WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE! SPECIAL ISSUE
VOICE OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF THE USA
Volume 14, Number 4
March 30, 1984
May 1 International Workers' Day
Solidarity with the workers and peasants
U.S. Imperialism, Get Out of El Salvador!
How the death squads hold elections
To hell with the Republicans and Democrats, twin parties of the capitalist offensive!
Jesse Jackson sells out the fight against racism
'Recovery' shows need for struggle
Profit rebound is no cure for hunger and joblessness
The ideas of Marx and Lenin show the way out of this capitalist hell
Fight the Reaganite Offensive of Hunger, Racism, and War!
The First of May is International Working Class Day. On this day the workers all over the world take to the streets to proclaim their determination to fight capitalist slavedriving, to stand up to every kind of tyranny, and to realize a brighter future for all who are oppressed.
May Day arose from the strike movement for the eight-hour day which swept across the U.S. beginning on May 1, 1886. It was embraced by the class conscious workers of all lands as the day on which they rededicate themselves to building up the independent working class movement, uniting all workers to fight for their revolutionary aims.
Workers of All Countries, Unite!
One of the fundamental cornerstones of the working class struggle is international solidarity. On May Day the workers declare that, no matter which country they live in, they belong to one worldwide class.
Here in the U.S. today, the workers find themselves faced by an ugly chauvinist campaign from Reagan and the rest of the rich and powerful. The Reaganites proclaim: now that the U.S. government is massively expanding its military firepower, now that this "mighty superpower" is once again invading and marauding small countries like Grenada and Nicaragua, it is a time when all Americans, capitalists and workers alike, should "feel good about being Americans" again.
On this International Workers' Day, let us workers of the U.S. show our complete contempt for the chauvinist poison of the rich exploiters. The workers of this country cannot rejoice when the capitalists trample the oppressed toilers of other countries.
No, the working class is an international class. Everywhere where capital rules the workers are wage slaves, ground down by exploitation, despised and kicked around by the ruling classes. Everywhere the workers confront a common enemy in the world of capitalism.
The class conscious workers of the U.S. rejoice only when our class brothers and sisters elsewhere show the power of their struggle and win victories. We share their times of trial when they suffer setbacks. And we draw lessons from one another's struggles, from victories and defeats alike, in order to strengthen the next rounds of battle against the oppressors.
In this spirit, the class conscious workers of the U.S. condemn the crimes of the Reaganite imperialist gangsters around the world. We denounce the invasion of Grenada, the bombing of Lebanon, and the bloody trail of murder in Central America. Likewise, with every blow the workers of other countries strike against the U.S. imperialists, we rejoice. This is the spirit of International Working Class Day.
Solidarity With the Workers and Peasants of Central America!
On this May Day, a major focus of the international struggle of the toilers against oppression is in Central America.
The workers and poor peasants of Nicaragua, after yesterday smashing the U.S.-backed tyrant Somoza, are today fighting to defend and deepen their revolution against a CIA-organized war. In El Salvador, the revolutionary fighters are scoring new victories on the battlefield every day against the U.S.-backed fascist regime of the local capitalists and landowners. The guerrilla war is continuing in Guatemala. And the toilers elsewhere in the region are also stirring into action.
The struggle in Central America is of profound significance to the workers of the U.S. We are closely linked with the workers and peasants there because we share a common enemy. The toilers of Central America not only fight the oppression of their own local exploiters but they also face U.S. imperialism which backs up everything brutal and reactionary. Thus it is "our own" government which is supporting the tyrants and counterrevolutionaries while preparing to escalate direct U.S. military intervention.
This is not a mistaken policy of some otherwise reasonable men in Washington. No, this stems from the imperialist system which the U.S. government heads up. Behind the intervention of the CIA and Pentagon stands the huge multinational corporations which draw super-profits out of the labor of the toilers of Central America.
Thus, solidarity with the toilers of Central America requires a stern fight here in the U.S. against "our own" imperialist ruling class. On this May Day, let us pledge to strengthen our fight against the U.S. intervention against the revolutionary struggles of the people of Central America.
Fight the Reaganite Offensive of Hunger, Racism and War!
Aggression and oppression abroad are but one side of the imperialist coin. The other side represents the exploitation and oppression the working masses face right here at home. Today along with the war drive in Central America, the Reaganite offensive brings a starvation drive against the workers and poor and a racist offensive against the blacks and other oppressed nationalities.
How can these problems be solved? This May Day comes in the midst of an election campaign where all sorts of promises and demagogy are being thrown in front of the workers. Does this election campaign hold anything for the workers? Who among the candidates stands for the interests of the working class? Who stands for any solution to the problems of the Reaganite offensive?
Reagan is of course the baldfaced champion of the rich. He and his cronies gorge themselves in luxurious banquets while they mock at the workers they have forced into soup lines.
