The Soviet working people, who through blood and innumerable sacrifices through three revolutions did away with the capitalist yoke in October 1917 and showed the working people throughout the world the road of social liberation, today, because of the revisionist betrayal, have become an object of double exploitation and plunder: by the new local revisionist bureaucratic bourgeoisie and by the foreign imperialist bourgeoisie....

The triumph of the Great October Revolution and the creation of the first socialist state was the victory of proletarian internationalism, because the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Lenin and Stalin, became the powerful center and support of the world revolutionary and liberation movement. J.V. Stalin wrote that Lenin always saw the Republic of the Soviets as an indispensable link to facilitate the victory of the working people of the whole world over capital, because, according to Lenin, the tasks of the revolution which has come out victorious is to do the maximum of what is possible in a country for the development, support and awakening of the revolution in all the countries. The gang of the Soviet revisionist renegades, which usurped the power in the country and betrayed the ideals of the October Revolution, has transformed the Soviet Union from a base of world revolution, that it was at the time of Lenin and Stalin, into one of the most dangerous centers of the counterrevolution in the world. Contending and colluding with U.S. imperialism, the Soviet social-imperialists interfere everywhere to put down and to strangle the revolutionary and liberation movements, try to subjugate them to their own expansionist aims, hatch up counter-revolutionary plots and intrigues, incite the hostilities and quarrels among the nations, with the aim of extending their domination and control and enslaving the countries and peoples....

All the facts show that the Soviet revisionist treacherous clique has transformed the first socialist state, the homeland of the October Revolution, into a frenzied enemy of the revolution, freedom, socialism and peace in the world. Therefore, the struggle to expose mercilessly Soviet revisionism and social-imperialism is the internationalist duty of all the genuine Marxist-Leninists towards the cause of the revolution, the international proletariat and the enslaved Soviet people themselves. Comrade Enver Hoxha has said at the 6th Congress of the Party: "The attitude towards the Soviet Union remains a criterion of proletarian internationalism, but in the opposite meaning from that of the time of Lenin and Stalin, when the Soviet Union was the center of the world revolution and its base. Today a revolutionary and internationalist is he who fights the Soviet revisionists, who exposes their treachery, who opposes their anti-Marxist and imperialist policy and line with all his strength."

The need of the intensification of the struggle to expose the ideological platform of Soviet revisionism and the political activity of the present Soviet Union is always on the agenda and represents an imperative duty for all the Marxist-Leninists, the revolutionaries as well as for all those who defend their true freedom and national independence. This struggle is imposed not only because of the fact that the present Soviet revisionism represents the most complete and sophisticated counter-revolutionary anti-Marxist-Leninist theory, but also because it represents the dominant ideology in a big imperialist fascist state, it possesses numerous material and propaganda means to exert a negative influence in the international life on the various political forces and minds of the people. This is one side. The other side is that the Khrushchovite revisionism speculates with the past of the Soviet Union, with the fact that the October Revolution took place in Russia, it speculates with the name of Lenin, the Bolshevik Party, etc., to deceive both the Russian proletariat and the international proletariat, and the peoples of the world as well. Through the most sophisticated forms, it hides its treacherous countenance behind the communist clauses to preserve the socialist facade and to pose as "fighter for communism."

This is why the Party of Labor of Albania stressed at its 7th Congress that "without a radical exposure of the ideological platform of Soviet revisionism, which also constitutes the theoretical basis for its imperialist policy, its expansion and hegemonism cannot be effectively opposed, the mobilization of the genuine anti-imperialist forces to the necessary extent and in the proper form cannot be carried out and the aggressive plans of the superpowers cannot be defeated."

This internationalist struggle has nothing in common with the struggle, which the Western imperialist rivals, with the United States of America at the head, and different reactionary forces are waging against Soviet social-imperialism, within the framework of inter-imperialist contradictions and from anti-communist positions. In their just internationalist struggle to expose and smash Soviet social- imperialism, the true Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries do not rely on the sworn enemies of communism and the unprincipled alliances with them, but on the peoples, the proletariat, the revolution....

Socialist Albania Advances Unwaveringly on the Road of the Red October

Comrades,

The Albanian communists and people have always considered the day of the October Revolution as their great celebration, because with the ideas of October are linked the great revolutionary victories of our people.

The influence of the October Revolution, as everywhere in the world, was powerfully felt in our country, too. Its light, the light of the ideas of Lenin, reached little Albania, too, which was savagely oppressed by the ruling reactionary classes and trampled underfoot by the foreign imperialists and chauvinists. The October Revolution aroused new hopes and strengthened the conviction of our people that better days awaited them, too. Under the direct influence of the October Revolution, the democratic movement in Albania assumed a new impetus, the struggle of the Albanian patriots and people against the rapacious aims and imperialist interference for the enslavement and division of Albania became stronger and attained a higher level, the communist movement in our country was born and developed.

