The Workers' Advocate

WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE! 25¢

Volume 12, Number 2

VOICE OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF THE USA

February 25, 1982

[Front page:

No! To U.S. Aggression in El Salvador!--Salvadorian People Shake the Fascist Junta;

Reagan's New Federalism: Prosperity for the Capitalists-- Hunger for the Working People;

Support the Liberation Struggle of the Guatemalan People!;

AFL-CIO's Alternative Budget - More Democratic Party Poison]

IN THIS ISSUE

No! To U.S. Aggression in El Salvador!

Salvadorian People Shake the Fascist Junta

Reagan's New Federalism:

Prosperity for the Capitalists-- Hunger for the Working People

Support the Liberation Struggle of the Guatemalan People!

AFL-CIO's Alternative Budget - More Democratic Party Poison

Correspondence

Reagan gives go ahead for draft registration

OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON

12,000 Workers Denounce Reaganite Offensive

Reaganomics in Washington State

More protests against the persecution of the Haitian refugees

Reagan Embraces Segregationist Academies

MASSACHUSETTS

Oppose Slave-Labor Workfare Schemes

A Determined Strike in Pittsburgh Enters Its Fifth Month

American Standard Workers Strike Against Takebacks

Reaganite Unionism in Action

TEAMSTER BOSSES SIGN A BIG WAGE-CUTTING SELLOUT

Meatpackers Saddled With Wage Cuts

MLP Organizes Against GM/Ford Concessions

NO CONCESSIONS TO FORD!

GM Workers! Stand Firm Against Concessions!

Provisions of the tentative Ford agreement

12 million workers wage one-day general strike in India

Iranian People Resist the Khomeini-IRP Regime

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Social-democracy paves the way for reaction

Mitterrand Visits Algeria

The Social-Democrat Mitterrand, Chieftain of the French Neo-Colonialists

Polish workers squeezed at bayonet point to ensure that tribute is paid to the Western banks

Martial Law in Poland --A Typical Expression of Capitalist Violence

The "Anti-Reagan Fightback" of the "C"PUSA Revisionists

Winning Seats for Democratic Party Hacks

On the "C"PUSA's Phony "Independent Politics"

The Barbaro Mayoral Campaign in New York City

An ugly result of the liquidationist and Maoist deviations of the leadership of the Communist Party of Canada (M-L)

Soviet Revisionism-Enemy of Revolution and Socialism

On Jerry Tung's Book 'The Socialist Road'

Maoist 'Three-Worlders' Embrace Soviet Revisionism

No! To U.S. Aggression in El Salvador!

Salvadorian People Shake the Fascist Junta

Almost every day now, fresh reports pour in of one victory after another being scored by the brave liberation fighters of El Salvador against the U.S.-backed fascist regime. From the remote villages to the capital city, the Salvadorian revolution is striking powerful blows. In the face of this offensive, the military dictatorship is tottering on the verge of collapse.

Seeing the dire straits of the Salvadorian regime, the Reaganite aggressors are sending in more helicopters, bombers, guns and cannons to El Salvador. The belligerent declarations of Haig and other war dogs of the Reagan administration indicate that U.S. imperialism is planning to step up its intervention in El Salvador even more. Today there is a very real danger that the U.S. government will send more American troops to strangle the revolution in that country, adding to the more than 50 Green Berets which Reagan dispatched there a year ago.

The workers and progressive people in the U.S. must remain vigilant against the aggressive plots being hatched up in Washington and organize to thwart them by stepping up the mass struggle in solidarity with the people of El Salvador. Already a new round of demonstrations is sweeping the U.S., raising a powerful voice that U.S. imperialism must get out of El Salvador!

New Victories of the Liberation Fighters

Today reports coming out of El Salvador show that the position of the revolutionary fighters is better than ever. Large sections of the countryside are under their control, and guerrilla units can freely move around in at least 10 out of the 14 provinces of that country. Besides their longstanding base in Chalatenango Province in the north, they have established strongholds in the eastern provinces of Morazan, Usulutan, San Miguel and La Union.

In the last week of December, the armed revolutionaries began a new offensive against the fascist regime. This offensive has included attacks on a variety of military and economic targets.

The most spectacular action of the recent period took place on January 27 when the Ilopango Air Base just outside the capital city was hit by the liberation fighters. A number of planes were completely destroyed, including five French-built Ouragan bombers. Five transport planes were damaged and at least six of the fourteen Huey helicopters given to the regime by the U.S. government were knocked out of "commission. The Salvadorian Air Force was crippled by this powerful attack.

In the eastern province of Usulutan, guerrillas recently dynamited power plants and high tension wires. As well, trucks and other transportation have been hit. For example, in San Miguel, a train carrying cotton and agricultural machinery was derailed. And in Zacatecoluca, trucks carrying sugar cane to a processing factory were set on fire. The revolutionaries have also shown their ability to strike inside the capital city of San Salvador. On February 8, they destroyed 22 buses there.

In early February, the revolutionaries launched a series of daylight raids on army garrisons in several provincial towns. They captured the town of Corinto northeast of the capital, and stormed and took over Nueva Trinidad, 75 miles northeast of San Salvador. As well, they laid siege to army and police positions in Usulutan City, the country's fourth largest city. The fighting here went on for days. On February 15, revolutionaries attacked government positions in the town of Apopa, just half an hour north of San Salvador, and bombed the town hall.

Recent reports from El Salvador have also revealed that the liberation fighters have established an extensive network of institutions in the areas which they control. They have set up schools, military schools, health clinics, explosives factories as well as a radio station. In fact, even in the territory they control just 25 miles outside San Salvador, they have set up schools and clinics as well as their own judicial system.

U.S. Imperialism Steps Up Its Support for the Bloody Regime

The Reagan administration has responded to the desperate situation facing the fascist regime by massively stepping up aid to it. Right after the attack on the Ilopango Air Base, Reagan announced that he was sending $55 million worth of "emergency" military assistance. Already six more Huey helicopters have been shipped to El Salvador. More small arms, ammunition and communications gear have also been sent. As well, the military aid for the fascist regime has now been extended to include troop transports, fighter bombers and spotter planes.

For this year, Reagan has already announced plans for at least $115 million more in military and "economic" aid for the military regime. He has also said that much more may be necessary if the situation for the regime continues to worsen. Estimates of around $800 million over the next period are being discussed in Washington, which would make the small country of El Salvador among the top aid receivers from the U.S. government, in the same league as Israel, Egypt and Turkey!

Besides this stepped-up aid, which the Salvadorian military can hardly absorb by itself, the U.S. government is also indicating that it may be necessary for more foreign troops, either directly from the U.S. or from its other lackeys in Latin America. Whenever the Reagan administration has been asked about the possibility of more U.S. troops into El Salvador, its response has been to say that "all options" are being considered. There have also been reports that the U.S. government is secretly working to bring Argentinian troops into Central America, reports which the Reagan administration refuses to deny. The U.S. imperialists have spelled out their attitude quite clearly on this question by declaring that the U.S. and its Latin American allies will do "whatever is necessary" to prevent the overthrow of the Salvadorian military regime.

The U.S. government also began in January to train some 1,600 Salvadorian troops in military bases in the U.S. The first of some 1,000 began training at Fort Bragg, N.C., while an additional 600 began training at Fort Benning, Georgia. Fort Bragg is the home of the John F. Kennedy Center for Military Assistance, formerly the Center for Special Warfare. This Center specializes in "counter-insurgency" training and, besides the American Green Berets, butchers and torturers from many a fascist regime around the world has been trained here over the years. In fact, many of the Salvadorian troops currently being trained in the U.S. are from the Atlacatl Battalion which is especially notorious for many atrocities against the people of El Salvador.

Reagan Again Puts a "Human Rights" Coat of Paint Over the Murderous Junta

As part of the plan for increased aid for the Salvadorian fascists, Reagan sent Congress a certification that the regime is making "progress" in "human rights."

Reagan specified to Congress that the Salvadorian regime "is making a concerted and significant effort to comply with internationally recognized human rights" and is bringing "an end to the indiscriminate torture and murder of Salvadorian citizens" by the armed forces. What a farce! It is well known that the government continues to brutalize and murder the population indiscriminately, just as in years past. Even the Human Rights Commission of El Salvador, a religious group which is no supporter of the revolutionaries, estimates that in 1981 the government killed at least 16,376 persons. And the massacres continue every day. Just recently, news came out that in December, U.S.-trained troops from the Atlacatl Battalion murdered several hundred people, mainly women, children and old people, in the remote village of Mozote. Only a handful of the peasants survived. Reagan's claims of progress in ending murders by the regime is clearly nothing but a boldfaced lie. Indeed there is no limit to the lying cynicism of the Reaganites. For example, when asked about the recent massacre in Mozote, Thomas Enders, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, told Congress that, to the extent that a few civilians died, it was really the fault of the revolutionary fights who "did nothing to remove them from the path of battle!"

The most touted example of the "reforms" being carried out by the regime is the "elections" due to be held in late March. The Salvadorian liberation fighters have justly denounced this as nothing but a fraudulent maneuver to give a "democratic" coating to the ruthless military dictatorship. They have pointed out that there can be no fair elections in a country ruled by assassins and torturers, and that attempting to work openly would be equivalent to committing suicide for the representatives of the liberation forces. In fact even Duarte acknowledged this when he cynically observed recently that the opposition could do their electioneering through video-tape and television! What a sick joke!

One interesting exposure of the elections farce is that, although the U.S. and Salvadorian governments have approached many countries a- round the world to send observers to these elections, only a handful have agreed to do so. These are some of the most diehard supporters of U.S. imperialism. Besides Thatcher's government in Britain, the only European country to do so, the others include such paragons of democracy as Uruguay, and reportedly, Haiti, Argentina and Chile, etc. One wonders what kind of "observing" these military-fascist dictatorships expect to do in El Salvador.

In fact, the elections are simply for the fascists. Only fascist and reactionary parties are participating in them. The most prominent among these parties, other than Duarte's Christian Democrats, is the Nationalist Republican Alliance of Major Roberto D'Abuisson, the commander of the death squads of El Salvador. These fascists are very explicit about their plans. They openly threaten a war of "extermination" and acknowledge, among other things, that "napalm is indispensable." Their character can be seen from a recent statement by this party's secretary that "civilians will be killed, war has always been that way. When the Germans bombed London they didn't tell civilians to get out of the way first, did they?" It is such Hitlerite vermin that are expected to win big from the elections farce. In fact, the only possible outcome of these elections is to either continue with Duarte's Christian Democrats preserving a demagogical "reformist" cover to the military dictatorship, or, to replace Duarte with an avowedly Hitler-type element such as D'Abuisson. Either way, the savage military dictatorship remains firmly in power.

Reagan's good behavior certificate for the regime also claims that it "is making continued progress in implementing essential economic and political reforms, including the land reform program.''Indeed, there is no limit to the outlandish lies that the administration comes up with. The so-called land reform program is a notorious sham. In fact, even those responsible for this program have a hard time praising it. For example, a recent report made by the Salvadorian Communal Union (UCS), a puppet group designated by the U.S. and Salvadorian governments to play a key role in this program, was very revealing in this regard. Besides pointing out that the program was in a shambles, it said that at least 90 officials of peasant groups had been murdered by government troops, that tens of thousands of peasants had been forcibly evicted from their plots, in most cases with the help of the troops, and that many of the peasants were outright murdered. Thus, while even the government's puppets are unable to praise the "land reform" program, the U.S. State Department nevertheless finds it "a remarkable success."

The Way to Fight Reagan Is Through Mass Struggle Against Imperialism, Not the Democratic Party's Fraudulent Maneuvers

It may be recalled that Reagan's certification to Congress on the "human rights" situation in El Salvador was made necessary by a bill passed last year under Democratic Party initiative. This specified that the Reagan administration could continue to send military aid to the Salvadorian regime under the condition that Reagan certify twice a year that the regime was making reforms. This, the Democrats shouted, was opposition to Reagan's policy in El Salvador. But Reagan's lying certification, which was only to be expected, has provided ample proof of the fact that the Democrat's scheme was all along a complete fraud. Indeed, from the outset, this was merely a maneuver to throw dust in the eyes of the masses while actually giving the green light for more weapons for the assassins in El Salvador.

The Democrats are no opponents of U.S. imperialism in El Salvador. They are completely in favor of maintaining U.S. domination and plunder of that country. Their glib talk of "human rights" has simply been to put a "democratic" mask on the murderous fascist regime. It was the Democrat Carter who was the architect of this policy, which, under "human rights" demagogy, set up and armed to the teeth the Duarte regime in the first place.

Reagan took up where Carter left off and proceeded to step up intervention in El Salvador as soon as he got into office. Against this, the workers and progressive masses in the U.S. launched several waves of protest last year. In this situation, the Democratic Party stepped forward to deflect the anger of the masses away from a vigorous fight against imperialism into the same old "human rights" fraud. But the steady flow of guns/ helicopters and other weapons into the hands of the fascists in El Salvador have shown up the utterly fraudulent nature of the Democrats' schemes. Clearly, the Democratic Party's schemes are no substitute for the mass anti-imperialist struggle.

Today another wave of mass struggle against U.S. intervention in El Salvador has begun. In January, coinciding with the arrival of Salvadorian troops to be trained in the U.S., hundreds protested at Fort Bragg, Fort Benning and elsewhere around the country. On January 23rd, 3,000 people took to the streets in San Francisco. On February 13th, 3,000 people marched in downtown Boston in snow and sleet to militantly denounce U.S. aggression in El Salvador. On February 20th, another 3,000 people demonstrated in New York City. More mass actions are set to take place; besides various local protests, a large national demonstration has been planned for Washington, D.C. for March 27, the day before the elections farce in El Salvador.

The thousands hitting the streets in militant protest these days show the burning anger of the American people against U.S. intervention in El Salvador. Let Reagan beware! The American people have not forgotten the genocidal aggression by U.S. imperialism in Indochina. We will not allow Reagan a free hand to extend his bloody claws further into Central America!

[Photo: Two liberation fighters block a major highway outside Usulutan, El Salvador after destroying several government transport vehicles.]

[Photo: Across the U.S., thousands are taking to the streets to denounce U.S. imperialism in El Salvador. Photo shows a section of the 3,000-strong demonstration in San Francisco on January 23.]

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Reagan's New Federalism:

Prosperity for the Capitalists-- Hunger for the Working People

For the working people, the deepening of the capitalist economic crisis is spelling disaster. The combination of 10 million unemployed, wage cuts, soaring inflation, sky-high interest rates, and wholesale cutbacks in social services means that millions and millions of workers have been robbed of a means to feed their families or heat their homes. But this grim reality did not mar the script of Ronald Reagan's State of the Union Message which painted a rosy picture of a capitalist paradise on earth. Copying from Herbert Hoover's notorious speeches about "prosperity around the corner,'' Reagan spun a tale about "a new beginning," an "era of renewal," and "prosperity and stable growth by the latter half of this year." Such is the outrageous cynicism and arrogance which Mr. Reagan is flaunting in the face of the hard pressed working people.

But from the angle of the capitalist tycoons, whom Reagan so faithfully serves, there is a kernel of truth to these absurd fairy tales about "renewal" and "prosperity." That is to say, despite the devastating crisis, the big corporations and banks are enjoying plenty of "prosperity" and are making fantastic profits out of the ruination of the working people. Industrial production has plunged to a mere 70% of capacity, and inevitably under conditions of such a grave crisis whole branches of the economy have been badly shaken and many small and even a number of large firms have been pushed into bankruptcy. But overall the big capitalists have not only been able to cover their losses, they are even making enormous profits. In 1981, for example, AT&T raked in a record $6.9 billion in profits, Exxon took in over $1 billion, and, despite the collapse of the steel markets, U.S. Steel Corp. also made over $1 billion, doubling its profits from the year before. As well, with the loan shark-high interest rates, the big Wall Street financiers are rolling in countless billions.

These fat profits for the rich billionaires have been taken directly out of the hide of the working people; they are the fruit of the capitalists' crisis measures which have brought about a ruinous decline in the living standards of the workers. These huge capitalist profits are a direct consequence of the wage cuts and the high prices, interest rates and taxes which together have translated into a crushing 13% drop in real take-home pay in the three year period between 1977 and 1981. And they are a consequence of the job-eliminating productivity drives, the layoff of millions of workers, etc.

Adding to these whopping profits are the plunder and profiteering from the aggressive imperialism and warmongering of the U.S. finance capitalists. The U.S. multinational corporations are intensifying their merciless exploitation of the oppressed peoples abroad. And in preparation for an aggressive war, Carter's and now Reagan's record war budgets have been pouring hundreds of billions into the extremely profitable war industries.

It is no wonder then that Ronald Reagan, the chief flunkey of the capitalist moneybags, is doing a song and dance routine about "renewal" and "prosperity" while the working people are being devastated.

Reagan's "New Federalism''-- A "Single Bold Stroke'' Against the Working People

The other major topic of Reagan's State of the Union address was the unveiling of the outlines of his so-called "new federalism" plans. "New federalism" is Reagan's pet code word for the "states' rights" mumbo-jumbo which the modern-day capitalist slave owners have taken over from the plantation slave owners of the past. And his "new federalism" schemes are nothing less than vicious slave driver measures for further squeezing the working people.

These "new federalism" plans would mark a major step towards taking the present massive cutbacks in the already meager social welfare programs to their logical conclusion -- the outright dismantling of these programs altogether. According to Reagan's outline, in exchange for the federal government taking over the full cost of Medicaid, in "a single bold stroke" some 45 federal programs will be turned over to the states. These will include Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), a cornerstone of the welfare system set up in the 1930's, and the food stamp program. Together these two programs alone make up the largest portion of the federal relief programs for the poor. Reagan is proposing that, after a transition period from 1984-1991, the entire funding for these 45 programs will come from the states and that responsibility for what level of benefits will be maintained, or whether or not these programs will be maintained at all, will also be placed with the state governments.

The Reaganites point out that this plan will reduce social welfare spending because state and local governments are less susceptible to the pressure of the masses, or, as they put it, to the "pressure of interest groups." In other words, the authors of this "new federalism" are fully aware that this is a vicious scheme to break up the class-wide resistance of the working masses as the protests against the cutbacks and the demands for relief will be deprived of a national target and will be directed instead at 50 separate state governments.

Moreover these demands will be directed at state governments most of which simply do not have the revenues to sustain these 45 federal programs. In Reagan's scheme the states will be granted authority to raise excise taxes on gasoline, tobacco, etc., to cover the cost of these programs, taxes which weigh disproportionally heavy on the backs of the poor who already can't afford the sky-high price of gasoline, etc. But such excise taxes won't be half enough to sustain these programs. As well, in practice it is much more difficult for a state government, as compared to the federal government, to put into effect demands that the necessary revenues be raised by placing taxes on the corporations and the rich.

Furthermore, even in those states which do have the money there is no guarantee that the state legislatures won't drastically cut or even abolish these programs outright. A case in point is oil-rich Texas where, for example, a family of four which has an annual income of $1,000 is regarded as being above the poverty level and therefore ineligible for state-funded social welfare programs. So in Texas and a number of other states, particularly in the South, AFDC, food stamps and other programs could very well be nearly or completely wiped out relatively quickly under Reagan's plan. Elsewhere there will be another round of even more drastic cuts, while the total collapse of these programs may take somewhat longer. In a word, Reagan's "new federalism" is a "single bold stroke" on the way to dismantling altogether the social welfare programs and other forms of relief for the unemployed and impoverished.

To sell his "new federalism" scheme Reagan is wrapping it in rhetoric about "states' rights" and billing it as a measure to "give power back to the states." It is quite fitting that Reagan is waving the "states' rights" banner. Here he is in the well-suited company of the former slaveholders and of his more contemporary cronies who, in the name of "states' rights," curse against Social Security and minimum wage laws and openly champion Jim Crow segregationism and other forms of semi-medieval barbarism against the working people. Now, under this same slave masters' watchword, Reagan has produced a scheme to rob the poverty stricken of even the present all too meager forms of relief.

But no one should think for a minute that slave driver Reagan lacks compassion for the slaves. Oh no! Reagan is simply a devout believer in the "volunteer spirit." In his State of the Union address Reagan pointed out that he even has a special task force seeking to promote church and other charitable organizations to help fill the gap created by his dismantling of the present government programs. After all, Reagan noted, "such groups are almost invariably far more efficient than government in running social programs." Here we have arrived at the bottom line of the Reaganites' plans -- putting the fate of the millions of jobless and hungry workers into the hands of private charity. Indeed, Reagan is harking back to the "volunteer spirit" displayed in the good old days of the Great Depression when the millions of half-starved workers stood in church soup kitchen lines for their daily bowl of gruel.

Fight the Capitalist Offensive!

Of course, what the Reaganites have in their plans and what they will succeed in imposing on the working class in the face of the mass opposition are two different things. But here it must be stressed that there is a world of difference between, on the one hand, the genuine popular opposition of the working people and, on the other hand, the totally corrupt, hypocritical, election year, "opposition" of the monopoly capitalist party out of office -- the Democratic Party and its political allies.

The bulk of Reagan's policies were taken over directly from the Democratic Carter regime and, for over a year now, Ted Kennedy, Tip O'Neil and the other Democratic Party heroes have been marching in lockstep with the Reaganites in passing Reagan's military budget, social service cutbacks, and so on down the line. As the midterm elections approach, the Democrats are meekly whimpering that the White House doesn't see the necessity to sweeten the attacks on the masses with a dose of cheap liberal-labor rhetoric about "fairness" and "justice" for the working man. But on all the fundamentals the Democrats agree with Reagan whole hog. So, for example, whether or not Reagan's particular "new federalism" schemes are adopted, both Democrats and Republicans alike stand on the bipartisan platform of cutting relief for the poor down to the bone.

But unlike the millionaire politicians of the Democratic Party, the working people are bearing the brunt of the capitalists' crisis measures. Every working man and woman knows that Reagan's fairy tales about "prosperity" are a lie, as it is the workers who are being saddled with the layoffs, wage cuts, productivity drives, price increases, and cuts in needed social services. It is therefore the working class which is the bastion of opposition to Reaganism, and which, when organized and mobilized, has the strength to successfully confront the capitalist offensive.

It must not be forgotten that even under the dire conditions of the Great Depression the workers 'unfolded powerful mass struggles against bearing the burden of the crisis, including for relief for the jobless and hungry. A byproduct of these struggles was the basic social welfare system that the Reaganites are striving to dismember today. Incidentally, both then and now, of all the major capitalist countries, the American capitalists are among the stingiest in providing even the most meager relief programs and are distinguished for their most brutal treatment of the unemployed and the poor.

The workers are seething with anger against the Reaganite attacks. The storm that is brewing among the workers was again indicated by a new round of demonstrations across the country. From Bloomington, Minnesota, to Des Moines, Iowa, to Indianapolis, Indiana, to Cincinnati, Ohio, to Chicago, Illinois, to Olympia, Washington, tens of thousands of workers have come out in recent weeks to protest against the Reagan policies. The working people are showing that they want a real fight against Reaganite reaction and the whole capitalist offensive. Building a powerful, independent movement of the working class is on the order of the day.

[Cartoon.]

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Support the Liberation Struggle of the Guatemalan People!

The revolutionary volcano in Central America continues its forceful eruption. Alongside the victorious battles being waged by the liberation fighters in El Salvador, the revolutionary movement in Guatemala has also gained momentum. Over the last several months, the armed revolutionaries of Guatemala have been engaged in a major offensive against the murderous fascist regime of General Romeo Lucas Garcia. They have carried out a number of spectacular actions in both the countryside and the cities, even successfully striking in the heart of Guatemala City, the capital of the country. The fighting in Guatemala has become so intense today that even reports in the U.S. imperialist press acknowledge that its scale is comparable to the struggle in El Salvador. The Workers' Advocate warmly greets the news of the advances being made by the Guatemalan people in their courageous struggle against the regime of Lucas Garcia, which is nothing but a neo-colonial lackey of U.S. imperialism.

The fighting has been fiercest in the western highlands of Guatemala. Large sections of the region have all but fallen under the control of the revolutionaries, with the army units mostly confined to their garrisons. The positions of the government have repeatedly been attacked by the armed revolutionaries. On November 16, more than 250 guerrillas occupied the town of Tecpan in Chimaltanengo province, which lies to the west of Guatemala City. On December 2nd, 500 guerrillas attacked two army bases in the highland town of Santa Cruz del Quiche. By December, armed actions throughout the country were being reported almost on a daily basis. Even the capital city saw a number of heroic actions. Several times, police stations and army troops have been attacked in and around Guatemala City. On December 2, the revolutionary fighters simultaneously attacked police stations in five county seats surrounding the capital.

Despite ferocious retaliation campaigns launched by the army, the revolutionary offensive has continued. Early in January, revolutionaries wrecked a power station and blacked out the capital city. Several other buildings were also bombed, including the National Congress, the Chamber of Industry, the Bank of Coffee, etc. In the northwestern mountains, major roads have been blocked. Patrols from the army garrison at Santa Cruz del Quiche are ambushed at least once a week, and sometimes three or four times a day. On January 19, a large force of guerrillas attacked and nearly overran the military headquarters of San Juan Cotzal in the heart of El Quiche province. At least a dozen soldiers were wiped out in that battle.

The recent actions of the revolutionaries have shown a high level of technique and the broad base of support that they enjoy among the masses. In Chimaltanengo, the army was confronted, among other things, with man-traps of sharpened sticks, a technique reminiscent of the liberation struggle of the Vietnamese people against U.S. imperialism. As well, it is reported that the revolutionary fighters have riddled the hillsides with tunnels, involving hundreds of storerooms. As a sign of the broad base of support enjoyed by the revolutionaries, the recent battles have taken place in territory where the indigenous Indian population comprises the great majority. The indigenous peoples of Guatemala, who make up more than half of the country's population, are the most oppressed people in the country. Besides suffering the most extreme exploitation, they are also discriminated against for their language and culture. The revolutionary movement has successfully aroused these oppressed peoples, and large numbers of them have joined the revolutionary forces where they fight shoulder to shoulder with the other Guatemalans.

The fascist regime of General Lucas Garcia has been thrown into a complete frenzy by the recent offensive of the revolutionary forces. It has retaliated with massive genocidal shoot- everything-that-moves campaigns directed against the masses. In November, the army launched a major drive through Chimaltanengo province in which 5,000 troops were deployed. In January, an even greater force made up of 15,000 of the 22,000 troops of the entire Guatemalan army were thrown against the people in El Quiche province. The army campaigns have been personally led by its chief of staff, General Benedicto Lucas Garcia, the president's brother. These campaigns have involved helicopters, armored vehicles, and widespread aerial bombings of towns and villages. Hundreds of unarmed people have been killed in these savage offensives.

The genocidal policy of the Guatemalan regime has once again shown that this regime is one of the most bloodstained regimes in the whole world. Over the last 20 years, it has systematically murdered tens of thousands of people, including workers, peasants, trade union organizers, professors, priests and politicians. These murders have been committed either openly by the army or by fascist death-squads which are well known to be composed of none other than the army and police forces. Just since Lucas Garcia came to power in 1978, more than 5,000 workers, peasants and political activists have been seized by the government and killed. In 1981 alone, the Guatemalan press itself reported at least 20 massacres, each of 50 people or more, which it attributed to "unknown" killers. Coming from the government-controlled press, this is of course a very conservative estimate.

The bestial military regime in Guatemala is an instrument of U.S. imperialism and the domestic oligarchy of capitalists and landlords. U.S. imperialism has propped up a string of these regimes since 1954 when the CIA organized the coup d'etat against the Arbenz government which had nationalized some land owned by the United Fruit Company, the notorious U.S. multinational corporation. The U.S. imperialists have trained thousands of the professional assassins and torturers of the Guatemalan army and police.