But are the Democrats any better? On one hand they offer a candidate with "traditional ideas," which are just the policies of Jimmy Carter who paved the way for Reagan's capitalist offensive. On the other hand, they offer a candidate of "new ideas," but this is just a crude remake of Reagan's "supply-side" anti-worker show. For sure the Democrats shed tears for the plight of the workers now and again. But this is only to join hands with the bigshot union bureaucrats to shove further concessions down the workers' throats. The Democrats are just closet Reaganites, a disguised party of capitalist reaction.
The workers can't trust their fate to either one or the other capitalist party. On May First, let us raise the banner of breaking with the twin parties of the capitalist offensive. Let us answer the Reaganite offensive with class struggle!
Organize the Class Struggle, Build the Independent Movement of the Working Class!
The only real alternative to the Reaganite onslaught is for the workers to realize their own strength, to stand up as an independent class, to come out into the field of battle against the capitalist exploiters.
There are many streams of discontent against the capitalists and the Reagan government. May First is a day to draw together all the threads of discontent and rally the workers to the banner of the independent movement of the working class.
The capitalists are pushing ahead with concessions, speedup and overtime against the workers on the job. They continue to keep millions unemployed. They cut the meager relief and social programs for the poor. On this May First, let us raise our voices high against hunger and poverty! Let us push forward the workers' strikes and the protests of the unemployed!
The government continues to expand its fiendish plans for nuclear holocaust and to step up aggression abroad. The entire society' is facing the drive of militarization. On this First of May let us raise the banner of struggle against imperialist war. Let the streets resound with slogans against aggression and militarism!
In this land where the capitalists sing the glories of "democracy" and "freedom," black people continue to be shot down in the streets and their racist murderers go scot free. Discrimination and segregation grow. On this May First, let us loudly say No to racist oppression and police terror! Let us organize for active resistance to racist oppression! Let us protest the persecution of immigrant workers. Let us make May First a day to unite the workers of all nationalities against racism and reaction!
The Working Class Will Emancipate Itself and Build Socialist Society
May Day is the day of socialism. The workers can not only fight the oppression of the capitalists, they can build a new society without capitalists and exploiters.
Lenin pointed out that: "The main thing in the doctrine of Marx is that it brings out the historic role of the proletariat as the builder of socialist society." ("The Historical Destiny of the Doctrine of Karl Marx") Marx and Lenin showed how the working class organizes itself step by step in the battle against exploitation and reaction until it has the power to overthrow the oppressors altogether. The rule of profit-crazed, bloodstained capital is replaced by the rule of the proletariat, at the head of all working people. Freeing itself, the proletariat frees all mankind and establishes a new and better society.
The bright light of this socialist society today shines in Albania. In red Albania, there are no rich or poor, no economic crisis, no racists and no militarists. There the working people govern themselves without the oppression of fat overlords. The torch that was lit by the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 in Russia is carried forward. This Leninist torch has been dropped in Russia since the counterrevolution in the mid-1950's by the traitors of the type of Khrushchov, Brezhnev, Chernenko and company. But the light of the brilliant ideas of Marxism-Leninism can never be extinguished. And the socialist system in Albania, by its very existence, carries a potential threat to bourgeois and revisionist rule everywhere.
On May Day the workers around the world rededicate themselves to the struggle for socialist revolution. The inspiring perspective of building the new socialist life, without exploitation of man by man, stiffens the fighting spirit of the workers and helps orient the struggle. On May Day the class conscious workers declare that capitalism and imperialism will go the way of slavery, absolute monarchy and all obsolete systems whose time has passed. They declare defiantly to the capitalists: the days of capitalist exploitation are numbered.
On this May Day, let us hold aloft the torch of socialism and rededicate ourselves to the fight for the emancipation of all working people.
Step by step the U.S. government is escalating its war against Nicaragua. The CIA has unleashed 20,000 mercenaries to strangle the Nicaraguan revolution. Every day these contra bands are committing atrocities against the Nicaraguan people -- from massacring villagers to mining Nicaraguan ports.
Meanwhile Congress continues to approve Reagan's requests for more tens of millions of dollars to arm the contra criminals, and hundreds of millions on top of that to arm the Honduran generals to provoke a war against Nicaragua.
No to the CIA War on the Nicaraguan Revolution!
Why is such savagery being unleashed against this small and poor country? Because the U.S. imperialist rulers want to turn back the clock on the Nicaraguan revolution.
The 1979 revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed Somoza dictatorship struck a heavy blow to the economic and political interests of Wall Street and the Pentagon. They have been plotting revenge ever since. They want to restore the super-profits that they sucked from the blood and sweat of the workers and peasants during the Somoza decades of massacres and torture.