The light-giving teachings of Marxism-Leninism, the ideas of the Great October made the Albanian communists, with Comrade Enver Hoxha at the head, gather here in Tirana, at a time when our people and homeland were languishing under the savage heel of fascist occupation and the reactionary ruling classes, and found the Albanian Communist Party, which with its Marxist-Leninist line, raised the people in struggle and in the revolution and led them from victory to victory. Loyalty to the teachings of Marxism-Leninism, the application of these teachings and of the historic experience of the October Revolution in a creative manner in the concrete conditions of Albania, the reliance on the people, the putting above everything of the interests of the people, the establishment of closer ties with the masses and their ceaseless strengthening, these are two sources which have always provided our Party with inexhaustible strength to defend and carry forward the cause of the people, the cause of the proletariat, as Marxism-Leninism teaches us, as the Great October teaches us. Our Party, which stands loyal to the teachings of Marxism-Leninism, has always had it clear that the decisive subjective factor to carry the cause of the people and the revolution through to victory is the creation and the ceaseless tempering in the flames of struggle and revolutionary action of a proletarian party of the Leninist type, is the indivisible leadership of the party and the unity around it of the broad masses of the people, that the only correct road to national and social liberation lies in the violent revolution, that to build socialist society it is necessary to smash the state of the exploiting classes from its very foundations and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat....

The Party of Labor of Albania has also always unwaveringly adhered to the Leninist teaching that the revolution can triumph and socialism can be built successfully only under the indivisible leadership of the revolutionary party of the proletariat. This leadership must be constantly preserved, strengthened and improved during the historic period of the transition from capitalism to communism. The anti- Marxist theories and practices of plunder and the renunciation of the indivisible leadership of the proletarian party, of the reduction of the leadership of the party to a mere illuminist role, of the putting of the rifle above the party, the theories of the acceptance of two or more lines, trends and factions in the party, the theories of the existence of many communist parties in one country and other such theories are anti-Marxist, they lead to the liquidation of the revolutionary party of the proletariat and the undermining of socialism, to the sabotage of the revolution.

During its whole revolutionary life, our Party has always implemented the teachings of Marxism-Leninism on the class struggle with the greatest consistency. It is conscious of the fact that during the entire historic period of socialism, until communism, it is necessary to carry out the class struggle with determination and on a correct course as a struggle between the two opposing roads, the socialist road and the capitalist road. As well as this, our Party considers as a vital condition during this entire period the preservation and ceaseless strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, as a powerful weapon for the construction of socialism and its defense from the internal and external enemies, as a sure guarantee for the development and uninterrupted strengthening of socialist democracy, of the active participation of,the masses in the running of the country....

Without Fighting and Smashing Imperialism, Opportunism and Revisionism, the Cause of the Revolution Cannot Be Carried Forward

The modern revisionists, old and new, of any hue they may be, are competing to win the trust of imperialism and international bourgeoisie, especially of U.S. imperialism, as well as of Soviet social-imperialism, to stamp out the revolution and the liberation struggle of the peoples. The revolutionary forces will have to clash in a fierce war with the regressive counter-revolutionary forces, they will have to fight more than ever to expose and smash the reactionary theories and the fraudulent preachings of the revisionists, renegades and traitors. This is a vital task put forth to the Marxist-Leninist parties, the proletariat and the peoples to carry ahead the great cause of the revolution in the world. Lenin's words that without a resolute, merciless struggle, all along the line against the "bourgeois workers' parties," against the opportunist trend, one cannot speak either of struggle against imperialism, or of Marxism, or of the socialist worker movement, that the struggle against imperialism, if not closely connected with the struggle against opportunism, becomes an empty and false slogan, sound more actual than ever.

Don't the preparation and triumph of the October Revolution, which, as is known, became possible thanks to the uninterrupted and merciless many years-long struggle of Lenin and his followers against Russian opportunism and the international one, the Second International, testify to this light-giving teaching of Lenin?

The triumph of the Great October Socialist Revolution was not only the triumph of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, of the proletarian dictatorship over the bourgeois dictatorship, of the socialist relations over the capitalist relations, but it at the same time marks, as Joseph Stalin pointed out, "the triumph of Marxism over reformism, the triumph of Leninism over social-democratism, the triumph of the Third International over the Second International." The October Revolution marked a great ideological victory over opportunism and revisionism of that time, which just as the nowadays opportunism and revisionism, aimed to sabotage the revolution, to save the bourgeoisie and perpetuate capitalism.