U.S. imperialism backs this regime of torturers to the hilt while hypocritically moaning about "human rights" violations in Guatemala. In 1977, at the height of Carter's "human rights" fraud, certain military aid programs were suspended to throw dust in the eyes of world public opinion. However, U.S. imperialism continued to supply military equipment to the Guatemalan fascists, both through government and private sources in the U.S. as well as through U.S. allies abroad. The Reagan government has not yet removed all formal restrictions but it has clearly signaled its intention of stepping up U.S. military aid. Last spring, Reagan ordered removal of military trucks and jeeps from the list of items which had been restricted earlier. Meanwhile, during 1980 and 1981, the U.S. Commerce Department approved the sale of nine Bell helicopters which are the civilian equivalent of the military "Huey." The Guatemalan army has fitted these with machine guns and is using them in its savage terror campaigns against the people. In sum, U.S. imperialism's "human rights" restrictions have been nothing but a cynical fraud, behind which both the Carter and Reagan administrations have been quietly arming the Guatemalan fascists.

Besides direct help from the U.S., U.S. imperialism's allies are also heavily involved in bolstering the Guatemalan regime. Israel plays a major role in this. It continues to supply a steady stream of rifles, ammunition, helmets, transport planes mounted with gun-pods, etc. It has opened up a military communications school in the country. There have also been reports of Israeli advisors working with the Guatemalan army.

U.S. imperialism props up the fascist regime because it defends the interests of the multinational corporations and the local exploiters. Guatemala is a country rich in natural resources. Its agricultural land is plundered by agri-monopolies such as Del Monte; its huge nickel and oil deposits are stolen by U.S. and Canadian corporations. The workers and peasants are exploited to the bone for the sake of the profits of these foreign monopolies and the local oligarchy. The poverty of the people is so extreme that in 1980 Guatemala displaced Haiti as the country with the highest infant mortality in Latin America; more than 50% of all children die before the age of five.

The Guatemalan people have never reconciled themselves to the brutal exploitation and repression of imperialism and the oligarchy. For over two decades now, they have been waging an armed struggle, with which they have combined various other forms of mass struggle of the workers, peasants and youth. The objective of this struggle is the overthrow of the fascist regime.

Despite the ferocious repression to which they have given countless martyrs, the fighting spirit of the revolutionary masses remains unbent. In recent years, the overthrow of the U.S. puppet Somoza in Nicaragua and the victorious forward march of the Salvadorian people have given great impetus to the revolutionary struggle in Guatemala. The Guatemalan people, marching shoulder to shoulder with their other Central American brothers and sisters, are irresistibly heading towards victory.

Solidarity with the people of Guatemala!

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AFL-CIO's Alternative Budget - More Democratic Party Poison

Reagan's recently unveiled "new federalism" plans and his 1983 budget underscore the gravity of the capitalists' war against the working people. The monopoly capitalist exploiters are striving to crush the working people under the weight of massive cuts in social services, under yet further shifts of the tax burden onto the poor while granting fantastic tax breaks to the rich, and under the weight of a multi-hundred billion dollar military buildup the likes of which have never been seen before. For the working class and downtrodden, for the opponents of cruel exploitation and aggressive war, the Reaganite measures are of grave concern. They are a call to arms against the savage capitalist offensive.

But where do we find our mighty "champions of the working man," the smooth-talking Democratic Party politicians, in the face of the Reaganite challenge? They are locked in a loving embrace with the Reagan White House. The "honeymoon" which they announced when Reagan took office has been an extended one indeed! Last year Ted Kennedy and the other Democratic Party heroes got in line to vote for Reagan's war budget. This year, Reagan has told any critics of his budget to "put up or shut up." And so far the Democratic Party chieftains have obediently shut up.

Once again the Democratic congressional leaders are resorting to the refrain that by sitting tight and going along with the Reaganites' brutal, anti-working class measures then Reagan and the Republicans will be the ones to take the rap for the tremendous suffering of the working people. "I want to put this economy on (the administration's) feet." This was how Dan Rostenskowski, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the Democratic-controlled House, explained why the Democrats were going to let Bob Dole and the Republicans in the Senate take the lead in producing an alternative to Reagan's budget. (Washington Post, February 9, 1982) Such is the brave Democratic Party "opposition" to the Reaganite assault.

Nevertheless, while the Democrats in Congress are in the main keeping mum and lying low at Reagan's feet, a constant refrain rising from their ranks is demands for more tax increases to plunder the working people. But given the unpopular nature of this demand during an election year, they have not even directly formulated their own federal tax proposal. Instead they have given their dutiful errand boys, the sellout bosses of the AFL-CIO, chief responsibility for lobbying for the Democratic Party fiscal program.

The AFL-CIO "Alternative'' Shows That the Democrats' Program Is Simply More Reaganite Poison

At their Bal Harbor, Florida midwinter meeting, the AFL-CIO Executive Council came out with some fearsome language against Reaganomics. AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland condemned it as "Jonestown economics" which are "destructive and harmful," and the Executive Council unanimously proposed an alternative to Reagan's budget. But an examination of this "alternative" shows that it is not an alternative at all. Rather it is a new edition of the tattered and hated policies of the Carter regime, the very same reactionary policies which today are at the core of Reagan's policies. The AFL-CIO "alternative" is simply an attempt to pass off the equally fatal Democratic Party poison as the antidote to Reaganite "Jonestown economics."

Let us briefly look at this much bally-hooed "alternative."

* The AFL-CIO "alternative'' backs Reagan's $221 billion war budget to the hilt. Reagan's proposal to add another $34 billion to the Pentagon budget in 1983, on top of the $28 billion increase last year, represents an unprecedented shift of funds into the capitalist war machine. Even the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has indicated that such a staggering shift may cause economic problems and has asked Reagan to slightly limit his defense increase by $15 billion. The openly rabid war maniacs in Congress, both Republican and Dixiecrat, have also told Reagan that his war budgets are a shade too high for the economy to bear. But the AFL-CIO chieftains are sticking firmly to their principles, to their unshakable position of year in and year out giving their full, unquestioning support for whatever the Pentagon generals request for the feverish war preparations of the U.S. imperialist warmakers. For the case-hardened warmongers at the head of the AFL-CIO, no price is too high when the chieftains of imperialist aggression request more missiles, neutron bombs, and poison gas in order to be able to better annihilate the working people of other lands.

* The AFL-CIO "alternative" calls for heavy tax increases on the backs of the working people. What should be done about the projected $91 billion deficit resulting from the monstrous military buildup is the central bone of contention between Reagan and his Democratic Party and other "opponents" on the budget issue. Under Reagan's proposal the $91 billion will be added to the national debt owed to the banks and financial tycoons who in 1983 alone will rake in over $130 billion in interest payments robbed from the working people's tax money. Ted Kennedy, Tip O'Neill and the other Democratic Party chieftains, on the other hand, want to cover these Pentagon deficits by plundering the people with tax hikes.

This latter position is the central plank of the AFL-CIO's "alternative" budget. American Teachers Union president, Albert Shanker, put the matter plainly: "I am a super-hawk, but the most important element in national defense is national will, and Reagan simply has not demonstrated that will.... Part of the question of national will has to do with who is willing to pay." (Washington Post, February 16,1982) Accordingly the AFL-CIO Executive Council made it clear that it is willing to make the working people pay. It is demanding a $31 billion increase in income taxes plus a special individual and corporate surtax on income tied to the level of military spending which will add another $33 billion in taxes.

* The AFL-CIO "alternative" provides for more billions in handouts to the corporations. For the sake of demagogy, to provide a little artificial sweetener, the AFL-CIO's resolution contains rhetoric about repealing some of Reagan's tax cuts to the rich and the corporations. Among other things, it calls for repealing the $11.2 billion received last year by the oil monopolies in cuts in the windfall profits tax.

Incidentally, these tax cuts were put into the 1981 budget for the oil monopolies by the Democrats.

But what these labor traitors want to take from the corporations with one hand, they want to give back with the other. In the place of some of the a- cross-the-board tax breaks for the corporations they want to provide "targeted" grants to "ailing industries" like the huge auto, steel, rubber, construction and other corporate monopolies. The AFL-CIO proposal calls for setting up a Reconstruction Finance Board which was one of Carter's pet projects for forking over tens of billions in "targeted" handouts to the corporations so as to help these poor ailing capitalists with their job-cutting "reindustrialization" plans. No matter what name they are given, these massive handouts to the corporations mean shifting an ever greater weight of the tax burden onto the backs of the hard pressed working people, making the rich richer and the poor poorer.

* The AFL-CIO's "alternative" does not even call for restoring what Reagan has already cut, let alone necessary increases in relief and social services. The AFL-CIO bosses have plenty of fine words about alleviating the suffering of the unemployed and the poor and providing the necessary social services for the working people. Their proposal calls for some relatively small increases for public works, job training, housing subsidies, and federal unemployment insurance extensions (a measure which, for the time being, Reagan has already granted). And the AFL-CIO statement opposes the new cuts in Reagan's 1983 budget. But the outrageous thing of it is that they express no disagreement at all with the present budget laws which are robbing millions and millions of the growing number of jobless and poverty-stricken of needed food stamps, welfare, and other relief, and which is steadily eroding education, health and other vital services. That is to say, the AFL-CIO "alternative" only slows the pace of Reagan's ruthless cuts. After all, as Lane Kirkland has frequently warned Reagan, if you go too far too fast with cuts in social programs this may "create new anti-defense constituencies" which might get in the way of the feverish military buildup.

Social-Democratic Doves Fly With the Militarist Hawks

Despite the thoroughly reactionary nature of the AFL-CIO's so-called "alternative," the capitalist media is portraying it as the fighting stand of "labor" against Reaganism. Moreover the social-democrats such as the scribblers in the social-democratic rag In These Times and other opportunists are hailing the Bal Harbor meeting as a sign of the AFL-CIO's alleged "practical shift to the left"! (See In These Times, "AFL-CIO support for the arms race may be flagging," February 24,1982)

The social-democrats are particularly excited about the fact that for the first time the AFL-CIO has set up a high-level commission to study the question of defense spending and to make a report in a year's time. Supposedly this was a great concession to William Winpisinger, social-democratic chieftain of the International Association of Machinists (IAM), in his struggle to sway the opinions of the pro-military hawks who make up the majority of the leaders on the council. For the social-democratic falsifiers of In These Times, such details as the fact that the Executive Council voted unanimously for Reagan's defense budget, with Winpisinger and the social-democratic doves flying side by side with the most militarist hawks, is a matter of but little importance.

But no amount of whitewashing by their social-democratic and opportunist apologists can hide the fact that the trade union leaders in the U.S. are the most corrupt, anti-worker, chauvinist and warmongering lackeys of the bourgeoisie. The so-called " democratic - socialists" of the likes of Winpisinger and Doug Fraser are in no way an exception to this. Indeed the trade union officialdom is in the van of the Reaganite offensive against the working class. This is demonstrated by their "alternative" budget and in particular by their dirty strikebreaking role in the Reaganite wage-cutting offensive against the workers.

Only yesterday these labor bureaucrats were the foremost champions of the Carter regime's wage control measures against the workers. Today, while not giving up their perennial demands for wage controls, with Doug Fraser of the United Auto Workers in the lead, the trade union bureaucrats are eagerly jamming the capitalist wage-cutting concession demands down the workers' throats. When asked about why the trade union leaders were so readily agreeing to wage freezes and takebacks, Lane Kirkland explained that "labor is prepared to play its part. In the words of the Bible, ask us to go a mile and we will go twain." (New York Times, January 30, 1982) Such is the class collaborationist and downright servile stand of this so-called "labor leader" before the capitalist offensive against the working class.

Fight the Reaganite Offensive!

The AFL-CIO chieftains' "opposition" to the Reaganite attacks is no opposition at all. Their "fight" with the Reaganites goes no further than their campaigns for the equally reactionary programs of the Democratic Party. Reaganism can not be combatted by embracing Reagan's war budgets, by lobbying for tax hikes on the people and handouts to the corporations, by accepting cutbacks in social programs, or by saddling the workers with wage cuts.

A real struggle against the Reaganite offensive requires firm opposition to both the Republican and Democratic parties of monopoly capitalist reaction. It requires a bitter struggle against the sabotage of the scab trade union leaders who are trying to chain the workers' opposition to the tail of the democratic donkey.

A real struggle against Reaganism calls for working to develop the powerful, mass revolutionary struggle of the working class against the entire capitalist program.

Down with the aggressive war preparations of U.S. imperialism! Tax the rich, not the working masses! Fight for relief for the jobless and the poor and against cuts in needed social services! No to wage-cutting concessions! Fight the Reaganite Offensive of the rich!

[Photo: One of the banners raised by the contingent of the Chicago Branch of the MLP at a demonstration of 1,500 workers in Chicago on December 19 against the Reagan economic policies. Ail across the country, working masses in the tens of thousands have angrily denounced the Reaganite offensive.]

AUTO WORKERS, GET ORGANIZED AGAINST CONCESSIONS! See page 5

[Photo: On February 20, over 300 auto workers demonstrated outside Detroit's Cobo Hall against the Ford/Fraser concessions scheme. Shouting "No Concessions, Vote No!," the workers denounced Fraser and his pack of sellouts who were inside trying to sell the concessions to local Ford/UAW officials from around the country.]

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Correspondence

January 20, 1982

Dear Comrades,

This is in reply to an article in the "independent liberal newsweekly" the Guardian, issue of January 13, 1982. As you know, the liberals on the Guardian staff have been tailing trade union bureaucrats, feminists, pacifists, Democratic hacks, and social-democrats as well. They love to tout themselves as oh so "progressive" and like to be radical chic. They never tire of denouncing any criticism of their line as "ultra-leftist" and "sectarian."

But this time the economist-tailist Guardian has gone too far and they have joined the chorus of outright capitulation to the employing class. In this January 13 article by Guardian staff writer Ben Bedell on the AFL-CIO tactics for the 1982 elections. Not a word of criticism is uttered over the treachery of the AFL-CIO leaders in fleecing the workers of tens of millions of dollars to back the "left"-talking Reaganites in the Democratic Party! Worse, Bedell capitulates to outright chauvinism by parroting the capitalists' and labor union hacks' lies that the economic crisis and suffering of workers is due to "foreign competition." He says that workers drawing a stipend and specialized training were"sacked due to foreign competition." This is a lie and Bedell and the Guardian know it! They want to cozy up in bed to bourgeois liberals and labor union sellouts. So they push this disgusting chauvinism to divide the workers. They do it so workers won't see the capitalist cause of the crisis. They want the workers divided so the Democrats and union hacks can destroy their independent struggles and keep them in the Democratic Party. We cannot let the Guardian get away with this treachery. We must expose them to the worker masses.

Fraternally...

Los Angeles

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Reagan gives go ahead for draft registration

[The Buffalo Anti-Imperialist Newsletter masthead.]

(The following is taken from The Buffalo Anti-Imperialist Newsletter of the Union of Anti-Imperialist Students, February 3, 1982.)

Reagan's decision to proceed with the registration of young men for the draft comes as no surprise. The Reagan administration has been steadily marching to bring back the draft since the day it took over from the warmongering Carter government. While trying to hide behind the mask of being "opposed to a peacetime draft," Reagan and his band of assassins have been working frantically to put an end to peacetime. Even today Reagan is trying to preserve his fairy tale about being opposed to a peacetime draft. He claims that "regrettably" he has "no choice" but to continue registration because if he doesn't, he says the Soviet social-imperialists will interpret this as a sign of "weakness." What a fraud!

The draft is an important part of U.S. imperialism's all-round preparations for war. Reagan, just like Carter before him, is preparing to take the U.S. to war to defend the interests of the monopoly capitalist billionaires. The imperialists are preparing for war to put down the peoples who are rising up against imperialist domination, and they are preparing for war with their main rivals the Soviet social- imperialists to decide which of these thieves will be top dog in plundering the land and labor of other peoples. The imperialists must have cannon fodder to wage their reactionary and aggressive wars, and so they must have the draft. This is why, no matter what lies they tell on election day, all the capitalist politicians -- Democrat and Republican alike -- have proven to be solid supporters of the draft.

The masses of people in the U.S. have no interest in fighting wars for the rich. Furthermore, the lessons of the Viet Nam war have not been forgotten and resistance has grown with each step the imperialists have taken toward war. Hundreds of demonstrations and other actions have been organized all across the country, and a new wave of opposition is arising to meet Reagan's latest announcement. It is precisely the mass struggle which is needed to oppose the draft. Further, in this struggle, opposition to imperialism must be put in the center.

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OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON

12,000 Workers Denounce Reaganite Offensive

On January 20th, 12,000 workers demonstrated against Reagan and Republican Governor John Spellman at (the Washington State Capitol in Olympia. The workers marched through the streets of Olympia to the Hall of Justice where a rally was held. During the march and at the rally site the rank- and-file workers militantly denounced the growing unemployment, the cuts in the social benefit programs for the poor, and other attacks on the working masses by the Reagan and Spellman administrations.

The Marxist-Leninist Party took an active part in this protest. A contingent of supporters of the Seattle Branch of the MLP carried a big banner that proclaimed "Down with Reagan -- Chieftain of Capitalist Reaction!" A singing group of the Seattle Branch performed a number of songs which were very popular among the workers. These songs denounced Reagan and ridiculed the two big parties of capitalist reaction, the Republicans and Democrats. As well, the Seattle Branch produced a special leaflet for the demonstration. The leaflet contained several articles including a call to the workers to "Go All Out Against Reagan! "; a denunciation of Governor Spellman's anti-worker policies (which is reproduced below); and an exposure of the AFL-CIO bureaucrats' fraudulent "opposition" to Reagan. The leaflet also included articles in support of the revolutionary struggle of the people of El Salvador against U.S. imperialism and a denunciation of martial law in Poland. Copies of this leaflet were distributed far and wide among the workers. The leaflets and the militant slogans shouted by the MLP supporters were warmly greeted by the demonstrators.

The Olympia march was another manifestation of the deep hatred that is boiling up among the workers against the capitalist offensive headed up by the Reagan government.

The "Opposition" of the AFL-CIO Bureaucrats Is No Opposition at All

The demonstration in Olympia was called by the Washington State AFL-CIO. But by their actions and statements the trade union bureaucrats showed that their aim was not to organize the fight against Reagan, but instead to prop up Reagan's twin, the Democratic Party. Many of the speakers at the rally called on the workers to vote Democrat in this year's elections. Likewise, when speaking of their program for "fighting" Reagan, the union hacks simply endorsed the anti-worker policies of Jimmy Carter and the Democrats. For example, the national secretary-treasurer of the AFL- CIO, Thomas R. Donahue, spoke at the rally, denouncing Reagan for "job losses, recessions, and tax breaks for the rich." But instead of calling on the workers to fight these policies, he declared, "We want an effective partnership of labor, business and government." And he went on to spell out the AFL-CIO's support for Carter's job-eliminating "reindustrialization" program and "targeted" tax breaks for the rich. In other words, although Carter and the Democrats' policies are just as much against the workers as Reagan's, the AFL-CIO bureaucrats prefer them because they allow for a "partnership," a chance for the bureaucrats to sit on the government bodies that administer over "job losses, recessions, and tax breaks for the rich." The fraudulent nature of the union bureaucrats' "opposition" was graphically demonstrated when Spellman walked up to the speakers' platform and was greeted by the bureaucrats who shook his hand and held a friendly chat with him for several minutes. Support for the Democratic Party means just this, cozy chats and warm embraces for the Reaganite Republicans.

The workers want a real fight against Reagan. This is why they showed a keen interest in the work of the MLP at the demonstration. The workers are beginning to feel that Reagan cannot be fought by trusting their fate to the Democratic Party as their loyal lap dogs, the AFL-CIO misleaders, preach., Only by breaking with both of the parties of capitalist reaction and building the independent movement of the working class can the workers defend their own interests against the offensive of the capitalist class.

[Photos: Above: 12.000 workers rallied in Olympia, the state capital of Washington, on January 20 to denounce the growing unemployment, cutbacks in social services, and other attacks on the masses by Reagan and the Reaganite state government. Below:With banners, slogans, songs and thousands of leaflets, a contingent organized by the MLP took an active part in the Olympia demonstration and spread the call for going 'All Out Against Reagan!']

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Reaganomics in Washington State

(The following article is reprinted from a special leaflet issued by the Seattle Branch of the MLP for the January 20 demonstration on the first anniversary of Reagan's inauguration.)

In Washington State, Governor John Spellman and his legislative cronies of both capitalist political parties have enthusiastically taken up the Reaganite program of attacking the working masses and shifting the burden of the crisis onto their backs. In fighting the Reaganite offensive, it is necessary for the workers to also fight the program of Spellman, Reagan's faithful student.

Soaring Unemployment

Some ten million workers in this country are unemployed (over 200,000 in Washington State alone), and the number is rising every day.

What has Reagan done? Together with the Democrats in Congress, he has proceeded to cut off various federal unemployment benefits -- all in the name of "restoring the incentive to work." In other words, these capitalist slave drivers plan to "solve" unemployment by attacking the unemployed with a vengeance. The rich are throwing ever more workers into the ranks of the unemployed and using them to drive down further the conditions of those workers who remain on the job.

In Washington State, Governor Spellman and the other capitalist politicians are marching in close step with Reagan. True, they may shed a crocodile tear or two about unemployment as high as 20% in some parts of the state. But their response is exactly the same as Reagan's! Over the last year, Spellman and the legislature have passed over a billion dollars in social service cutbacks and carried out huge layoffs of state workers. And today -- for all their fine talk about various "job programs" -- their "solutions" to unemployment turn out to be nothing but further Reaganite attacks.

For example, Governor Spellman and the Republicans favor handouts to various "needy" capitalists who might then create a job or two (at minimum wage, of course!). The Democrats, while hailing Spellman's initiative, claim such "job programs" do not go far enough. (The Democrats would like to see even more handouts to the capitalists!) The Senate Democrats put particular emphasis on developing the WIN (Work Incentive) program to "create jobs." The WIN program, however, is nothing but a Reaganite slave-labor scheme. In this "workfare" program, jobless workers forced onto welfare are made to accept whatever starvation-wage job they are offered, or their welfare benefits are cut off. Such programs have nothing to do with "creating jobs" but are intended solely to further impoverish the most poverty stricken section of the workers. Far from being a solution to unemployment, this measure is in fact (as the Democrats are hooting) a budget cutback designed to save five million dollars of welfare funds. Not to be outdone by Spellman, the Democrats are eager Reaganites in their attacks on the unemployed.

The Washington State Labor Council (WSLC) has gone into raptures over the various "job programs" proposed by the lying capitalist politicians. As shown above, these "job programs" mostly provide huge subsidies to the rich with only a tiny number of new jobs. In fact, the top trade union leaders have no interest in fighting unemployment. The top AFL-CIO chieftains may yell about "saving jobs," but to accomplish this they are advocating that the workers make huge wage concessions to the capitalists. But at Chrysler, the only job saved by such concessions has been UAW President Doug Fraser's "job" on the Chrysler Board of Directors.

No! The workers must not sacrifice to help the ailing capitalists. The workers want a genuine fight: Against the layoffs and unemployment! Against the cutbacks in unemployment benefits! Against the slave-labor schemes of the capitalist politicians from Reagan on down!

Fiscal Crisis

The Washington State fiscal crisis has its roots first and foremost in the Reagan war budget which requires tens of billions of dollars in cuts from social service programs to pay for warships and neutron bombs for the U.S. imperialists. These federal cutbacks have resulted in at least $400 million lost to the current Washington State budget. Also, due to the deepening economic depression, state tax revenues have fallen dramatically.

What has been the response of the Reaganites of both parties in Olympia? -- tax hikes on the workers and cutbacks in services. Twice now in the last year, Governor Spellman and the legislature have launched such attacks -- some $1.1 billion in combined cutbacks and taxes last spring, followed with another round of $380 million last November. Now, in the midst of deepening fiscal crisis, Spellman and the legislature are squabbling among themselves for a third time over how best to steal another billion dollars from the people. But despite the so-called "friction" between "anti-tax" Republicans and "anti-cutback" Democrats, the legislature has no difficulty agreeing with Spellman that it is the working people who must be made to pay.

In this ongoing "debate" over how best to fleece the masses, the stand of the Washington State Labor Council is most instructive. The WSLC endorsed the November round of legislative tax hikes and service cutbacks, stating, "We believe that tax increases at both the state and local levels are a necessary part of any responsible solution (to the state's fiscal crisis)." Council President Marvin Williams said, "We recognize that a sales tax is a regressive tax," but a sales tax increase is necessary "because the state government is in critical condition."

Now, when Spellman and the legislature are demanding yet another round of taxes and cutbacks, the WSLC is trying to cover up their earlier support for the cutbacks and tax hikes. They are posturing that a solution to the fiscal crisis must not be found "at the expense of working people" -- yet they are refusing to organize the workers for a real fight. The hacks only want to organize the workers to "Vote Democrat" -- i.e., to vote for the most loyal supporters of Spellman's budget cuts and the most noisy advocates of ever-higher taxes. What Reaganites!

The workers demand a genuine fight against the attempts to make the people pay for the state fiscal crisis: No more cutbacks and tax hikes on working people! Tax the capitalist exploiters! Make the rich pay for the fiscal crisis!

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More protests against the persecution of the Haitian refugees

Throughout the past months a movement against the Reagan administration's immigration policy has been unfolding with a series of militant actions taking place in Miami, New York, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The singling out of the Haitian refugees as an example of the "stringent enforcement" measures of the Reaganite program has fueled the anger and outrage of the Haitian and other working masses.

On January 2, well over 1,500 people demonstrated and rallied in Brooklyn to denounce the criminal treatment of the Haitian refugees. The militant protest was very spirited and deeply reflected the outrage among the broad masses against the persecution of the Haitian refugees by the Reagan administration. The demonstrators shouted slogans demanding "Freedom for the Haitian refugees," and that "Haitians must rise and overthrow Duvalier!" and declared "What is the solution? Revolution!" More recently, on January 22, over 120 Haitian workers picketed outside the INS offices in Manhattan denouncing the government's anti-immigrant policy and U.S. imperialist support of the fascist Duvalier regime.

During December several mass actions of protest and rebellion occurred. Hundreds of Haitians in Miami, Lexington and Brooklyn detention centers launched a hunger strike. Numerous militant demonstrations took place daily outside the Krome Avenue center in Miami in support of the hunger strike there, and on December 27, hundreds of demonstrators stormed the center, battling the police, and freed over 100 detainees.

In December also, 200 prisoners at Fort Allen in Puerto Rico rebelled against the cruel separation of men and women, husbands and wives. On December 12, massive demonstrations of over 6,000 in Washington, D.C., and 5,000 in Puerto Rico were held, denouncing the Reagan policy and demanding political asylum and freedom for the Haitian prisoners in the U.S. On November 2, over 3,000 people took to the streets in New York City in a militant march and demonstration against the barbaric treatment of the Haitian refugees. This occurred a few days after the tragic drowning of 33 Haitians off the coast of Florida.

Like Carter before him, Reagan claims that the Haitians must be deported because they are "economic" and not "political" refugees. But no amount of slick terminology of the imperialists can justify the persecution of the Haitian refugees or hide the tyrannical nature of the Duvalier regime. The people are fleeing a regime of casehardened fascists which uses the armed forces and police to subjugate the masses, which brutally suppresses and jails all political opposition, a regime in which there is not one ounce of freedom for the masses. And behind this bloody suppression of the Haitian masses stands U.S. imperialism, the main prop of the hated Duvalier regime. Haiti is a reliable bulwark of U.S. imperialism and a haven for bloodsucking monopoly corporations.