The revolution has marked a great advance for the Nicaraguan workers and peasants. For the first time the impoverished and downtrodden are receiving health care, education and other essential reforms. They have finally won a breath of freedom, opening the way for advancing their revolutionary cause.
What's more, U.S. imperialism is scared stiff that the Nicaraguan example will inspire the other peoples of the region to settle accounts with their own U.S.-backed death squads and exploiters. No wonder it is stopping at nothing in its dirty war on the Nicaraguan revolution.
Who Is Reagan Supporting in Nicaragua?
The overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship didn't put an end to the class struggle in Nicaragua. On the contrary. It has brought it out into the open.
The big capitalists and landholders, who grew fat under Somoza's wing, are fighting bitterly against the revolution.
It's no secret that Reagan and the U.S. imperialists are throwing their dollars and arsenals behind this counterrevolution of the big exploiters. The CIA funded contra bands of ex-members of Somoza's hated National Guard make up its armed spearhead. Meanwhile, inside the country the opposition of the big capitalists and landlords -- working through its political parties, the reactionary newspaper La Prensa, the Catholic hierarchy, the scab unions linked to the AFL-CIO, etc. -- is also linked to the CIA and the contras.
The whole capitalist counterrevolution is banking on U.S. intervention to pave the way for a new Somoza-style dictatorship; and Reagan is doing all he can to oblige.
The Vacillating Policy of the Sandinista Government
The forces of the people who rose against the dictatorship are themselves divided by class. First there are the workers and poor peasants who are the driving force of the revolution. And then there is the petty bourgeoisie which vacillates between the working class and the bourgeoisie.
Contrary to the lies of Reagan, the Sandinista government is not Marxist-Leninist or socialist. This is unfortunate because the revolution would be stronger if it were. It is a regime of the petty bourgeoisie that is influenced by bourgeois, social-democratic and revisionist ideology. Its policy vacillates as it attempts to balance between the revolution and the counterrevolution.
The Sandinista government has tried to win the hearts of the capitalists with kindness and favors. Much care has been taken to make life comfortable for the big factory owners, financiers and landlords, and to preserve their property and rights.
But the concessions of the Sandinistas have only whetted the appetite of the wolves of the counterrevolution. The capitalists and their U.S. imperialist backers continue to turn the military, political and economic screws in their attempts to bring the Sandinistas to their knees.
Support the Nicaraguan Workers' Press!
The Nicaraguan revolution has been created by the workers and poor peasants. These are the classes who suffered most under the dictatorship; who mounted the barricades of the insurrection; and who today, in the factories and fields and the popular militias, are the bulwark of defense against U.S. aggression. Moreover, it is these classes who have a great stake in carrying forward the revolution against exploitation and poverty at the hands of the rich exploiters.
The Marxist-Leninist party of the Nicaraguan working class, MAP-ML, played an important part in the workers' struggle against the Somoza dictatorship and fought bravely in the insurrection.
Today it is calling on the working class to place its stamp on the fight against reaction and U.S. intervention. MAP-ML is making the people conscious that the door to the U.S.-backed counterrevolution can only be shut by taking revolutionary measures against the capitalists and landlords. It holds that defense against the CIA war demands the advance of the revolution towards the triumph of socialism.
MAP-ML is organizing the working masses as an independent class force that fights for its own interests. With this aim it is waging an ideological and political struggle against the capitalist and petty- bourgeois influences on the people.
The workers' press plays an important role in this struggle. The capitalists have La Prensa, the largest daily. This reactionary rag -- funded with millions of dollars from the CIA and reactionaries the world over -- echoes Ronald Reagan and spews venom against the revolution. There are also two dailies which support the vacillating policy of the government. But the working class daily El Pueblo has been shut down by the Sandinistas. In its work to rebuild the workers' press, MAP-ML now publishes the monthly Prensa Proletaria and is building towards the reestablishment of El Pueblo. The rebuilding of the workers' press faces big roadblocks from both the discrimination of the Sandinistas and the shortages of materials because of the U.S. blockade.
In the coming months the MLP,USA is organizing a political and financial campaign to support the Nicaraguan workers' press. And it appeals to all workers and anti-imperialist activists to participate in this concrete act of solidarity with the Nicaraguan working masses.
Workers of All Countries, Unite!
On this May First let us American workers and anti-imperialist fighters put the fiery slogan Workers of All Countries, Unite! into deeds.
Let us declare NO! to the CIA war on Nicaragua. The Nicaraguan people must have the right to self-determination without the bullying and dictate of the U.S. government.
Let us extend our militant solidarity to the Nicaraguan working people who are fighting heroically against our own worst enemy -- U.S. imperialism.
Let us pledge our internationalist solidarity with the Nicaraguan working class which is striving to deepen the revolution and carry it through to socialism -- the goal of the workers' struggle on all continents.