All the opportunist rottenness and the treachery of the Second International was exposed over the years of the First World War, when its chieftains openly sided with the bourgeoisie in the predatory, inter-imperialist war, under the fraudulent slogan of the "defense of the homeland." The great Lenin drew a clear-cut boundary line with the various opportunists, with the Mensheviks and liquidators, with Bernstein, Kautsky, etc. This vital teaching of great Lenin is actual to all the Marxist-Leninists, everywhere they fight. Without drawing a clear-cut boundary line with the opportunists, liquidators, revisionists and renegades of any hue, it cannot be spoken of the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and victory of the proletariat, it cannot be spoken of the triumph of the revolution....

Today, there are people, who masking themselves with "Marxist" slogans and manipulating with quotations extracted from the context, build up "new" theories and speak of everything, excluding the revolution, who recommend to the proletariat everything, even the study of Marx ism-Leninism, but only not to rise in revolution. To these people exactly fit the words of Lenin, who wrote: "Open opportunism which immediately isolates the masses of workers from itself is not as dangerous and harmful as this theory of the golden mean which with Marxist phraseology justifies opportunist practice and with a series of sophisms, to prove that the time of revolutionary actions, etc., has not yet come." (V.I. Lenin, Against Revisionism, Albanian edition, p. 285) These people swear by all their gods for their loyalty to Marxism-Leninism, but they, as Lenin said in his time, "forget, strangle, distort the revolutionary aspect of the doctrine, its revolutionary spirit. They bring to the fore, praise what is acceptable or what seems to be acceptable to the bourgeoisie." (V.I. Lenin, Vol. 25, Albanian edition, p. 454)...

The strategy of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, which through the different stages of the Russian revolution, led, in the final account, to the historic triumph of the Great October, was a strategy of the revolution. Preparing the Party, the working class and its allies for the revolution, Lenin rejected the opportunist dogmas of the Second International which claimed that the bourgeois democratic revolution and the socialist revolution are indispensably divided by a long interval of the rule of the bourgeoisie and the development of capitalism. He worked out the scientific theory on the bourgeois democratic revolution led by the proletariat as an intermediate stage for the rapid transition to the socialist revolution and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. But today, after the Soviet revisionists, who, through claims on the "non-capitalist road of development" in regard to the former colonial and dependent countries, negate the necessity of the socialist revolution in those countries; other preachers have emerged, who treading in the footsteps of the Second International, divide with a deep abyss the struggle for national independence from the struggle for socialism and make a great fuss about the fact that if you speak of the perspectives of the proletarian revolution in the countries of the so-called "third world," this is allegedly Blanquism, Trotskyism and the passing over of stages. The aim of these new opportunists is to negate the leading role of the proletariat in the anti-imperialist revolution, to divert the peoples of these countries from the struggle against the bourgeoisie and the reactionary, pro-imperialist regimes, to extinguish, in these countries, the struggle against U.S. imperialism and the other Western imperialist powers for the sake of alliance with these counter-revolutionary forces, as these opportunists preach today....

Revisionism remains the main danger for the present-day world revolutionary movement. All the revisionist theories, which circulate in the world today serve the international bourgeoisie and imperialism. They are not only irreconcilable with Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, but viewed from the first hand, they represent theories inspired by a marked bourgeois nationalism of the chauvinist character of the big state or by the narrow interests of their "own" national bourgeoisie.

The Cause of the October Revolution Is Always Alive and Marches Forward

...The cause of the October Revolution, the immortal ideas of Marxism-Leninism, illuminate the road to the communists, the proletariat and the peoples of the world, and neither the violence of the bourgeoisie, nor the activity of the revisionists, renegades and traitors of Marxism-Leninism can suppress them.

The cause of the October Revolution and the light-giving ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin live and are striking root with every passing day in the minds and hearts of all the genuine Marxist-Leninists and the Marxist-Leninist parties, which hold aloft the banner of the revolution and communism thrown away by the revisionist parties. In difficult conditions, in struggle against the bourgeoisie and revisionist betrayal, they carry out a broad activity for the enhancement of the revolutionary consciousness of the proletariat and the masses, preparing them for the class battles against the bourgeoisie, reaction and imperialism....

Celebrating today the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution together with the working people, the revolutionaries and all the peoples of the world, our Party and people express the firm conviction that the great cause of the October Revolution, the cause of the world proletariat, the cause of socialism and communism will triumph.

[Photo: Lenin and Stalin at the Smolny on October 24, 1917. The Smolny Institute was used as the headquarters of the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.]

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