It is very telling that while Reagan reserves the most brutal treatment for the Haitian refugees, he is deeply concerned about the future of the Duvalier regime. Within two weeks of the drownings in Florida, the Reagan administration announced that is was redesigning its aid program for Haiti with the hope of strengthening and bolstering the bloodthirsty dictatorship of Baby Doc and further sinking the claws of U.S. imperialism into the suffering masses of Haiti.

(Excerpted from a Special Bulletin of The West Indian Voice, newspaper of the Caribbean Progressive Study Group, February 2, 1982.)

[Photo: "No to the persecution of the Haitian refugees!," "No to the U.S. imperialist domination of the Caribbean!," read the banners of the New York Metro Branch of the MLP and the Caribbean Progressive Study Group at the January 2 demonstration in Brooklyn in solidarity with the struggle of the Haitian refugees.]

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Reagan Embraces Segregationist Academies

(The following is based on an article from the Boston Worker, newspaper of the Boston Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA, January 21, 1982.)

On Friday, January 8, the Reagan administration moved to give tax- exempt status to private, avowedly segregationist schools. They are among the schools set up by government officials and other diehard racists to maintain segregation in the face of the powerful mass movement against racial discrimination. In many areas, these schools were set up while the funds for the public schools, and therefore the black students, were cut back. The government has always given tax-exempt status to most of them, but for 12 years has denied tax-exempt status for those that openly proclaim their goal of segregation. Now Reagan has declared his love of segregation. Reagan's decision would allow 100 such schools status immediately while others may apply. This has been met by mass outrage and condemnation, forcing Reagan to come up with various maneuvers to cover his tracks. But blaming Ed Meese, or even proposing a law against his own decision, cannot hide the clear signal of support given to all the racists on January 8.

Far from being an isolated case of a "misunderstanding," this signal of support for segregated schools is one more example of the increasing racist offensive being organized by the monopoly capitalist government.

Just recently, Reagan proposed to get rid of "affirmative action" guidelines for any place employing less than 250 workers, that is, for most of the work places in the country. Here, Reagan is telling the employers to step up the already vicious discrimination in the hiring and training of black and other oppressed nationality workers. This discrimination is already causing black workers to face 17 1/2% unemployment, that is, twice the general level, and black teenagers an incredible 47%! Such measures to increase racial discrimination combined with the current economic crisis mean absolute devastation for the black masses.

In fact, all the measures which Reagan and the rich are implementing against the oppressed nationalities and the immigrants are directed against the entire working class. By singling out and persecuting the black people, the Mexican and Puerto Rican people, and the immigrants, the capitalists hope to weaken and corrupt the revolutionary fighting spirit of the working class. Hitler's persecution of the Jews was part of his program to impose fascism on the entire German working class. Today, the Reagan regime is persecuting the oppressed nationalities and immigrants as a central part of its program of imposing fascist slavery on all the workers. The fight against this persecution and for full rights for the oppressed nationalities and immigrants is a vital question for the whole working class.

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MASSACHUSETTS

Oppose Slave-Labor Workfare Schemes

(The following article is taken from Boston Worker, newspaper of the Boston Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA, January 4, 1982.)

Very soon, Democratic Governor Ed King's brutal "workfare" program is going into effect in Massachusetts. This program is a vicious attack against the working class and people. It is nothing but a program of slave labor which works hand in glove with the cutbacks in social benefits programs that Reagan has implemented. "Workfare" will force tens of thousands who receive welfare to work for their so-called "social benefit" of welfare at minimum wage. And, they will be doubly exploited by being put into jobs that previously paid more than minimum wage. Far from "gaining job skills and work history" as Governor King is propagandizing, these people will mostly be filling unskilled government jobs, replacing public sector workers who lost their jobs due to budget cutting of the state and local governments. It is no coincidence that at a time when unemployment is running rampant -- when 500,000 workers are being thrown on the streets every month -- the capitalists implement a program like "workfare." What better way to instill fear in the workers and to drive down the conditions of the whole working class than to turn the unemployed into a class of slave laborers -- workers forced to choose between "workfare" and starvation! What better way to pay for the huge tax subsidies the government is giving the rich than by replacing state and city workers with the slave labor of the unemployed.

The capitalist government in the U.S. was forced to grant paltry unemployment and welfare benefits by the great mass struggle of the workers during the Depression of the 1930's. Today the rich are trying to take these concessions back. To this end, the capitalist news media and politicians have kept up steady propaganda that people are unemployed and on welfare because they are "lazy bums who are soaking the taxpayers." This propaganda, of course, is a big lie which blames the victims for the evils of the capitalist system. People are not unemployed because they are lazy; they are unemployed because the capitalist system cannot exist without creating an ever-growing army of unemployed. On top of this, every time there is an economic crisis in this system, like the present one, the capitalists throw millions more out of work in order to save their profits. The people on welfare are simply the most down trodden section of unemployed, people who have been unemployed for a long time or who are unable to work because of illness or because they have small children and cannot afford childcare.

The capitalist complaint that the people on welfare are lazy is not only a lie but hypocrisy as well. After all, the big capitalists themselves do no useful work and they live like kings! The same hypocrisy applies to their concern that the unemployed are a tax burden on the employed workers. This is a real fraud, for Reagan is handing over billions in workers' tax monies to subsidize the corporations' "economic revitalization" programs and spending billions to prepare for new imperialist wars to defend the world empire of the billionaires.

The rich do not want to, and cannot, eliminate unemployment. They only want to make the lot of the unemployed more miserable. Unemployment can only be eliminated by the revolution of the working class which establishes socialism, like in Albania. There, everyone is guaranteed a job and workers work to improve the life of the people and not to fill the pockets of the rich capitalists.

The capitalist campaign against the unemployed and people on welfare is a bipartisan policy of both the political parties of the rich, the Democrats as well as the Republicans. Every president since Nixon, Democrat or Republican, has tried to launch "workfare" on a national scale. It has been the Democratic Congress which has approved Reagan's measures to cut off the automatic extension of unemployment insurance and other relief for the unemployed. It is these Democrats who have also approved Reagan's measures to deny food stamps and Medicaid to millions of minimum wage workers. And today in Massachusetts, the Democrat King is planning to implement "workfare," while Reagan is working towards making it mandatory in all states next year.

Workers, Governor King's program of "workfare" is an attack on the whole working class. The fact that Governor King plans to use "workfare" to replace the laid off public sector workers shows what the rich have in mind for all of us. The defense of the poorest workers and the unemployed is a fighting task for all the working masses.

Wage mass struggle against cutbacks in welfare and the "workfare" slave-labor scheme!

Fight against the Reaganite offensive of the rich!

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A Determined Strike in Pittsburgh Enters Its Fifth Month

American Standard Workers Strike Against Takebacks

3,700 workers in two railway equipment plants in the Pittsburgh area have been out on strike for over 16 weeks against the arrogant concession demands of the capitalists. American Standard, which owns these two plants, is trying to force the workers to cough up enormous wage cuts and productivity measures. This is the fruit of the capitalist takeback offensive headed up by the Reagan government. Most often the capitalists cry about poverty or make empty promises that jobs will be saved in order to justify wringing concessions from their workers. But the thriving transportation business of American Standard can't hide the fact that it is making money hand over fist. This example demonstrates that once concessions are given to one capitalist, no matter what the pretext, then all the capitalist hogs want to feed at the concession trough.

The American Standard workers have given a fitting reply to these outrageous concessions. They rejected the takebacks demanded by the American Standard capitalists and put up their own demands for a $1.21 wage increase, an uncapped cost-of-living allowance and improvements in their benefits. They voted overwhelmingly, 2,647 to 186, for a strike, and on November 1, 1981 they walked off the job to press their demands. In late December the workers organized a mass picket which stopped supervisors from entering the plant to run production. And today, despite the firing of 14 workers and court injunctions against mass picketing, the workers are militantly continuing their strike and are gaining ever wider support among other workers in the Pittsburgh area.

The Capitalists Are Eating Caviar

The two Pittsburgh divisions of American Standard, the Westinghouse Air Brake Company (WABCO) with a plant in Wilmerding, Pennsylvania and the Union Switch and Signal Company with a plant in Swissvale, Pennsylvania are demanding a general wage freeze plus direct cuts in wages for the 75% of the workers who are on piecework. They are also demanding a whole plethora of productivity measures including: the installation of a computer to track the workers' every move, whether on the line or to the bathroom, all day long; the right to change piecework and line quotas during the term of the contract while eliminating the workers' right to strike over such issues; the right to make productivity, not seniority, the basis for layoffs and job bidding.

American Standard claims it needs such concessions because the market is getting weak. But they have refused to reveal the profit margins for these two divisions. Nevertheless, published figures for American Standard's transportation segment, which draws one third of its sales from these two divisions, show they made $49 million in domestic operating profits in 1980.

The workers say that American Standard is "eating caviar" and they have refused to give an inch on the capitalists' concession demands. In fact, it is reported that American Standard offered to give in to the workers' demand for an uncapped COLA if the workers would accept the company's productivity demands. But the workers rejected this maneuver by the capitalists and are continuing their strike against all of the takeback demands.

To carry through their struggle the American Standard workers must also stay on guard against any treachery by the trade union bureaucrats. The January 11 issue of Business Week reports the president of the UE local for the two plants as saying that "the union will not agree to changes in the contract language, although he says the local will work informally to help raise productivity." This indicates that while the workers have rejected American Standard's productivity measures, the union bureaucrats may try to sneak them in through the back door.

The strike of the American Standard workers is a blow against the takeback offensive of the capitalist class. But, since the top bureaucrats of the UE are well known for their sabotage of workers' struggles, the American Standard workers must be vigilant towards the union hacks and continue their mass struggle to defeat American Standard's concession demands.

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Reaganite Unionism in Action

TEAMSTER BOSSES SIGN A BIG WAGE-CUTTING SELLOUT

On January 15, the top labor traitors of the Teamsters union announced an agreement with the trucking capitalists on a new national contract which completely betrays the interests of over 270,000 union drivers. The terms of the new sellout contract mean massive wage cuts, more torturous working conditions, growing unemployment for the truck drivers, and a veritable fortune for the trucking companies. The new agreement consists of a new National Master Freight Agreement and various supplemental agreements. So anxious were the Teamster bosses to betray the truck drivers that they have agreed to put the new contract into effect on March 1, one month before the old contract expires.

Presently, the Teamster chieftains are working to impose this sellout contract on the workers. Teamster President Roy Williams is trying to convince the truck drivers to vote for the contract by telling the big lie that contract concessions will "save jobs" and "regain the thousands of jobs lost through layoffs." What a sick joke! As well the infamous Teamster contract ratification rules are such that the approval of only one-third of the drivers voting is needed for ratification. Thus the membership vote is little more than a formality on the road to ramming through the concession contract.

Massive Wage Concessions to the Trucking Capitalists

The treacherous new contract provides enormous concessions to fatten the profits of the trucking companies. Wages have been frozen for the entire 37 months of the new agreement. The cost-of-living payments have been greatly reduced, with a portion of the COLA diverted to finance pension, health and welfare funds. For example, the COLA payment of about 704 per hour due April 1 under the old contract, will be cut by 25¢ per hour. Moreover, COLA increases will only be made once a year instead of the current semiannual increases. Furthermore, there are provisions which allow the trucking companies to pay a lower wage rate for new hires during an extended "probationary" period. Thus the new contract will result in big cuts in the real wages of the workers.

Besides these measures, the agreement will save the companies even more money through allowing greater leeway in scheduling the workweek and by cutting benefits to drivers who work less than a full week.

Eliminating Jobs Under the Banner of Saving Jobs

In order to get the workers to accept massive concessions, Teamster president Williams is claiming the new agreement will "preserve the jobs of those now employed and will help regain thousands of jobs lost through layoffs and business failures in the trucking industry." This is a fraud from start to finish. First of all, there is not a single provision guaranteeing jobs. Secondly, the contract provision easing restrictions on direct deliveries by over-the-road drivers will wipe out thousands of jobs of drivers who make the local deliveries and warehousemen. Presently, under some local contracts, over-the-road drivers drop their freight at the trucking companies' local terminals. Then other drivers take the shipments to their local destinations. By eliminating these restrictions the over-the-road drivers would be required to take shipments right up to the final destination. This will eliminate many of the jobs of local drivers and lengthen the trips of the over-the-road haulers.

Another provision of the contract creates a new section of drivers who would no longer be paid according to the hours worked and the miles driven, but by a percentage of the revenue received by the companies for their truck loads. This new arrangement is also designed to intensify the workload on the drivers. With this contract Williams and co. are not saving jobs, but they are saving the capitalists profits by helping them eliminate jobs.

A Pledge of More Takebacks During the New Contract

As if the provisions of the new contract do not rob enough from the truck drivers, the new agreement shamelessly permits further takebacks beyond those in the new contract. Trucking companies will be permitted to apply for "special circumstance agreements" which would allow them to cut wages and benefits beneath those of the new sellout contract. In fact, this provision formally legalizes a common practice of the Teamster labor traitors. In March 1981, for instance, a number of companies refused to pay the wage and COLA increases due at that time under the terms of the old contract. Many local Teamster hacks capitulated to this and agreed to reduced wage levels. Meanwhile the top national Teamster leaders, who never hesitate to intervene in a local area to suppress the workers, moaned that there was nothing they could do to stop this. But now the national leaders have found what to do! They are legalizing and openly encouraging the practice of ripping up the contract at any time to grant more concessions.

Open Supporters of Reagan's Anti-Worker Offensive

In their attacks on the workers' livelihood, the Teamster leaders are openly collaborating with Reagan, the chieftain of capitalist slave driving. The Reaganite anti-worker offensive has made him the object of scorn and bitter hatred among the working masses. But for the arch-reactionary Teamster leadership, Reagan is a great hero. The teamster labor traitors supported Reagan and his openly anti-worker program when he ran for president. And now that Reagan is making good on his promises to attack the working masses, these dogs are more ecstatic about Reagan than ever. Thus, in the union's Teamster magazine (December-January, 1982), Roy Williams unashamedly stated: "We feel he [Reagan -- ed.] is a strong leader and has the ability to lead our country in the right course...." The Teamster leadership's support of the Reaganite offensive is nothing but treachery towards the entire working class.

Support for the Reaganite offensive means selling out the particular interests of the Teamster workers as well. While Williams was negotiating the new sellout concessions contract, he visited his dear friend Reagan at the White House and pledged to "be as reasonable as conditions will permit us to be." As the new contract shows, satisfying Reagan's conception of being "reasonable" means impoverishing the workers and imposing unbearable workloads on them.

It is also known by everyone that Reagan is a champion of deregulation, which has contributed to the worsening conditions of the truck drivers. Deregulation of the trucking industry began under the Carter administration. Through deregulation, the government wanted to increase the proportion of non-union drivers, which would increase competition in the workers' ranks and undermine their ability to resist the capitalists. Deregulation was designed to put pressure on the unionized workers to reduce their wages and conditions to the level of non-union drivers.

The Teamster leadership themselves like to whimper about how deregulation has cost thousands of jobs, etc. Yet they supported Reagan for president even after Reagan told the Ohio Conference of Teamsters in August 1980 that he supported "gradual" deregulation of the trucking industry. This shows the total hypocrisy of the crocodile tears being shed by the Teamster leaders over deregulation.

The attacks on the livelihood of the truck drivers are another notorious chapter in the Reaganite offensive against the workers. With their new concessions contract, the Teamster bosses have served well their master Reagan. They have taken their place beside the UAW's Fraser and the other top trade union bureaucrats in the front ranks of the capitalists' campaign to wring intolerable concessions from the workers.

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Meatpackers Saddled With Wage Cuts

The Armour, Wilson, Swift and Hormel meatpacking companies have gleefully joined in the Reaganite wage- cutting offensive against the workers. They have succeeded in saddling the workers in the meatpacking industry with a 44-month-long wage-cutting contract. And the treacherous misleaders of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) were so eager to help their bosses that they rammed this sellout contract through some eight months before the old contract was to have expired.

The new contract contains huge cuts in the workers' wages. In the settlements at Armour and Wilson, which set the pattern for the rest of the 40,000-worker industry, there is a freeze on wages and the cost-of-living allowance for the entire 44 months of the contract. The workers will receive only one lump sum payment based on the COLA they should have received in January and July of 1982, and even this is deferred until December 1983. This disgraceful sellout will leave the meatpacking workers completely at the mercy of high inflation. But the wage cutting goes beyond even these outrages. New hires will be forced to work for $1 per hour less than the base rate for the first 60 days of employment and 504 less for the next 30 days. The meatpacking companies will be permitted to pay less than the base rate for three years at any plants built in the future. And at one Armour meatpacking plant in Nampa, Idaho, the current wages were cut by $1.39 per hour.

In return for these enormous concessions, the UFCW leaders promised the workers improved job security. But in fact, the entirety of this so-called job security was that the meatpacking capitalists agreed that in return for the 44-month wage freeze they will not close any plants for 18 months. Of course, the companies can still lay off as many workers as they want, gradually phase out plants for 18 months, and then close plants altogether. What a fraud!

This sellout contract is the grand result of the UFCW bureaucrats' avowed policy of class collaboration. According to UFCW President Wynn, "The old postures of us versus them were obsolete." And thus, the workers face savage wage cutting and unemployment. It is no wonder that Armour chairman, John Teets, also hailed the new contract as a "new era in management- labor relations based on cooperation." This "cooperation" means that the workers cooperate by giving huge concessions to the capitalists, and the capitalists cooperate by graciously accepting the concessions.

Although the traitorous UFCW hacks managed to push through the concessions, there was widespread opposition among the workers. Workers at Morrell and Co. refused to reopen the contract and take concessions. At the largest union local at Hormel, in Austion, Minnesota, the sellout was voted down. At Armour, some 42% of the workers rejected the contract.

As the new contract takes effect, the indignation of the workers is bound to grow. For the workers who are being made to bear the brunt of the capitalist economic crisis, "us versus them" is far from obsolete. The vicious attacks on the workers' livelihood will lead to new rounds of struggle against the capitalist exploiters; Class struggle, not class peace, is the order of the day for the meatpacking workers.

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MLP Organizes Against GM/Ford Concessions

[Photo: Another view of the demonstration against concessions for Ford held at Cobo Hall, Detroit on February 20. The news of this protest was almost totally blacked out by the news media which did not want to report on any opposition among the auto workers to the sellout contract.]

[Photo: The supporters of the MLP went widely among the auto workers to rally them against concessions. Here MLP supporters distribute leaflets to Ford workers at the giant River Rouge complex in Dearborn, MI.]

The Marxist-Leninist Party is waging a major campaign to organize the fight against the latest round of wage cutting in auto.

When the UAW bureaucrats announced that they were reopening the auto contracts nine months early, the January issue of The Workers Advocate branded this as belly-crawling treachery and appealed to the workers to fight. Likewise, when concessions negotiations actually began with the GM and Ford monopolies, a special bulletin of The Workers' Advocate was published exposing the lies of the auto monopolies and the UAW big shots. Tens of thousands of these leaflets were distributed at the plant gates in cities all across the country, and they played a role in organizing the strong opposition of the rank-and-file GM workers.

Stickers opposing concessions have been plastered all over the walls in auto plants. Militants have joined with the MLP workers to pass out leaflets inside the plants and to encourage their fellow workers to oppose the takebacks. When union meetings have been called, the supporters of the MLP have shown up to help rally the workers to vote against concessions. On two occasions the MLP called for demonstrations against concessions, distributing thousands upon thousands of leaflets in the Detroit area.

Most recently, when a sellout contract was negotiated with the Ford billionaires, the MLP published another special bulletin which exposed that, for the $1 billion given up in concessions, the workers will not get "job security" but instead empty promises and hot air.

Mounting Opposition to Takebacks

In all of its work, the MLP has struck a chord among the rank-and-file workers who are increasingly coming out in opposition to the concessions schemes of the auto billionaires and their lap dogs in the top leadership of the UAW.

The workers' opposition is the fruit of several years of bitter experience. Since 1979 the auto monopolists have imposed one takeback after another onto the auto workers. This has especially been the case for the Chrysler workers who have suffered wage and benefit cuts on three separate occasions since 1979.

But this suffering is giving rise to renewed struggle of the workers. In the last half year, wildcat strikes and demonstrations have broken out among the Chrysler workers at the Belvedere, Illinois assembly plant; Vernor Tool and Die in Detroit; the engine assembly plant in Windsor, Canada; the Chrysler Tank Plant in Warren, Michigan; and the stamping plant in Twins- burg, Ohio. As well, opposition to concessions was so widespread among the GM workers that the contract talks collapsed at GM at the end of January. The Ford workers too have displayed wide opposition to concessions. Last year, when Ford threatened it would close the plant unless the workers gave up 50% cuts in pay, the workers at the Sheffield, Alabama aluminum casting plant overwhelmingly opposed the concessions. And a broad section of the Ford workers are denouncing the sellout contract recently negotiated by Ford and the UAW hacks. On February 20, the Ford workers' hatred for the sellout contract was manifested when 300 workers demonstrated against concessions at the UAW informational meeting for local officials held in Detroit.

The MLP has gone deep among the militant workers to organize the fight against concessions. For several years the MLP has carried out constant agitation to show the workers the bitter lessons to be learned from the capitalist takeback offensive and to galvanize the opposition among the workers into a fighting force. This several years of work has shown that the vast majority of the auto workers are opposed to concessions. But what is needed to carry through the struggle is organization. Today, when the sellout contract at Ford is just the beginning for concessions at GM, Chrysler, AMC, Volkswagon, International Harvester, the auto parts suppliers and so forth, this lesson must be learned. The workers must build revolutionary groups in the factories. They should join with workers from the MLP to distribute leaflets and organize discussions to draw more workers into the fight. Networks of workers should be established to campaign for a no-vote against the concession contracts and to prepare for slowdowns, demonstrations and other mass actions against the vicious demands of the auto monopolies. The fight against concessions is a major part of the struggle against the capitalist offensive headed up by the Reagan government. The task for the workers in this struggle is clear. Auto workers, organize!

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NO CONCESSIONS TO FORD!

Ford workers! Doug Fraser and the other top UAW bosses are committing a monstrous betrayal against you. They have ripped up the contract and have signed a new tentative agreement with Ford management. This new contract will hand over to Ford Motor Co. over $1 billion in concessions out of the wages and benefits that you have worked and fought long and hard for. And what did you get in exchange? Nothing! Absolutely nothing but hot air!

The new tentative contract will mean whopping wage cuts. A 30- month wage freeze, a 9-month COLA freeze, and sub-base pay for new hires adds up to thousands of dollars robbed from each and every Ford worker. The elimination of all the PPH days and the cutting of three bonus vacation days will wipe out even more jobs. The concessions to Ford will add up to some $2 per hour cut in labor costs over the life of the contract, averaging about $10,000 from each employed worker. (See New York Times, February 16, 1982)

In exchange for these massive takebacks Ford is supposed to provide the workers with job security. But the tentative agreement provides little more than cheap rhetoric and false promises. At best, only a small number of workers will ever see a penny of the much ballyhooed "Guaranteed Income Stream." The so-called moratorium on plant closings is no more than a hollow promise from Ford management that it will keep plants open unless it happens to want to close them down. Out of this raw deal Ford will make an all too small addition to the exhausted SUB funds, and benefits will be temporarily restored only for the minority of the laid off workers who are still eligible for SUB pay.

Ford workers! This new tentative contract is a rotten sellout if there ever was one. The Ford billionaires must not be allowed to get away with this outrageous robbery. At this very moment, Fraser and his sellout crew are stoking up the railroad to cram these wage cuts and takebacks down the workers' throats. This concessions railroad must be stopped. Organize and spread the word among your fellow workers -- VOTE DOWN THE TENTATIVE CONTRACT! NO CONCESSIONS!

$1 Billion from the Workers' Pockets to Pay for Job-Eliminating Robots

Ford Motor Co. is pleading poverty, and out of the kindness in their hearts, Fraser and his friends want to hand over to the "poor" Ford billionaires the very shirts off the workers' backs. But Ford is no shoestring outfit. Rather, it is one of the richest monopolies in the whole world. After GM it is the second biggest manufacturing firm in the U.S. Outside of North America, Ford's operations are even bigger than GM's, with huge divisions in Europe and around the world making up over half of Ford's total operations. Off the sweat of the workers, year in and year out, Ford makes billions in profits, dividends, and interest payments to the banks. Now, with the deepening of the world economic crisis, Ford is having its second bad year. So Ford, with Fraser and co. doing the arm twisting, is blackmailing the workers with the threat that they must either empty their pockets for the sake of the profits of the Ford moneybags or lose their jobs.

But if Ford is so damn "poor," how is it that Ford spent $2.5 billion in '81 and will spend another $3.5 billion this year for retooling and automation?! How is it that in these very same two years that Ford is complaining about losing money, it is spending $6 billion on robots and computers to wipe out Ford workers' jobs?! Even Mike Rinaldi, the head of the UAW Ford bargaining committee that created this year's rotten takeback contract, predicted that the auto companies' modernization plans will permanently wipe out some 20% of the auto workers' jobs by 1985 and that 50% will be eliminated by 1995. (Local 600, Ford Facts, February 11, 1980)

Concessions won't save a single job. Instead they will go to pay for more robots ind computers to wipe out even more jobs. And the new contract that Ford and Fraser have come up with is nothing but a scheme for the workers to finance their own layoffs and plant closings.

Job Security Can Only Be Won Through Struggle

In making their hard sell for concessions, the Ford bosses, the capitalist news media, and the UAW chieftains are all telling the workers that "these are hard times." But in hard times or not, the auto workers have never and will never win a thing by going down on their hands and knees to lick the boots of the auto capitalists as Doug Fraser and his friends are doing. Only militant mass struggle, not rotten class collaboration, can defend the jobs and livelihood of the auto workers.

If Fraser was really concerned with saving jobs, then he would quit worrying about the profits of the Ford monopolists and fight for real measures to improve the job security of the workers. He would fight to put an end to compulsory six and seven-day weeks and to stop the work rule changes, job combinations and speedup. And he would take up the fight against the job-cutting retooling programs and demand real guarantees, not empty promises, against plant shutdowns.

But what has Fraser done? He and his fellow sellouts have given the bosses a free reign to eliminate jobs. They have betrayed both the workers still on the job and the 66,000 Ford workers out of work.

The workers must demand that the Ford capitalists either rehire or provide livelihood for the workers who have been thrown into the street. This demand must apply not just to a relative handful, but to the tens of thousands who Ford has deprived of a job. Any real measure of job security will require a bitter struggle. The workers have no other choice: either the road of hard-fought mass struggle in defense of their livelihood, or the road of class collaboration and concessions which is the sure road to more job loss and ruin for the auto workers.

Vote Down the Tentative Contract! No Concessions!

Ford workers! Presently you are at the front lines of the takeback offensive of the auto monopolies. At GM, the overwhelming opposition of the rank and file led to the breakdown of the concessions talks in January. But if they succeed at Ford, they will be back knocking at the door of the GM workers. The concessions being demanded of the auto workers are part of the entire Reaganite wage-cutting offensive against the working class. It is time to take a firm stand and strike a blow not only for the Ford workers but for all the workers against the capitalist offensive.

There is no question that the majority of Ford workers are opposed to concessions. But Fraser's railroad can't be derailed without a fight. The workers must take action and raise their voices loud and clear against this monstrous robbery. Organize demonstrations and protests. Go to the union meetings to expose this sellout for what it is. Go all out to spread the word and mobilize your fellow workers to -- VOTE DOWN THE TENTATIVE CONTRACT!

Concessions won't save a single job!

No cuts in wages and benefits!

Fight the layoffs and plant closings, overtime and speedup!

Fight to make the monopolies rehire the laid off auto workers or provide them with a livelihood!

Wage mass struggle against the auto billionaires!

[Cartoon.]