No to the CIA war on Nicaragua!
Solidarity with the Nicaraguan working class and toilers!
[Photo: One of the columns of the Popular Anti-Somoza Militias (MILPAS), led by the Nicaraguan Marxist-Leninists, that participated in the liberation of Managua from the Somoza dictatorship.]
On March 25, the U.S.-backed dictatorship in El Salvador held "presidential elections." As was expected, Reagan and his aides are crowing to the skies about how this has proved the triumph of "democracy" and "freedom" in that country.
But in fact they prove nothing of the sort. They do not mean that now the " death-squad" tyranny will go away or that its brutal war against the workers and peasants will stop. These elections were a complete mockery. They were organized, paid for, and directed by the U.S. government. The sole purpose of these elections was to provide a "democratic" whitewash for the fascist regime so that Reagan can shovel yet more U.S. aid for the war against the Salvadoran liberation fighters. Indeed, right after March 25; Reagan stepped up his efforts to speed up Congressional approval of some $93 million in emergency military aid.
Reagan claims these were free elections. Ridiculous. How can there be democratic elections under a regime where no opposition to the exploiters is tolerated? It is no secret that the regime and its death squads have murdered over 40,000 people over the last few years.
The Salvadoran left refused to take part in this miserable charade. And quite justly so. To run under the reign of terror would mean committing suicide. In these elections, only fascists and reactionaries could run, and this is what took place.
The U.S. imperialists and their lying news media point to the turnout of what they claim to be one million voters. But this proves nothing at all. Under Salvadoran law, everyone is required to vote. The Salvadoran citizen takes a great risk if his ID card is not stamped at the polls.
The election fraud isn't over yet. No one emerged with a majority. Thus there will be a runoff in a month between the two front- runners, Jose Napoleon Duarte of the Christian Democratic Party and Roberto D'Aubuisson of the ARENA party.
D'Aubuisson is an avowed admirer of Hitler's methods and is well known to be head of the death squads in El Salvador. He openly calls for more terror and brutality against the workers, peasants and communists. To him even the reactionary Christian Democrats are "communists". Meanwhile, Duarte talks of "reform," but this is only in order to provide a liberal-sounding fig leaf for the military regime. Indeed, this is the role Duarte played for the generals during 1979-82 when he was appointed temporary president by a deal between the Salvadoran military and the U.S. government.
Thus no matter who wins, one thing is clear: the rule of U.S. imperialism and the fascist Salvadoran exploiters will continue. And just as surely, the revolutionary struggle of the workers and peasants will continue. Already the rebels control a quarter of the country and continue to score impressive victories in the battlefield. It is only the continuation of this struggle that can lead to triumph over the U.S.-backed tyranny and bring political and economic rights to the long-suffering toilers.
U.S. imperialism is scared stiff of the forward march of the revolutionary forces. Not only is Reagan asking for tons of more military aid, he has also planned huge military maneuvers in Honduras in the coming months. Already, U.S. planes were reported to have conducted bombing runs against rebel-held positions during the March 25 elections. Clearly, widening escalation of U.S. intervention is on the agenda.
The U.S. intervention in El Salvador has all along received the votes of the Democrats in Congress. This continues to be true today. During the elections a bipartisan group of Congressmen visited El Salvador, and after they returned, they loyally echoed Reagan's lies about "democracy" in El Salvador. Representative Jim Wright, leader of the Democrats in the House, pledged to support Reagan's requests for more military aid for El Salvador.
As Reagan and the Democrats escalate U.S. intervention, let us, the workers and progressive people of the U.S., also step up our fight in opposition to the crimes of "our" government in El Salvador.
U.S. imperialism, get out of El Salvador!
Solidarity with the liberation fighters!
The campaign for the '84 elections is already in full swing. The Republicans are premising four more years of Ronald Reagan. Four more years of the capitalist offensive of hunger, racism and war. Meanwhile the Democrats are preparing to nominate their candidate. This party has for the last three years rubber-stamped virtually all of Reagan's policies in Congress. But today it claims that, if elected, it will reverse Reagan's measures.
Thus the discussion around the elections has brought up the question of how to fight Reaganism. Should the workers and oppressed people trust the Democrats' claims to be anti-Reagan fighters? The Marxist-Leninist Party says NO! The times cry out for a real fight against Reaganite reaction. But the Democrats are no alternative; they are simply the other face of Reaganism.
There is however a real alternative: fighting the capitalists, taking up the road of organizing the class struggle of the workers and downtrodden against the exploiters and their political flunkeys.
Fight the Reaganite Drive of Hunger, Racism and War!
Reaganism is a serious challenge facing the working people. It is the barefaced politics of the capitalist offensive against the workers, oppressed nationalities, women and poor.
Reaganomics has brought a bonanza for the rich and growing poverty for the working masses. While Reagan and his fancy friends flaunt their wealth and high living, they call for even harsher measures against the masses. While millions remain unemployed and hunger increases across the country, Reagan and his cronies cynically declare that the poor go to soup kitchens and sleep in the streets as a matter of choice.
While starving the people, Reagan has sent the Pentagon budget rocketing through the roof. And he has stepped up U.S. interventions and aggression abroad. He has raped the tiny island of Grenada, bombed and marauded Lebanon, and has steadily increased support for the murderous dictators of El Salvador and the Somocista counterrevolutionaries attacking Nicaragua.
Reagan's name is also synonymous with virulent racism against the oppressed nationalities, with oppression of women, with the strengthening of police-state measures, with strikebreaking against the workers -- in short, with everything backward and reactionary.
Reaganism has aroused the anger and indignation of tens of millions of people across the U.S. The workers and poor seek a real solution to the Reaganite disaster.
The Democrats Are Simply the Other Face of Reaganism
The Democratic Party claims to have the solution. But they are nothing but silver- tongued liars. This party under Jimmy Carter in fact launched the very policies which Reagan has carried forward. And in Congress over the last three years, although they have controlled the House, the Democrats have repeatedly voted to approve Reagan's policies. This has been true of big tax cuts for the rich, of the cutbacks in social programs, of the huge military budgets, and of the aid to the tyrants in El Salvador and Lebanon, the contras raiding Nicaragua, and so forth.
Moreover, just take a look at what the Democrats are offering in this election year. Their main contenders, Mondale, Hart and Jackson, have a lot of fancy rhetoric; but scratch the surface and it's clear that all these candidates are running on essentially the same program as Reagan's.
Mondale -- Reaganism With a Mask of Compassion
Walter Mondale is running as the champion of the mainstream of the Democratic Party. He postures in the name of the workers, the minorities, women and the poor. But all this is just hype. His real program is simply warmed-over Carterism. Mondale praises the Carter administration, which he loyally served as Vice-President. And nearly all his top advisers, those who he plans to put on his cabinet, are from the old Carter regime.
Mondale's main theme is that he, unlike Reagan, is for "fairness" and "equality of sacrifice." But in a capitalist society divided into workers and exploiters, there can be no equality between rich and poor. To call for "equal sacrifice" boils down to increasing the burden on the workers while asking the fatcats to give up their third martini.
On military and foreign policy issues, Mondale shouts about "peace." But he too stands for continued increases of the war budget. He may quibble with Reagan over this or that weapon, but on the bottom line there is no argument. He stands for continued aid to the Salvadoran fascist regime, albeit with a properly liberal "human rights" cover. And he openly defends keeping some of the U.S. troops Reagan has stationed in Honduras to prop up reaction in Central America. Echoing Reagan, Mondale says that Washington must not "pull the plug" on the reactionaries in the region. Like Reagan and his fellow Democrat Hart, Mondale defends the U.S. policy of brandishing the threat of first use of nuclear weapons in Europe.
The New Ideas of Hart -- Another Name for Reaganomics
Gary Hart is running on the slogan of "new ideas." Scratch the surface and you find that Hart's "new ideas" are nothing but a new wrapper for Reagan-style policies.
Hart is an unabashed defender of Reaganite "supply-side" economics. He echoes Reagan on the glories of "trickle-down" economics. Meanwhile, for the workers Hart demands greater sacrifices. He calls for workers to be saddled with more wage and benefit concessions. He has even proposed special taxes on wage increases if workers dare Jo fight for and win higher wages.
Hart also claims to be a "peace candidate." But he too is a fervent militarist. He chides the Democrats that they must not appear to be "soft on defense." His crusade for "military reform" is merely another name for getting more bang for the buck. He has all sorts of schemes to build up the conventional forces of U.S. imperialism, especially the imperialist navy. He agrees with Mondale on this and likewise defends the policy of "keeping the finger on the nuclear trigger" in Europe.
Hart pretends to be critical of Mondale on Central America but this is just for show. He too stands for the time-worn Democratic policy of aiding the Salvadoran military under the fig leaf of human rights. And he tries to outdo Mondale on who can be more fervent in supporting the warmongers of Israeli zionism. Hart, like Mondale, is no friend of the oppressed peoples of the world fighting for freedom and justice.
Hart or Mondale, it's the same old politics which has signified Democratic Party collaboration with Reagan. And Jesse Jackson is no alternative either -- he simply stands for Mondale's policies with fancier rhetoric. The Democrats are no different than Reagan because they too are a party of big business: Reaganism is the program of the capitalist ruling class, and the Democrats cannot help but represent this very same program.
Organize the Class Struggle!