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GM Workers! Stand Firm Against Concessions!

On January 28, the GM auto billionaires and the sellout leadership of the UAW jointly announced that "for now" they are breaking off the negotiations aimed at shoving wage and benefit concessions down the throats of the GM workers. GM and the UAW bureaucrats have temporarily backed down for one simple reason -- they are deathly afraid of the opposition of the rank-and-file GM workers.

GM Workers Solidly Against Concessions

From the beginning of the negotiations the GM workers demonstrated their strong opposition to concessions. In southeast Michigan and elsewhere, when the MLP distributed leaflets against concessions the workers shouted encouragement. Many times militants joined with the MLP workers to distribute leaflets inside the factories, to denounce the concession drive at union meetings and to rally other workers against takebacks.

Whenever votes of the rank and file were taken they were overwhelmingly against concessions. For example, in a straw vote at the Lansing, Michigan Oldsmobile Assembly Plant over 1,100 voted against concessions while only a handful supported them. Likewise, 350 workers at GM's Fisher Body Plant in Detroit braved an ice storm on "Superbowl Sunday" to denounce the national takeback schemes and to vote on a local contract that would have cut relief time and added other productivity measures against the workers. The local concessions were soundly defeated by a vote of 350 to 2.

As the opposition mounted, the MLP and other organizations called for a demonstration against concessions at the UAW's GM Council meeting which was scheduled to take place on January 30 in Dearborn, Michigan. The mere thought of the outraged workers coming out to protest the concessions schemes so frightened Doug Fraser that he first declared that the council meeting would be moved to Chicago. Then, only hours later, he announced that the negotiations had collapsed. The workers' opposition had forced Fraser and GM to temporarily retreat.

Don't Let Down Your Guard

The collapse of concession talks at GM is a significant victory for the workers. It shows that after several years in which the capitalists have been cutting wages and benefits with a vengeance, a new mood of militancy is growing among the workers. The monopolies are scared to death that this militancy will break out into mass struggle to beat back the capitalist takeback offensive.

But the GM workers must remain vigilant. The break-off of negotiations is a temporary maneuver by GM and the UAW bureaucrats to gain time to prepare to shove concessions down the workers' throats at a later time. Right now the GM money-grubbers are trying to blackmail the workers by announcing that due to their failure to get concessions they are closing several plants. These plant closings must be opposed! Likewise, the UAW bureaucrats have come up with another concession scheme at Ford, and they have made it clear that if they can impose takebacks on the Ford workers they will bring a similar sellout contract to GM. GM workers must rally in support of their class brothers at Ford to fight this latest attack by the auto billionaires.

[Photo: Supporters of the MLP outside a union meeting of the workers at GM's Fisher Body Plant in Detroit. 350 workers braved an ice storm on "Superbowl Sunday" to vote solidly against concessions in the local contract. This was one of many manifestations of the GM workers' opposition to concessions, which led to the collapse of the contract talks Fraser had begun with GM in January.]

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Provisions of the tentative Ford agreement

Pay Cutting With a Vengeance

The sellout bureaucrats of the UAW are claiming over and over again that the Ford contract contains no pay cuts. But this is perfectly outrageous when it is obvious that the workers will lose huge amounts of pay from the concessions to Ford. Take a look at the provisions.

* A 31-Month Freeze on Wage Increases. The traditional 3% annual wage increase on the base rate is cut at least until September 1984. This means that the average assembler, who makes a base rate of $9.64 an hour, will lose at least $1,760 over the life of the contract. This money goes directly into the pockets of the Ford billionaires and will never be returned to the workers.

* A 9-Month Freeze on the Cost-of-Living Allowance. Likewise, the freezing of COLA raises until December 1982 means a loss of at least $635 for the average assembler. On top of this, the fact that the lost COLA rate increases are only phased in gradually, toward the end of the contract, and that six cents an hour is diverted out of the pay checks, spells even greater cuts in the actual pay the workers take home. As with the wage freeze, this money is lost forever and will never be restored.

* Pay and Benefit Cuts for New Hires. To make matters worse the contract cuts the pay of newly hired workers to 85% of the normal rate for a job and cuts a number of their benefits too. They will make full pay only after a year and a half on the job. With each contract, the cuts for the new hires are being deepened. Fraser's new concessions are further dangerous steps in creating an underpaid section of workers who will be exploited to the bone once production picks up.

* Inflation Deepens Wage Cuts. As well, all the workers will suffer even worse cuts in their wages due to the soaring inflation. The UAW bureaucrats claim that an average assembler, who presently makes $11.67 in base and COLA pay, will be making $13.66 by June 1984 if inflation continues to rise at 7.5% a year. This, the sellout leaders say, means wages will actually increase under this concession contract. But these liars fail to mention that this wage rate falls behind the growing inflation and means a cut real wages of about 16 cents an hour.

Taken as a whole, this contract spells a whopping pay cut for those employed and even bigger cuts for workers hired in the future.

Job Elimination From Cutting Paid Personal Holidays and Bonus Days

This contract eliminates all PPH days, amounting to 18 days over the length of the contract. Also one bonus day a year is cut from the Christmas leave. These benefits were originally put in the contract as a measure against overwork and for job security, but Fraser has tossed them aside without blinking an eye. These cuts alone will result in the loss of at least 3,000 relief jobs (Wall Street Journal, February 16, 1982), while those employed are worked to a frazzle. And Fraser calls this contract "a major achievement in terms of providing UAW members at Ford with greater job security." How shameless!

Job Security Measures Are a Hoax

This contract includes a series of measures which Ford and the sellout leaders of the UAW promise will provide "job security." But this is a monstrous hoax! Take a look at the measures:

* "Guaranteed Annual Income Stream" -- A Guaranteed Swindle. Fraser and the Ford executives are calling the GIS the "key" new "innovation" of the contract. But this is nothing but an "innovative" fraud. It amounts to Ford "guaranteeing" only what it never expects to pay. The GIS promises a meager 50% of pay to workers with 15 or more years seniority. But since the average seniority among Ford workers is about 16 years, Ford does not expect layoffs to reach these older workers. But even if some are thrown out of work by plant closings, etc., the contract stipulates that they must take even a minimum wage job rather than receive GIS. The proof that Ford doesn't expect to pay GIS is the fact that the maximum funding for the program is only $45 million over the life of the contract. If a real catastrophe happened and some 4,000 workers with at least 15 years seniority were laid off and exhausted their SUB benefits, the GIS fund would be depleted in less than a year. This is hardly a "guaranteed" income for life.

* No Closings of Plants, Unless Ford Wants To. The two-year moratorium on plant closings resulting from "outsourcing" has so many exceptions to it that Ford is left with a free hand to shut down any plant it wants. For example, plants already scheduled to close, like the Sheffield, Alabama aluminum casting facility, are not covered by the moratorium. Likewise, the contract allows Ford to shut plants "because of poor sales or internal consolidation of company operations." (Detroit News, February 16, 1982) With such exceptions Ford will continue to close plants whenever it wants just as it closed the Flat Rock, Michigan casting plant and the assembly plants in Los Angeles and Mahwah, New Jersey in 1980-81.

* A Few Pennies for the SUB Fund. Today there are "officially" 66,280 laid off at Ford. Additionally, more than 26,000 Ford workers have lost their jobs since 1979 but they are no longer even counted because they have lost their recall rights. The biggest part of these laid off workers have less than 10 years seniority and no longer receive SUB benefits because they have been off the job for over a year.

This concession contract provides for the temporary shoring up of the SUB fund but only enough so that several thousand workers who have been laid off for less than a year will get some benefits for a short time. As well, workers with 10 or more years seniority will get 24 months of SUB and health care benefits. Thus, for over $2 per hour in wage and benefit concessions to Ford, 34 will go to the SUB fund and the biggest part of the laid off workers will still have to feed and take care of their families with no income. This is an outrage!

Furthermore, the money that Ford is temporarily loaning to the SUB fund ($70 million) and the tiny increase in payments to the fund (3¢ per work hour) is so small that the SUB fund can be expected to run dry once again in a short while.

Clearly these measures are not enough. If Fraser was really interested in job security then he would demand that the multi-billion dollar Ford Motor Co. rehire or provide a livelihood for all those who have been thrown into the streets -- not just for a few thousand for a short time.

Profit Sharing; A Token, Worthless Sop

According to reports the much acclaimed profit-sharing plan would only give an average Ford worker $233 even if Ford reached again the level of profits of its most profitable year. Thus, if each worker gives up thousands in concessions now then maybe, some day in the future, he will get a few hundred back. Perhaps this is what Fraser means by Ford's "humanitarian" approach to the workers.

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12 million workers wage one-day general strike in India

On Tuesday, January 19, some 12 million workers throughout India took part in a militant one-day general strike to protest fascist anti-labor laws introduced by the Indira Gandhi regime. This was the biggest nationwide mass action by the Indian working class in years. By successfully paralyzing large parts of the country in the face of fierce repression by the government, the January 19 strike revealed something of the powerful revolutionary potential which lies in the ranks of the tens-of-millions strong proletariat of India.

Agitation for this general strike had gone on for months beforehand. The bourgeois-landlord government of Indira Gandhi's Congress Party tried various maneuvers to prevent the protest from taking place. As January 19 approached, it unleashed the reactionary state apparatus to break the strike. At least 25,000 trade union activists were rounded up and thrown into jail before and during the strike. Those who joined the strike were threatened with cuts in pay and suspensions from their jobs. In the state of Bihar, the government threatened to shoot on sight those involved in "sabotage" or "pressuring" workers into joining the strike. The government of the heavily industrial state of Maharashtra, where Bombay is located, ordered a ban on the assembly of five or more people. Other states also took various threatening measures, and throughout the country paramilitary troops were placed in the industrial areas.

Despite such ruthless measures, the January 19 protest was markedly successful. More than half of India's unionized workers took part in it. It embraced all parts of this vast country. Many industrial areas were completely shut down and several cities totally paralyzed. This included the big industrial regions in West Bengal. The entire city of Calcutta was closed with the exception of the sidewalk tea stalls. In Bangalore in south India, complete support for the January 19 action came from the workers in the large public sector high technology industry who only a year ago had waged a militant 77-day strike. Many factories in the industrial section of New Delhi, the capital city, were also shut down. Besides industrial workers nationwide, other sections of the working masses also gave support to the general strike, including government workers in many states, miners, dock workers, seamen, transport workers, farm workers, pressmen and journalists, etc.

In many areas, the workers came out in demonstrations, carrying red flags and shouting militant slogans. Demonstrators also blocked many roads and railway lines. In West Bengal, overhead power lines were sabotaged. There were fierce clashes in several states between strike supporters and the police and gangsters of the ruling Congress Party. In a number of cases, the police fired on demonstrators. At least a dozen people were killed and hundreds injured nationwide.

Besides its success in the face of widespread threats and repression, another notable feature of the January 19 action was that it united so many sections of the Indian working class and on a national scale. One of the great problems faced by the Indian working class movement is that the workers are broken up into many trade union centers whose leaderships are connected to one bourgeois political party or another. The January 19 general strike united workers from most of these trade union centers. One notable exception to this was that the leaders of the Indian National Trade Union Congress, the union center associated with the ruling Congress Party, worked to prevent the workers in its unions from joining the strike. They worked actively to break the strike and even stood shoulder to shoulder with the police at factory gates and other places to carry out this despicable treachery.

The January 19 protest also had to contend with its false friends among the bourgeois parties of the loyal opposition. Some of these parties denounced the call for the general strike while feigning support for an industrial strike. Particularly significant was the stand of the revisionist "Marxist Communist" party which heads the "left front" government in West Bengal. This party pretended to support the general strike but it sought to cut the heart out of the action by converting it to a passive protest. It issued the call to the people to stay indoors rather than join demonstrations and other actions to successfully carry through the strike. It also pledged to maintain peace, protect capitalist property and make sure that strikebreakers could freely carry out their activity. The bourgeois parties of the opposition have demonstrated enough times when they are in power that they are no less ruthless than the Congress Party in crushing the struggles of the toiling masses. They only pretended to support the workers' demands so as not to lose their influence, while working as hard as possible to sabotage any effective struggle against the reactionary policies of the Indira Gandhi government.

The basic demands of the workers were the abolishing of two notorious fascist laws introduced by the Indira Gandhi regime in recent years, the National Security Ordinance of 1980 and the Essential Services Maintenance Ordinance of 1981. The NSO is a preventive detention law which allows the government to imprison anyone without trial for one year. It is aimed against those who seek to "engineer agitation," who are labeled as threats to "national security." Over the last year and a half, it has been repeatedly used against numerous struggles of the workers. The Essential Services Maintenance Ordinance bans strikes in various sectors of the economy which it declares as "essential services."

These fascist laws are part of a reactionary offensive launched by Indira Gandhi's Congress Party since she returned to power in January 1980. They are part of her declared aim of ensuring "stable government," that is, to ensure stable conditions for maintaining savage exploitation by the domestic capitalists and landlords and foreign imperialists. Late last year the Indian government received approval for a $5.7 billion loan from the imperialist International Monetary Fund, the largest in the IMF's history. In return, the Indira Gandhi regime promised further measures to fleece the working masses and suppress their resistance.

But the working masses of India will not allow Indira Gandhi to realize her pipe dream of stability for the rotten rule of the exploiters. Every month, thousands of workers and peasants brave police clubs, firings and arrests to take part in strikes and other mass actions against the exploiters and the government. The January 19 general strike was another powerful manifestation of the great fighting spirit of the toilers of India.

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Iranian People Resist the Khomeini-IRP Regime

Three years have just passed since the 1979 Revolution when the valiant Iranian masses overthrew the hated U.S. imperialist-backed fascist regime of the Shah. Today the Iranian people are carrying on a fierce struggle against the regime of Khomeini and the Islamic Republican Party (IRP) which seized the fruits of the Revolution from the hands of the working masses.

The Khomeini-IRP regime has imposed barbarous repression against the working masses and revolutionary forces. But even in the face of such a ferocious despotism, the fighting spirit of the masses has by no means been extinguished. Indeed, it is not an easy task to snuff out the courage, strength and self-sacrificing spirit which the Iranian people showed in their powerful struggle against the Shah.

In recent months, fresh reports have come from Iran about the people's resistance. Most significantly, there are signs that the working class, which played such a big role in the fight against the Shah, has begun to go into action. On December 6, the government's Minister of Labor and Social Services warned that any "disturbances in the factories" would be severely crushed. Defying the regime, strikes have broken out in several factories. The most prominent among them started in mid-December at the Iran National Auto Factories in Tehran. About 10,000 workers struck, demanding higher pay and a decrease in working hours, The regime's guards opened fire against the workers, killing seven and wounding many more. Two thousand workers were arrested.

Armed actions by revolutionary fighters have also continued. For instance, in late January, the city of Amol north of Tehran was captured by guerrillas and held for more than a day. They attacked the governor's office and police station and carried out leafletting among the masses. The government had to send in reinforcements to capture back the city.

Various forms of mass protest against the regime have also continued to take place. In several cases, the funerals for revolutionary martyrs have spontaneously turned into protests against the regime's brutality. This has especially been the case in view of the regime's attempts to prevent the burial of revolutionaries in the cemeteries.

As well, the struggle against the Khomeini-IRP regime continues among the Iranian nationals resident abroad. Progressive Iranian students have held many demonstrations to denounce the regime in the U.S., Europe, Asia, etc. In mid-February, hundreds of Iranian students and their supporters demonstrated in many cities around the world, including New York City. The progressive Iranians have also issued many leaflets and other publications to expose the regime's crimes, report on the resistance inside Iran and gather support for their revolutionary struggle.

From the time of the overthrow of the Shah, the regime that came to power has sought to smother the flames of the Revolution. This was the policy of both factions of the joint IRP-liberal regime, but a new stage began in June 1981 when the IRP seized undivided control over the government. Throwing aside its former attempts to balance between the people and the counter-revolution, the Iranian government proceeded to massively step up its barbarous repression against the people. Over 8,000 people have been executed, including young children and pregnant women. Every day, more people accused of being revolutionaries are summarily executed. The regime refuses to hold trials because of the fear that they could be turned into forums for the condemnation of the regime, as took place in the Shah's time. Moreover, at least 25,000 people have been thrown into prison, where torture is routine. Women prisoners are particularly savagely treated and rapes are common.

The Iranian government has also attempted to suppress the opposition abroad. Its embassies have been instructed to spy on progressive Iranians, and murder squads have even been organized to carry out violent assaults on them. On January 14, an Iranian government-organized assassination team murdered a progressive Iranian student in Manila, the Philippines. When a large group of his friends and supporters gathered at Manila International Airport to send off his body back home, they were attacked by the regime's agents who fired machine guns and threw hand grenades. Several people were injured in this attack.

While brutal treatment is handed out to those who fight to realize the unfulfilled revolutionary aspirations of the people, the Khomeini regime more and more inclines towards making deals with the remnants of the old monarchist reaction and with world imperialism, which had suffered a big blow with the 1979 Revolution. Although the overthrow of the Shah did not result in the toiling masses coming to power and instead a regime of exploiters was established, for a period of time this regime was forced to take certain measures against the Shah's apparatus and against imperialism as a result of the pressure of the aroused masses. But as the regime has proceeded towards violently crushing the mass movement, it has more and more revealed its inclination to come to terms with imperialism.

The Khomeini-IRP regime continues to rehabilitate still more of the Shah's henchmen and incorporate them into the government. Just recently, General Sodjdehi, chief of the torture chambers of the Shah's "Joint Anti- Terrorist Center," accepted Khomeini's offer of cooperation on his release from prison and joined the government in its war against the revolutionary forces.

Today the Iranian regime is building up its links with both Western imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism. It has made deals with the Israeli Zionists to purchase military spare parts. It has stepped up its appeals for increased investment from the West. In this regard, in December 1981, the governor of Iran's central bank visited West Germany. On behalf of Iran, he attended the board of directors' meeting of the Krupp steel monopoly and announced the Iranian government's decision to preserve its share in Krupp which the Shah's government had acquired. He also appealed for increased German investment in Iran and was given a favorable response by the German authorities.

For the time being the Iranian regime is developing warm relations with Soviet social-imperialism and the revisionist countries of Eastern Europe. On February 15, the Iranian Energy Minister, on a visit to Moscow, signed an agreement for accelerated economic and technical cooperation. This will step up work on various industrial projects which the Soviet Union began in Iran under the Shah, and the Soviet authorities are expected to send more technical advisors to Iran. There have also been reports that the Soviet KGB has sent in advisors to help beef up the Iranian regime's intelligence agencies. In November, the Soviet Union also offered Iran a political-military treaty of "friendship and cooperation," which is under consideration in Iran. In return for the aid of Soviet social-imperialism, the Iranian government has dropped its declarations against Soviet imperialism, including its earlier condemnation of the occupation of Afghanistan.

In this regard, a particularly despicable role is being played by the pro-Soviet revisionist forces in Iran, the Tudeh Party and the Fedayee (Majority). These elements have integrated into the state apparatus and play a direct role in fingering revolutionaries and turning them over to the executioners. In fact, Tudeh Party members can even be found among guards at the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran. Meanwhile, the pro-Soviet revisionists worldwide, including the "Communist" Party of the USA, continue to shower praise on the despotic IRP regime.

But the assistance of imperialism and Soviet revisionism will not save the regime from the wrath of the Iranian people. The recent actions of the resistance show that the revolutionary forces are far from being defeated. In fact, they are working hard to develop a fresh revolutionary onslaught of the masses which will bring down the regime.

The Workers' Advocate condemns the brutal crimes of the Khomeini-IRP government against the Iranian people. We denounce the murder, torture and jailings of the finest sons and daughters of the Iranian people. w We condemn the Soviet social-imperialists for providing the experts and spies to guide the execution of the revolutionaries. Once again Soviet revisionism has demonstrated that it remains a hangman of the revolution. We also condemn imperialism which, while continuing to plot to restore the monarchist reaction, today looks favorably on the regime's reactionary offensive in the hope that this will finally succeed in stamping out the flames of the revolution.

The Workers' Advocate salutes the heroic revolutionary fighters of Iran who are fighting so courageously to carry forward the torch of the revolution. We call on the proletariat and all progressive people to remain firm in solidarity with the revolutionary masses of Iran.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Social-democracy paves the way for reaction

[LUCHA masthead.]

(The following article is reprinted from Lucha, Central Organ of the Communist Party of Labor of the Dominican Republic, January 1982. Translation by The Workers' Advocate. The article discusses the relationship between the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) and Balaguerist ultra-reaction in the Dominican Republic. Note that the PRD, which is the party in power, is a social-democratic party, member of the Socialist International. Its secretary general, Pena Gomez, is the representative of the Socialist International for Latin America and the Caribbean. Balaguer, the leader of the Reformist Party, was the fascist president who, following the U.S. invasion of 1965, was installed by the U.S. imperialists in power in 1966 till 1978.)

A few days ago Dr. Jose Francisco Peffa Gomez, Secretary General of the governmental Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), declared that the forces of the Dominican ultra-reaction have a "far-reaching plan" directed towards the conquest of power to install a situation of rampant and open fascism in which no vestige of liberty and democratic rights will exist. Immediately the top PRD leader called on the left to be considerate to the PRD and its government, making it understood that the left would be greatly responsible if the plan of ultra-reaction is realized.

With this declaration the Secretary General of the PRD brings up once again the ghost of "retrogression," placing one more time upon the left a responsibility which the authentic revolutionary left has no reason to bear.

It is true that in the case of an assault by fascism to power, the revolutionary forces would be the worst hit, for the enemies of the people know that it is they who are their firmest enemies, while it is possible to mediate or to bring the social-democrats and bourgeois within the ranks of those who in a direct or indirect way support fascists. Of this there are plenty of examples.

But in the concrete example of our country the most important thing is that we speak clearly and that we understand well who is at fault for the political reactivation of such dark reactionary sectors as Balaguerism or for any assault to power by such sectors in case that such a thing would come to pass.

Once again we have to bring out before our people the determination of Pena Gomez to cure himself before the illness takes hold. He has seen the reactivation of Balaguerism and believes that starting now public opinion has to be prepared to place upon the left all the responsibility possible when just the opposite is true.

It is convenient to make this clear because if for any reason fascism gets implanted it should be well defined before history and before the people which are the forces which prepare the conditions for its advent to power.

The truth is that, in the Dominican case, the people and the progressive forces leveled a shaking blow at Balaguerism and other forces of ultra-reaction, when in 1978 the same were defeated in the electoral plane, were left greatly battered in the general political plane, to the extent that many thought they had no hope of recovering, beginning with the Reformist Party and Balaguer, who at 75 years, blind and with the weight of a dark political past, four years ago seemed without any possibility of recuperating any political currency whatsoever.

But the very PRD and its government have taken care to create the conditions so that these forces, with Balaguerism as their principal exponent, today are giving the signs of life that scare Peria Gomez.

This is not the first time that a social-democratic party, because of its fear of the people and their victories, social-democracy and the bourgeoisie open the door and give encouragement to the most reactionary forces.

Already, German social-democracy, so praised by Pena Gomez, favored the advent to power by Hitler for fear of an alliance and the united front with the communists. The socialist Mario Soares and his party opened the doors for the most obstinate right of Portugal to gain strength and come to power. And in Spain, just as the Euro-communists, revisionists of Carrillo, they (the social-democrats) are contributing to the recuperation of the most rabid and fanatic remains of Francoism.

It has been the government of "the party of national hope" which when the peasants have demanded land it has ignored their demands, which has mocked itself of the plight of the urban workers on whom it has riveted the chains of exploitation, shortages, mass firings and repression.

The ones who are at fault for the worsening of the situation of the masses, who promised the moon and the stars and later defrauded the hopes which the masses placed on them, are the ones to blame for the fact that the forces which were smashed in the elections of 1978, today continue to constitute a threat to democracy.

The fear of satisfying the popular demands, the militant defense of the interests of the landlords and the bourgeois by the PRD regime are indeed factors in favor of the political recovery of the fascists.

The left has no reason to bear this historic blame and in this, the principle PRD leader does have a direct and personal responsibility, not only because of his position as political head of the party of government but also for the campaigns of praise and eulogy in favor of Balaguer, whom he has presented as a model opponent, as a man with historical merits and an element favorable to the development of democracy.

To say all this about an enemy of the people while playing the role of one who wants the people to be satisfied with the distressing situation they face does indeed favor the recovery of the fascists and the realization of their plans.

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Mitterrand Visits Algeria

The Social-Democrat Mitterrand, Chieftain of the French Neo-Colonialists

(The following article is taken from La Forge, Central Organ of the Workers' Communist Party of France, December 15-31, 1981. Translation by The Workers' Advocate staff.)

Mitterrand's trip to Algeria has been characterized by the press as an important and decisive episode in the "long love story'' between the two countries. Foreign Relations Minister Cheysson has even spoken of a "passionate embrace,'' and the French leaders have expressed their desire to "start again from scratch.''

The necessity for the French government and notably for the president to erase the past in order to establish "trustful relations'' between the two countries is quite comprehensible.

But it is not a question only of a stroke of a pen drawn over a repression that caused more than a million Algerian deaths. This attitude also leads to leaving unmentioned the armed national liberation struggle waged for eight years by the Algerian people and which deserves the respect of all people who love freedom and peace, particularly among the peoples dominated by imperialism.

If Algeria benefits from such great influence, it owes it above all to its glorious fighters who paid dearly for their victory against French colonialism and imperialism and all its then front-rank men, certain of whom are

now found again at the pinnacle of power. What "trustful relations'' can be established with those who have exchanged the bazooka, napalm and torture for the smile, the rose and promises? What are the objectives of this trip for social-democracy in power in France?

- To use Algeria, its raw materials, workers and market to make a success of the plan to boost the French economy.

The big business of this trip has been gas. To assure its development, to buy machines and equipment sold at ever higher prices by the imperialist countries, Algeria wants to review the contracts drawn up with the preceding government. On this occasion one could see that the sudden passion for Algeria has not made the French negotiators, of whom the main ones like Jeanneney and Jobert were ministers under DeGaulle and Pompidou, lose their heads or their business sense. Their aim is to pay for gas as cheaply as possible. In doing this they express the interests not only of the French monopolies but also of all the imperialists, Italian, Belgian, British, who are opposed to an increase in the purchasing price of gas. The American company El Paso, which refuses to honor its agreements, has made it known that it was not able to renegotiate its contracts. No doubt the French government has used the agreements and negotiations with the USSR for the delivery of Siberian gas to France to put pressure on the Algerian government.

But it is not only a question of gas.... When one knows that Renault hopes to tear up a contract and that Thomson and CGE [the French General Electric Company -- W.A.] are competing with the Japanese to sell telephone equipment, one can see that it's a matter of the most powerful French monopolies.

As for the Algerian laborer, no serious measure came out of this trip to improve his conditions of life and work. On the contrary, Interior Minister Defferre presented as a success the closer collaboration between the police in order to better harass the workers, better control passages at the borders, and thus prevent [illegal work by the Algerian workers].

On the economic plane, Mitterrand's trip had the aim of seeking low cost energy sources, using immigrant labor under better conditions for the state and the French monopolies, obtaining contracts to invest capital and to dispose of a part of the production; to maintain and enlarge the positions of the French monopolies in the face of keen competition from the other imperialist powers.

- To use the political audience of Algeria in the world to enlarge the field of activity of French imperialism.

In going to Algeria Mitterrand wanted to make this trip "a political act," a concrete example of the new relations between North and South, between Europe and Africa, between Europe and the Arab countries.

The first trip of the new president was to Saudi Arabia: oil and arms compel it! Then it was the Paris summit where he gathered around him, in keeping with a tradition well established since DeGaulle, the heads of state of French black Africa: defense of the hunting grounds compels it! But the competition is such that the arms sell badly and that the hunting grounds turn towards other suppliers.