A real fight against Reaganism cannot come from a party of the capitalists. It can only come from the class which is bearing the brunt of the Reaganite offensive, the class which has the numbers, strength, and ability to mount a powerful fightback. This class is the working class. A real fight against Reaganism calls for organizing the class struggle. This calls for breaking with both capitalist parties. It calls for building up a working class political movement, independent of and opposed to the rich and their parties.
Fight the capitalist attacks on every front -- build up the strikes, demonstrations and other mass actions! Read, study and distribute revolutionary literature to expose the capitalists and their parties and to help push forward the struggle of the working masses! Forge, revolutionary organizations to mobilize the workers and all the oppressed into a powerful fighting force!
Reaganism means bestial racism. Reagan was the preferred candidate of the Ku Klux Klan, and there is little wonder why. Since taking office, the Reagan government has worked to further segregate the public schools, while blessing the private segregationist academies with tender loving care. It has presided over the throwing of blacks and other oppressed nationalities out of hard- won jobs. It has supported deepening discrimination in housing and every other sphere of life. And it has stood behind a new wave of racist terror by the police and racist gangs.
A hard fight must be waged against Reagan's racist drive. This is not only a question for the black people. The entire working class must link arms and meet every racist outrage with the militant weapon of mass struggle.
But the Democratic Party does not stand for such a fight. Among the Democratic Party candidates, Jesse Jackson most of all claims to champion the rights of the black people. But his program is similar to the other Democratic Party stalwarts. Behind sweet songs about "human rights" and "social justice," Jackson is working to sabotage the black people's struggle, to reconcile with the arch racists, and to gain token positions for a handful of black bourgeois. Just take a look at what Jackson actually stands for.
Turning the Other Cheek
From the 1960's, Jackson has always preached the gospel of "turning the other cheek"; he has worked to calm down the oppressed black masses and to keep their militant struggles in check/ In the 1980's Jackson has scurried all over the country to try to block the mass actions against racism.
For example, in May of 1980 he flew off to Miami where he tried to throw cold water on the struggle of the black masses against the brutal police murder of Arthur McDuffie.
In the fall of 1980, he zipped off to Buffalo where he argued with the black masses to not "get diverted" into organizing mass struggle against the six gruesome racist murders there, but to concentrate instead on "getting out the vote" for Democratic Party President Jimmy Carter.
Early in 1982, in his home town of Chicago, the police rampaged through the black community in revenge for the killing of two racist policemen. Did Jackson call for a fight against the police terror? Not on your life! Instead he preached, "We must turn to each other and not against each other." (Chicago Defender, February 11,1982)
Reconciling With the Racists
Today, in his campaign for the presidency, Jackson is trying to play down every mass struggle against racist terror and Reagan's segregationism and to play up to the segregationists.
In Alabama, Jackson appealed to the racist Dixiecrats that "It is time to leave the battlegrounds behind us and seek a common ground -- then move to higher ground." (New York Times, May 25,1983)
He embraced George Wallace and went to great lengths to praise this bigot who barred the doors to integration in Alabama as being "hospitable and kind" and as a man of "stature, charisma and grace." (Chicago Tribune, May 26,1983)
Jackson joined hands with Jerry Falwell, a chief leader of the Reaganite "moral majority," to defend a racist Christian fundamentalist school in Nebraska. (Detroit Free Press, December 24,1983)
And recently Jackson sought and got the endorsement of Orval Faubus, the former governor of Arkansas who in 1957 called out the National Guard and racist mobs to block the integration of Little Rock's Central High School. When Faubus praised Jackson, Rev. James Demos, Jackson's Arkansas campaign director, exclaimed, "We're talking about serious Rainbow Coalition here." (Chicago Sun Times, March 10,1984)
So this is Jackson's "rainbow coalition" -- joining hands with the arch segregationists.
Tokenism: Selling Out the Masses for the Interests of the Black Bourgeoisie
As can be seen, Jackson does not stand for a real fight for the democratic rights and interests of the black masses. Rather, he is trying to trick the black people, to use their anti-racist sentiment as a springboard for the ambitions of the black bourgeoisie.
Today there is a deepening polarization between the black workers and poor on the one hand and the bourgeoisified upper strata of the black people on the other hand. The black bourgeoisie sells out the interests of the black working people in order to reach an accommodation with the racist ruling class and thereby gain more positions for the black bourgeoisie in the corporate boards, in the capitalist parties, in the higher levels of government, and so forth.
Jackson is a representative of the black bourgeoisie. That is why he is always standing in the way of the struggles against racist police terror, against racial discrimination in education and housing, against unemployment; that is, those struggles that affect the broadest section of the black masses, the black working people. That is why Jackson centers his fight on getting more "clout" in the Democratic Party, that is, cozy positions for the black bourgeoisie.