It's a question then of enlarging the field of activity of French imperialism to new countries such as the Arab countries called the "Rejection Front" or African countries styled as "progressive." For this new orientation of French foreign policy, the label of the Algerian authorities is not an insignificant contribution.

Finally, Mitterrand's visit to Algeria is seen in the setting of the rivalry of the imperialists, particularly the two superpowers -- U.S. and Soviet, to appropriate spheres of influence and strategic zones. To this day the USSR equips the Algerian army 95%; President Chadli recently made it understood that he intended to diversify his sources of supplies at the same time that he dismissed from their posts several leaders of the pro-Soviet party who had influence in the state apparatus. For French imperialism, the time has come to encourage such a favorable evolution, and, in the so-called name of neutrality and non-alignment, to supplant Soviet social-imperialism and sign some juicy armaments contracts. This is not to offend U.S. imperialism which counts on Algeria as its "faithful ally."

Indeed, U.S. imperialism is also particularly interested in Algeria, whose primary trading partner it has become. But at the present time, the war in the Sahara with its new developments confers on Morocco a choice place in the American global strategy in Africa and the Mediterranean. In Morocco the French monopolies have been supplanted in all fields by the American trusts. Thus in Algeria there is a niche for French imperialism.

Facts show that what guides the French policy is not concern for harmonious and balanced relations between our two peoples, nor the development of the Algerian economy. It is the exploitation of the wealth and the Algerian people for the maximum profit of the monopolies; it is the utilisation by French imperialism of the influence which Algeria enjoys and whose origin rests in the unyielding struggle for its independence, so as to enlarge its (French imperialism's) political influence, profits and positions. Our peoples have nothing good to gain from this policy. We are convinced that the Algerian people have forgotten nothing of the suffering and destruction caused by years of war and for which social-democracy bears a heavy share of the responsibility. Their victory was that of all the exploited, of all the oppressed and downtrodden. We do not doubt that they will equally be able to expose the new plans of French imperialism no matter what mask it may put on.

[Box: Some memorable quotes from Mitterrand

Let us recall several statements of Francois Mitterrand at the time when he occupied some ministerial posts in different governments of the 4th Republic. They testify to the place he assigns to Algeria in the plans to rescue French imperialism; they fix his responsibility in the bloody repression against the Algerian people and patriots.

"The future, the security, the grandeur of France are fixed, in the first place, in our African whole and can be assured only by our control of the western basin of the Mediterranean" (Declaration to the National Assembly, November 10, 1954 when he was minister of the interior in the Mendes-France government)

"I approve of the use of military force and the presence of soldiers in Algeria to the extent that that constitutes the last means of regaining some space to engage in dialogue." (Congress of the UDSR at Nancy in October 1956 when he was Keeper of the Seals, in charge of justice in the Guy Mollet cabinet)

"When the government declares that it wishes to reestablish order in Algeria, I approve of it. When it proclaims that it will never consent to abandon it, I approve of it. When it asks Parliament to renew the special powers which allow it to hunt down vile terrorism, I approve of it." (Interview in Paris-Presse. "The Intransigent," June 29, 1957, a few days after the fall of the Guy Mollet government)]

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Polish workers squeezed at bayonet point to ensure that tribute is paid to the Western banks

The martial law authorities are continuing their brutal crackdown on the Polish working class and people. During the first weeks of February, police and troops conducted countrywide sweeps, detaining and arresting thousands for violations of the fascistic martial law decrees. At the same time there have been reports of violent clashes between the martial law troops and the workers and youth of Gdansk and other cities. The new capitalist- revisionist rulers in power in Warsaw and Moscow allege that this military crackdown is all necessary to "defend socialism." Meanwhile, Reagan and the other capitalist mouthpieces in the West are carrying out a propaganda broadside against so-called "communist tyranny" in Poland. But the fact of the matter is that the martial law regime in Poland has nothing to do with genuine socialism and communism. Quite the opposite. It is the capitalist-revisionist system of exploitation and of imperialist and social-imperialist slavery which is being propped up by the tanks and troops of Warsaw's new military dictators.

200-400% Price Increases at the Point of Bayonets

The Polish people are in desperate straits. They lack bread to eat and even such necessities as soap. Nevertheless, on February 1, the martial law regime imposed on the hard pressed worker^ price hikes of 200 to 400% on many food and other items. Overnight a typical worker's monthly food bill will go up by some 75%. With this brutal price gouging, the capitalist- revisionist ruling class is trying to squeeze the very lifeblood out of the workers, as it is on the backs of the workers that the Polish capitalists are desperately trying to save themselves from the abyss of complete economic collapse.

This is not the first time that the Polish regime has attempted to impose price increases on the masses as a means to escape its economic difficulties; in 1970, 1976, and 1980 the government also resorted to attempts to impose price increases. Though they were hardly a fraction of the scale of the present increases, all three of these previous attempts ignited powerful outbursts of the Polish workers including the revolts which toppled from power the revisionist chieftains Gomulka in 1970 and Gierek and Kania in 1980-81. But today these towering price hikes have come down at the point of martial law bayonets. Under the military jackboot, the hungry Polish workers are being saddled with the burden of the catastrophic crisis gripping the Polish capitalist economy.

Troops and Tanks for Squeezing the Interest Payments to the Western Banks Out of the Polish Workers

To the tune of $27 billion, the capitalist regime in Warsaw has put Poland deep in hock to the Western imperialist governments and banks. Over the last decade, the Polish government has financed the large-scale importation of factories and equipment from the West by going deep into debt to the West German, U.S. and other imperialists, drawing loans from over 500 Western banks. Billions more in debts have piled up to finance the importation of grain shipments from the U.S. and elsewhere. Inevitably, the importation of these factories and equipment has only further contributed to the lopsided, dependent and fragile nature of Poland's economy; the grain shipments have only deepened Poland's grave agricultural crisis; and the billions of dollars in debt payments have placed an enormous drain on the Polish economy. In 1979, for example, fully 90% of Poland's entire export earnings went towards making payments on the interest and principal owed to the West.

These debts to the imperialist loan sharks are like a millstone around the necks of the Polish people. They are also a major factor in the economic breakdown we are witnessing today. In the last two years there has been a 30% drop in industrial output; but the crushing debt burden has exhausted Poland's ability to purchase either with cash or additional loans the needed machinery, spare parts and raw materials needed to start up the idle factories.

So what are the military dictators in Warsaw doing about this problem? These so-called "defenders of socialism" are using troops and tanks to militarize the factories, to put the striking workers back to work, and to impose 200-400% price hikes on the people -- in a word, they are crushing the Polish workers under foot so as to ensure the payment of their debts to the Western banks. The Polish leaders are down on their hands and knees before their creditors pleading for time to allow martial law to take its effect. They are assuring the Western bankers that over time a little dose of brutal military rule will make it possible to sufficiently restore production and plunder the workers so as to allow the regime to catch up on its debt payments, to avoid default, and to pave the way to renew and even to expand Poland's indebtedness to Western finance capital. So, while the Polish workers are being trampled on by martial law tanks and troops, and starving in bread lines, just last week it was reported that Poland is starting to make good on tens of millions in unpaid interest to the Bank of America, Chase Manhattan, Morgan Guaranty, and other investors in Polish capitalism.

Crying Crocodile Tears Over the Plight of the Polish Workers...All the Way to the Bank

The chieftains of U.S. imperialism are crying crocodile tears over the plight of the Polish workers. Reagan and Haig are wiping their tears over Poland with hands which are dripping with the blood of the tens upon tens of thousands of victims of the U.S.-backed military dictatorships in El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, Turkey, the Philippines and numerous other countries within the U.S. imperialist world empire. In fact, in the calculations of these imperialist fiends, the working people both at home and a- broad are only so much human raw material and so much cannon fodder to be used up and chewed up in the man-eating machine of capitalist profit making.

It is therefore a strange sight indeed to see these same gentlemen dress themselves up as the alleged champions of the rights of the Polish workers. But behind the hypocritical masks of these hangmen lies the same cool calculations of imperialist profit making and cynical designs for sinking the claws of U.S. finance capital ever deeper into the flesh of the Polish people. This is graphically borne out by the Reagan administration's policy towards Poland's unpaid loans.

The White House has declared that there can be no "business as usual" with the Polish regime, and as a result of Reagan's cutoff of U.S. corn shipments Poland's chickens have been left to starve. But when it comes to the flow of interest payments to the U.S. banks, that's a different matter altogether. Faced with the imminent danger of Poland defaulting on its loans, the Wall Street bankers, and the Treasury and State Departments all got together and resolved to take extraordinary and unprecedented measures to cover Poland's debt payments. The Reagan administration has already paid out to the banks $71 million to cover Poland's overdue interest payments, and the State Department has estimated that it may cost the U.S. government as much as $2 billion over the next two years to keep Poland from default and ensure the "business as usual" flow of money to Wall Street.

In his February 18 news conference, Reagan pointed out that this bailout was necessary to "retain our leverage," explaining that this was necessary to retain the financial penetration of Poland as leverage against Soviet social-imperialism, and for advancing Western imperialism's enslaving interests. And Reagan added that Poland's "default would mean great financial hardship for...a great many institutions [that is banks] here in the West." So when it comes to the loan profits of the financiers, there is not just "business as usual" but an extraordinary bailout of the Polish martial law regime. This confirms what the Western financial analysts have been saying all along: while there are drawbacks there are also profits to be had from martial law which was essential to prevent "great hardship" for the billionaire bankers of Wall Street, West Germany, etc. Hence the strange sight of the U.S. imperialists gushing hypocritical tears over the plight of the Polish workers...all the way to the bank.

Soviet Social-Imperialist and U.S. Imperialist Vultures Over Poland

Both the imperialist wolves of the East and West weigh heavily on the backs of the Polish workers. Behind the martial law regime stands the troops of the Warsaw Pact led by the Soviet Union. The social-imperialist Soviet Union, which is socialist in words and which is an aggressive imperialist superpower in deeds, has seen the Polish workers' movement and the encroachments of the Western imperialists in Poland as a grave danger to their social-imperialist empire. This is why Brezhnev and co. have ordered their flunkey Jarezulski to clamp down, while holding in reserve the not-so-veiled threat that if martial law fails to crush the opposition and to stabilize the situation, then Russian tanks will have to do the job.

Meanwhile, the American imperialists are striving to replace Soviet social-imperialist slavery with their own imperialist yoke. Western imperialism is banking heavily on the traitorous leadership of Solidarity and its major ally, the Catholic church, to pave the way towards complete Western imperialist subjugation. It appears that, out of fear of a Soviet invasion, the Western imperialists want to avoid an open clash at this time. Rather they prefer to sit back, draw interest on their loans, and accumulate forces for when conditions ripen to make their move. Such are the fiendish plans which the imperialist and social-imperialist vultures have in store for the Polish people.

Polish Workers Must Take to the Barricades of Struggle Against Capitalist-Revisionist Slavery

The Polish working class has a glorious revolutionary tradition. Over the decades it has fought heroically against capitalist exploitation and against the yoke of the tsars and the kaisers and against the German Nazi hordes. With liberation following WW II, out of the ashes of the old society, the long-suffering Polish people embarked on building a happy socialist life. But with the revisionist betrayal of socialism in the mid-1950's, the Polish working class is again suffering the living nightmare of a capitalist hell.

Over and over again, the Polish workers have demonstrated their great power in the struggle against those who exploit and oppress them. And today, too, there is every reason to believe that Jarezulski's military dictatorship will be no more successful in keeping down the workers than the regimes that went before it. Nevertheless the Polish workers face a difficult situation. The martial law which they face is extremely broad and ruthless in its repressive measures and behind it stands the Soviet tanks. Moreover the leadership which has come to the head of the Polish workers' movement is leading the workers down a dead end. Lech Walesa and the other Solidarity leaders and the church want to reconcile the masses to the regime and to capitalist-revisionist slavery. These traitorous leaders have no greater objective than to ride the wave of the Polish workers' struggle in order to eventually take their place among the ranks of the capitalist rulers and to deliver Poland over to the tender mercies of the Western imperialist wolves.

But to exchange one set of slave-masters for another is in no way freedom from slavery. The Polish workers must take to the barricades of uncompromising struggle for their rights, against capitalist-revisionist tyranny and exploitation, and against the domination and plunder of the imperialists of both the East and the West. In this struggle the Polish working class must forge anew the genuine proletarian leadership, the genuine Marxist-Leninist communist party that can successfully guide their struggle to victory. This is the revolutionary road on which the heroic Polish working class will be able to emerge from the chaos and darkness into which their capitalist-revisionist oppressors have plunged them.

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Martial Law in Poland --A Typical Expression of Capitalist Violence

Ronald Reagan's spectacular show business flop, "Let Poland Be Poland," is only one part of the concerted propaganda barrage that the world bourgeoisie has launched around the events in Poland aimed at discrediting socialism in the minds of the people. Pointing to Poland they paint socialism as a system of bread lines and military jackboots. However, it is not socialism, but the catastrophic results of the betrayal of socialism and the restoration of capitalism 'that has produced the crisis and the martial law in Poland.

In Polish society there is not a shred of socialism left to be found. After the smashing of Nazism in the last world war, Poland emerged on the road of building a socialist society. But since the mid-1950's, following the baton of the Khrushchovite revisionist traitors to socialism and communism in the Soviet Union, a clique of revisionist bureaucrats robbed the Polish workers of political power. These usurpers transformed the socialist property of the working class into the state capitalist property of the rich officialdom, and both in the cities and the countryside the private capitalist owners have been given a free reign to grow fat and rich off of the exploitation of the working people.

Today Poland's new capitalist-revisionist ruling class has resorted to naked military dictatorship against the working people. This is nothing but a typical expression of capitalist violence and savagery. As if to prove this very point, in last month's speech before the Polish parliament, Prime Minister Jarezulski made a very revealing statement. Jarezulski complained bitterly about Reagan's protests against martial law in Poland, adding that: "The head of the Polish Government did not demand the release from U.S. prisons of the handcuffed leaders of the air traffic controllers' trade union. The Polish Government did not make any declarations assessing the respect for human rights in Ulster. The Polish Sejm [parliament] did not debate whether the rules for the practice of a profession by people with inconvenient opinions [referring to the anti-communist exclusionary laws applying to the West German civil service] which are in force in the FRG are in accord with the declaration on human rights." In other words, Jaruzelski is upset about protests against the brutal military tyranny in Poland because, after all, the Warsaw rulers didn't protest when their capitalist counterparts resorted to brutal police measures against strikers in the U.S., or to military rule against the Irish people, or to fascist exclusionary laws against progressive West Germans. But all that this goes to show is that this Mr. Jaruzelski is a shameless defender of capitalist tyranny not only in Poland but wherever else the capitalist rulers send their police and troops to trample on the working masses.

In Poland, the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and the other countries where the revisionist betrayers of Marxism- Leninism hold power only the signboard of socialism remains. Beneath the signboard the cause of socialism has been trampled into the mud and the working class is ruthlessly exploited and oppressed under the social-fascist rule of the new capitalist-revisionist bourgeoisie. It is precisely to defend the power, wealth and privileges of such a clique of rich bureaucrats and capitalist bloodsuckers that the Warsaw regime has clamped down on the workers with martial law tyranny. Nevertheless, despite the thoroughly capitalist nature of this martial law regime, U.S.-led Western imperialism is using events in Poland to carry out a vile propaganda broadside to discredit the great ideals of socialism and Marxism-Leninism.

The best answer to these capitalist lies is the living example of genuine scientific socialism. Today genuine socialism exists and is marching forward triumphantly in the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, the only truly socialist country in the present-day world. The Party of Labor of Albania and the Albanian working class are successfully building socialism along the path charted by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. In socialist Albania the working class and people are the true masters of society. There are no rich bureaucrats, exploiters or oppressors on the backs of the people, and there is a dynamic economy with a modern industry and a flourishing self-sufficient agriculture. Albania is the only country in the world where the working people do not suffer the scourges of economic crises, and where there is no inflation or price rises, where there are no taxes, no unemployment, and where there is not a single dollar of debts to the imperialist or social-imperialist loan sharks.

The stark contrast of the brilliant reality of socialism in Albania to the crisis-ridden hell for the working people which prevails throughout the entire capitalist and revisionist world shows that genuine socialism is indeed the most just, progressive and revolutionary society known to man. The tall mountains of capitalist lies cannot darken the perspective of socialism and communism as the happy future of all oppressed mankind.

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The "Anti-Reagan Fightback" of the "C"PUSA Revisionists

Winning Seats for Democratic Party Hacks

(The following leaflet, along with an article condemning the martial law of the Polish capitalist regime, was distributed to those attending a speech by Gus Hall on "The Meaning of the Events in Poland" held on January in Chicago. Earlier, on January 16 the leaflet was distributed in Detroit to a national "fightback" conference and rally of the Daily World, newspaper of the "C"PUSA)

The so-called "Communist" Party, USA of Gus Hall and company claims to be carrying out a fightback against Reaganism. Our Party, the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA, the genuine communist party in the U.S., holds that it is essential to push forward the mass struggle against Reaganite reaction and the capitalist offensive. And we consider the revisionist hucksters of the Daily World and the"C"P USA to be scabs and strikebreakers in this struggle.

The MLP works to build the independent movement of the working class, independent of the monopoly capitalists and their political parties. This orientation is essential for a real fight against Reaganite reaction. This is because the Reaganite program of hunger, fascism and war is the bipartisan program of the Republicans and Democrats alike, the program of all the big capitalist money-grubbers. Indeed, we have now witnessed a full year of the Democratic Party "honeymoon" with the Reagan White House. Nevertheless, in order to divert the outrage among the working people against the Reaganite attacks into harmless dead ends, the capitalists have assigned the Democratic Party a special role -- to win the anti-Reagan masses over to the concealed Reaganism of the equally reactionary Democratic Party.

The "C"PUSA of Gus Hall and company is nothing more than a miserable tail of the Democrats; it is one of the most loyal handmaidens of the Democratic Party in its work of subverting the mass struggle against the capitalist offensive. The "CPUSA poses as communist, but only to paint up its adherence to the Democratic Party in Marxist colors. But by their support for this twin party of the capitalist offensive, the "C"PUSA expose themselves as fake communists, as anti-Marxists, and as real servants of the capitalist ruling class.

Just look at the path which "C"P USA general secretary, Gus Hall, puts forward for the struggle against the Reaganite offensive.

At a recent Central Committee meeting, Mr. Hall gave a report entitled "The Challenge of Reaganomics -- Mounting the Fightback to Win." (See Daily World, December 17, 1981) Gus Hall proclaims that the main work of the "C"PUSA in the coming months must be to elect Democratic Party and other capitalist, so-called "anti-Reagan" politicians in the 1982 elections. Winning seats for the Democrats, this is what Gus Hall means by his "fightback to win." This task is declared to be "the key link in the political theater" and to be "the overall objective" to which "all tactical questions must now be synchronized."

This revisionist bandleader of the "C"PUSA is marching in close step with the reactionary leaders of the AFL-CIO. These bureaucrats are closely allied with the Democrats and many are prominent Democratic Party officials in their own right. Hence, while Lane Kirkland and Doug Fraser are working hand in hand with the

Reagan regime and the monopoly corporations to jam concessions down the workers' throats, at the same time they are trying to channel the workers' hatred for Reagan into voting cannon fodder for the Democrats. Recently Kirkland declared that the march to the voting booths on behalf of the Democrats in the 1982 elections would be "Solidarity Day II."

Gus Hall was tickled pink by this "openly anti-Reagan" stand of "Brother Kirkland." "While the AFL- CIO approach is to give the Democratic Party a carte blanche endorsement," Mr. Hall explained, the "C"PUSA should not take issue with this "overall stand" because, after all, "the mass wave (against Reagan) will mainly express itself through the Democratic Party and especially through the primary campaigns." In a word, just like his "Brother Kirkland," Gus Hall is equally a yellow-bellied bootlicker of the Democratic Party and the capitalist millionaires.

For the sake of appearances, Gus Hall demagogically adds that his support for the Democratic Party does not "mean we will give up or mothball our advocacy of political independence." But this is just a sham. The fact of the matter is that the present "C"PUSA hasn't the slightest resemblance to the old Communist Party which was the independent revolutionary working class party. Long ago Gus Hall and company descended down the Browderite and Khrushchovite revisionist path of liquidationism -- the path of giving up and mothballing the political independence of the working class. The "C"PUSA has fused completely with the liberal-labor marsh of the "left" wing of the Democratic Party. They are nothing more than an impotent echo of this monopoly capitalist party of concealed Reaganism and of the ruthless capitalist offensive against the working class and downtrodden.

On a world scale, too, Gus Hall and company stand on the side of the oppressors and aggressors. Besides their perennial support of the Democratic Party of imperialism and rabid warmongering, the "C"PUSA revisionists are also ardent supporters of the new capitalist-revisionist rulers in the Soviet Union. The "CPUSA slanders and maligns the genuine socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat of the glorious days of Lenin and Stalin. This is because they support Khrushchov and Brezhnev and the other revisionist new tsars who are socialist only in words but who are bloodstained imperialists and fascists in deeds. The "C"PUSA applauded the Soviet social-imperialist invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Today they fully endorse the genocidal Viet Nam-style war which the Soviet occupiers are waging against the population of Afghanistan. And now they are applauding the martial law tyranny of the Polish revisionist-capitalist ruling class. The capitalist military regime in Warsaw has trained machine guns on the backs of the workers in the militarized factories. Their approval of this regime says a great deal about the nature of the "C"PUSA itself as a shameless defender of the capitalist system of exploitation, repression and tyranny.

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On the "C"PUSA's Phony "Independent Politics"

The Barbaro Mayoral Campaign in New York City

The revisionist "C"PUSA is throwing its forces into frenzied campaigning based on a supposed "anti- Reagan" strategy of electing Democrats. But in order to cover up this disgusting betrayal of the cause of the working class, they are carrying out their bootlick service to the big capitalist Democratic Party in the name of organizing the "political independence" of the workers. Therefore, it is of some interest to see what the revisionists mean by "political independence" and how they organize it in practice.

Gus Hall, the "C"PUSA General Secretary, elaborated his revisionist views at a recent Central Committee meeting in a report entitled "The Challenge of Reagonomics -- Mounting the Fightback to Win." (See Daily World, December 17, 1981) While calling on the"C"PUSA forces to throw themselves into the "mass wave that will mainly express itself through the Democratic Party," Gus Hall explained, "Does this mean we will give up or mothball our advocacy of political independence, of a new labor-based political party, or our position on the question of the lesser evil? To do so would be a grave mistake. We must take these concepts into the mass wave." Further, trying to explain how "political independence" is to be achieved through the Democratic Party, Gus Hall argued that "Only independent and left forces can inject programs and issues that go beyond the run-of-the-mill candidates." As well, he called for building "broad- based ad hoc electoral coalitions, coalitions that will work to run and elect anti-Reagan candidates, starting with the Democratic Party primaries..." and he emphasized that "the concept of ad hoc electoral coalitions may be the shortest route to more permanent political independence."

Thus for Gus Hall building the independent movement of the working class does not mean mobilizing the workers to break from the Democratic Party, to resolutely stand in their own class interests against the two big capitalist parties, the Democrats and Republicans, and their bipartisan program of starvation, fascism and war. No, instead Gus Hall wants the workers to work through the Democratic Party; to build "independent" electoral coalitions to elect Democrats, or would-be Democrats; and to jazz up the Democrats' "run-of-the-mill" election campaigns with more liberal- labor "programs and issues." This, of course, is not political independence, but finding better ways to enslave the workers to the Democratic Party.

A typical example of these revisionist tactics in practice can be found in the recent mayoral election campaign of Frank Barbaro in New York City. In his report, Gus Hall lavishly praises the Barbaro campaign and sets it forward as one of the models for building "independent" electoral coalitions. Likewise, many of the followers of Chinese revisionism have been promoting the Barbaro campaign in a similar fashion. While the League of Revolutionary Struggle (M-L) exclaims that "a vote for Barbaro is a vote for a different New York," (Unity, October 23-November 5, 1981) the "C"P(M-L) liquidators echo Gus Hall claiming that "The willingness of labor to enter this kind of coalition marks a significant step in the direction of political independence." (The Call, November-December, 1981) As well, many social-democratic outfits, such as the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee and the Citizens Party, have been trumpeting the campaign to elect Barbaro. Thus it is of some value to take a brief look at this "model" of revisionist and social-democratic tactics.

Barbaro's Call -- Elect a "True Democrat"

The 1981 mayoral election in New York was marked by the fact that the incumbent Democratic Party mayor, Ed Koch, received re-election endorsements not only from his own Democratic Party but also from the Republicans. The Republican endorsement gave a striking example of the Democrats' current "honeymoon" with the Reaganite Republicans. It revealed once again that the Democrats and Republicans are just twins, two big parties of capitalist reaction.

Worried that the "pro-worker and minority" mask of the Democratic Party was being tarnished by Koch's openly racist and big business policies, a coalition of trade union bureaucrats, liberals and social-democrats went looking for an alternative candidate. They dredged up Frank Barbaro from obscurity and threw him against Koch in the Democratic Party primary. Barbaro is a Democratic Party politician who has been elected to the New York State assembly from Benson- hurts, Brooklyn, since 1972. His chief theme in the primary was that while Koch was becoming tied to the Republicans, he was a "true Democrat" who aimed at "reuniting the Democratic coalitions of Franklin Roosevelt, Hubert Humphrey and the Kennedy s." (Barbaro for Mayor Committee press release, August 16, 1981) Even after Barbaro lost to Koch in the primary election and began to run in the general mayoral elections under the banner of the "independent" Unity Party, he continued to emphasize his ties to the Democratic Party. His campaign literature jeered against Koch as a "born-again Republican" and stressed in bold letters that "Frank Barbaro stands for the principles that the Democratic Party has always stood for."

Thus the revisionist "C"PUSA has presented as a model of "independent politics" an election campaign that based itself on trying to be more loyal to the Democratic Party than the official Democratic Party candidate. This is nothing but an effort to conceal the real capitalist nature of the Democratic Party from the workers who are increasingly deserting Koch, by appealing to the workers to vote for a "true Democrat."

Injecting Programs and Issues

But what of Gus Hall's talk of injecting "programs and issues that go beyond the run-of-the-mill candidates."? The Barbaro campaign is in fact a model of this revisionist practice of painting up the Democratic Party program in "progressive," "pro-labor" and "anti-monopoly" colors.

In a major article in the December, 1981 issue of Political Affairs, the theoretical journal of the "C"PUSA, Si Gerson, the head of the "C"P's Political Action Committee, summed up the Barbaro campaign. Here Gerson claims that Barbaro "advanced a fighting program and attacked Koch on two central questions: subservience to the banks and big realty developers, and racist polarization of the city." What Gerson fails to mention is that on these points, as on others, Barbaro never went beyond the program of the Democratic Party in general or of Koch in particular.

Take the first point. Barbaro himself claimed to have led "the legislative fight against the banks' attempts to gain a financial stranglehold on New York City." ("A Profile of Candidate Frank Barbaro," released by the Barbaro for Mayor Committee, undated) This is just a blatant lie. In 1975-76 Barbaro voted in the New York State Assembly for the bill to create the Emergency Financial Control Board, the body of finance and monopoly capitalists who did in fact establish a stranglehold on New York City's working masses, bleeding them white to pay for the city's fiscal crisis. During the campaign, despite tremendous rhetoric against Koch's subservience to the banks and real estate moguls, Barbaro carefully ducked the issue of making these capitalist lords pay for the fiscal crisis. Instead, Barbaro promised the monopoly capitalists a continuation of Koch's program of tax breaks and handouts robbed from the workers' pension funds, etc. He even used Koch's own fraud that this will somehow help to rebuild the economy to provide jobs and so forth.

Barbaro said, "I will provide assistance in land assemblage and access to pension fund loans, tax breaks and building variance only to businesses that open up new training and job opportunities..!" (New York Times, August 12, 1981) This is just "trickle down" theory Carter style. That is, like the Democratic Party president Jimmy Carter, Barbaro wants to "revitalize the economy" through "targeted" handouts to the rich. But the "C"PUSA calls this attacking "subservience" to monopoly capital. What a whitewash!

On the second question, Barbaro made a show of opposing Koch's "racial polarization" of the city, but here too his practice proves the falseness of his rhetoric. For one thing, Barbaro's voting record in the New York State Assembly shows that he endorsed the fascist "anti-busing" movement by voting yes for a bill to prevent busing to achieve school integration. Furthermore, during the election campaign Barbaro tried to outdo Koch himself in promoting the racist "anti-crime" hysteria of the bourgeoisie. He promised to hire "7,000 more police officers," to hand out "swift sure punishment" to "lawbreakers," and to support the new prison construction bond issue. (New York Times, August 30, 1981) It is well known that the New York City police and courts are engaged in a ruthless campaign of racist murders and beatings. Yet all of Barbaro's sympathy was for the police. While claiming to be "committed to stamping out any police brutality,''Barbaro tried to justify the police terror and even cried that the poor racist cops were simply good men forced into "brutality which stems from the very real pressures of performing a difficult job without community respect." (New York Times, August 30, 1981) Thus Barbaro's racist "anti-crime" program was not only no different than Koch's, but actually rivaled that of Ronald Reagan. Nevertheless, the "C"PUSA was so enthusiastic that they carried a full article on the program in the August 19, 1981 Daily World under the title "Barbaro: Koch fails in Combatting Crime."

From these two examples it is perfectly obvious that when Gus Hall speaks of injecting "programs and issues that go beyond the run-of-the- mill candidates" and when Si Gerson talks about advancing "an independent progressive program," they are voicing the desire of the "C"PUSA to find some pleasing words to conceal the rotten anti-worker program of the Democratic Party, nothing more.

An "Independent Electoral Coalition" to Campaign for Democratic Party Hacks

Finally, a word must be said about the "independent" electoral coalitions that the "CPUSA is so excited about.

The Unity Party, under whose banner Barbaro ran for mayor, is such a coalition. Gus Hall, in his report to the Central Committee, hails the establishment of the Unity Party as "a major breakthrough." Si Gerson, in his article on the New York City elections, is no less enthusiastic, at times even praising the Unity Party as "a real mass-based pro-labor, anti-monopoly party" which threatens to "emerge as a state-wide force." These are the exaggerated terms with which the revisionists try to convince the workers that they are building a real independent political movement.

But once done with this super-hype job, Si Gerson gives a more sober estimation. He says, "The Unity Party, it must be emphasized, was a name on the 1981 ballot. It is by no means yet a full-fledged party. It is today an issue oriented coalition that expects to support progressives in the Democratic primaries [i.e., Barbaro in the mayoral primaries -- W.A.] and advance its own independent candidacies in selective spots [i.e., the "true democrat" Barbaro in the general mayoral elections -- W.A.]." Further emphasizing the tasks of the Unity Party today Gerson points out "Thus, supporters of independent political action will have the complex job of building their own organization while aiding those progressives still fighting within the two-party system." Thus by Gerson's own description the Unity Party is not a party at all, is only barely a coalition, and has the complex job of channeling supporters of independent political action into campaigning for the election of Democratic Party hacks. This is as far as the "C"PUSA's "political independence" goes -- being an independent lap dog of the Democratic Party.

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An ugly result of the liquidationist and Maoist deviations of the leadership of the Communist Party of Canada (M-L)

-- Part Two --

The unprincipled and wrecking tactics of the CPC(M-L) with respect to the anti-racist demonstrations of October 4 and 17 did not result from an overzealous fight against opportunism. On the contrary, the leadership of CPC(M-L) has been doing its best to tone down and avoid this struggle. The CPC(M-L) has gone to the extent of repeatedly polemicizing against the ideological struggle against opportunism. With respect to the anti-racist struggle, it has called for building the People's Front independent of "political beliefs." As a result, it has been left with no way to resolve the question of the different political trends in the anti-racist movement other than the method of highhandedness, force, and wrecking tactics.

Under the Signboard of "Unity in Action"

It will be useful to go in detail into the relationship of these bloody brawls to CPC(M-L)'s stand in the struggle against opportunism. But, first, we must deal with the rationale given by CPC(M-L) for the fights at the anti-racist demonstrations. CPC(M-L)'s explanation lays bare the unprincipled basis of its tactics on October 4 and 17, for all PCDN can do in their defense is to thumb its nose at the masses. PCDN states: "The cause of the violence is the fact that the People's Front supports the line of Unity in Action while the revisionists and opportunists, social-democrats and labor aristocrats oppose such Unity in Action." (PCDN, October 27, 1981) Under the heading "Our Analysis," PCDN adds that, "The cause of violence on October 4 and on October 17 is the line of Unity in Action against the splitting and wrecking by the bourgeoisie and the revisionists and opportunists of all hues." (Ibid.) CPC(M-L) has not explained this puzzle any further, but simply repeated over and over again that the People's Front stands for the line of "Unity in Action" and that the BCOFR opposes this line.

What a marvelous explanation. Anti-racist demonstrators spend two weekends savagely bashing in one another's heads with 2 x 2's. Why? "The cause of the violence" was "the line of Unity in Action." The contingent of the People's Front bashes its way into the BCOFR demonstration on October 17. Why? Because the People's Front stands for "unity in action" and the BCOFR does not. Period. That is the entire explanation. As the People's Front itself explains it, "the leaders of the 'BCOFR' did not respond to the call for united action" and "stated that they will never unite," but the People's Front was determined to stop this attempt to "split the march." (PCDN, October 23, 1981) So, undaunted, the People's Front gallantly proceeded to whack its way into the BCOFR column, resulting in a bloody melee that sent a dozen demonstrators to the hospital with head lacerations and broken bones. But, according to the People's Front, this fight, far from being a setback for "unity in action," actually unites the march, makes it "abundantly clear that all the marchers will march in one formation," and all would have been well if the police hadn't stepped in. (Ibid.)

What a farce! What crimes are being committed under the signboard of "unity in action"! If the People's Front had really acted in the spirit of the unity in action of the anti-racist masses, it would have moved mountains to prevent the bloodshed among the demonstrators rather than hailing these fights as "victories." If the People's Front had really had its attention focused on unity in action with the anti-racist masses, it would have carried out vigorous political work among the activists at the base and not staked everything on who was in the leadership of the demonstrations of October 4 and 17 and on who was on the official speakers' platforms. Surely any reasonable person can only shake his head in astonishment at seeing bloody brawls among the anti-racist masses justified as a model of "unity in action." He will wonder: has PCDN taken total leave of its senses?

But, as the old saying goes, "there is method to this madness." Behind CPC(M-L)'s absurd distortion of the unity in action slogan stand definite deviationist views. For example, in the fall of 1979 PCDN carried a series of front page articles presenting the stand of the leadership of CPC(M-L) on questions of alliances, united fronts, unity in action, and so forth. These articles make a mockery of the Marxist-Leninist teachings on these subjects. They do not distinguish between the various non-Marxist-Leninist trends. They do not distinguish between unity at the base with activists under the influence of hostile trends and merger with the opportunist leadership. They do not even attempt to deal with the Marxist-Leninist idea of using unity in action against the class enemy in order to appeal to proletarians under the influence of the hostile trends. The articles try to say as little as possible and simply repeat one basic thesis: they denounce any idea of any type of united front or alliance or unity in action, whether in Canada or in other countries, whether now or in the past, if it is between the "proletarian trend" (which they define as the trend led by the Marxist-Leninists) and any other political trend. As PCDN put it: "CPC(M-L) does not believe in 'united fronts' of different trends." (PCDN, October 15, 1979) Only the united fronts, alliances and unity in action of a single political trend are accepted by CPC(M-L).

The CPC(M-L) still holds to these deviationist views. That is why, when they gave their call for "unity in action" with the BCOFR, they did not have in mind some type of joint action against the Klan, as^hey tried to make it appear to the masses. On the contrary, according to CPC(M-L), "unity in action" is already embodied in the People's Front itself. That is why PCDN, in discussing the events of October 4 and 17, explains the slogan of "unity in action" as follows: "Our Party firmly supports the line of Unity in Action and we support the People's Front and its basis of unity, which is irrespective of political, ideological, or religious beliefs or of national origin or sex." (PCDN, October 23, 1981) Thus, calling for "unity in action" simply meant, for the CPC(M-L), calling for special rights for the People's Front and the CPC(M-L). Instead of the People's Front having to win the trust of the masses through advancing the class struggle and having to defeat the opportunist trends through protracted ideological and political work, the slogan of "unity in action" was supposed to give the People's Front the right to demand that every action either submit to their leadership or suffer the consequences.

However, the leadership of CPC(M-L) was quite aware that the "unity in action" slogan would wear a little thin as an excuse for the bloody brawls of October 4 and 17. Hence, while redoubling their shouting about "unity in action," the CPC(M-L) also brought forth another slogan: "no unity in action." With this slogan, the leadership of CPC(M-L) implied that, why get upset over the smashing up of demonstrations organized by the BCOFR anyway, since they are opportunists and there can be no unity in action with them. Thus, all through the events of October 4 and 17, the CPC (M-L) talked only of "unity in action." But the day after the fights, on October 18, the 11th Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPC(M-L) was convened. On the subject of "social-democratic-revisionist-opportunist coalitions," the Communique of this Plenum announced that: "the Eleventh Plenum upheld the view that there can be no unity in action with the social-democrats and revisionists and opportunists of all hues." (PCDN, October 20, 1981) PCDN, while defending the events of October 4 and 17 as the implementation of the line of "unity in action," did not fail to tack on the opposite slogan as well: "Our Party firmly supports the line of Unity in Action.... This, by no means, means that the Party stands for Unity in Action with the revisionists and opportunists because neither would the revisionists and opportunists support the revolutionary struggle nor do we ever create illusions about this matter." (PCDN, October 23, 1981, emphasis added)

Now, just look at what an unprincipled game the leadership of CPC(M-L) is playing. The BCOFR is indeed a "social-democratic-revisionist-opportunist coalition." Yet in no less than 10,000 leaflets the People's Front proclaims its "call for united action" with the BCOFR. The People's Front and the CPC(M-L) even engage the BCOFR in bloody clashes on the pretext that the BCOFR has refused to grant them a speaker and to otherwise unite with them. Then, without blinking an eyelid, the CPC(M-L) turns around and categorically declares that "by no means" would the CPC (M-L) even consider "unity in action" with revisionists and opportunists of the likes of the BCOFR. The principle of "unity in action," with respect to the BCOFR, is replaced with the principle of "no unity in action."

In a nutshell, both the unity in action slogan and the no unity in action slogan are being used by the leadership of CPC(M-L) simply as empty signboards. They are playing with these slogans like a poker player with a false deck of cards. PCDN repeats these slogans for the umpteenth time, often with the obligatory boldface letters and a capital "U" and capital "A." But no matter how often CPC(M-L) shouts about "unity in action," they do their best to remain silent about what they mean by this slogan, about what political forces or sections of the people this slogan is being aimed at, about what political basis this unity is to be established on, and so forth. But this means to turn this slogan into a hollow shell and nothing more. Likewise, they leave the "no unity in action with revisionists and opportunists" slogan without explanation. Without explanation of how these slogans apply in the concrete conditions of the times, these slogans remain at best an empty phrase; while in the case of the leadership of CPC(M-L), these slogans are being distorted into serving as a mere screen for unprincipled and wrecking tactics.

Thus CPC(M-L)'s rationale for the events of October 4 and 17 consists simply of hiding their real plans and views behind two slogans, which they take good care to leave as vague and undefined as possible. And whether CPC(M-L) gives the "unity in action" slogan as its justification for the bloody brawling or whether they imply that the "no unity in action" slogan relieves them of all responsibility for their acts, their unprincipled tactics cannot be covered up. With regard to the events of October 4 and 17, the leadership of CPC(M-L) has lost sight of the revolutionary mass movement and the objective class struggle, and they have treated the Marxist-Leninist theory with cavalier abandon. They have reduced everything to the question of the petty interests of the moment and of cynical maneuvering with the BCOFR. This is why they are blinded to the question of the effect of the fights of October 4 and 17 on the mass movement and of the immense harm that was done to the mass struggle, to the prestige of Marxism-Leninism among the activists, and to the fight against revisionism and opportunism.

The Head-Bashing in Vancouver Had Nothing to Do With the Fight Against Opportunism

The leadership of CPC(M-L) is trying to paint its unprincipled and wrecking tactics of October 4 and 17 in the colors of a struggle against "revisionist-social-democratic-opportunist coalitions." In reality, the head-bashing episodes in Vancouver had nothing to do with fighting revisionism and opportunism. Quite the opposite. These episodes were one of the ugly results of trying to shortcut the ideological and political struggle against opportunism.

Indeed, for years on end the CPC(M-L) has been floating one thesis after another denouncing the anti-revisionist struggle. Under the anti-Marxist signboard of opposing "ideological struggle" or "so-called 'ideological struggle,'" they have taken an outright pacifist and conciliationist stand towards opportunism. Their deviationist theses against "ideological struggle" were the main justification that the CPC(M-L) gave for breaking their decade-long relationship with our Party. We have discussed these stands of theirs in our articles "The Truth About the Relations Between the MLP,USA and the CPC(M-L)" and the series "Against Mao Zedong Thought!" The CC of the CPC (M-L) demanded that our Party tone down or stop altogether our vigorous struggle against Chinese revisionism. They vehemently opposed, among other things:

- our polemics against "our own" domestic American opportunists, such as the Maoists of the "RCP,USA";

- the movement, led by our Party, against social-chauvinism and "three worlds-ism";

- our fight against the centrists, the conciliators of social- chauvinism and "three worlds-ism";

- and our slogan of "Build the Marxist-Leninist Party Without the Social-Chauvinists and Against the Social- Chauvinists."

The brawls on October 4 and 17 do not indicate any change of CPC(M-L)'s attitude towards the anti-opportunist struggle. On the contrary, the CPC(M-L) themselves stress that these brawls were part of their efforts to avoid the ideological struggle.

Thus PCDN writes:

"Our Party firmly rebuffed them [the Maoist groupings in Canada -- ed.] by carrying on the stern struggle against all variants of modern revisionism, including these theoreticians of 'ideological struggle' and defeated their attempt to split the Marxist-Leninists. And today... instead of waging a resolute revolutionary struggle against racism and fascism, against imperialism, social-imperialism, the war preparations and the danger of war, they are trying to impose a struggle amongst the anti-racists and split their ranks and wreck the struggle. They will fail in this criminal activity as well because the line of Unity in Action will always inspire the people to carry the struggle through to the end." (PCDN, October 27, 1981, emphasis added)

Here we see that the CPC(M-L) denounces the Canadian Maoists first and foremost for allegedly being "theoreticians of 'ideological struggle.'" In other countries, the Marxist-Leninists condemn the Maoists, pro-Soviet revisionists and other opportunists for betraying the revolution, for being social-chauvinists, and so forth. Among other things, the Marxist-Leninists denounce the opportunists for economism, for underestimating the role of ideology and of the revolutionary consciousness of the masses. But in Canada, the CPC(M-L) denounces the opportunists for raising any ideological issues at all. This shows to what extremes the CPC(M-L) goes in trying to avoid the fight against opportunism. Oh yes, CPC(M-L) does not fail to engage in a "stern struggle" against, not only the Maoists, but "all variants of modern revisionism," just so long as this struggle is stripped as far as possible of ideological and political content.

The CPC(M-L) condemns ideological struggle as an "attempt to split the Marxist-Leninists." This is the old, timeworn complaint of the economist against revolutionary ideology. As is their custom, the CPC(M-L) refuses to elaborate as to what this threatened "split" was. Taken literally, this reference to an "attempt to split the Marxist-Leninists" could refer to one of two things: (a) It could mean that CPC (M-L) does not believe that there is much difference between Marxism-Leninism and social-democracy, revisionism and opportunism, and hence the differences should not be exaggerated and a split created. Hence it could mean to condemn the "ideological struggle" for making a mountain out of a molehill. Or (b) It could mean that CPC(M-L) believes that the raising of ideological issues by the opportunists threatened to split "the Marxist-Leninists," that is, the ranks of CPC(M-L) and its sympathizers. Hence it would mean that, being weak on ideological and political questions, the only way CPC(M-L) avoided this threatened split was by forbidding the consideration of the ideological issues raised by the opportunists.

In either case, CPC(M-L)'s denunciation of the Canadian Maoists for "ideological struggle" shows that CPC(M-L) was seeking either to tone down the struggle with the opportunists or, if that proved impossible for the time being, at least to empty this struggle of its ideological content. But a struggle against revisionism and opportunism that is not inspired by a deep ideological content is nothing but a bluff and a fraud.

As we see, PCDN links up its ongoing campaign against "ideological struggle" with the incidents of October 4 and 17. Astonishingly enough, PCDN holds that the head-bashings of October 4 and 17 do not constitute "a struggle among the anti-racists," presumably because the People's Front succeeded in emptying their fight with the BCOFR of any ideological content.

In fact, different trends exist in the anti-racist movement in Vancouver. As we have seen, there are supporters of CPC(M-L) as well as supporters of the social-democrats, revisionists and opportunists among the anti-racist activists. The supporters of the hostile trends are more numerous, at the present, than those of the CPC(M-L). It is therefore unavoidable that "a struggle," in one form or another, takes place as these different political trends vie for influence among the masses. The matter at hand is not whether there will be a struggle, but what form the struggle will take. In fact, far from preventing "a struggle among the anti-racists," the actions of the People's Front on October 4 and 17 only succeeded in ensuring that the struggle took place in the most harmful way possible and did the maximum damage to the struggle against the Klan, to the development of the political consciousness of the masses, and to the interests of the anti-revisionist struggle.

But PCDN's claim of having prevented "a struggle among the anti-racists" has a definite meaning. It means that the People's Front and CPC(M-L) did their best to drain the controversy between the People's Front and the BCOFR of any ideological and political content. This claim of PCDN's shows that the events of October 4 and 17 must be looked at as the ugly results of trying to avoid the anti-revisionist struggle.

Look, for example, at PCDN' s explanation of the fight between the People's Front and the BCOFR. Besides the now-you-see-it, now-you-don't hocus-pocus about "unity in action and "no unity in action," the concerned anti-racist activists are told nothing about the possible ideological and political divergencies between the People's Front and the BCOFR. This, of course, is fitting for an organization, such as the People's Front, which, as we shall see in the next section, claims to be above mere "ideological and political views and convictions." Nevertheless, PCDN hurls the most fearsome curses at the "social-democratic-revisionist-opportunist coalition." They are even denounced as moderate fascists and reactionaries in alliance with the police. But what the difference may be between the policy of these coalitions and that of the People's Front with regard to the anti-racist movement is simply left up to one's imagination. Even the identity of the "social-democratic-revisionist- opportunist" chieftains and the dread "theoreticians of 'ideological struggle,'" the political trends and organizations involved, are, in most cases, cast aside as of no importance. Blood may flow, but the activist is not supposed to care whose block he is to knock off.

This short-cutting and denigration of the ideological struggle against the opportunists is inseparable from the violence of October 4 and 17 in Vancouver. By removing the ideological and political content from the denunciation of the opportunists, the CPC(M-L) has removed the necessary framework for a principled struggle. In fact, according to their own admission, they engaged in these fights in order to avoid an "ideological struggle" from taking place "among the anti-racists." But where there is not ideological clarification of the different trends in the movement, then there is no other way left to sort out the contradictions among the trends except that of head-bashing or other unprincipled means of power politics. On the other hand, it is only where the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists carry on as much "ideological struggle" and political clarification as possible, that it is possible to achieve the maximum of genuine unity in action against the Klan and other class enemies of the working masses.

A People's Front That "Does Not Hold Any Political Views or Convictions"

Thus the brawls of October 4 and 17 cannot be dignified as a struggle for political principle. They were the sorry result of avoiding the ideological struggle. In fact, with regard to the struggle against racist and fascist attacks, CPC(M-L) has given the slogan of building this struggle devoid of politics as well as ideology. In this way, they have taken their theories against "ideological struggle" to a logical conclusion.

Thus, at the conference which took the decision to launch the People's Front Against Racist and Fascist Violence, the chairman of the CC of the CPC(M-L) declared that: "The Conference Against Racist and Fascist Violence does not hold any political views or convictions. It is merely vigorously opposed to racism and fascism." (PCDN, July 28, 1980, emphasis added) Further on he added: "the only free society is that which the broad masses of the people can build -- the people who stand on principle against racism and fascism and give this movement a broad character and vigorously participate in deepening the struggle against racism and fascism -- irrespective of their ideological and political views and convictions."

When a new organization is founded, it is customary for it to define its political coloration. But here the People's Front defines itself as above politics. It does not define its relation to the already existing trends in the anti-racist movement, but pretends to be above mere "political views and convictions." It remains silent on its program of struggle and how it proposes to judge who is really for struggle against racism and fascism and who is not. Furthermore, the building of "the only free society," which presumably means socialism, is also to be accomplished independent of ideology and politics.

Even PCDN realized that there was something wrong in this liquidationist declaration of political irrelevance. Hence two months later PCDN blushed and issued a "correction" to the above statements. According to PCDN, the speech should have read: "The Conference...holds definite political views and convictions. It is vigorously opposed to racism and fascism." And the correction also deleted the phrase "irrespective of their ideological and political convictions." (PCDN, September 23,1980)

Unfortunately, this didn't essentially change anything. It left the declaration of the Conference Against Racist and Fascist Violence just as empty of political content as before, only before this great void was more honestly labeled as a lack of politics.

The correction, however, didn't last long. A year later, we find CPC(M-L) repeating the original speech and stating that: "We support the People's Front and its basis of unity, which is irrespective of political, ideological, or religious beliefs or of national origin or sex." (cited above, PCDN, October 23, 1981)

Of course, it is possible to have certain types of organizations which unite working people having different political beliefs. For example, there are the trade unions. Even then, the Marxist-Leninists fight against the doctrine of political neutrality or the illusion of being above politics. Furthermore, such organizations have definite programs and definite methods by which they propose to reach their goals.

However, the People's Front associated with the CPC (M-L) is not such an organization. For one thing, as we have seen, "CPC(M-L) does not believe in 'united fronts' of different trends." (cited above) Furthermore, in practice the People's Front serves mainly as one of the basic forms through which CPC(M-L) carries out its work. In form, it is something on the order of a revolutionary organization affiliated to CPC(M-L), or it would be except that it disavows politics and has a remarkable disdain for the mass movement.

As a matter of fact, the People's Front takes political stands on a wide range of issues. For example, in a statement on July 19, 1981, the People's Front described itself in the following words: "The People's Front embodies the unity of the people in action against racist and fascist violence, against imperialism and social-imperialism, against the aggressive military blocs, the war preparations and the militarization of the economy and in support of the struggle of the peoples of the world fighting against the common enemies."

It is clear that not all people who oppose racist and fascist violence -- and here we are referring not to the opportunists, but to many ordinary honest people just awakening to political life -- are opposed to social-imperialism. For that matter, there are those who oppose racist attacks but who are not clear about imperialism. Opposition to imperialism and social-imperialism constitute definite "political convictions and beliefs."

Thus, from every angle, the claim of CPC(M-L) that the People's Front is without politics is completely fraudulent. It is a lie. The People's Front is the organization of a definite trend in the anti-racist movement.

Nevertheless, this disavowal of politics does have a practical meaning. Since the early 1970's, the CPC(M-L) has been developing rightist theses. These rightist stands led them to systematically deny the connection between the struggle against racism and the struggle for socialist revolution. For example, in a major speech by the chairman of CPC(M-L) on November 6, 1977, he ridicules the very idea of the immigrants taking part in the struggle for socialism in Canada. The speech states: "How are we going to carry on this struggle against the exploitation of the immigrants? Now, various people suggest that racism will be wiped out if socialism is established. So what should be done is that all the immigrants should fight for socialism. So, a very simple question comes to mind -- if an immigrant is going to fight for socialism in Canada, why not for his own country? He should have stayed home for in the struggle for socialism in his own country, he would most likely have been more appreciated and had better success, because it is his own country. And we are going through a period when social revolution is on the agenda for the entire world. So to promote this issue of socialism -- the fight for socialism and all this -- is evading the question." (From the pamphlet Blame the Rich and Not the People for Racist Attacks!, p. 13, emphasis added) According to the chairman of CPC (M-L), the fight for socialism is incompatible with also fighting fascist attacks, and so the fight for socialism is dropped. He goes to the disgusting extent of saying that the immigrants "should have stayed home" if they wished to take part in the working class movement. This is shocking. It shows how far the leadership of CPC(M-L) was willing to go in trailing behind the most backward and anti-socialist elements claiming to be part of the anti-racist movement.

Thus for years the CPC(M-L) pursued a line that denigrated the connection between the struggle against racist attacks and socialist politics. The declaration that the People's Front is above politics is a further development of this deviation. It is the most flagrant expression of the repudiation of socialism. Thus it is part of the open flaunting of liquidationist views that started at the 7th Plenum of the CC of CPC(M-L) in November, 1979.

The liquidationist deviation presents the idea that mass organization can be built -- not through vigorous participation in the mass struggle, not through arduous ideological struggle against opportunism, not through protracted organizational work -- but through watering down the line. The more the line is watered down, the more that revolutionary politics is renounced, the bigger the organization looks in the eyes of the liquidationist deviators. Since the People's Front has taken this idea to its culmination by disclaiming all political convictions, the CPC(M-L) considers that it has the right to regard the People's Front as the broadest possible organization. Thus the statement of the organizing committee for the founding of the People's Front declared that "the People's Front is a democratic front with a broad mass character of all the workers and oppressed masses and of the progressive and democratic forces in Canada and on a world scale." (PCDN, November 22, 1980) What broadness indeed! The People's Front will spread to the whole world.

The declaration that the People's Front is above politics is part of the ideological basis for the activities of the Front. In Part One of this article, we saw that CPC(M-L) and the People's Front have lost sight of the revolutionary mass movement to the extent that they regard the organizing of sports tournaments as the main activity in the fight against racist and fascist attacks in Vancouver, while they denounced the movement against the Klan as a "diversion." The People's Front may be above ideology, it may disavow political convictions, but it hails a far more potent substitute, "sports-mindedness."

The declaration that the People's Front is above politics also marks another renunciation by the CPC(M-L) of the struggle against opportunism. In practice, it provides the basis for coming to accommodation with dubious elements. It means removing from the People's Front anything that might be offensive to trade union bureaucrats, businessmen, or opportunists. It is another sign that the fights of October 4 and 17 did not stem from fighting opportunism, but from the liquidationist abandonment of the principled stand against opportunism.

CPC(M-L)'s Idea of Unity in One Party With the Opportunists

Far from carrying out a principled struggle against the opportunists, the leadership of CPC(M-L) has advocated for years the idea of unity in one party with the opportunists. This indeed is one of the main deviations that led the CC of CPC(M-L) to break off all relations with our Party. They held that our Party should engage in pragmatic maneuvers for unity with various opportunists. On this basis, they opposed our slogan of "Building the Marxist-Leninist Party Without the Social-Chauvinists and Against the Social-Chauvinists." We discussed this in detail in Part Two of our letter of June 16, 1980 to the CC of the CPC(M-L). (See The Workers' Advocate of August 10, 1981) Here we will simply review how CPC(M-L) elaborates its idea of unity in one party with the opportunists.