Jackson has narrowed down the struggle for the rights of black people to one single question, registering to vote. The fight against racial discrimination at the polls is indeed an important battle for which black people have shed their blood. But one cannot but have the greatest contempt for Jesse Jackson who, trading on the blood of the martyred dead, is working to drag the disenchanted black masses into a voters' drive for the Democratic Party. In 1980, Jackson told the black people to stop their fight against racist murders in order to vote for the racist President Jimmy Carter. Today he is embracing one filthy segregationist after another in his quest for more "clout" among the Democrats.
Jackson, like the other Democratic Party candidates, is not fighting against the racist oppression of the black masses. No, he is standing in the way of that struggle and is trying to divert the anger of the black masses into a campaign for the racist Democratic Party politicians.
Today the capitalists are crowing about "recovery." Why, there is supposed to be an "unprecedented" rebound in the economy.
Yet millions still walk the streets. Over two million people don't even have homes. Well over ten million people remain unemployed, with millions upon millions more in miserable part-time jobs with low wages and no benefits. According to a recent Gallup poll, one-fifth of all adults -- including one-half of all blacks -- had times during the last year when they did not have enough money to buy food.
And this is what Reagan calls "standing tall." What has recovered is profits. Gold flows into the banks and bonuses flow to the corporate executives, while poverty stalks the working class neighborhoods.
The truth is that the deepest economic crisis since World War II still holds the U.S. firmly in its grip. The Reaganites rave about the slight upward blip in the economy this past year. Little do they realize that this is the final proof of the bankruptcy of Reaganomics. After a year of this "unprecedented" rebound -- a rebound that is expected to give way to double-digit inflation and a new collapse next year or the year after -- things are still worse than they were in the last disastrous year of the Carter presidency. There are still millions more unemployed than in 1980. Despite the talk of less inflation, the prices of food, health care, education, heating oil, rents and so forth are still way above what they were in 1980. All the basic features of economic stagnation remain intact.
The fact is that capitalist economies always go in zigzags. Even the Great Depression of the 1930's had its ups and downs, so why shouldn't the great depression^ the 1980's? Whenever the statistics look up a bit, the hypocritical capitalist liars rush out to take credit. Then the economy crashes again, and the capitalist politicians all take cover and point at one another. This is what happened in the 1930's. This is what is happening today.
And how do the capitalists handle the depression of the 1980's? They mock the hungry, slash wages and rake in profits at the expense of the working people. They rush to push the cost of the crisis entirely onto the workers. It is their success in squeezing the people dry that they are crowing about when they shout about "recovery."
Look at the Reagan administration. It has spent three years mocking the unemployed and starving. In January of this year Reagan's commission on hunger announced that it couldn't find hunger in America. It knew it must be there somewhere, but it just couldn't find it. So it recommended slashing the relief funds that feed the starving. One commission member, Dr. George Gordon Graham, went so far as to declare that "The biggest problem among the poor is obesity, not hunger."
That's the way the Reaganites work. They crow that they have eliminated hunger and poverty, when all they have done is ruin millions by cutting their benefits. They crow that they have eliminated disabling injuries, when all they have done is remove the disability pensions of hundreds of thousands of injured workers.
Indeed the capitalists have found a new solution to economic problems: if you can't change the economy, change the measuring rods. They are changing the Consumer Price Index, the official measures of poverty, and other statistics. This has been going on, in fact, for some time now. For years, the art of compiling unemployment statistics for the government consists of finding ways to write off as many unemployed workers as possible from the list of the officially "unemployed." This year this art was taken to new heights.
The drop in the official unemployment rate owed much to the fact that the government statisticians couldn't find the work force! Just as Reagan's hunger commission couldn't find the hungry, his Labor Dept, statisticians admitted that they seemed to have "lost" several million Americans. They announced a mystery: the total labor force was not growing in accord with the population increase in the U.S. And the Reagan administration then triumphantly declared that it had solved the unemployment problem.
Meanwhile the Democrats jump in to console the workers. While the Republicans mock the hungry, the Democrats slap them on the back and ask for votes. What it amounts to is this. The Republicans give tax breaks and subsidies to the rich in the name of helping the rich. The Democrats give the same tax breaks to the rich, pass the same laws to break strikes and slash social benefits, but they call it "saving jobs."
The hoopla over "recovery" shows the futility of hopes in a better life from capitalism. There were undoubtedly those who looked on the mass layoffs and firings and orgy of strikebreaking as temporary hard times, to pass in better days. But the better days are here. The best present-day capitalism can offer has come. "Unprecedented" recovery has arrived. And it resembles nothing so much as the mass misery of the 1930's. Hence the workers will respond as they did in the 1930's -- with struggle.