In 1976 the CPC(M-L) published a pamphlet entitled On Unity of Marxist-Leninists. This is one of the few documents where CPC(M-L) elaborates its views on unity in any detail. To this day, this pamphlet is circulated by the CPC (M-L), and the main themes of this pamphlet concerning unity of the Marxist-Leninists were endorsed in a major speech by the chairman of CPC(M-L) to assess the decade of the 1970's given in Hamilton, Ontario on December 30, 1979.

The basic tactic set forth in this pamphlet was to seek the unity in one party of all those "who call themselves Marxist-Leninists." Thus it states that "All individuals who call themselves Marxist-Leninists must be in one revolutionary Party of the proletariat...." ("The General Method of CPC(M-L) for Building the Unity of the Marxist-Leninists in Canada and Quebec," On Unity of Marxist-Leninists, p. 144) However, various opportunists call themselves Marxist-Leninists, too. According to the pamphlet, this led the supporters of CPC(M-L) to wonder why CPC(M-L) was calling for unity in one party with these opportunists. This question is dealt with in a PCDN editorial in the pamphlet entitled "CPC(M-L)'s Consistent Line on the Question of Opposing Opportunism and Building the Unity of the Marxist-Leninists."

First of all, this editorial admits that the call for the unity of all those "who call themselves Marxist-Leninists" includes the opportunists. It states:

"Certain comrades and friends of the Party have asked us why, since we consider certain organisations and individuals to be erroneous and go to the extent of pointing out that they are revisionists, trotskyists, anarcho-syndicalists and opportunists of various sorts, does the Party issue the call to unite with them. How can Marxist-Leninists unite with the revisionists, trotskyists, anarcho-syndicalists and opportunists? Certain friends of the Party are puzzled by this. So this editorial is written to explain the Party's view on the question." (Ibid., p.153, emphasis added)

The editorial explains it this way. On one hand, "For us, to unite the Marxist-Leninists it is absolutely necessary to struggle against revisionism, anarcho-syndicalism and opportunism." But, the editorial points out, it is necessary to be clear on what it means to wage this struggle. It adds that: "Certain comrades and friends also raise questions about how the struggle against these opportunist political lines should be waged. In the practical movement, the opportunists are all those who are unwilling to sit together with others and sort out their differences." (Ibid., p. 155, emphasis added) Hence, the struggle against opportunism is converted into the struggle to "sit together" with the opportunists!

The editorial went on to denounce "ideological struggle." From the harmfulness of "ideological struggle," it deduced the need for the different lines to struggle within the Party! Thus, it stated that "We hold that there is no such thing as 'ideological struggle' in the abstract." Instead, everyone who called themselves Marxist-Leninist "should be in one Party where they wage ideological struggle as to what is the correct or incorrect line for the Party. Ideological struggle without Party discipline is to merely engage in the bourgeois pursuit of having endless discussions without reaching any conclusions." (Ibid., p. 156, emphasis added)

As well, the pamphlet as a whole linked up this idea of unity with the opportunists in one party with CPC(M-L)'s distortion of the "unity in action" slogan.

CPC(M-L)'s line of uniting into one party all those "who call themselves Marxist-Leninists" is a flagrant deviation from Marxism-Leninism. It denies the Marxist-Leninist teachings that people and political forces must be judged by their deeds, not their words. It denies the Marxist-Leninist teachings on the building of a monolithic party, a party free from opportunists. Indeed, it slurs over the distinction between opportunism and Marxism-Leninism altogether.

But these tactics remain the line of CPC(M-L) to this day. In two speeches, one in Hamilton on December 30, 1979 and another one given on December 31, 1979-January 1, 1980, the chairman of CPC(M-L) set forth CPC(M-L)'s assessment of the 1970's and perspective for the 1980's. These speeches defended the basic ideas from the pamphlet On Unity of Marxist-Leninist, They stated:

"During this entire period, our Party defended itself. It defended the correct line that there should be only one Party in each country. It called upon the Marxist-Leninists, or those who called themselves Marxist-Leninists, to join the Party and build the Party. On this basis, it differentiated between sham Marxist-Leninists and real Marxist-Leninists: those who are real Marxist-Leninists, who are serious, will join the Party and will build it; those who are opposed to this are opportunists and splittists....We pointed out that those who do not want to unite are actually RCMP agents, agents of the secret service, and this has been fully corroborated, even by the Keable Commission and the McDonald Commission and others -- that these people have direct links with the government, with the chiefs of staff of the reactionary bourgeoisie in Canada." (PCDN, January 3, 1980, p. 2, col. 3, emphasis added)

Here we see that CPC(M-L) still defends the idea of uniting in one party with all those who call themselves Marxist-Leninists in words. There is no dividing line set to judge those who want to join the party. On the contrary, the dividing line to judge whether someone is opportunist or not is simply whether he joins the party. Thus, any person or organization who acknowledges the leadership of the party is declared to be good, even though the speech acknowledges the existence of police agents among those who call themselves Marxist-Leninists. You may be an opportunist, revisionist, anarcho-syndicalist, etc., you may have "direct links" with the bourgeoisie, but join the party and all is forgiven.

At the same time, we also see that CPC(M-L)'s idea of unity in a single party with the opportunists does not preclude cursing them. CPC(M-L) denounces them in the fiercest tones as devils, police agents, trotskyists, and no-goods and consigns them to rot in Hades ten times over.

But what is the political basis for all this cursing? It is only that these bad elements haven't united with CPC (M-L). The speech goes all out of its way to reiterate CPC(M-L)'s opposition to any "ideological struggle." Indeed, the speeches take the opposition to "ideological struggle" to the outright liquidationist conclusion by denouncing the value of the Marxist-Leninist theory itself. They state: "...the opportunists are debating over what is Marxism-Leninism and what is opportunism.

"The Marxist-Leninist tactics, the Marxist-Leninist tradition, the Marxist-Leninist style of work -- all show that it is not necessary to have correct analysis all the time -- the issue is where one stands, first and foremost: on the side of revolution and socialism or on the side of imperialism and all reaction?" (PCDN, Jan. 3, 1980, p. 2, col. 3, emphasis added)

And, in fact, CPC(M-L)'s curses against the opportunists are lacking in ideological content. Whether they curse the opportunists or appeal for unity in a single party with the opportunists, whether they call for unity of action or whether they declare that they will never accept unity of action, or whether they do both simultaneously, it is just a pragmatic maneuver based on the interests of the moment.

The combination of strident shouting against the opportunists with unprincipled maneuvers for unity with them is not something new. The removal of ideological content from the confrontation with the opportunists is typical of the Maoist deviation. The Chinese revisionists acted precisely in the same manner. Already in 1966, at the 5th Congress of the PLA, Comrade Enver Hoxha criticized, with great foresight, the Maoist stand towards Soviet revisionism, stating: "...if the fight against revisionism is not inspired by ideological motives, but only by certain economic and political motives on a national chauvinist basis, it is a mere bluff which is shortlived." (Report to the 5th Congress of the PLA) This is true even if the revisionists are temporarily cursed in the most extreme terms. As Comrade Enver pointed out in 1,976: "China effectively ceased the struggle against the United States of America and intensified its propaganda against the Soviet Union to absurdity. I say propaganda, because there are no ideological articles from China for the exposure of the Soviet Union." (Reflections on China, Vol. II, entry of April 1, 1976, Proletarian Internationalism edition, p. 66, col. 1) And today, the "discovery" by one band of followers of Chinese revisionism after another that the Soviet Union is "socialist" is another vivid confirmation of Comrade Enver's warning that a struggle against opportunism that is devoid of ideological conflict is just "a mere bluff which is shortlived."

Today, following the events of October 4 and 17, the CPC (M-L) is shouting up and down in the most strident tones a- bout the opportunists. But, once again, this is simply for pragmatic reasons. For one thing, although CPC(M-L) went into the head-bashing brawls of October 4 and 17 with great enthusiasm, these confrontations turned out to be a fiasco for them. To cover this up, they have made the most extreme declarations against the opportunists, while still opposing giving any ideological content to these declarations.

Thus, PCDN's cursing and shouting has even led them to call for "deepening" the split in the working class. In other countries, the Marxist-Leninists work heart and soul to unite the proletariat and to overcome the split caused by opportunism and revisionism, but in Canada, the CPC(M-L) carrying its phrasemongering to the point of absurdity, ardently vows to deepen the split among the workers. PCDN writes, in preparation for the upcoming Fourth Congress of CPC(M-L):"The Party [CPC(M-L) -- ed.] has analyzed that the proletariat is split between the revolutionary and the reformist and revisionist and opportunist proletariat and that it is this split which must be deepened and broadened and the class enemies of the proletariat driven out of the working class movement. Our Party does not advocate unity in action with the revisionist and opportunist chieftains or with the labour aristocrats.... The main assault of the revolutionary proletariat is against those who reconcile the class struggle.... Today, the revisionist and opportunist traitors are 'left unity' maniacs...The Party considers the struggle against the 'left unity' maniacs as a component part of the struggle to prepare the proletariat for the coming revolutionary storms, and the decisive component part at the heart of the matter." (PCDN, January 4, 1982)

Thus, one day PCDN denounces the opportunists for "trying to impose a struggle amongst the anti-racists," and the next day PCDN demands the "deepening and broadening" of the split in the proletariat. In October 1981 PCDN demands "unity in action" with the BCOFR, and in January 1982 PCDN denounces " 'left unity' maniacs" and labels the struggle against them as "the decisive" issue.

Thus all this cursing is just striking a pose. It has nothing to do with exaggerating the struggle against opportunism. Indeed, PCDN stresses that the "'left unity' maniacs" are "launching savage attacks against Marxism-Leninism and the theory and practice of the revolution, turning each and every basic and inviolable principle of theory into a matter of debate, discussion and interpretation...."(Ibid., emphasis added) In other countries, the Marxist-Leninists seize every opportunity to discuss the life-giving theory of Marxism-Leninism; they fervently "interpret" it in the light of the concrete situation in their country; and, when the opportunists launch savage attacks on the Marxist theory, the Marxist-Leninists even fiercely debate the hostile elements. But in Canada, the CPC(M-L) responds to the attacks of the opportunists by ruling out the "discussion" of Marxism-Leninism and, God forbid that there should be any "debate." But, in that case, what type of struggle against opportunism can CPC(M-L) wage? Perhaps they regard the swinging of 2 x 2's as the launching of "the main assault" against the opportunists, but this is a gross distortion of the Marxist-Leninist teachings on striking the "main blow" against opportunism.

Thus we see that despite all CPC(M-L)'s cursing and swearing at the opportunists, they have consistently followed a policy of pragmatic maneuvers and unity- mongering with the opportunists. They have even advocated the idea of uniting in one party with the opportunists. Instead of carrying out a principled struggle against opportunism, they have shifted and turned with every breeze, depending on expediency. But through every zigzag, they have maintained their opposition to "ideological struggle," that is, to a real struggle against opportunism. This is a vivid confirmation that the head-bashings of October 4 and 17 in Vancouver had nothing to do with the struggle against opportunism. On the contrary. CPC (M-L)'s role in these brawls Was another ugly result of their Maoist and liquidationist deviations.

[Photo: This was one of three photographs printed in a big display in the New York Daily News on October 19, 1981. The head-bashings of October 4 and 17 among anti-racist activists in Vancouver, Canada were a disaster for the anti-racist movement. They were gleefully seized upon by the bourgeois press in both Canada and the U.S. to discredit the anti-racist movement, promote the KKK and isolate the Marxist-Leninists. The leadership of CPC (M-L) bore a big part of the responsibility for these harmful events.]

Summary of Part One

In Part One of this article in the last issue of The Workers' Advocate, we reported on the head-bashing melees that occurred at anti-racist demonstrations on October 4 and October 17 in Vancouver, British Columbia. On one side of these fights was the People's Front Against Racist and Fascist Violence, which is associated with the Communist Party of Canada (M-L). On the other side were the organizers of these demonstrations, the British Columbia Organization to Fight Racism (BCOFR), which is associated with various opportunist groupings including both pro-Soviet and Maoist revisionists as well as the social-democrats of the New Democratic Party. These bloody melees undermined the anti-racist demonstrations, which were called in protest against the racist, arch-reactionary Ku Klux Klan.

These head-bashing fights, in which the anti-racist activists fought each other, were a disaster for the anti-racist movement. The bourgeoisie in both Canada and the U.S. gave tremendous publicity to these fights. The capitalist press joyfully seized on these fights in order to discredit the anti-racist movement and, at the same time, promote the racist gangsters of the KKK. The press also worked overtime to use these incidents to isolate the Marxist-Leninists and destroy the popular sympathy for them. This propaganda, although concentrated mainly in Canada, was carried over to the U.S. Such major newspapers as the New York Daily News carried pictures of these fights, while the black bourgeois press also reported on it in a similar vein.

The complexity of these events stems from the fact that the responsibility for the harm done does not rest solely with the opportunist BCOFR, but a large part of the blame lies with the leadership of CPC(M-L). The leadership of CPC(M-L) is committing profound Maoist and liquidationist deviations, deviations which led to their use of unprincipled and wrecking tactics on October 4 and 17. Because of these deviations, the CPC (M-L) did not understand the harm that these bloody fights caused and instead hailed these fights as "victories." Even after the first fight on October 4, they did not take steps to prevent a second fight. On the contrary, they eagerly prepared for a repetition of their "victory" of October 4 and they tried to bash their way into the demonstration on October 17. After October 17, the People's Front made this incident into a model and declared that "we will always defend this right [the right to have their speakers at demonstrations organized by the opportunists -- ed.] as we did on October 17, 1981." (Joint Statement of the People's Front and the East Indian Defense Committee, PCDN, October 23, 1981)

In Part One we documented the facts concerning these fights, relying primarily on the account given in the CPC(M-L)'s own central organ, People's Canada Daily News. Certain features stood out clearly:

First, the issue at stake in the fights was not whether CPC(M-L) could carry out political work in the anti-racist movement. In the demonstration on October 4, before the fight broke out, the People's Front had wide opportunities for political work. PCDN itself does not claim that there was any attempt to stop the People's Front from mingling with the demonstrators, distributing literature, or holding placards. However, the BCOFR did not grant the People's Front the right to address the rally. Nevertheless, in our view, this did not relieve the People's Front of their obligation to uphold the overall interests of the mass movement and the revolutionary proletariat, did not justify the ensuing fight, and left the People's Front with abundant possibilities for doing political work at the demonstration, if that was their aim.

Second, for the People's Front and the CPC(M-L), the main, if not the only, significance of the anti-racist demonstrations of October 4 and 17 was whether the CPC(M-L) led them. After the brawl that disrupted the anti-racist demonstration of October 4, PCDN gloated that "the organizers [the BCOFR -- ed.]...had to retreat and run from the rally which they had themselves organized." (PCDN, October 27, 1981) It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the issue of whether the People's Front would have a speaker was simply a pretext, and that the objective of the People's Front was precisely to take over the leadership of the demonstration. The same impression is created by CPC (M-L)'s tactics for the October 17 demonstration.

Third, although CPC(M-L) contested the leadership of the demonstrations, and felt so strongly about this that they saw no harm in the head-bashings, they did not put forward what political differences they had with the BCOFR over the direction of the anti-Klan struggle. In fact, PCDN has displayed little interest in the anti-Klan movement, has sermonized against it as a "diversion" away from the direct struggle against the bourgeoisie and the state, and has put forward sports events as the main way to unite the people in the face of racist attacks. This lack of interest in the movement itself illustrates that the fights of October 4 and 17 had nothing to do with a principled and staunch fight against social-democracy, revisionism, and opportunism, but were carried out in the wrecking fashion typical of sectarian squabbling.

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Soviet Revisionism-Enemy of Revolution and Socialism

Below we reprint the introduction to the March 1982 issue of Proletarian Internationalism published by the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA. This issue, which will be released very soon, is devoted to the exposure of Soviet revisionism. It contains a collection of 28 articles from socialist Albania as well as introductory articles from the MLP, USA.

This issue of Proletarian Internationalism is devoted to the struggle against Soviet revisionism. The revolutionary mass movement in the U.S. constantly runs up against the question of what stand to take towards the present-day Soviet leaders. Is the present-day Soviet Union a force for peace and liberation or a force for reaction and aggression? What stand must be taken towards the ugly acts of the Soviet revisionists, such as the brutal occupation of Afghanistan, the threats to invade Poland, the domination of a whole series of satellite countries, and the schemes to divide the world with the U.S.-led Western imperialists? Whether to rely on the working people and oppose all imperialisms, both those of the East and of the West, or to become compromised by reliance on one imperialism in the struggle against the other, is a burning question of our times. Here in the U.S., the revolutionary movement must focus its struggle on "our own'' U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie, but it remains true that the fight against one imperialism must entail struggle against all imperialisms.

Moreover, the activists in the U.S. are constantly confronted with the question of how to organize the struggle. Here too the questions raised by the struggle against Soviet revisionism are vital. The struggle against Soviet revisionism is not just a question of opposing the imperialism of the Soviet revisionists, but also of building the mass movement along revolutionary lines and defending the Marxist-Leninist teachings from the revisionist distortions. The followers of Soviet revisionism, in the U.S. as elsewhere, have long been the champions of the policy of conciliation of imperialism, of giving up the revolution, and of denigration of the revolutionary role of the proletariat and the other working masses. They are working as hard as they can for the liquidation of the independent class movement of the proletariat; they are striving to dissolve the proletarian movement and all revolutionary organization into a formless and amorphous mass, tied to the bourgeois liberals and "moderate'' imperialists, unable to accomplish any revolutionary action, impotent, suitable only to serve as apologists for one or the other imperialism or for several imperialist powers at once. This underlines the importance of Lenin's famous teaching that: "The fight against imperialism is a sham and humbug unless it is inseparably bound up with the fight against opportunism." (Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Ch. X)

Soviet revisionism, the ideology of the present-day Soviet leaders, is the complete negation of the revolutionary doctrine of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. In the days of Lenin and Stalin, from October 1917 to the death of Stalin in March 1953, the Soviet Union was the bastion of world revolution, loved and revered by class conscious workers and liberation fighters the world over. Following along the path opened up by the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917, socialism was built successfully in the USSR, showing the whole world that escape from the capitalist hell was not just a dream, but the brilliant future awaiting the world's working masses, just as Marx and Engels had foretold.

But the Khrushchovite and Brezhnevite class traitors betrayed this glorious legacy. They are not Marxist-Leninists or socialists, but revisionists. They have carried out a monstrous counter-revolution, restored capitalism, and transformed the Soviet Union into a savage, imperialist superpower. The Soviet revisionists are communists only in words, but fascists and imperialists in deeds. They have not only betrayed and turned into its opposite the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, but they have done tremendous damage to the international revolutionary movement and have corrupted all the parties that fell under their baton. Today struggle against Soviet revisionism is absolutely essential for upholding the honor of socialism and putting into practice the life -giving theory of Marxism-Leninism.

With the exception of two introductory articles from the pages of The Workers' Advocate, newspaper of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA, this issue of Proletarian Internationalism has been compiled from the publications of the Party of Labor of Albania. The PLA was the first party in the international communist movement to recognize the evil features of Khrushchovite revisionism. The firm and principled struggle waged by the PLA against the Soviet revisionist colossus is an inspiration for all genuine Marxist-Leninists the world over. The profound and extensive nature of their polemic against Soviet revisionism is reflected in the wide range of subjects covered in the articles reproduced in this issue of Proletarian Internationalism. These articles show that capitalism has been completely restored in the Soviet Union and that exploitation and all the evils of capitalism run rampant there. Other articles show that the Soviet revisionists are following a social-imperialist policy of contending for world domination with U.S.-led Western imperialism; they simultaneously fight against U.S. imperialism over how to divide the world and join together with U.S. imperialism in order to jointly stamp out the revolution. Another major section of this collection of articles is devoted to denouncing the strategy of capitulation to imperialism and merger with social-democracy that the Soviet revisionists mandate for their followers in the capitalist countries of the West. As well, there are articles on the origin of Soviet revisionism, on its overall characterization, and on other subjects.

The unyielding opposition of the heroic PLA to the Soviet revisionists is one of the most important reasons why no counter-revolution took place in Albania. Albania today is the only genuine socialist country in the world. The nonstop march of socialism in Albania shows to the entire world that the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin retain their revolutionary vitality. It shows that, despite revisionist betrayal, socialism remains a living reality and the banner of the world camp of labor that stands opposed to the old world of exploitation and imperialism. And the Albanian experience is a vivid proof of the utter necessity of opposing Soviet revisionism and all other revisionisms in order to march ever forward along the road of the revolution.

Recent developments add urgency to the task of upholding the Marxist-Leninist condemnation of Soviet revisionism. The followers of Chinese revisionism are one after another declaring that the Soviet Union is "socialist." The followers of Soviet revisionism are making a big clamor too, trying to use the disgrace of Chinese revisionism as a justification for reversing the verdict on Soviet revisionism. This is an attempt to wipe out the hard-won accomplishments of two decades of revolutionary struggle. The rise of a new generation of revolutionary activists in the 1960's and 1970's was inseparably linked to he struggle against Soviet revisionism and all opportunism. The advanced section of i the activists from the mass movements came to the conclusion that Marxism-Leninism was the only true guide for the struggle and that the revisionist betrayal must be opposed. They set upon the path of reestablishing a genuine communist party in the U.S., to replace the once-revolutionary Communist Party of the USA that had been destroyed and turned into an impotent fringe of the Democratic Party by domestic Browderite revisionism and by Khrushchovite revisionism. The conciliatory attitude towards Soviet revisionism that is so fashionable today in certain circles is linked up with their repudiation of the revolutionary struggle, with their renegade attitude towards the traditions of the mass upsurge of the 1960's and early 1970's, and with their disgusting accommodation with imperialism.

The followers of Chinese revisionism, who in the past advertised their theories as the alleged answer to Soviet revisionism, are busy one after another denouncing the struggle against Soviet revisionism by declaring that the Soviet Union is "socialist." Indeed, the same social-chauvinists who followed the Chinese revisionists in advocating the strategy of "striking the main blow against Soviet social-imperialism," that doctrine of allying with U.S. imperialism against their Soviet social-imperialist rivals, are now saying that the Soviet Union is "socialist." What renegades! This shows that their "opposition" to Soviet revisionism has had nothing in common with the Marxist-Leninist critique of Soviet revisionism or with defending genuine socialism but is simply based on inter-imperialist rivalry, on giving the "socialist" stamp to the policies of the Pentagon. Our Party's predecessor, the COUSML (Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists), condemned from its very appearance the social-chauvinist thesis of "striking the main blow at Soviet social-imperialism" and waged a relentless war on the "three worlds" theory. The struggle against social-chauvinism rallied and encouraged the healthy and militant forces of the revolutionary movement. The movement against social-chauvinism that resulted gave a great impetus to the Marxist-Leninist movement and culminated in the founding of our Party, the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA, on January 1, 1980. In the struggle against social- chauvinism, the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists stressed that the doctrine of "striking the main blow at Soviet social- imperialism" had nothing to do with the ideological struggle against revisionism or principled opposition to Soviet social-imperialism, but was just Pentagon-socialism. This assessment has been confirmed to a tee by the recent "discovery" by the followers of Chinese revisionism that the Soviet Union is allegedly "socialist."

Seeing their chance, the followers of Soviet revisionism are also especially active these days. They are trying to make hay out of the world hatred for the aggressive U.S.- China alliance and the disgusting spectacle of the present-day Chinese ultra-revisionist leaders. Taking advantage of the fiasco of Maoism, they are trying to present Soviet revisionism as the only true opponent of U.S. imperialism and to prettify repulsive Soviet social-imperialism in the eyes of the masses. This is nothing but a cynical maneuver. Soviet revisionism's only opposition to U.S. imperialism is on the basis of inter-imperialist rivalry; it is a world advocate of the policy of destruction of the revolution. The rivalry of U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism is threatening the world with a nuclear world war to determine who will be the master, and this would be a criminal imperialist war in which both sides are the deadly enemies of the revolution, socialism, and the oppressed nations. Any attempt to whitewash Soviet revisionism must be sternly rebuffed.

The antics of the followers of Chinese and Soviet revisionism only underline the fact that a firm stand against Soviet revisionism and all other currents of revisionism is indissolubly linked to maintaining a revolutionary stand against "our own" U.S. imperialists. The pro-Soviet, pro- Chinese and trotskyite opportunists in the U.S. are all nothing but liquidators. They are bootlickers of the Democratic Party and dress up the program of this diehard imperialist party of the big bourgeoisie in progressive or even "socialist" colors. They aim their blows against the development of the independent political movement of the proletariat and base their work on begging for alms from the trade union bureaucrats, sold-out elements, and capitalist politicians. Their prettification of state monopoly capitalism in its "socialist" disguise in the Soviet Union or other revisionist countries goes hand in hand with their prettification of state monopoly capitalism in the U.S. in its liberal-labor disguise. In this issue of Proletarian Internationalism, we carry an article on the revisionist prettification of state monopoly capitalism that shows that this is one of the major links joining together capitulation to U.S. imperialism to prettification of Soviet revisionism or other revisionisms. As well, a number of other articles are devoted to exposing the revisionist sabotage of the class struggle in the capitalist countries of the West, these articles show that the policy of merging with social-democracy, the policy of converting the proletarian movement into a servant of the bourgeoisie patterned after the timeworn social-democratic model, is a cornerstone of Soviet revisionist strategy. These articles on merger with social-democracy and prettification of state monopoly capital show that struggle against Soviet revisionism is an essential part of the struggle against liquidationist capitulation to imperialism.

Since the Khrushchovite betrayal, struggle against Soviet revisionism has been on the agenda for all those who wish to stay on the road of revolution, the road marked out by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. The open polemic between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and Soviet revisionism began soon after the Moscow Meeting of 1960. The continuation of the ideological struggle against Soviet revisionism, the deepening of the great polemic that began over 20 years ago, remains an indispensable duty for all true revolutionaries, Marxist-Leninists, and class conscious workers. Let us carry the struggle against Soviet revisionism through to the end, through to the complete exposure of the Soviet revisionist trend and the total overthrow of these class traitors to communism, through to the triumph of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism.

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On Jerry Tung's Book 'The Socialist Road'

Maoist 'Three-Worlders' Embrace Soviet Revisionism

Today the basic feature of the revisionist circles in the U.S. is their liquidationism. In their rush to join in holy matrimony with the labor bureaucrats, the social-democrats, and the "left wing" of the Democratic Party generally, they are falling all over themselves to mock at the revolution and denounce the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism. This is nowhere more apparent than in their wholesale campaign to denounce the struggle against opportunism. This has now reached the point where the followers of Chinese revisionism, who for years swore up and down that they were the only true opponents of Khrushchev and Brezhnev, are now one by one issuing testimonials to the "socialism" of the Soviet revisionist renegades.

Throughout the 1960's and 1970's, the followers of Chinese revisionism presented themselves as the leaders of the fight against Soviet revisionism. They presented Mao Zedong Thought as the alleged last word in anti-revisionism. In the mid-1970's, they went so far as to present their counter-revolutionary "three worlds" theory and their social- chauvinist alliance with U.S. imperialism to "direct the main blow at Soviet social-imperialism" in anti-revisionist colors.

But the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists indignantly pointed out that only those who fight "their own" exploiters have the right to talk of struggle against Soviet revisionism. They poured scorn on the "three worlders" who presented support for B-l bombers, Trident submarines or U.S. lackey regimes as "anti-revisionism." They stressed that abandoning the revolution meant joining the capitalist-revisionist camp just as the Soviet revisionists have done. As The Workers' Advocate put it on March 10, 1977: "We hold that those who, like the October League [a "three worldist" group -- ed.], have capitulated to one superpower or the other, have thereby capitulated to the world system of imperialism and are incapable of resolutely opposing any imperialism or any reactionary at all. Having capitulated to U.S. imperialism, the OL cannot possibly 'concentrate "too much fire on Soviet social-imperialism" '; it can only 'concentrate "too much fire" ' at the forces of socialism and freedom!"

And today this stand of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists has been verified to a tee, as one after another the Maoists and "three worlders" come out to scrape and bow before the "socialism" of Brezhnev and co. In this regards, a recent book by Jerry Tung is very revealing. Jerry Tung is the leader of a "three worldist" sect, the "Communist Workers Party" (formerly the Workers Viewpoint Organization), which used to rave about the Soviet Union being the "main danger." Tung's book is entitled The Socialist Road. But far from inspiring the workers to fight for socialism, this book is devoted to ridiculing the struggle against revisionism. It rambles on for over 300 pages trying to prove that the Soviet Union is "socialist." Jerry Tung is so enthusiastic about the virtues of revisionism that he praises all the other revisionist regimes and goes out of his way to praise the "socialism" of the revisionist system that lies in ruins in Poland. Why, Tung considers that even Allende's Chile and Zimbabwe are "socialist."

Tung's renegade stand towards the struggle against Soviet revisionism is part of his renegade stand against all the revolutionary traditions of the mass movement. This is why he writes, oh all so innocently, that: "...the CWP does not look back nostalgically and model current struggles after the struggles of the 60's." (p. 14) This is a common theme in liquidator literature. At its high points, the 1960's saw the development of revolutionary consciousness, of mass disgust with the Democratic Party and the liberal-labor politicians, of militant mass actions, and it also saw the outbreak of the fierce fight against Soviet revisionism. These two features -- the mass revolutionary struggle and the battle against revisionism -- marked the best moments of the 1960's and set the stage for the 1970's. With his denigration of the 1960's, Tung is cursing the mass struggle and the anti-opportunist fight of the last two decades. Clear the way for legalism, for chasing after Democrats, Zionists, and social-democrats, for merger with the labor bureaucracy, this is the theme of the liquidator literature.

Tung's book vividly demonstrates that abandoning the fight against revisionism means abandoning the fight against imperialism as well. The "socialism" which Tung aspires to proves to be nothing other than state monopoly capitalism dressed up as "planning." And this is true not only with respect to the Soviet Union but with respect to what he outlines for the United States as well. This is the ideological basis from which Tung turns his back on the fight against social-democracy and ends up snuggling cozily with the capitalist program of the "left wing" of the Democratic Party.

Lenin's teaching remains ever fresh: "...the fight against imperialism is a sham and a humbug unless it is inseparably bound up with the fight against opportunism. "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Ch. X) It is from the standpoint of prettifying capitalism wherever it exists, in Russia, the U.S., or elsewhere, that Tung has come out with the "CWP's" latest readjustment of line.

Tung Denounces the Struggle Against Revisionism

The heart of Tung's book is the condemnation of the struggle against revisionism and opportunism. In the introduction to his book, Tung emphasizes that recent developments in China have forced the "CWP" to reexamine its line and that they have made a great new discovery: "Most often the retrograde trend in the Party ["CWP" -- ed.] that goes against professionalism, politics, propaganda and tight organization has its expression in trying to build a party based solely on 'anti-revisionism,' around the theory of 'combatting and preventing' revisionism and 'restricting bourgeois right.' That is precisely the one-sidedness that the Chinese communists suffered from in the Cultural Revolution." (pp. 10-11) Translated from Maoist jargon into the language of the ordinary world, this means that Tung blames the struggle against opportunism for all the ills of life.

What a fraud this new discovery is! Every three or four years the followers of Chinese revisionism in the U.S. make a big fuss as if they had discovered a new world -- namely, that the fight against revisionism has been taken too far. In the late 60's, they lectured that, although right opportunism was ultimately the main danger to the communist movement, still, the main immediate danger was "ultra-leftism" and "sectarianism." With this sermon, they denigrated the idea of founding a single party for all the Marxist-Leninists as "ultra-left" and justified factionalizing and fragmenting the movement. In 1973, at the time of the Tenth National Congress of the CP of China, they discovered once again that "ultra-leftism" was the main danger and was "Lin Piao-ism." In 1976-77, they discovered that struggle against revisionism was "gang of four-ism" and started a campaign to smear any opposition to the "three worlds" theory as "ultra-left" and "trotskyite." And today, Tung has once again come to the same conclusion: the struggle against revisionism is allegedly the source of all the problems of the communist movement.

This time Tung takes his opposition to the struggle against revisionism to the limit. He preaches reconciliation with Soviet revisionism and seeks to prettify them from every angle. In order to justify "CWP's" new line, he tries to paint the Soviet revisionists in flaming revolutionary colors and he claims that "...the CPSU has indirectly repudiated (though without public and extensive repudiation) Khrushchev's line of peaceful transition to socialism...." (p. 298) Imagine that: Brezhnev changed his mind but didn't bother to tell anyone! If this is the best Tung can do to prove his thesis, he has condemned himself ten times over.

Tung's assertion is simply the lie of a political hack. Brezhnev has repudiated nothing. True, the Soviet social- imperialists are arming to the teeth, as they have for years. Soviet tanks roll across Afghanistan, Soviet troops threaten Poland with invasion, and Soviet bloc forces help drop napalm on the Eritreans. But, as far as their line for the world's people, the CPSU repudiates revolution. The slightest look at the documents of the 26th Congress of the CPSU, held last year, reveals that there is even less revolutionary phrasemongering than usual on such occasions, and it openly calls for world problems to be settled by mutual agreement between Reagan and the Soviet Union. (See the article "On the 26th Congress of the CPSU: The Soviet Revisionists Are Sworn Enemies of the Revolution" in The Workers' Advocate of May 20, 1981)

Actually, Tung is quite clear that the Soviet revisionists still call for the world's people to fold their arms, go to sleep, and let the big powers decide their fate, which is what they call "detente." Indeed, he hails these calls by the Soviet revisionists, saying "We regard the struggle for detente as a major struggle for world peace." (p. 13) The American liquidator of revolution Tung feels quite at home with the worldwide liquidator of revolution Brezhnev.

But the centerpiece of Tung's prettification of Soviet revisionism is his claim that the man-eating state monopoly capitalist system existing there is "socialist." Tung informs us that: "The main difference between our present and past lines is the understanding that the Soviet Union is a socialist country." (p. 3) Here, as with his assessment that the fight against revisionism is a one-sided excess, Tung is trailing after the positions of the present-day Chinese ultra-revisionist leadership. The Deng Xiaoping clique in China has already hinted at this reassessment. Today, in their striving to become an imperialist superpower in their own right, the Chinese revisionist leadership has allied with U.S. imperialism. But tomorrow they may embrace the new tsars of the Soviet Union. To allow themselves full freedom in the dance of inter-imperialist alliances, the Chinese revisionists have therefore begun to suggest that, while the Soviet Union may suffer from "revisionist tendencies," it is "still socialist."

This new flirtation between the Chinese and Soviet revisionists exposes how frivolous and hollow the Chinese stand towards revisionism has been. Jerry Tung to the contrary, the truth is that the Chinese leadership never overstressed the struggle against opportunism. There was great chaos in the so-called "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution," but this stemmed from the anarchistic and anti-party ideas put forward by Mao to guide this struggle, ideas that stood in flagrant opposition to the teachings of Marxism-Leninism. Thus the clash of factions reached intense heights, but there was little repudiation of revisionism, whether of Soviet revisionism or of internal, domestic revisionism. The casual attitude taken by Mao to revisionism is shown vividly by his restoration of the arch-revisionist fiend Deng Xiaoping to power. It is also shown by his anti-party theory of the eternal coexistence of several different lines in the party, whereby he justified conducting a balancing act among competing factions. This was not a theory to fight revisionism, but to coexist with it.

Not just in the "Cultural Revolution," but right from the start the Chinese leadership took at best a vacillating stand in the struggle against Soviet revisionism. They were reluctant to embark on this struggle, reluctant to polemicize, and eager to find one pretext after another to declare the struggle over and done with. For example, they repeatedly put forward the idea of building a joint anti-imperialist united front with the Soviet revisionists.

The truth about the opportunist stands of the Chinese leadership towards Soviet revisionism are a matter of public knowledge. The Albanian comrades have provided extensive documentation on the treacherous stands of the Chinese leadership from the 20th Congress of the CPSU to the present. Our Party, too, has written on this question. Particular mention should be made of the series Against Mao Zedong Thought!, especially Part One, "Mao Zedong Thought and the Fight Against Soviet Revisionism" (The Workers' Advocate, July 10, 1980), and Part Four, "On the Question of 'Two-Line Struggle' " (The Workers' Advocate, November 30, 1980). As well, our pamphlet The Struggle for the Party Versus Chinese Revisionism outlined the permanent campaign of the followers of Chinese revisionism in the U.S. against the party concept and against the anti-opportunist struggle.

But Jerry Tung is not concerned with the truth. He is concerned with finding excuses to justify his treachery.

Tung Calls for a Mutual Amnesty of All Revisionisms

Tung doesn't just defend Soviet revisionism as a thing in itself. On the contrary, he has broader purposes in mind. Thus Tung puts the "CWP" stamp of "socialism" not just on China and the present-day Soviet Union, but also on the Soviet bloc countries of Eastern Europe, on Yugoslavia, on neo-colonial Cuba, on the social-democratic Chile of Allende's rule, on the bourgeois nationalist regime in Zimbabwe, and so on. Tung bestows the label "socialist" as freely as a priest grants communion. What it shows is that Tung has reconciled himself to the existing order, which he is determined to prettify as "socialist."

Tung, however, stresses that he sees no way to defend the Chinese leadership without reconciling with the Soviet revisionists. Comparing the Chinese and Soviet revisionists, he says that China no longer has an "internal structural difference with 'capitalist' Russia" and he asks: "What is the difference now? None. In terms of general direction on the relationship of economics to politics, there is no difference. I believe that in the final analysis, this is the driving force that will eventually lead advanced elements in both CPC and CPSU to converge again." (p. 216)

Thus Tung admits that there is no fundamental difference between the ideologies guiding the Chinese and Soviet revisionists and the content of their actions. This should have led him to denounce the present Chinese leadership as sellouts and treacherous revisionists and to look into the Maoist theories that gave rise to this fiasco. Instead, with his "I'm OK, You're OK" attitude to the class enemy, he concludes that the Soviet revisionists are "socialists."

Tung then goes on to launch his slogan of the "rapprochement" of all revisionist countries. Indeed, it must be somewhat distressing to see that the alleged "socialists" are all going after one another with hammer and tongs, invading each other's territory, establishing relations of brutal domination and abject subservience, and acting towards each other just like ordinary capitalists and imperialists. But Tung dismisses all this with a mere pious wish. Why shouldn't "socialists" hit each other over the head? Tung blandly remarks: "The only difference (between the CP of China and the CPSU) lies in their national interests in the context of the international setting. We can't underestimate the tenacity of these differences and the depth of the historical wounds inflicted. However, it is still economic necessity that will drive them closer again...."

In fact, there are deep divisions among the revisionist regimes based on "their national interests." Each revisionist regime defends the interest of its own bourgeoisie. The CPC and CPSU may "converge again" for a time, but it will be for the sake of another social-imperialist alliance, no less dangerous than the present U.S.-China warmongering alliance. But Tung long ago gave up the attempt to change the existing reality; all that he is concerned about is to prettify it.

All in all, the attitude of the "CWP" to the various revisionists is very similar to that of most trotskyites. Call the revisionists names, denounce this or that mistake, pretend to be more revolutionary than them -- but support them as class brothers. Thus Sam Marcy, head of the trotskyite Workers World Party, states that: "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." (The WWP pamphlet The class character of the USSR -- an answer to the false theory of Soviet social-imperialism, p. 7)

Tung echoes this approach of Marcy over and over in his book. Criticize the revisionists, call them chauvinists on this or that issue, admit that they have rich fat bureaucracies, call them repressive -- but support them. Indeed, the question of whether the parties that are in power are revisionist or not is a mere secondary question for Tung, since the issue is "whether their line speeds up or retards the consolidation of socialism" (p. 142) but, in either case, the parties are allegedly working for socialism. It is just a question of how well.

Thus Tung states: "(but) saying that the Soviet Union and China are socialist countries does not mean we endorse all their actions. We have to have a mature attitude towards socialism, instead of a simple love/hate relationship. We have to take a stand on the incorrectness of Soviet actions in Afghanistan and Poland, and of China's pro-U.S. positions like its support of Seaga in the Jamaican election and its reactionary position on El Salvador. Moreover, we have to explain why these gross deviations are possible under socialism, but can be corrected, in fundamental contrast to the situation under capitalism." (p. 19, emphasis added)

So how should the revolutionaries and class conscious workers deal with the bureaucratic elite, with the military aggressions, with the agricultural disasters, with the unemployment, and with the all-round crisis in the revisionist countries? Here is Tung's answer, the fruit of his alleged great revolutionary experience: "Why can't we be more patient with socialism [revisionism -- ed.]?" (p. 8) This is what he recommends as the replacement for the allegedly one-sided emphasis on the anti-revisionist struggle.

Friendship for Revisionism Means War on Marxism-Leninism and Genuine Socialism

While Tung calls for patience with the crimes of the revisionists, he has no patience with the teachings of Marxism- Leninism. One of the recurring themes of his book is that the experience of the revolutionary Bolshevism of Lenin and Stalin is allegedly unsuitable for American conditions. Indeed, Tung has taken up the mocking at Marxism-Leninism that is so fashionable among all the liquidators today.

Tung straight-out denies the applicability of the Leninist experience to "advanced capitalist countries." Tung contrasts "countries where the seizure of state power was accomplished based on relatively one-sided preparation by the revolutionaries" to "advanced capitalist countries where preparation needs to stretch out in all spheres due to the more thoroughgoing and sophisticated nature of capitalist rule." He concludes that in the advanced capitalist country revolution "requires a set of leaders, a kind of cadre core with a set of experiences much more all-rounded than the Bolsheviks and the Chinese communists before their revolution." (p. 141, emphasis added) Here Tung gives the stock social-democratic theory that Leninism applies only to backward countries, not to advanced capitalist countries. Nor is it any secret that Tung is referring to electoralism and liquidationism. And indeed, although Leninism had great experience in electoral work, it is true that it had consisted of fighting parliamentary cretinism, not providing guidelines for it.

Tung however prefers to reiterate over and over that Leninism is not applicable, rather than saying openly exactly what new types of struggle the "CWP" has added to Leninism. Tung thus comes up with the following absurd pretext. According to Tung, "In Russia, the Bolsheviks were concentrated in a few big cities.... The conditions were so particular that both CPSU's and CPC's preparation and forms of transition of power were unique and one-sided." (p. 145)

At one point, for the sake of empty phrasemongering, Tung praises the October Revolution. But he immediately adds, two sentences later: "The leaders of the CPSU, beginning with Stalin, then Khrushchov and Brezhnev, have all, to different degrees, exaggerated the universal significance of the Russian experience." (p. 213, emphasis added) Here Tung cynically implies that the revisionism of Khrushchov and Brezhnev stems from following the path of the October Revolution and "exaggerating its universal significance." He both implies that the present-day Soviet revisionists are loyal to Leninism and converts Leninism into a peculiar Russian phenomenon.

Note that Tung mixes up Khrushchov and Brezhnev with Stalin. This is typical of Tung's whole book. Although he claims to be discussing whether capitalism was restored in the Soviet Union or not -- and thus by rights should be contrasting the situation in the days of Lenin and Stalin to the situation under Khrushchov and Brezhnev in order to see whether they are fundamentally the same or fundamentally opposed -- in fact, he takes good care to simply lump the revisionists and the Marxist-Leninists all together. In this way, he both attributes to the revisionists the achievements of the Marxist-Leninists, and also argues that the necessity to criticize this or that defect of the revisionists shows the necessity to take a similar attitude to Leninism.

For example, how does he discuss the deteriorating economic situation under revisionism? He takes good care to never contrast the all-round crisis in the revisionist countries to the triumphant march of socialism in Albania or to the path-breaking successes in the days of Lenin and Stalin. Instead, he contrasts the revisionist countries to each other, notes that they are all in bad shape, and says, see, that's socialism for you. Thus he writes: "However, socialism today [read: revisionism --- ed.] in the Soviet Union, China, and other countries manifests difficulties. These difficulties range from declining productivity to low social morale.... If these problems were unique to a few countries in contrast to others where socialism was vibrant (or at least had a handle on the problems), then we could safely point to one thing as clearly socialist and another as clearly revisionist." (p. 10)

In this passage, Tung refers gently and politely to the all-round crisis facing the revisionist countries. And indeed all the revisionist countries face decaying agriculture, industrial slump, fat bureaucracies, discontented workers, and so forth. But, Tung says in effect, what can we do, these problems are inherent in life, just as the bourgeois apologists blame it all on inherent human nature.

Of course, this trick is only made possible by completely eliminating revolutionary socialism from the picture. Today genuine socialism exists only in Albania. Socialism flourishes in Albania, which is free of exploitation, free of unemployment, inflation and galloping bureaucracy, free of escalating militarism and all of the brutal features of the capitalist-revisionist world. Moreover, this has been achieved in Albania only because the Party of Labor of Albania led the Albanian masses in a tenacious struggle to build socialism according to the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. Essential to the successes of socialism in Albania has been the protracted and uncompromising struggle against revisionism of every type. Yet in over 300 pages of Tung's supposedly major study of "socialism," he refuses to even mention the building of socialism in Albania. In fact, the very word Albania barely appears three times in passing. And in practice, for years Jerry Tung and company have been slandering socialist Albania as "ultra-left" and trotskyite. Yet, according to the very criterion that Tung himself has chosen, the existence of vibrant and flourishing socialism in Albania exposes the rotten nature of the revisionist regimes.

As well, Tung refuses to compare the sorry revisionist reality of today to the great experience of Lenin and Stalin which he so casually throws away as of limited value and not applicable to advanced capitalist countries. Yet the very figures that Tung himself gives elsewhere in his book show that the crisis in the Soviet Union began only after Khrushchov and company had seized power and their poison had done its undermining work. For example, Tung is forced to admit the obvious, that "In the Soviet Union, there are clearly problems with (the) health of the population as measured by mortality rates, and rates of alcoholism and crime." (p. 125) Naturally Tung fails to notice that this admission utterly contradicts his alleged proofs that the "standard of living has steadily been increasing," that life is free from the hell of exploitation, and so forth. Or are we to believe that the Soviet people are inherently perverse and drink to oblivion and fall sick and engage in crime just to spite those kindly old bureaucrats who are doing so much for them?

But that by way of aside. The main point is that Tung, trying to explain everything away, is forced to make a second admission, namely, that "these are relatively recent problems, becoming acute only in the last two decades." (p. 125, emphasis as in the original) Tung believes that this suffices to sweep everything under the rug, for "we must look at the impoverishment of the proletariat not on the basis of an individual factory, a specific period, or one location, but over decades, as a trend." (p. 52) But the facts will not vanish so easily.

What does the long-term view, the "trend," show us? The last two decades means the 1960's and the 1970's. Stalin lived until 1953. Thus, while Stalin was alive, while the Soviet Union followed along the path laid out by Lenin and Stalin, these problems and the all-round crisis in the Soviet Union did not exist. But after Khrushchov and company seized power in the 50's and had time to rig up their system, immediately all the signs of social degeneration, of exploitation, of misery, spring up and become acute. And this despite the fact that the gang of revisionist cutthroats, the Khrushchovs and Brezhnevs, had at their disposal all the great material base created by socialism under Lenin and Stalin and did not have to overcome the devastation of imperialist intervention and war, as Lenin and Stalin did.

Thus Tung's glorification of revisionism as "socialism" requires him to write off Leninism and to take a hostile attitude to genuine socialism in Albania. Indeed, in order to serve Chinese and Soviet revisionism, he denounces the whole struggle of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism of the 1960's. Thus, Tung opens the preface to his book by pontificating that: "By 1965, modern revisionism worldwide had pretty much putrefied the communist movement." Yet the 1960's were the decade in which the struggle against modern revisionism broke out in full force worldwide. By 1965 the great polemic between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and Soviet revisionism had already been at work for several years. The fighting Party of Labor of Albania was marching ahead with sure steps. New Marxist-Leninist parties were seeking to replace those formerly communist parties that had been corrupted and destroyed by revisionism.

But Tung makes no distinction between the revisionists and the Marxist-Leninists. Everything was putrid to him.

And then came the great savior, Mao Zedong Thought. As Tung says in the next sentence: "The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution rejuvenated the international communist movement, of which we are part." So throw out the great polemic, cast aside the example of heroic Albania, fighting steadfastly like a rock against Soviet revisionist betrayal, ignore the revolutionary upsurge, only the Chinese "Cultural Revolution" was of any value. Here again we see Tung's renegade attitude to the revolutionary struggle.

However, Tung says, there were a few problems with the "Cultural Revolution." For example, "A major negative effect of the Cultural Revolution was that it destroyed a whole generation of the very precious, rare and able cadres." (p. 17) What a novel way of rejuvenating the communist movement. If Tung believes this, than how can he praise this "revolution" so highly? It is clear that Tung is an unprincipled hack who will trim his sails to any breeze.

But wait, Tung has found the solution to the problems of the "Cultural Revolution." It is to give up the struggle against revisionism and to seek "rapprochement" with Soviet revisionism. Here now we have Tung's latest prescription for "rejuvenating the international communist movement." And here we have the naked renegade features of a liquidationist hack.

Tung Is Still a Fervent "Three Worlder''

The "CWP" have been ardent supporters of the counterrevolutionary Maoist theory of "three worlds." Their discovery of "socialism" in the Soviet Union does not change this at all. Both "three worlds-ism" and Soviet revisionism meet on a common platform of negation of the revolution. Hence the "CWP" has found it easy to simply readjust their "three worlds-ism" to fit in their new praise for Soviet revisionism.

In his book, Jerry Tung, knowing the unpopularity of the discredited "three worlds" theory, makes a certain attempt to disguise his "three worlds-ism." He writes: "The Three Worlds Theory is wrong, as is the two worlds theory [revolutionary Marxism-Leninism -- ed.], because both assume that the Soviet Union is capitalist." (p. 13)

In fact, however, Jerry Tung still ardently adheres to "three worlds-ism." He explains that: "In terms of the capitalist part of the world (that is, the Western capitalist countries of Europe, the United States, Japan, and others, and the non-socialist third world countries), we do see the configuration of three worlds." (p. 207) Tung reiterates his loyalty to the whole range of different forms of capitulation to imperialism of the "three worlds" theory: the support of neo-colonialism, the glorification of "third world" lackey regimes, the policy of allying with one imperialism against the other, and so forth.

Thus Tung reiterates, one after the other, all the basic theses of "three worlds-ism." He declares that "the third world" is "the main force against imperialism." (p. 207) He supports the so-called unity of the second and third world, saying: "We also support the right of third world countries to utilize the contradiction between U.S. imperialism and the European and Japanese imperialism." (p. 207) This means to support the neo-colonial schemes of the so-called "second world." He reiterates his support for the "non-aligned countries movement," only now adding the claim that, "independent of conscious intentions," the non- aligned movement is objectively "aligned." (pp. 206, 207) Indeed, even Tung's claim that the Soviet Union is "socialist" does not alter his support for the "three worldist" view of allying with U.S. imperialism against the Soviet Union. For the sake of phrasemongering, Tung bombastically proclaims: "One final note. In the event of a U.S.-Soviet war or a war between the United States and any socialist country, we will unequivocally defend socialism, including the Soviet Union." (p. 212) But, for the time being, it is business as usual in defending U.S. imperialism and the warmongering U.S.-China alliance. Tung argues that: "The contradiction between the Soviet Union and the United States is very sharp. Mao rightfully utilized this contradiction to develop a relationship with the United States after attacks by the Soviet Union in the 60's. The legitimate purpose of this relationship was to facilitate China's construction through reducing its defense budget." (p. 157) And later Tung exclaims that: "We have to support communists within China who want to exploit the contradiction between the United States and the Soviet Union...(by) normalizing relations with the United States, which is a deterrent to the Soviet Union moving in." (pp. 209-10)

Here we have "CWP's" disgusting renegacy gone wild. Tung believes that it is fine for one allegedly "socialist" country, China, to create a warmongering alliance with U.S. imperialism against another allegedly "socialist" country, the Soviet Union. "Socialism" fighting "socialism" is the renegade perspective of the "CWP."

Tung also goes all out to prettify U.S. imperialist plunder and penetration of other countries. It is well known that through the export of capital, through loans and "aid," the various imperialist powers reap super-profits from the sweat and blood of the working people of other countries. As well, economic penetration is used by the imperialists to get their claws in other countries and to subjugate them not only economically, but also politically. But Tung and the "CWP" paint imperialist plunder in liberation colors claiming that the export of capital is a "weakness" of Western imperialism. He urges that this "weakness" should be exploited by the rest of the world.

For example, he argues: "Another question is whether to join the International Monetary Fund. Just on the philosophical level, it is appealing: in any real fight, any real struggle, there has to be close body contact. If one keeps the enemy away with a ten-foot pole, it is not a fight.... There is nothing wrong in and of itself with the Soviet Union and the COMECON countries borrowing from the Western imperialist countries. These countries understand that Western imperialist countries have to export capital. They know imperialists have to 'recycle' the excess dollars outside their economic system to alleviate their critical inflationary problems. Knowing the weakness of the enemy, these countries borrow money to import plants, raw material, technology, and whatever else they can get. Yet, it is true that they will be influenced economically as well as ideologically by the imperialists.

"But the fact that they suddenly become dependent and problems abound such as the situation in Poland does not mean that it is not a good fight.... And in the Polish situation, besides the crucial strength of the working class represented by the growth of Solidarity union, the verdict on foreign debts is not yet in. Both sides are tied down, and both are affected. To have it otherwise if puritanism." (pp. 160- 61, emphasis added)

Here Tung combines his praise of enslaving U.S. imperialism with his justifications that Poland and other Soviet-bloc countries are "socialist." Why, becoming "dependent" on Western imperialism is not such a bad thing -- it is really a "close body contact." Along with this, he expresses his support for the Solidarity misleaders, who are trying to move Poland over to the Western imperialist orbit.

At the same time, Tung adjusts the "three worlds" theory to allow him to defend the enslaving deeds of both superpowers. So, while he defends alliances with U.S. imperialism against Soviet "socialism," he also now defends the social-imperialism of the Soviet revisionists, saying that: "...in the main it is a good thing that the Soviet Union is a superpower" and prettifying the enslaving Soviet "aid" to the "third world." Indeed, Tung grants the right to ally with any imperialism against any other imperialism. For example, he stresses: "We must support the right of third world countries to utilize for their own survival whatever contradictions that exist between two chauvinist 'superpowers.'... It gives socialism strong allies as well as forces socialist countries not to impose any nationally specific doctrines on third world countries...." (p. 157) In short, as a good "three worlder," Tung will prettify any imperialism and capitalism. The only thing that the world's peoples do not have the right to do in his view is to fight imperialism and join the forces of revolution and genuine socialism.

In the next part of our article, to be published in a future issue of The Workers' Advocate, we show that Tung's idea of socialism turns out to be simply state monopoly capitalism, complete with a "mixed" economy and a bourgeois democratic system of "balances," and dressed up in pro-worker colors as "planning." We also examine in more detail the particular arguments that Tung uses to prettify Soviet revisionism and show that he completely negates Marxism-Leninism, engages in the word-chopping and confusion-mongering of a complete charlatan, sings praises of the corrupt revisionist bureaucracy, and denigrates the role of the party and of the dictatorship of the proletariat in socialism.

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