Only the class struggle provides relief from the horrors of capitalism. The workers must fight so that they can survive in the face of the capitalist offensive. And they must organize to end the criminal system of capitalist exploitation and replace it with the socialist rule of the working class. In "recovery" or in bust, in the upswing or in the downswing, the capitalist system means squeezing the tens of millions for the sake of a handful of parasites. The only answer to the capitalist offensive is struggle. This is the lesson of the so-called "recovery.''
Today the workers face the capitalist offensive of hunger, racism and war. They see that all the panaceas of the bourgeoisie are worthless. No matter how hard the workers work, how many "high-tech industries" open their doors or how much the trade union bureaucrats engage in "labor-management" cooperation, the conditions keep getting worse.
The cause of the mass misery is the capitalist system of exploitation. The Marxist analysis of capitalism has proved true once again. The rich get richer, while the poor get poorer, just as Marx said. The workers produce more and more with greater and greater efficiency, but the profits go to the idle parasites and corporate executives. Indeed, the more the workers produce, the more the capitalist exploiters lay millions off and overwork the remainder and slash their wages.
In this situation, it is the militant ideas of class struggle and revolution, the ideas of Marxism-Leninism, that show the path forward. The working class must wage bitter strikes and other struggles just to exist. Marxism-Leninism shows how this struggle must be organized, and where it leads. It teaches the workers to unite as a class against the capitalists, and to rally around themselves all the oppressed and downtrodden. It shows that the international unity of the workers all over the globe must be the answer to the warmongering schemes of the bourgeoisie to drown the world in blood to decide which group of money- grubbers should get the most profits.
Moreover, Marxism-Leninism shows that the class struggle does not simply swing back and forth without end. Class struggle builds up the revolutionary movement that leads to the end of exploitation, to the elimination of the capitalist hell. The class struggle builds up to the socialist revolution that ushers in socialist society, a society without the exploitation of man by man, without racism, hunger, militarism and reaction.
Socialist society is not just a dream or a theory. The brilliant analysis of Marx and his solid revolutionary tactics were further developed by Lenin, who led the October Socialist Revolution of the Bolsheviks in 1917 in Russia. For several decades genuine socialism, the first step towards communist, classless society, existed in Russia, which was then the cherished homeland of the workers of all countries.
Only the rise to power of revisionism in the mid-1950's took away this glorious accomplishment of the workers and replaced it with a new capitalist regime. The revisionist regimes of present-day Russia, China, Yugoslavia, etc., are gripped by the world capitalist crisis, thus showing that revisionism is just another brand of capitalism.
Nevertheless, the light of socialism still shines in socialist Albania, defying the capitalists of the whole world. Albania is today the only genuinely socialist country. This is why, while the rest of the world languishes in economic crisis, Albania prospers and advances. It is free of unemployment, mass misery, racism, chauvinism and reaction.
The capitalists do their best to throw mud at socialism. You will never succeed without us, say the bloated moneybags to the working people of the world. But class conscious workers just laugh. "Anyone lives better without parasites," say the class conscious workers, "and we have lived better, freer and more cultured lives in those lands where Marxist-Leninist socialism was being built."
But, the capitalists say, Mitterrand in France is in trouble. He tried to build socialism -- and the economy collapsed, and the workers went on strike.
What a sham. Mitterrand is no more socialist than Jimmy Carter or Tip O'Neill. In France, the liberal bourgeoisie has called itself "socialist" for decades in order to get votes from the workers. Mitterrand himself preached day and night that he represented the third way, which was allegedly distinct from either, capitalism or communism. The fiasco of Mitterrand, which is no better or worse than that of his friend Reagan, verifies that the socialist revolution and class struggle, not reformist tinkering with capitalism, is the only true alternative.
Today, as in the past, it is the revolutionary ideas of Marxism-Leninism that show the path forward for the struggle. That is why this year the Marxist-Leninist Party has once again declared the slogan "Back to the classics of Marxism-Leninism!" Study the ideas of Marxism-Leninism in order to use them in the struggle against the exploiters, the racists, and the warmongers!
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CHICAGO Demonstration
Saturday May 5 11:45 am
Assemble at 18th Street and S. Union
Meeting
Saturday, May 5 7:30 pm 656 W. Barry
OAKLAND
Meeting (including film showing) Saturday, May 5 7:00 pm Marxist-Leninist Books and Periodicals 3232 Grove St., Oakland
SEATTLE
Meeting (including film showing) Saturday, May 5 7:00 pm Garden Clubs' Hall 233615th S. (Beacon Hill)
NEW YORK CITY Meeting
Saturday, May 5 6:30 pm Grace-Dodge Room, 179 Dodge Bldg. Teachers College, Columbia Univ.
525 West 120th Street
Demonstration
Saturday, May 5
(time and place to be announced)
BOSTON Meeting
Saturday, April 28 7 Temple Street Cambridge 7:00 pm